Chapter 1975: Clipped Wings – Part 3
The First King and what Oliver knew of him would once again disagree. The First King had not chased after the crown. He hardly seemed to chase after anything at all. He simply was. On the battlefield, he would find opportunity, and he would state himself he hardly knew why he took the decisions he did. He said it was a fire in his chest, an overwhelming excitement, and he would take risks before he even knew what he was doing. Because he had ultimate trust, and faith. His faith was the very foundation for the Stormfront – his faith in Claudia.
Oliver could not be accused of having such a faith. He certainly trusted the Fragment within himself, but not well enough that he could do as the First King had… Yet, indeed, in certain situations, he had taken even more impressive risks, and he knew not why.
It was as if there were a thousand different corridors in his mind, and ten thousand different doors that ran amongst them, and they were doors that he had only had access to when he was not thinking. As if grandness happened automatically. A terrifying thing that was – for him to be King, when he did not even have a grasp on his own actions, so erratic was he.
A thought somewhere, there had to be one, just as to what direction they might take. Some line of thinking that might stir a sense of strong direction in Oliver’s chest. He felt all sorts of things, but none of them yet gave him a sense for where he might go. He felt the embarrassment strongly from the way the old King had looked at him, and he felt the grief. The disgust the man had shown him, for daring to show his face, wearing the man’s own crown. All of those things were justly delivered, and somehow Oliver still had to believe that he and his people were right. That there was something in what they were doing that could eventually prove the Pendragon man wrong.
Viktor Pendragon had also failed to understand Arthur and Dominus, Oliver had to remind himself – but every time he did, he practically groaned. He could not be compared to such men. They were still far above him. If that was the only comfort he could offer himself, then there was no comfort to be offered at all.
Another problem pointed to in that – the problem of Dominus. Oliver could not lie to himself. He knew that in all the decisions he took, there was a needle to his moral compass that always made him ask the same question, as to whether Dominus would approve of his actions. Now that he had seized the crown, what would Dominus say? Would he chastise him for it, and call him dangerous, and warn him against going any further? Or would he be approving? Would he offer a shoulder of support?
Oliver could very well imagine both reactions. It brought him no comfort to think upon. An endless swirling mass of thoughts, and never did there seem like a good direction for him to land. Just something, somewhere, anything, to give him the sense that he might go forward.
He realized how much he relied on such emotions. He hated the sense that he was simply drifting. Even if it was the wrong thing to cling to, and even if he would abandon it in short order, Oliver still needed a direction that he could fly into. That was his very battlefield strategy. To hammer away in all directions. To continually forge a new idea, and mode of attack, and then break it and abandon it just as quickly when it became evident it would be going nowhere.
Once more, they were forced to do that. The route through the Pendragons, they could not longer take. They had to abandon that, and in doing so, they had to abandon a part of the path that they were taking.
Now they were all sombre for it, directionless. Oliver misliked that emotion, even more than they. Back towards Ernest they now headed, towards an angry Blackthorn who still had not been properly placated since the battle with Tiberius. He seemed to think that, if he had been allowed to go, it somehow could have all been averted. That he might have gone there faster.
Oliver held it not against him. He could see the grief behind the man’s eyes. Yet it did make him difficult to reason with.
If Oliver were to have a Kingdom, it would be that stretch of land in between Ernest and all around Solgrim. For that was the land that he knew best, and the land that he had fought strongest to protect. That was the simple sort of solution that a man like Oliver Patrick wished to reach for. A solution like that, however, was impossible. For that land was deep into Emerson territory. To claim them would be to harm the only royal ally that he had.
It was another direction that Oliver needed to go in, something that wasn’t quite Emerson, nor quite Pendragon, but still close enough to what Oliver cared for that he could still attempt to defend it. Though such a thing, he had to admit, should not have been a condition, when they were already struggling in the situation they were – they should not have needed to make it harder on themselves.
The snow slowed for just a handful of moments, long enough to look off into the distance again. They’d made good time on their travelling over the last handful of days, and finally they were nearing familiar land again. Those dark mountain ranges, coated in snow, and covered in trees. The familiar Black Mountains, where Oliver had spent such a degree of time training.
Land that Dominus had governed – an incredible range of it, for just a single poisoned man – as a quiet protector. Looking after those that entered into it, and wandering as far along its breath as he fancied, covering remarkable distances in just a matter of days.