A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor
Chapter 1820 - 1820: The Stirring of Great Winds - Part 5

Perhaps if the forest had not approved of them so mightily, it might have been different. If it was a mere tryst, or something of that sort, as many noblemen and women are caught in. But the forest seemed to bow in approval. That ancient place, with trees so knotted and gnarled that they seemed to be faces. A place where every plant had personality – and in that place, so full of presence, it was Dominus and his dear comrade, his budding lover, that they all bowed to.

For until that point, they had assured the world that they were merely that. Blake was sure that they'd been as a good as their word. But seeing it, he could see the embers of something far more, a raging, burning fire between the two of them. Theirs was a love that was as natural as the stream that he'd had to cross to see them. Left to its own devices, it would grow, and blossom, and nourish all that was around them.

And so, it had to be tended to, and disassembled. Blake had to tell his King, and seeing his King's rage, he had to deal with the consequences of his decision.

It was the most natural thing in the world, and it was nature that they were determined to fight against. By Blake's hand, his doing, they had been pushed towards it. They had resisted, like children, and they had been torn apart for it. Since that moment, Blake never had the feeling that he was standing on solid ground. It felt like his luck was the worst it had ever been. For he knew what the Gods had wanted, but like the man he was, he had chosen the affairs of men above the affairs of them.

They that resisted nature were they that had corrupted themselves. That was ever the case, Blake supposed. But he could only recognize that now, in his old wisdom. There were some things that a man could not change. There were cruelties – and no doubt, for the High King it was that, a cruelty – that simply had to be swallowed, with a certain degree of trust, to accept what simply was, and what was impossible to fight against…

It was a mere spoken suggestion that it had all coiled off from, but when it was a royal that spoke those words, suggestion became certain fact. More so since that suggestion was given to the High King himself.

The beautiful, inspiring, Gaian Princess Persephone. Hair of the darkest black, with green and blue eyes, like the colour of the prettiest of river waters. Skin white enough that it made a man fear for the sunlight around her. Royalty, she had been born, but royalty she had never wanted to be. Her place was amongst the trees, in nature. When she was forced to dwell in the cities, that which she was poured out of her, in a well of unhappiness. There was so much to that little lady, that it was hard for a man to truly comprehend her on the first passing.

When Blake had heard it was the forests that Dominus had disappeared to, for all those years, away from reality, he wasn't surprised. The deepest, most perfect nature, like that which existed in the Black Mountains. That was a perfect place for him. For the forests were her, the streams were her. All that was quiet and beautiful was the realm of Persephone.

The two had delighted in such places together. They were creatures of the wild wilderness, and that wilderness loved them both for it. A promise spoken by a regretful Treeant King, when his daughter was too young to speak her words otherwise. It likely tormented him for even longer than it tormented her. She knew very well her fate, and she was honourable, in her own way. She had never stepped out of line, not truly. She had only allowed herself one thing, and that was to be as close to Dominus Patrick as the ambiguity of friendship would allow.

Until the day came that Blake himself had torn it apart. The peaceful scene of two creatures not of this world, for a woman that it was suggested, years before, would one day marry the High King. The match had not proceeded, even when she entered her mid twentieth years, and it had been kept incredibly quiet, to the point that it had seemed to be forgotten – but the High King had not forgotten. She had captured his attention entirely, and he would not let her be.

What followed was not a thing of beauty. Blake disliked remembering it. He had never seen a man fall quite as low as the High King did then. For something that was unobtainable, he cast himself in all the colours that he could. He yielded to his anger, and his fear, and he made every man with a set of eyes see straight to the weakness at the heart of him.

Yet Blake was there, averting his gaze from his King's unsightly appearance, carrying on, doing that which his King willed of him. It was nothing official enough for the King to merely act upon. The Treeant King had held it to be a mere suggestion, when he supposed it, nearly a decade before – and the Treeants were far too large a faction for the High King to force a hand, without due course.

The Treeant King was not a man to be strong armed. And as she had grown older, it was quite clear, more than anything, that Persephone had a mind of her own. She wanted not politics, nor royal affairs. She escaped them all, straight into the woods and wild where she best belonged. To leave her in the city for any length of time was to punish her. One could see it on her face, the way she wilted, and tired, and grew angry from it all. She was a fragile flower in the city, but in the forests, where Blake had been privileged enough to glimpse her, she was as vast as a mighty roaring waterfall. She was very much nature itself.