A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor
Chapter 1827 - 1827: The Spell of the Past - Part 5

Then, after more than a decade of travelling, and of visiting the grave of his love, whenever his heart grew too sore, Dominus Patrick knew not where else to go. He spent six months at the lake, reflecting on times past. It seemed like a distant memory now, the warm times, and yet the pain still prodded at him with the same sharpness that it always had. He hardly knew if his love was for the person called Persephone anymore, or whether he had begun to love an abstract image of her. It was hard to even recall her face.

But he still knew his highest desire – to see that woman again. A risk, perhaps it was. Perhaps after all that time, if they were to meet again, it would be a far different thing to what he remembered. Somehow, that was his highest fear now. That too long had passed for him to be sure of himself. Yet he stuck to it anyway. Dominus Patrick had to, for after all, he was a man of his word. It did not matter how many years had passed. He would stick to his word rigidly, and believe in the judgement of the man that had delivered it in the first place.

After a time of idleness there, he found himself beginning to stir, wishing to move once more. He'd grown a fondness for the mountains. He knew that Persephone had always loved to climb right to the peak of those that were accessible. And even those that were not, she enjoyed taking risks, and climbing anyway.

The years made him want to climb mountains once more. Carrying the memory of her with him, he decided that was what he would do, in her honour, and he picked a destination that he had not spent too much time in.

Along the way, he passed through Ernest, and heard the news of Lord Blackwell. The man was growing to be quite the warlord, it seemed. He was making an increasing name for himself on the field of battle. Dominus remembered him being quite a serious man, in his own right, but there had always been that reckless anger to him that made Dominus doubt that he'd ever be able to keep his cool on the battlefield. Apparently, that was a problem that Lord Blackwell had solved.

Nearly fifteen years had passed by this point, since the death of Persephone. Dominus had supposed a decade was what it would take, but a decade had come and gone, and somehow, the poison ridden Dominus Patrick, like a corpse and a ghost, kept clinging to life.

He made his home in the Black Mountains, and he swung his sword there, just as he had in so many other places before. He prayed for Claudia to lend his blade strength, so that he might bring about the justice that they needed to the realm. But in his heart, he was beginning to doubt that he could even do that. For he was, after all, alone. The realm had forgotten Arthur, and they'd forgotten Persephone. They would not fight for causes that they knew not even existed.

It was mere whim that he operated on now. He kept moving simply because he had no other sense of direction. He kept swinging his sword, simply because he knew nothing else. Once more, Dominus Patrick was simply a creature of the most immense, most inhuman endurance. With his heart broken, and his body broken with it, he kept moving in pursuit of an undefinable something.

Each day, he looked at the world around him, like Persephone once had. She could read the wants of nature, in little signs, and though Dominus had doubted her at first, whenever they had followed the signs that she'd read, they had always ended up somewhere magical. Attempting to do the same himself, he decided to suppose that the Gods indeed were attempting to guide him. He took small things, and extrapolated them into large things, merely to have a sense of direction.

So it was, when that white rabbit did come, when it ought not to have been there, Dominus Patrick did follow it. Busy with his sword he might have been, the creature's inconspicuousness made him narrow his eyes, and put away his blade, in pursuit of a chase. He knew in his heart that it was a silly thing, yet he committed to it regardless, for he had nothing else.

Through the woods, ever changing direction, that rabbit led him. He almost turned back half-way, doubting after all that it was something significant, and calling himself foolish in his head. But the scent of smoke soon made him pause, and then his eyes narrowed even further, when he saw the smoke was exactly what the rabbit was running towards. What sort of wild animal drew themselves in, lured by such a strong smell of smoke? This wasn't the lightness of a mere campfire, this was something far more aggressive. No prey creature ought to have been foolish enough to do that.

Together they went, and together they found it. That which should not exist. Through the leaves of the trees, Dominus knew in an instant what it was that he was looking at. Something that only his eyes might be able to discern, and even then, it was likely only in that moment.

For what he beheld was a thing of turbulence, something that could barely contain itself. A force of incredible darkness, and incredible power, leaking out of a vessel that could not have seemed small. And with it, there was the dancing and soothing force of something equally as powerful, but far more familiar to Dominus, in the presence of a Fragment of Claudia.

In the woods, in what by Dominus' eyes was the middle of nowhere, despite the relatively close proximity of the village of Solgrim, he was given to behold that which should not exist. A rarity beyond rarities – an impossibility.