A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor
Chapter 1364 - 1364: Change - Part 1

"True enough, but she has other business to attend to today. And besides, I don't think this is altogether pointless. Sparring with you has a different flavour than sparring with her. I think I ought to make room to do it more often."

It was almost a challenge to see how long Blackthorn could go whilst retaining her silence. When Nila had first met her, she thought Blackthorn's tendency to do that to be an insult to her – that the girl had simply not liked her. But she had quickly learned that was simply who Blackthorn was, and when she had learned that, she had learned to be patient along with it.

She had learned other things as well. Even if two people were to walk together, without saying a word, it was not as if nothing was being said. As she and Lasha approached the lower mountain path, she thought that they were beginning to reach some sort of understanding.

Only then, did she pose the question. "Are you certain that you did the right thing, Lasha?"

"I am," Blackthorn replied, with the sort of certainty that Nila found herself envious of. She wasn't sure she could be nearly as certain as Blackthorn was about anything.

"Can you promise that it had nothing to do with me?" Nila pressed.

"…No," Blackthorn said, and immediately Nila's shoulders slumped.

"So it did after all… I am sorry, Lasha," Nila said.

"It was to do with you, but it wasn't because of you," Lasha said. Her sentences sounded clumsy when she was being earnest. It was a part of Lasha that Nila had found particularly endearing.

"You've entered into an oath that binds your life forever… I did not wish to be the cause of that," Nila said.

"I was too slow in making a decision," Lasha said. "You helped me along with it."

"..." Nila would have preferred that Lasha had said more than that, to aid in her understanding, but getting words from the girl, at times, was like getting blood from a stone. "…At least, can you tell me that you're not unhappy?"

"I can," Lasha said. "I have found my place, and I am happy with it. I might not have known what I wished to do otherwise."

"But could you not have done the same thing without binding yourself in an oath?" Nila said. "You've really… I mean… It's just a bit much, isn't it? That sort of commitment?"

"It's no different than marriage would be," Lasha said.

Nila jerked in surprise. "Is that how you view it?"

Lasha cocked her head. "How else would I view it? My mother has been insisting that I marry for the longest time."

"Oh. That's what you meant…" Nila said. "But there's no guarantee that you wouldn't have wished to get married at some point."

The Blackthorn girl hopped up on a stone, to the side of the path, taking her time in preparing her answer. With light steps, she skipped to the next boulder, keeping her pace with Nila, despite the newly difficult route that she had chosen.

"Mm. I don't think so," Lasha said.

"How can you be so sure? Do you know how you will be in ten years' time? You might meet a man that changes everything, how you see stuff… and…" Nila tried to say, but she frowned, when she quickly found she didn't have the words to convince her.

"I want to fight on the battlefield with Oliver, but I didn't want to trouble you," Lasha said. "This makes sense."

"How do you suppose you would have troubled me?" Nila said. "That doesn't make any sense."

"I'm a woman," Lasha said innocently. "And I have been told that I am quite beautiful."

Of all the brash things that could be said, only Lasha Blackthorn could likely come out and say something like that, completely unabashed. Her dark brown eyes looked to Nila, for the slightest hint of a reaction. Her lips bore no hint of a smile, but Nila had learned by now that Lasha's smile was to be found in the rest of her body. Her muscles were tensed, as if holding back a giggle.

"You know that would not have troubled me…" Nila said.

"Do you not see me as competition?" Lasha said, with stone cold seriousness in her voice, despite the fact that Nila knew she intended it to be a light bit of teasing.

"How could I not?" Nila said. "You're a better woman than me… You're prettier, you're stronger, and you're from better birth."

"Those things don't matter," Lasha said. "Besides, I didn't know what I really wanted. I just wanted to stay close by, to see. You knew, and I suppose Oliver knew too."

"…You're not upset?" Nila asked.

"I've found my place. I am not upset," Lasha said. "As long as you are not. I would like to stay, and fight with Oliver. But I have my oath now, so you need not worry about me."

"Even without the oath, I would not have begrudged you that… I am not so jealous a woman," Nila said. "Did you think I was that shallow, that I would chase you away from Oliver, just for an added sense of security?"

"No. But I suppose this is for me, then. I wish to be friends with you, without the added questions," Lasha said.

"The added questions would have been fine," Nila pouted. "I can see Oliver's thinking in this… He's rubbed off on you, I think. Always jumping straight to extremes. It's fine to do things normally, you know?"

"Perhaps," Lasha said.

"Hah… You are both a pain," Nila sighed, but she was smiling too. "At the very least, Lasha, I am glad that you decided to come back."

"Mm…" Lasha said. It seemed more a note for the rocks, than for Lasha. The boulders grew sparser the further one went up the mountain path, and the jump to the next boulder was far too large a distance to make in a single bound.