A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor

Life had changed. It was as present in the faces of the people around him as autumn was present in the colour of a leaf. It would have been comforting to think that things had improved since the trial, that it had been nothing but advantageous to him, but that wasn't the case. The second he left the comfort of the Academy's walls, he was reminded astutely of that fact.

Out here, there was danger and out he was alone.

A butler came just a little too close as Oliver crossed the courtyard towards his carriage. Oliver eyed him with a vicious glare, enough to make the man jump back out of his way, almost dropping the parcels that he was carrying.

He affected a shocked expression, startled and nervous, but as soon as Oliver turned his head, he could feel the same hungry distaste on that man's face as he felt from the novels.

"Amusing," Ingolsol said from within him. The fragment was meant to keep quiet on regular days – but there were no regular days any more. His voice reached Oliver far more often than it had in the past. He liked the sense of hostility. He liked a changing world. He was fond of the state of the day, just as Oliver too enjoyed the excitement of moving towards a new mission.

"Sad, not amusing," Claudia said. "It's as though they've been swamped in a dreamy miasma. They should know that it's a child they're eyeing, and yet they stare at him as though a leper. Those aren't the eyes that people gaze at an innocent man with."

Claudia was right, in that. The trial had resulted in Oliver's freedom rather than execution, but that didn't wipe away the stain it had left on his reputation.

"Not a child. A few months and he'll be a man-grown," Ingolsol protested. "Besides, if you judged a man's age by the lives he's taken, I'd say he's ancient by now." The Dark God cackled at his own joke. "Ahh, how I long for the day in which we can rain down carnage upon them all."

"Settle for bandits today, dark one," Claudia chided.

Oliver fiddled with his sword as the two fragments conversed with one another. It was like being amongst a crowd whilst being alone.

The carriage driver seemed startled when Oliver finally revealed himself. Oliver drew up on the right-hand side of the carriage, standing wordlessly beside the driver's seat and he acknowledged the horses and their harnesses. They seemed fine enough beasts, despite their impatience. Not that Oliver had really developed any particular sense for telling good horses from bad, yet.

"…Oliver Patrick?" The carriage driver tried cautiously once he'd collected himself.

"That is me," Oliver said. "Who are you?"

"Me?" The servants always seemed shocked when a noble asked for their name. This man even more so than the others. Oliver supposed that a carriage driver, even more than most servants, was meant to fade into the background. He was one with the horses, whilst the nobility stayed in their carriages, thoroughly distancing themselves from all that went on outside. "I'm… Petyr, if it please you, Ser."

"Should it?" Oliver asked, climbing up beside him. The man fumbled again, at first to move to the other side of the long driver's bench and then again to try and stand up and step down, so that he wouldn't be disrespecting nobility.

"Ser… Ser? Are you wanting to drive?" Petyr asked cautiously. "General Skullic has paid me to take you to Dollem. I would be going back on my contract if I did anything else…"

"No, I merely wish to sit in the front," Oliver told him. "Will that be a problem?"

The man's expression seemed to scream that it was a problem, but he forced himself to shake his head and say otherwise. "No… No, Ser. You're allowed to, it's just… awful cold, you know?"

"I expect so. The sooner we begin moving then, the less time I'll have to endure the cold, mm?"

…

…

The driver could not have been any more unhappy with their seating arrangement. He spent the entire journey stealing nervous glances at Oliver and trying to attempt light conversation. The only success he had in evoking a response from Oliver was when he mentioned their location.

"Dollem Fort will be an hour east of here," he tried meekly.

"And here is Garsh, correct?" Oliver said.

"That's right, Ser," the driver said with a puzzled frown, as though he was sure if he was being tested on not, but the question was as innocent as it seemed. The locations that Oliver had been inhabiting had switched so many times in his short life that it was difficult to keep up with their position, relative to the entirety of the Stormfront.

He'd gone from Solgrim to Ernest for a time, sending him east. Then he'd been sent all the way to the Academy, which lay a good six hours southeast of Ernest, within the province of Garsh. There were many places that he had yet to explore but simply knowing where Dollem Fort would be relative to anything else gave him some idea of what to expect from his surroundings.

When one travelled north, they could expect more mountains the further they went. When they travelled south, they could expect more rivers and true forests. When they went east, if they went far enough, soon the world would give way to sand and if one went west, it would soon give way to sea.

They were, of course, simply general maxims more based on the most extreme destinations than anything else, but they were helpful enough in orienting him.

After that short exchange, the driver had begun to relax, thinking that he'd finally got through to the boy that the rest of the world saw as a brutal killer – and sitting next to him as the driver currently was, he could certainly understand that reputation. After all, there was an aura to him that a youth his age ought not to have. He made the already cold air seem even colder.

Even the horses seemed to be moving more quickly than they normally would for his presence.