A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor -
Chapter 1826 - 1826: The Spell of the Past - Part 4
A hand on his head, gently stroking through his hair. A soft pillow, ever so warm, with the most soothing of scents. He recognized that hand, he recognized that body, and he recognized that scent. She was the most caring of all creatures. She saw right through him, she always did. He could never put on a mask around her. She always knew what it was that he was feeling, deep down, and always did she instinctively reach out to sooth it for him, to dull the pain of the years.
He opened his eyes with a smile, to look up at that face that he found such peace in, and to see the stars shining above her head.
Only, there was naught. The sky was not even the blackness that he had expected it to be. It was the shining sun that he saw instead, warming his face, with his hand still sitting in the water, blackened.
A day had passed, he could guess that much. Perhaps it had been even longer, but the feeling of his stomach did not tell him so. The fact that he was alive at all made him groan, and not entirely with excitement.
He, by instinct, pulled himself to his feet, and then once more found himself surprised by the fact that he could do even that. He didn't think he'd underestimated the poison. He was quite certain of the way it was eating away at him. The creature that they called a Pandora Goblin was beyond comprehension. It had treated both himself and Arthur as if they were nothing more than toys. Yet here he was, still alive and breathing.
He tore off his shirt and saw that despite the half-purpled state of his body, the poison did not seem to be spreading much further. The pain was still there, quiet and at times sharp, but he could tolerate that.
He moved his arms, and found that they were more limited than they had once been, but after all, they were still there, and he was capable of moving them somewhat. He had to thank the Gods for that, even though he didn't particularly wish to. He had been so ready and so certain in the fact of his own death, that when it did not come, he almost felt disappointed.
He had to take a good few moments before he could feel relief, and recommit himself to the promise that he had sworn. He had lost Arthur, along with Persephone, and he'd been poisoned in the process, but by some grace of the Gods, he had lived. No – not some grace. He was certain Persephone had been there, to hold his head as he slept. She soothed him then, as she had soothed him so many times before. He did not think that fact was imagined. Her soul rested in this place, and she desired it of him that he keep moving forward.
It was not the road that he expected to take for his vengeance, nor the road that he had expected to take in his life, but as the days passed, it became increasingly certain that Dominus would live, at least for a time, and despite the loneliness and the sadness that stabbed at him, along with the pain of the poison, he dedicated himself to his sword, and pushed himself, for a future that he was certain would come.
He allowed himself to be a man no longer. He was but a tool with a purpose. His heart had been taken over by something else. For the distance of time he would have to span, in so much pain, there could be no other way. Dominus Patrick simply did what Dominus Patrick did best, and he endured his current situation, as tragic as it was.
He spent a good many months by that lake, mourning for his wife and friend, before his feet carried him in different directions, in pursuit of the sword. He awoke and he slept and he ate all with a kind of roboticness. His mind was only focused on strength. He looked towards the skies and performed his repetitions until his body ached from the harshness of their master's command.
Through the forests he went, into Treeant lands, where Persephone had grown up. He did so quietly, such that none knew he was there, sustaining himself on forest fruits and the game that he caught whenever he felt so inclined to.
At times, when it began to feel as if he was the only man in the world, he would observe villages too. And at other times, his old impulses would get the better of him. He would see a goblin run at a family, and put them in danger, and with straw hat low over his eyes, the knight would dash in to see the creature disposed of. Then, he would disappear before they could even dare to thank him.
He could imagine what Persephone would say should she have seen such things. She would have teased him for playing the role of the hidden hero. She would have said that he was absorbed in his own tragedy. Only the old humour that he remembered of his love kept him from hardening entirely into a rock, and freezing still in one place.
From the Treeant lands, he went down towards Wyndon lands, and then he hovered around the Capital for a while, merely out of curiosity, to see what the years had done to the rule of the High King. He found there was a quiet tension, a silent blanket that had been put over all that had been done. He fancied that he could hear a kettle quietly setting itself to boil. Dominus knew not how it would spill over, but he was certain that someday it would.
Then, it was towards the lands of the Pendragons, where Arthur had once dwelled, and was destined to rule. He looked out over the growing Princess Asabel, and found himself approving of who it was that she was becoming. He felt with a certainty that Arthur would have very much enjoyed her company, and thought it a shame that he was not there to watch her grow up, and to guide her in a different direction than the one she was educated towards.
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