A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor
Chapter 1726 - 1726: The Pieces - Part 4

"…I wish you the best of fortunes, then, my Pillar of Coin. If anyone can succeed in this task, it is you, Lord Idris," Queen Asabel said. She put on the brave face of a Queen for him, and tried to reassure him with all the resoluteness that she could possibly claw up. It felt like a falsity, but she could see his shoulders lift ever so slightly, as if it had meant something. She had to convince herself that indeed it was so, that indeed it did mean something.

He left her, looking a slightly stronger man, more resilient, a little younger than the old and wretched creature that had wandered in, as if dragged in by the storms of the sea. He had enough authority about him now that when he nodded to the guards, they too stiffened into a salute.

Queen Asabel sagged into her throne chair, seeing him go, wishing there was something more that she could do. But she found increasingly that there was not. It seemed to be that the purpose of the crown was merely symbolic. She had already done what was required with her. That awful burden that she had dreaded for weeks. Her own sort of personal battle, and now she only existed in its recoil, hardly able to stomach what it was that she had done.

She withdrew back to her chambers. Her mother and father's old bedroom. She could still smell them in it. When she fell down in her pillows, she could smell them all the more strongly. It reminded her of when she had been a child, and the dark had frightened her towards nightmare, and she had come rushing towards them, to finish the rest of her night in the comforts of her spacious bed.

They had been a proper family then. Kind, and gentle. She was young enough that they expected nothing of her. The noble customs that they sought to instill in her were easily enough flaunted and forgiven, for the age that she was. But as she had grown, those walls grew higher, and further unbreachable, until they were hardly able to show each other the slightest shred of warmth, lest they be accused of being undignified.

She wondered what would have happened if their relationships were freer, like that of the peasantry. Perhaps the distance between them would not have been so vast. Perhaps she would not have felt the need to Quarter Inherit, so that she might pursue justice. Perhaps she could have relied on her family to support her, because they would have understood her.

"…Do they understand me?" She murmured to herself in her pillow. She recalled her father's words to her, as he tossed her the crown. He had declared that she go all the way, as a Pendragon should. For all his anger and his disgust, what was that look in his eyes? Why would he yield to her in even the slightest manner? "To go all the way… What does that even mean, father? Have I not done so?"

Her heart coiled around itself. Old worries grew. She thought of Oliver, and feared for losing him, the closest thing that she had to a proper friend. A creature strange enough that he could pierce through the normal barriers set by nobility and royalty and even the peasantry. He seemed to exist beyond them, and he was liberating for it. She had to scold herself for indulging in it. She ought rely on him not. And yet… And yet her heart longed for it. It was all that she had. She realized that in herself, how much she required warmth, and how much she regretted she had lost it, since she had undertaken the burden of inheriting, and had wandered all the way to being Queen of the Pendragon lands.

A knock came at the door, interrupting the torment that she was putting herself through. She sat up, knowing full well that her hair was a mess, from rolling about so much. She wondered if she should allow them to enter. But then she recognized the voice that spoke, and relief settled in. "It's me, my Queen," Lancelot said.

"Enter," she said.

"A message," he told her, as the door swung open. "Addressed to you personally, written in a hand that is only comparable to that of a monkey. If I had not seen the same thing written before, I would have doubted who it was intended for."

She sat up even straighter hearing that, her heart beating with excitement. Then Lancelot showed her the letter, and she was sure of it. Oliver Patrick's handwriting, with the terrible seal of House Patrick pressed into the wax.

Lancelot gave it to her, and she opened it in a hurry, without a shred of decorum. "Would you like me to leave you to read it in peace?" He asked her. Queen Asabel did not reply. She was already busy scanning the contents of his letter, and bumbling to herself.

"That fool. He must be terribly busy, and yet he still finds the time to write to me…" she said, though she sounded far from upset by that fact. She was glad that she was at least being thought of.

Just after he had returned from his work scouting against Tavar, Oliver had thought of the Queen. He'd heard of the captured Capital, and his excitement was far lesser than the rest, knowing quite well just how much Queen Asabel would have suffered for it.

He had taken a good deal of time to dwell on what he might say to her. He felt her burden almost as strongly as if it were his own. He abandoned training for the entirety of a day, so that he might consider the matter properly, knowing how important it was.

"You almost seem a diplomat when you deal with Queen Asabel," Verdant had said, seeing his relentless pacing, and hearing the many questions Oliver had asked her, in supposing what Queen Asabel's mental state might have been. "You have a far better understanding of her than I ever could, my Lord. My own suppositions as to how she might currently be feeling you have already overwrought with a far more believable story of her current position."

"Be kind to her, Oliver," Nila had said, when hearing of his efforts. "She must feel terrible. I don't know what I would do in her position."