A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor
Chapter 1642 - 1642: The Unexpected - Part 3

"Ah… Is that what you thought it was?" Oliver said, his eyebrows down turned ever so slightly in sadness when he looked up at her. The sight made Nila's heart melt.

"No. No, that wasn't what I was saying…" Nila said. "I… I just, I don't know. There's so much to you that I don't know. There's so much that I don't understand. We're close, aren't we? We're reallllly close, right? But I don't know what anything means. Are we a couple? Are we not a couple? What should I be doing?"

"Now you're stressing," Oliver teased. "Your little face is all scrunched up in worry. I don't suppose I mind that expression. Though it does hurt me to know that you worry for me."

"How could I not worry for you?" Nila said. "You're just a ball of tension, and you hardly ever let me in. I told you to relax, but I'm not even sure that's good advice, and it's soooo dumb. What a stupid thing to say to someone who's in your position. It's so embarrassing."

"Obviously we're a couple, Nila," Oliver said. "We can at least say that for a certainty, can't we?"

"But we're strange around each other," Nila said. "I don't feel like we're normal at all… Don't we want different things from each other than a normal man and woman want? Don't you feel like you keep a certain distance from me?"

"…Perhaps," Oliver said. "But I do not try to… I thought you'd think that we might have become closer after all this. You've seen an embarrassing side to me, after all. Do you think less of me from seeing it?"

"What?" Nila pulled her face, seemingly hurt by the accusation. "Are you stupid? What sort of woman do you think I am? Do you not know how much I care for you? How much I worry about you? Why would I think less of you, when you finally rely on me, just the slightest bit? That's sooo cruel, Oliver. You're going to make me cry. That's… That's…"

"Going to?" Oliver teased quietly, gently wiping away the tears that had started to run down her cheeks. "You are the most adorable creature this land could ever offer."

"Why can't you just say what you mean, Oliver?" Nila said, pulling his arms around her in a hug, and pressing her face in his shoulder, so that he could not see her tears. "It would be sooo much easier."

"I could accuse you of the same," Oliver said. "But things are not so easy. We don't know what we mean. I didn't know what I was, not truly. I still do not. I have vague ideas, and then I surprise myself, as I did with you, all those weeks ago… That was alarming to me, and embarrassing."

"We're even now, though," Nila said. "Now I've cried in front of you too again."

"You'd make a game out of it?"

"Shut up, dummy. You know that isn't my intention. You're just being mean for mean's sake," Nila said. "Anyway, I suppose I've cried in front of you far too often for me to be keeping score."

"I was defeated then," Oliver said, "and you offered me comfort. A few tears for a defeat that I knew to be inevitable. I feared losing you. There was a loneliness in that."

"You tried to say goodbye to me, as if it really were over," Nila said. "Do you know how alarming that was? For you to give me that present, of the ruby fox pendant, and then start speaking to me, as if you were going to say goodbye? I've never been so frightened in all my life."

"I apologise for burdening you with it," Oliver said. "I didn't think I had that sort of weakness in me. But it was better for you to see it than the men, I suppose. They still retained their fire, without the worry. They still had a misplaced belief in me, and we were able to go far because of it."

"I hate it when you talk like that. Crying isn't weakness, Oliver," Nila said. "If you can't cry in front of me, then who could you cry in front of?"

Oliver smiled sadly, but gave no reply.

Nila remained quiet as well, and gently ran her fingers through his hair, as she pulled him even tighter into a hug. Her grip was a frightening thing, at times. She hugged as if she meant to crush him. Oliver found security in the strength of that touch.

"It seemed I cried for more than just our defeat, and my losing of you," Oliver offered eventually. "I thought a few tears might be fine. But after so many years without them, it seemed that I had more to shed."

"You spoke of other things…" Nila said.

"I did," Oliver agreed.

"You've suffered, Oliver," Nila said. "And all these years, you have clung to it, rigidly, and been tight and full of tension. You haven't looked after yourself. You've always been running forward."

"Don't say things like that, stupid. You'll make me cry as well," Oliver said.

"Like what? Like that you need to look after yourself?" Nila said.

Those words were such a knife in Oliver's heart, for with them, there was born an accusation that he knew to be true. For so many years, he had rushed forward, unrelentingly. If he analysed himself, he supposed it was if he had a degree of loathing for his own existence. He treated himself as such, never allowing more than a few moments to relax, always doing something, always pushing… Until that pushing could no longer give him what he wanted. Until there was an obstacle that he could not overcome, and he felt despair.

He gritted his teeth, as he felt tears begin to roll down his cheeks again. He pulled Nila in tightly, and buried his face in her jacket. She winced, as his grip pulled her hair, pushing it against her back. She gently freed it, without moving him, and then quietly continued to embrace him.