A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor

"Ah, wait! I thought you meant later, your Majesty! We're still a distance from Ernest yet. Will you not wait until we've ridden closer?" Verdant said, shouting after him, but Oliver was already rushing through the snow, like a wolf that had finally caught the scent of worthy flesh, after so many months spent in hunger.

He raced, straight into the falling snow, towards the Black Mountains, threading his way inbetween Ernest and Solgrim, feeling freer than he had in the longest time. The wind rushed in his air. Strong now. It had been strong all week, chilling them, as if it were their enemy. Now that wind, as Oliver raced faster, and he grew warmer, was his firmest of friends. Gratitude in his heart, for the retainers that he could leave matters to. Knowing himself to be walking a tightrope in his own mind. Barely held together. Something barely suppressed.

Solgrim arose to his left. He stopped to look at it for a time. Those high wooden walls that he had seen built. Those houses beyond it. The seat of all that was important to him for the longest of times. Home – that was what it was. His second home, after he had lost his first. He wondered if he would ever be able to make his home there again. A feeling of grief, as he realized that was unlikely. The future, when he did imagine it, was a terrifying thing. Many things he could imagine in it, but in not a single version of it, could he imagine being happy.

Remembering the crown that sat on his head, for the purposes of his subordinates. Now Oliver snatched it off. Not angrily, but with reverence. It still belonged to someone important to him. It just didn't have such a strong place on Oliver's own head.

"Solgrim," he said, breathing the name in and out, savouring it on his tongue, feeling his heart almost tear in two, as he imagined all that had happened there. So much love he'd encountered, such a feeling of belonging. But with it, there had been that immense suffering as well. So much to overcome, as if it was his destiny to always be robbed of his peace.

To lose that too… he wasn't sure if he would be able to handle that. A clench of the fist, and he maintained himself. He turned his gaze towards the mountains, and rushed off towards it again, pursuing freedom in the place of belonging, as if he could outrun his suffering.

Up the mountainside path that he had ran up so many times before. His place, truly. That ought never to fade from him. The wildness of the mountains. The many trees. How easy it was to lose oneself in the forks along the path. He passed the sight of where his house had once burned down, and then he rushed onwards, hopping over a stream, and then another, until he neared where he and Dominus had once had their morning swims when Dominus was busy training him.

In the cold, Oliver had hated those. Now he longed for them. To return to the side of his master who knew so much. He needed the man. He would understand what to do. Oliver understood implicitly that he had done something entirely reckless and foolish, even beyond all the grief that had mounted. The crown that he clenched in his fist was a constant reminder of the worst of things.

He neared the encampment where he and Dominus had once dwelled. The only evidence of any habitation there were the large stones that had once stood around a firepit. Oliver dusted one off, and took a seat on it.

He put his chin onto his hand, and rested his elbow on his knee, gazing at the world around him, so quiet, and just barely touched by nature, with most things being in hibernation. The occasional track of footprints from a bird here, and then the little pads of a disoriented squirrel there.

To lose himself in such a place. To give in to the weight of his heart. For his heart loved it there. It felt significant, as if he belonged there. As if every tree was his. It was his forest, his kingdom to govern… He clenched his crown thinking that, and shook his head. But then again, perhaps if he could dwell there quietly, in that little kingdom, maybe it wouldn't be so bad after all.

Hours he spent like that, long enough for the snow to find him. He thought about making a fire, but his contentment did not allow him to move towards that goal. Nila found him sitting in the same way that he had before. A look of pondering on his face, still wearing clothes that were ragged from battle, with a crown dangling loosely from his fingers.

She found him, just as Oliver knew she would. He looked up at her, unable to hide the sadness in his eyes. She shook his head at him, and went nearer, pulling him into an embrace as she stood over him. She rested her head on his chin, as his hands gripped her tightly, desperately, fighting back the tears.

"You silly, silly man," she told him, heaving a sigh. "Every time I find you, you're more wounded. Verdant and Lasha told me what happened… Gods be damned. I don't know how you did it, you fool. You're the strongest man that I ever met. Not your sword, Tempest, but your heart. That would have broken anyone else."

"It did break me," Oliver said, pulling his head away from her just for a second, so he might look up at her.

She felt the tears coming to her own eyes, just seeing the pain in his. But she collected herself, as he had collected himself, and she gently peeled his fingers away from her. She saw the crown that he was holding as well, and gently, did she take that from him too.

He allowed her, as though hypnotized. She was a blanket against the cold. Every action she took, her very presence, carried with it the strong sense of peace. There was no place in the world that he found himself more comfortable than in the forest, and no person in the world who granted him more peace than she.