A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor

As they looked upon the battlefield, and they saw the sight of that magnificent play. They walked that tightrope together. They had cast themselves straight into that danger, and Oliver had led them there, without a hint of guilt, trusting in the unity that they had. Trusting that, his intentions were their intentions, and that when his heart swelled with purpose and meaning, so did they.

The richness of the world, the strength of the ground beneath his feet, the coldness of the snow that had been melted from the warm blood that had been spilt upon it. The possibilities beyond his comprehension, where mind could not string together the path that one must take. Where it was simple meaning, and joy, in even the simplest of things.

When it was bliss just from a single sword swing. When there were thousands of implications in just a single step backwards. When, in just the changing of the destiny of a single man, in recruiting him to Oliver's cause, and uniting him in purpose, there had come a light of warm that forest in which Oliver governed, filling it with more meaning than ever before. When that had been multiplied for the hundred men that had decided to follow him as well, and Oliver had realized that, he delighted in commanding them, just as much as he delighted in wielding his sword, and playing that reckless game, with fatal consequences.

And now, with an army twenty thousand strong at his back, animated by a single desire, to see Oliver Patrick well served. That swelling of something. Beyond meaning, beyond mere responsibility. There was that magnificent rightness. It was no conscious thought of, 'I must do this, or that, in order to see my men most well rewarded'. It was not pressure even to do this, or that, or to change who he was.

For when they cheered like that, and they knelt in worship of the crown that Oliver Patrick now wore, he already was the very thing that they desired of him. They had already seen him molded. It was they that stirred up wind, with their own hearts and passions. Thousands and thousands of those creatures of the Stormfront, so touched by the Gods.

The thought as to where was next did not exist for Oliver. His sword dangled from his hand with the same casualness as before. He looked around him, acknowledging those cheers, and even recognizing some of the faces, in Verdant and in Lasha, who were a distance away. He recognized them, but hardly knew why it was that he recognized them, only that there was a strength of feeling there. An immense gratitude, and an immense love. Those were two that he would fear to lose more than any other, and he had the sense in himself, that in the past, he would have held back for that fear.

Now there was no holding back. To hold back was to reduce himself. He was the heart of the kingdom of his forest. His stagnance was the corruption. His movement was the source of vitality, that which even the likes of death was able to flow through, as a thing of purity, straight back into the life of the living. It was that which allowed all to grow so high, and all to be drenched with such meaning. For continually, was one tree destroyed for another, and one flower cast down, so three more might take its place.

Change, with pain still present, indeed, but a different sort of pain than Oliver had once remembered. A thing that hummed on the wind, and warned him as to what he ought to be feeling. Oliver felt none of those things now. Only the thumping excitement. Where he stood, he loved it with an immensity. This place on the battlefield, this mighty foe…

Tiberius had been corrupt enough that Oliver found himself unable to stop at nothing to see him killed, simply out of duty, just as he had seen the same in those heavily armoured footsoldiers of his. But with such a degree of men at his back, all united in purpose, there was a certainty. Corruption would be washed away. It could not help but be. And those steps in between – that was where they were all allowed to place. It was that distance in between, where they all found themselves entirely alive.

Did Oliver need to shout to them, he wondered for a second? Did he need to match what it was that they saw him as, or construct a kingly speech, out of all he knew of kings, through his short life that he had built up?

Or was he to give in to that excitement, that demanded that he rush forward, and find his meaning not through carefully constructed plans, but through the weight of a single moment, and all it represented.

Crown on his head, he was in front of his first foe. A heavily armoured man. Filled with that sense of disgust, as if a goblin had invaded his lands, and was there for the sole purpose of destruction. Hatred boiled there, so easily accessed. Something else overwrote it, however. A love for the sword that he carried. The simplicity of sliding into his stance, when a greatsword whistled over his head, and he ducked, nearly losing his new crown in the process.

The tension of that split second of waiting, where steel was sharp and so near his skull, but the enemy left his exposed torso in the process, even if it was a well-armoured thing. When there was no time for thought, there was only instinct. When he had forced himself into a corner weighty enough that there could be nothing convoluted – he could only fall upon entirely that which he was, for there was no room for anything else.

His own actions surprised himself. The sword crept out. A twist of the shoulder, a spin of the hips, a weighty strike, delivered starting in a crouch, and then finished from up above, as if he were pouncing. The strength of it – enough to smash through that solid steel plate, and draw blood from beyond it. A widening of his own eyes, as he was caught up in a wind that he had no control of, but could only dance in. His next move was practically forced on him, for that strike through armour was not enough to bring his foe down in a single blow. He dodged back out of the way of the counterattack, a smile forming on his face, giddy from his own lack of control. Then he was diving in again, finishing the job, with a slash to the man's throat.