Chapter 1995: An About Turn - Part 10
"It was in the hours after it, when they spoke on it, all that they thought – and that they foresaw in the action, and what it meant to be King," Oliver said. "Like chains, other men’s visions of the future have wound around me, and like chains I’ve been burdened by the past as well. I’ve bothered you with the weaknesses in my heart. I’ve dwelled on the last decade far too strongly, and I wonder how at all we still stand here today. It feels like a different person... But that’s not what I’m trying to say. It’s something else..."
He went silent again, trying to find that thread that he was talking about. Then there was another explosion, as if he had punched through another wall, and he continued, animated, and passionate, so much so that he made the fire that burned next to him look pitiful, compared to that fire that glowed in his eyes.
"I cannot do it their way," Oliver said. "But the problem is, I don’t know what my way even is. I just need the freedom, Nila, to make my own choices. A King, very well. A King for how long? I know not. Everything is too uncertain, and the only way I know how to confront uncertainty is with my freedom. I have tried to act like a proper King, as others would will of me, but it does not befit me. I am done trying. I wish not to sit on counsels all day, and sit on a grand throne, and dress all grandly. I care not. I wish to race Nelson fast over the snowy fields by myself. And I want to disappear into the mountains with you. I don’t want to govern with checkmarks and boxes. I hate the strictness of their regiment, where they check everything."
"I think that’s necessary though, Oliver, someone has to check those things..." Nila said.
"Yes, perhaps you are right, but I am useless there. Hod shows me books, workings, calculations. I’ve no mind for them. They’re established systems of doing things, and they need to be learned. I can’t learn them. It’s too late for me. Perhaps they need to be done in some capacity, but if so, then not by me. If I am to be useful, then it is in other realms... So I declare something else – I wish to do things my way, firmly, all the way through. The traditions expected of me, perhaps I can keep a few of them, but I don’t want to confine myself to them. After all, Nila, what’s the point? I am not a King properly, I have not inherited the crown, none will accept it as legitimate, no matter how much I pretend, so why pretend?"
"..." Nila knew not what to say, only that she was glad to see it of him. The thumping of her heart against her ribcage. The hope that began to blossom there. The confines of the world that she had constructed inside her head, where all seemed impossible. Perhaps there was a route through it, after all. Perhaps the boy that she so loved could find it.
He was right, she knew. It was antithetical to him, the confines of the crown. That was why she loathed it so much on his behalf. That he could recognise it himself, and declare passionately his want for his own freedom. There could be none more in support of that fact than Nila. She grinned for him, the grin of a wild animal – for the two of them were exactly that. The nobles weren’t so wrong after all when the condemned all peasants to be such creatures. "I think you’re right, Oliver, if that’s what it takes, so be it," Nila said. "I like everyone else, I truly do. The nobles aren’t as bad as they were said to be. Hod, Lord Blackthorn, Verdant and the rest, they’re all really good people deep down, but I have to admit I have despised them a little bit for how much they asked of you. It isn’t fair that you should be forced to take all the responsibility. I have accused them of terrible things inside my head – of turning you once more into a slave, simply for the talent that you bear. I say, with how certain you are, if you feel so strongly, then your way is the right way, Oliver. If they would ask such a degree of responsibility from you, then allow you the freedom to do it your way."
Oliver returned her grin, true gladness on his face for the fact that she understood. "I’m going to make a mess of it," he said truthfully. "I’m going to make choices, and have to double back down on them, because I have no idea how to move otherwise. I always do things that need to be corrected. But I really have no idea what else what to do. Expect a thousand stupid things, Nila. I asked Lasha to become my Minister of War yesterday, and she was furious. And I was going to ask you today to become my Minister of Justice, so you could talk more confidently... But even both those things, even though I mean them truthfully, they aren’t all the way there yet. It isn’t the right feeling, it isn’t the final result."
"Stupid," Nila said. "I’m not doing that."
"She said the exact same thing," Oliver said. "I need to find something different, to make use of you both. These old royal systems, they suit me not. All the men and women that I have relied upon to confront the obstacles of my career, they are not properly valued by established royal systems."
"Everyone has always said how strange your Patrick army was," Nila said. "It would make sense, I suppose, that your government would be strange also."
"Mmmm," Oliver said, nodding. "Ah, that feels better. Everyone is going to hate me for it, but at least I can move again. I don’t want to ever go back to how things were before. That feeling of those chains, and those restrictions..."
Nila grabbed his hand, as his eyes went distant just for a second. "I know, Oliver. Let us make sure that you don’t have to."