A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor-Chapter 2107: My Kingdom - Part 3

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Oliver walked with Nelson until the trees thinned out. He enjoyed the trees in the morning sun as its golden rays poked their way towards the ground. Mossy stones lined their way here and there, and the snapping of twigs on the forest floor told him of the activity that was happening all around them.

Here, in this forest, spring had well and truly arrived. He saw mice rushing through the long grass. He saw rabbits hop across the trail before him. He saw mushrooms growing upon the decaying remains of a fallen tree. And twice, did he see a deer come close enough that he and Nelson might have walked into them, had the great white beast not snorted a warning, and sent the creatures scampering away.

Even the Black Mountains could not compare to this place. It was so full of life. It hardly seemed as if it could get any purer. He was certain that wild hogs and bears played there. There would certainly be wolves and foxes too. There were predators enough to keep the numbers of prey animals toward a perfect balance – the evidence of that was how well the vegetation looked. For this level of natural abundance, there needed to be that perfect balance.

It boggled his mind that it could even be achieved, that there could be a place so rich with life. And where was a man’s place in all of that? Could he be part of that ecosystem without tearing it down? Could he fell those dead standing trees, without taking away from what was already there?

Oliver didn’t know how. He wasn’t sure what nature really wanted from him, to grow this beautiful. He was certain those little men that he had met the night before did. He had a suspicion that it was their doing, that this place was as rich as it was.

The trees rose so tall in places that it seemed impossible. Their trunks spoke of their age. Some of them must have been centuries old. It was how he imagined the land of the Treeants to be in his head – or perhaps even more beautiful than that. For there was a people that lived as one with nature, though they served a different God to Claudia. This here was Claudia’s doing – that was what those little men had said.

It wasn’t as if this place was a stranger to terrible things. He’d seen one of those terrible things happening the night before. Pandora’s influence had still had its effect, though Oliver had never seen such a thing happen naturally, only ever by the influence of a mage. Even the monster that had arisen seemed different – it was strangely afflicted by the nature that it was part of. The Troll’s ability to control water seemed at odds with what was clearly a creature of the goblin line.

It wasn’t a stranger to terrible things, or suffering, just those little Gnomes managed to do something about it. They seemed to be the guardians that saw this place kept as pure as it was. It was a purity that seeped all the way down into Oliver’s bones. In his head, he imagined it curing him of his affliction. He had stressed endlessly about becoming what the High King was. In worrying that he, Oliver Patrick, was just as corrupt.

In the green of that forest, he thought he began to find himself some more. 𝙛𝒓𝒆𝙚𝒘𝒆𝓫𝙣𝓸𝙫𝓮𝒍.𝒄𝒐𝓶

He paused in his walking, and favoured himself with a snack of a hard biscuit, and he allowed Nelson to graze while he was busy – though that didn’t stop him from running his hand across the creature’s well brushed neck, petting him.

The forest seemed to suit Nelson as well, as if he was a guardian deity, like those Gnomes. He certainly seemed like a mythical enough creature. A rarity both in his size, and in the intelligent look in his eyes. That Oliver was allowed to ride him, and that the creature showed him any degree of loyalty at all seemed practically baffling.

"What do you think, Nelson?" Oliver said. "It’s quite a place, isn’t it? So this is where the First King marched through... If it was as pretty then as it is now, it doesn’t surprise me that this is what convinced him to settle here."

Nelson snorted in reply. A strangely condescending sound, as if Oliver was missing a bigger picture. "I wonder what the rest of the Stormfront looked like back then..."

He dwelled on it some more as he walked. He thought of the many battles that they must have endured in the past. For a warring people like a Stormfronter to live as well as they had, that seemed a strangeness. There would have been so much suffering, so much regret. For them as a people to process that, it seemed remarkable.

Oliver could feel it beginning to affect him, all the battles that he had fought. For years, he had managed to keep it contained within himself, with a fist so tightly clenched that he was not even aware of the suffering that he was causing him. But seeing the head of Asabel, that had broken the lid, and it had all come spilling over.

He had cursed the fact of his weakness, when he had begun to twitch in his sleep. It was an injury of poor timing, when there was so much to do.

Beneath the canopy of one of the grander trees, Oliver chose to stop once more. He sat down with his back to its thick trunk – it was thick enough that three men working together could not have wrapped their arms around it – and he enjoyed the soft bedding of the thick moss that ran up the bottom of it. There, feeling a sense of peace within him, he closed his eyes.

Deep, and quiet breaths. He could hear Nelson shuffling by near him, feeding on the longer bits of grass. The horse had a real taste for it. Oliver naturally knew nothing about how grass tasted, but from how Nelson pursued this stuff, he might have guessed that it was much tastier than what he normally feasted upon. He giggled as Nelson’s giant head came closer, and nuzzled him, as if to ask why he was sitting there like such a fool.