A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor
Chapter 1831 - 1831: A Man of Significance - Part 3

It was a small measure of control for himself in that tainted world. It held the scales of balance for him. As long as he had that, purity could be inflicted to a degree. If the world be tainted, then let it be tainted through a good story, he did think. It was fine if it was a tragedy in the end, just as long as the lead up to the tragedy was a thing well told.

Karstly supposed he had expected that of his life, from the very start, which enabled him a degree of self-sacrifice that others would have been disinclined towards. More than once, did he invite the sword to come for his head. He'd strengthened his sword arm to match it, and achieved a physical strength that ought to have been impossible for a child that had once been so weak and sickly, but still he invited the blow of death, ever so casually.

For Karstly was sure, his greatest performance would always come when it was time for his death. He was sure that the red of his own blood would be his finest paint. He was sure it would strip away the weakness that he'd shown in his childhood, and the fear, and the pain, and it would make it all worth it for just a single second. It would strip away even the callus decisions that he had made against civilians, those that others labelled him evil for. It would the righter of all wrongs, the cracking of a great stone table, and the freeing of a troubled soul.

He walked through the forest, feeling the weighty presence of the ancient trees. Each one was different, on account of their knots, and so easy to imagine as something else. A lion's head here, a wall of faces there, and then a palace for the fairies elsewhere.

Quietly, that was something Karstly held a belief in. The little tales of magic that were read to him as a child, and others so quickly dismissed. The existence of fairies, and the fay, and of gnomes, and elves, and all sorts of other magical little creatures that tended to the forest and the balance of men. He was sure that when he fought, it was the magic of those strange creatures that he borrowed. But it was again something that he knew others would have labelled him mad for.

As he walked, he whispered to them, and he begged for more. "Friends of mine, see my weakness," he said. "Never have I come before you with such want, such desire."

It was true. There was nothing in all the world that Karstly had wanted more than this. He stepped over a stream, and the woods grew darker for a second, muddier, and he was sure that this were goblin territory. Not the sort of goblins that other men knew, those that had lost their minds to the very fact of their existence. But other creatures, more stable, inclined to build their homes, and last.

Naturally, he caught no signs of those creatures that he was so sure existed. No footprints. All Karstly had was a feeling of presence. When he closed his eyes, and breathed in deep, and looked for them, he could see them, scampering at the edges of his vision. He could hear their tittering chatter, a city so full of life. But then when he opened them again, they were gone. Yet the feeling of significance did not fade with them.

There was a feeling to that place that Karstly walked. It seemed intrigued by him, just as he was intrigued by it. He felt as if his very standing there was a thing of destiny. The weight that he felt about his heart when he walked about it, the very thing that pulled him back there, day after day. There was surely something to do that. It was not something that was imagined. And even if it was, it did not matter. It was the emotion that held the strength of the colour, and as long as that colour was strong, it could leave a mighty streak across the canvas, as one of the many important lines that would seen the beautiful picture drawn.

He whispered to them, those creatures that he was so certain existed, and he begged for their power. "Allow me it," Karstly said. "To slay that which looks down on you – to remove that creature that should not be."

He was certain that the forests would hate Tiberius as much as he. What was there to like about such a man? His very presence was unnatural. He was a creature of mighty poison, a giant coiled snake. There was nothing more to him than that. If the forest left him be, then that creature would contently swallow everything of majesty whole. It would gobble up their white stags, and their fairy folk, one after the other. It had no lust for anything, but for destruction.

A voice, when he closed his eyes, accused Karstly of being of the same sort. Of wishing nothing more for violence for the sake of destruction. Of wishing for more power, simply so he could commit more atrocities. He had a sense that they were offended by him. As if he'd wronged old friends through his actions.

"Do you not see my aims, when I did such a thing?" He pleaded. "Do you not see the lives that were spared, and the mightiness of the conclusion that we inflicted?"

They turned away from him, as if to shake their heads. "You wish for power, but you do not have the heart to bear it."

"You don't listen."

"You do not know."

"You do not have enough empathy to know why you were wrong."

"We are the forests, and we are the trees. We are on nobody's side. You call us fairies, but you do not know what it means to be a creature other than human. You know only selfishness, your own wants. You do not forsake your own effort in order to assist another."

So they accused him, a great crowd of them, when he closed his eyes. They flew around him, and ran between his legs, little creatures only as tall as his shin bone. Yet they carried such a majesty and might. Even one of them likely would have been enough to match him. For unlike he, they ran on a magic that humanity had no knowledge of.