A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor

"…Those are certainly high hopes, Verdant," Oliver said. "Progress is what you point me towards again, as a solution?"

"Has it not always been thus?" Verdant said, smiling. "You have founded yourself upon it. There are those that worship it, but you seem as if you have fallen in love with it. Is there anything you would prefer to rely on than that?"

"Tsch… You've certainly retained your talent for smooth talking, Verdant, even after all this time away from priesthood. Perhaps I could even say that you've gotten worse," Oliver said, fighting against the smile that threatened to return itself.

"I think my father might be to blame for that," Verdant said honestly. "…I might speak too emphatically for a man as weak as I. I did not think I could be shaken so readily, after experiencing so much of the battlefield already. I speak in the offering of a path for you, but I feel as if I must engage in such a path myself. I cannot remain who I am.

I am still tainted by naivete, and it is only right that they look down on my ideals…"

"That which works will stay, that which doesn't will be beaten out of the metal," Oliver said. "Damn it all. I do not want to find myself agreeing with them… But they are right. You're right. And it makes me no happier to declare it. If anything, I feel all the more miserable.

How is it that I can pass through the Fourth Boundary, and find an even greater wall looming ahead of me?"

"If it be a wall, you shall scale it," Verdant said. "You've ever seemed to have talent in that regard. We shall return home, my Lord, and the next time the battlefield calls us, we shall be different men. When savagery seems the optimal path, I trust that you will have the strength to point us toward a better solution."

Oliver shook his head. "You're miserable, Verdant, and you're still offering me counsel. Why don't you find yourself a mirror, and correct that look in your eyes? You look as if you haven't slept in days."

At that, Verdant laughed. "You look no better yourself, my Lord. One would not think you were given such rewards just the day before. That General's pay that you've been given, I am sure all that extra coin will go towards much in Solgrim."

"…I want to go home," Oliver murmured. "I pray to all the Gods that what awaits me there is no worse than this. I want to see Nila again, and Judas… and I suppose even Greeves. I want to see all the villagers. I don't wish to have to mourn more of the dead."

"Queen Asabel will have taken care of them, I am sure of it," Verdant said confidently.

"What am I to do for a reward..?" Oliver said. "If Nila has survived such an assault after I put her in charge, how am I ever meant to repay her? I didn't think that the responsibility would end up being quite this weighty. She has been made to endure even more than we have."

"She will not begrudge you for it," Verdant said. "You know Lady Felder – you know that she would wish to defend her home just as much as you did."

"But the fact remains, that she has defended my home," Oliver said. "She had best be alright. I do not know what I will do if something has happened to her… My incompetence has already cost me Tolsey and Lombard, what will I do if it has stolen Nila from me as well?"

"...You cannot blame yourself for Lombard nor Tolsey, my Lord," Verdant said, his tone was almost angry. "In those battlefield conditions, what more were you meant to do? You pulled off a miracle, and you gave their deaths purpose. You ought not expect yourself to be omnipotent."

"But I ought to at least aim to be…" Oliver said. "The world is growing far too small. The places of peace along with it. If I can't protect the few patches of light that I have left, it's all going to be drenched in darkness… and I don't know what I shall do then."

…

…

The Patrick men didn't seem to take the fact of their early retreat nearly as harshly as Oliver did. They interpreted it in the opposite light, as Verdant had mentioned to Oliver. They saw it as a reward for all the work that they had put in ahead of all the other parties. Most, in truth, seemed to be longing to return home to spend the coin that they had fought hard to earn.

They saw it as their job being done, and the risks being cast aside. They would retain their life. The campaign was over, as far as they could tell it, and there were a few hooted cheers of excitement.

Blackthorn saw through it, as Oliver had known she would. She twisted her mouth as she rode next to Oliver. "You're angry too," she noted.

"I am," Oliver said, quite contentedly. "But we are not good enough yet. There is a road to be travelled that can put a fix on such things. I mean to travel it."

He was surprised at how light-heartedly he could speak, even in the pit that he had undeniably fallen into, once there was a road that he could call progress to see him an escape out of it. Verdant was – or at least had been – a priest of Bohemothia, yet he seemed to know when to point Oliver down Claudia's path better than any one of Claudia's own priests likely could.

"Are you going to do something reckless again?" Blackthorn asked warily. "You get like this before you do something strange."

"As of yet, no," Oliver said. "Or do you not believe me? I simply wish to return home."

"Do you have the fear of the state of your home that you once did?"