A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor
Chapter 1721 - 1721: A Kingdom at War - Part 4

"For the last group, he showed them the fear of it, and the seriousness of it," Verdant said. "And then the glory of progress. How intoxicating it can be!"

"He changes more quickly than the seasons," the Minister of Blades said. "I find it ever difficult to define what it is that he is thinking. Even his swordplay seems to shift, depending on his mood."

"My Lord is oft quick with new ideas," Verdant said. "He accuses himself of dancing in an endless circle, and getting nowhere, but I believe there is utility in what he does. Though, I do say, I enjoy it for him far more when he is like this – when he is without thought, and he can simply enjoy his training as he once did. I suppose this is the side of himself that he so struggled to find in the lead up to the battle with the Emersons – why he was so insistent on not presenting himself until the final moments of battle, when the moment was right."

"I thought that to be the impetus for a grand strategy," the Minister of Blades said.

"As did I," his wife echoed.

Verdant chuckled, but shook his head. "My Lord does not plan so far ahead. He is far more intuitive than you might believe. He put his very life on the line for one of his whims in that battle – the compulsion to dull himself, all that he was, and to silence himself from Command. An idea that he might ever only touch once, and then put in the closest forever. Such is the way he barrels his way forward, ever erratic, ever terrifying."

"Do you suppose he might find it again?" The Minister of Blades enquired. "That state of being that General Blackthorn and General Fitzer have so sought to decipher in him?"

"…It is difficult to say," Verdant said.

"That surprises me," Professor Yoreholder said. "I would have thought if anyone were to be swift in their belief of their Lord, it would be you."

"I hardly understand it myself, so how could I?" Verdant said. "Perhaps that was simply what that battle required of my Lord, and so he arose to match it. Perhaps he will never find such a situation again. Perhaps my Lord requires the storm so that he can fly higher in it. I know not. Perhaps the future holds a different Oliver Patrick."

"Or perhaps," the Minister of Blades said, tapping his head. "It is a Boundary of the mind, rather than the body. Perhaps he already lives there, Lord Idris, in a domain that we cannot conceive of – nor he. Perhaps, such a place is terrifying enough that he cannot believe he has crossed that line. Or that he has the ability to do such things. Perhaps, indeed, that is why he dulled himself. Not so the enemy could not see through his strategy, but so that he could not see through it himself."

"…Intriguing," Verdant said, turning once more to face the young man that he called his General Patrick.

Oliver danced into Gar's guard, slipping with a grin past a thrust of a wooden sword that had come his way, his entire face filled with joyous animation, as he drove a slash to Gar's side.

The other sword hissed his irritation, seeing that he'd been outdone, and just barely did he manage to force himself out of the way. "BAD!" Gar said, slapping his legs. "Too slow." He glared up at Oliver then. "We go again. This time, I win."

Oliver shrugged. "We can go as many times as you want, Gar. You'll never best me."

It was the easy arrogance of a boy, fencing alone, away from the world. Seen as they were like that, dishevelled, and dressed so poorly from their playing, one could easily have mistaken them for brothers at play. Fellow peasants, wrestling in the fields, acting a play of knighthood in their heads.

From a realm indistinct, Ingolsol and Claudia watched, taking in the game.

Wheat fields surrounded them there. A different realm from that which they had once inhabited. The world stretched off in the distance, toward a village, buried in a valley, and drenched in the sun. Beyond it, the world rose, endlessly green, blue and infinite.

The two of them were forced into forms that seemed anything but godly. Ingolsol stood tall, and dark, as a petulant looking young man, with his arms folded, and long dark hair hanging above his golden eyes.

Claudia played next to him, her smile as warm as his look was sour. She pointed to the insects running past her bare feet, and cried with delight when she managed to pick up a beetle.

"Ingolsol! Look!" She declared. "It's ever so blue! And look how big it is--- Ow! Ow! Ow!!" Between the beetle's two giant pincers, Claudia's silver hair was pinched, and it swung into her shining mane, scurrying through it, and nipping her all the while.

"Owwww!" She complained, tears in her eyes. "Ow! Ow! That's not very nice! Ingolsol!"

With a sigh, Ingolsol pulled himself from out under the tree that he was leaning against, wading through the wheat to reach her. Then, with a disdainful little flick of his hand, he knocked the beetle to the earth. "Fool," he told her.

"Sorry," she said, sniffing. "It realllly hurt though. Can I say thank you?"

"You can say it," Ingolsol said. "It does not mean that I shall listen to you."

"Thankkk youuuu," she sang, grinning.

He sighed at her. "Do you not find this degrading?"

"Hm? Well, I didn't particularly like getting bitten."

"Not the beetle, you damn fool," Ingolsol said. "This!" He gestured to the world around them, and to himself. "Look at what we have been reduced to. We! Fragments of Divinity! This! Some… Some fantasy world."

"Fantasy world?" Claudia said. "Well, you know that isn't true. You know what sits here is as real as can be." She plucked an ear of wheat to show him. "Do you not feel what lies in just this ear of wheat? Do you not feel the life that flows through it?"