A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor
Chapter 1530 - 1530: The Resentful - Part 2

It was such a fear, that it brought moisture to his eyes, and made his hands shake. He could not look to her as he expressed it. It was the one thing he feared above all else, above loss, above death, and most certainly above the end to his own life. He feared losing himself entirely, to the darkness that Ingolsol promised. From the first day that he had felt the curse, he feared it.

"Tell me, Asabel," Oliver said. "Can you all match me, if I go too far?"

"…I won't let you go too far, Oliver," Asabel promised. "Nila won't let you go too far either. There are too many people around you that care for you to let you do that. You don't have to be frightened. You can go all the way. We need you to go all the way."

The noise that came from Oliver was a mixture between both a sigh and a growl.

"Very well," he said. 'Then, Ingolsol, I shall be counting on you.'

"And I," Claudia said, with a girlish impishness, so different to Oliver's seriousness. "Have you forgotten, Oliver? I am the only one that can match Ingolsol, in all the worldddd."

She said it as if it was fun to say it, and if it was fun to tease Ingolsol on it. More shocking than her playfulness in it, was likely Ingolsol's almost good-natured reply. Oliver could feel the Dark God's aggression stirring, but it was in the way a dangerous dog might stir around its owner. Neither of them seemed to be in true danger.

"Tsch… One day, you will forget it again, Claudia," Ingolsol said. "And you will be wiser for it. That is a memory that is thousands of years old. It is neither you, nor I."

"Hehe," Claudia giggled. "Then I will keep that memory safe for another thousand years, for the next time that Pandora rears her head, I will be there to remind her of my victory over you in your place."

"Address the crowd then, boy," Ingolsol said powerfully. "Do that which you have feared to do in your cowardice for so long."

"…And know that I will be there to keep him at bay," Claudia said. "When he grows too dangerous and too greedy. I will be there to snatch the food from his mouth, lest he grow so fat with it, that he explode all over the mortal realm."

"…A disgusting image. Thank you, wench," Ingolsol tutted.

Oliver didn't much understand, but he had the feeling that something important had happened between the two of them. The memory of Pandora had struck something in them both. He wasn't sure if their balance was better for it, but he supposed, in that moment, he didn't have a choice, but to dive forward and trust in them both.

He opened his eyes to the crowd, and he felt the heat of the embers that Minister Hod had reminded him that he had left. He felt the stirrings of power, the potentials of thousands of puppet strings. He felt Ingolsol's regalness – that sureness that the Dark God had, that all creatures ought to kneel towards him. With it, he felt Claudia's earthiness, and her grandness, like a vast body of water, not ignoring the objects that it encountered, but gently overwhelming them nonetheless.

"You fight like brutes," Oliver noted, seeing them. "Does it not seem obvious to you, then, that you long for war?"

His words fell like a whip lashing on their back. It was the return of that overwhelming Command that had seen them so startled in the first place. His words were arrogant. Far too arrogant for such a young man, in front of so many individuals of note, and with so many powerful Generals and even a Queen at his back.

It was the sort of arrogance, so strangely placed, that it made a man doubt his perception. Combined with Command, it painted an illusion. A grand oil painting that was difficult to really decipher. In a single line, Oliver could feel it himself. He could feel it in his legs, and his fingers, and in the tautness of his muscles. That overwhelming strength, that feeling of rightness, that which Minister Hod had seen in him, as if he were a Tiger walking in the long grass.

There was fear there too, and it only heightened the sensation. Fear of himself, and fear of the many. The fear of the many was the most rational of it all. Some part of him still had the sense to be nervous when confronted with such a crowd, but that nervousness only made him more arrogant, more daring.

He'd been standing up straight when he addressed them, but in delivering that line, he felt almost comfortable, almost blissful, and he had to bend a leg ever slightly, relaxing into the moment. He allowed those words to sit, appreciating their echo, looking from man to man, daring a single one of them to challenge him.

"Do you have no answer?" Oliver said, looking through them all. "Do you suppose yourself to be creatures of strength? Do you think the fists that you throw amongst yourselves are so grand, that they could affect the future of this country? A rather arrogant assumption, I do say."

If one had the voice, it would have been the perfect time to accuse Oliver of hypocrisy, which, he fancied, was part of the reason he said it. He dangled it in front of them like a challenge, daring any with the will to stand up, and point out just how out of line he was. But none did. They knew not what it was that they challenged. They knew not the name Ingolsol for its true title. They could not even fathom the size of the two perfectly opposed Gods inside Oliver that saw him so empowered.

"No?" He said, gazing at them all. "You don't swing them for grand purpose?"

He held the silence, and then he snapped it closed, like the jaws of a shark, he rounded on them in anger. "Then damn it, straighten yourselves up, you dogs. You stand in the presence of Queen Asabel Pendragon, future High Queen of the Stormfront – and you dare to see yourselves so ill presented!?"