A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor

It was not only its colour that was out of the ordinary, but its strength. The locals had claimed that they'd even seen the creature doing war with a bear. It had defended its territory with an aggressiveness, and had even started wandering into the nearby village, to eye up the villagers, and start claiming their homes as its own territory.

More than a handful of hunters had already tried pursuing it, but none of them had been successful. Even against arrows, the stag seemed to either dodge them, or find a thick place to allow them in its hide, before snapping them off somewhere once it got away.

She'd travelled far for this, and as Oliver watched through her eyes, he found himself enjoying the hunt just as much as her. "His blind spot, Nila," Oliver said, as if he had any advice to give to an expert hunter like Nila.

She didn't waste her opportunity. She stepped out from the tree in the very same instance that the stag flashed past. Its red eyes widened seeing her, and it snorted, putting down its antlers to run at her – but its momentum was already against it, and it was forced to continue charging past instead.

Satisfaction. Nila felt that before she'd even drawn the bow. Seeing a strong creature like that, the little redheaded huntress couldn't help but delight.

The arrow would never have missed. Not from her.

It thudded into the stag's side, finding its heart. The perfect strike from its blind spot. It was the sort of thing that only Nila could achieve. Especially now that she was of the Second Boundary, her renown as a huntress had only increased.

She saw the stag fall, and she went to retrieve it, murmuring her thanks to it, as she did with every kill.

Just as she'd taken her knife to attempt to skin it, she'd looked up, as if aware that Oliver was watching her?

"Oliver?" She'd said, feeling mad just saying it out loud. "What has happened?"

But of course, there was no reply. There was only the stirring of the wind, and the sounds of her approaching comrades. She looked at the white stag again. The beautiful creature, so rare and so strong – slain by her own hand. To her, it seemed a frightful omen. "By the Gods, what have I done..?" She said.

"Oliver? Oliver! What has happened?"

She called it to the sky, feeling the tears come to her eyes unbidden. Something was wrong, and she knew it, she simply knew not quite what it was. "I should have gone…" She bemoaned herself. "Oh, Gods. I should have gone."

Before Oliver could even think to say anything to her, the dream had moved on to the next person. To Skullic in his castle. Then to Volguard in his office at the Academy. Then to Judas, playing with his children, then to Mrs Felder smiling as she watched her young son practise the sword.

The faces sped past faster and faster until he could hardly recognize them, much less follow what was happening to them. It was a dream that had started unsettling, and then moved him, only to end up unsettling again.

"…Is it a mere dream?" Oliver wondered. He had been content to say that it wasn't in the matters that concerned Asabel, but was the same true for Nila then too? He would not have wished it on her. She needed feel no guilt for him.

"Making her worry," Oliver said to himself. "Foolish. She's got far too much to do to worry about me. I will be fine. Does she not have enough faith in me to see that?"

Even saying it aloud, he thought his words to be too harsh for the girl. A letter might have solved the issue, and Oliver would have been glad to deliver one, if he thought it would reach. But they were in the middle of the Verna. Any crows they sent from their position would likely be shot down. They had too few of them to start with.

The ones that they did have would be used for communicating with General Blackwell, they couldn't be wasted on the likes of him.

"Up, Oliver," he told himself, as he lay in bed unmoving. "There is little to be done about what happens hundreds of miles from here. The least we can do is give them good reason they should not be worrying."

He felt ridiculous speaking to himself, and even more ridiculous when Ingolsol chimed in.

"You made grand declarations yesterday, boy," he teased. "When are you going to act upon them, eh? And with a broken hand too."

"A sprain, we see," Claudia corrected. "Thanks to Asabel's intervention."

"Tsch, if I needed correcting, wench, I would wait for a head less empty than yours to deliver it," Ingolsol said back.

Even though they did nothing but argue, it was their arguing that finally forced Oliver from the bed that he had found such comfort in. His body told him that he had slept a good while. Half a day, at least. But that was to be expected when they'd gone two days without sleep, and they'd endured two battles on top of that.

The men had barely managed to set up their encampment before they'd collapsed into bed. The large majority hadn't even managed to get food down them, so overwhelming was the want for sleep.

The dead had been shifted into a pile that could only be described as morbid. The very memory of it made Oliver's hand pause as he reached for the flap of his tent. "We need to get them burned," he murmured to himself. "Disease will spread…"

Then, he realized, as a Captain, that overseeing the burning of those bodies would likely be a duty that would fall to him and his men. More grizzly work it was hard to imagine, but it was work that needed to be done.

He looked down on himself. He'd gone to bed dressed, and there was still blood on his clothes. He'd only seen fit to remove his boots, and he'd already donned those again. The rest of his clothes were locked up in the wagons, and though Verdant had been eager to see them collected, Oliver had ordered him to bed with the rest of them.

There were times when etiquette needed to be ignored for the sake of better sense.