A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor-Chapter 1097 Readying for Battle - Part 10
1097: Readying for Battle – Part 10
1097: Readying for Battle – Part 10
“Ah, but I did,” Oliver said.
He took a step closer to her.
Now that they seemed to be showing no want to use their swords, it felt odd to be speaking with such a distance between them.
He wanted to at least be able to see her face, with the shadows cloaking it so completely.
“I did exactly as I wished to.
What good is strength, if I cannot use it as I wish?
Could I even be called strong, if a precious subordinate was in front of me, and I did not have it within my capacity to save them.”
“A precious subordinate?” Lasha repeated.
“That is right… Though I suppose you are far too high ranking for me to call you as such.
One day, you will no doubt be sitting in a position above me, commanding battalions of your own.
If you had the wish to, you would even be called General,” Oliver said.
“I did not wish to,” Lasha said.
“I would have been quite content just serving you.
If I had been enough like that… Then I would have been fine with it.”
He could see the complicated look in her dark eyes.
He almost felt as if it was an emotion that he could resonate with.
She clenched her fist, and she gave that emotion certainty.
“I have to get stronger, Oliver.
If you are next to me, and I cannot step in to help you, then what good am I?
Against the likes of Khan, I was useless.
A Second Boundary soldier is worth so little out here.
They’re worth even less if they’re alone.
If my father had not given me those hundred troops, I would have been next to useless.”
“I would disagree with both those statements, but the sentiment…” Oliver said slowly, hearing the stirring of her own heart very much matched those of his own.
“Am I a bad influence on you Lasha?” He leaned in closer, he wanted to see the truth of her eyes.
“Perhaps,” she said, with the smallest of smiles.
“But it is a bad influence that I am pleased to have.
If not for you, my future would have been far different to what it is now.
I say again, that I wish to get stronger.”
“Then I think we will find our aims aligned,” Oliver said with a sigh.
“And I think you understand then, the reason for my melancholy, if you are reaching for the same.
The wall that bars us, it is a merciless thing, is it not?”
“It was towering and impossible to breach before I met you,” Lasha said.
“Only by your teaching have I managed to plough through.”
“Those were the teachings of a man named Dominus Patrick,” Oliver said.
“I have been riding the strength of those teachings myself.
Now I find that I am alone, and if I am to make a path forward again, from this dead stop of momentum, it will need to be a path that I create myself.”
“You will go further than that,” Lasha said, with far more confidence than she ought to have.
“You are the Youngest Boundary Breaker in history, after all.
And the youngest man to pass through the Third Boundary as well.
If you are aiming for the Fourth, would it not stand to reason that you would be the youngest to pass through it as well?”
“Ah, so you see through me, and the fact that I aim for the Fourth,” Oliver said.
“But of course.
When one speaks of strength, what else can there be?” Lasha said, putting a hand to his shoulder.
“You will find your way forward, Oliver, I am sure of it.”
He looked at the hand, and then at the beautiful woman who it belonged to.
“I thought you knew not how to comfort people,” Oliver said lightly, to hide his embarrassment.
“Ha, I don’t,” Lasha said.
“But when we speak of you, and we speak of progress, we can speak with certainty.
Even if you don’t believe in your current path forward, can you not believe in the past you, in Beam?
And in those of us that know to believe in you?
Can you trust the fact that we see something in you worth believing?”
“Beam..?” Oliver said, caught off guard to hear her say that name.
“You…”
“That’s funny,” Lasha said, giggling almost childishly.
“To see you caught so off guard.
That name means so much to you, does it not?
I wonder if you would let me use it?
I wonder if that is your true name, a better mapping of your heart than Oliver Patrick is.”
“Neither Beam nor Oliver can be called true names…” Oliver said.
“But I would not bar you from using it.
It is not as if there are requirements for either.
There are times when that name was shouted by worse men than Greeves.
To have a woman like you speak it, if only on occasion, I imagine that will do the name good.”
“Then I shall speak it – but only on occasion,” Lasha said, nodding, taking Oliver’s implied meaning.
“I will use it only when I want you to truly listen to me.”
“This sounds like a fairly one-sided agreement, but I will allow you it all the same,” Oliver said.
“I apologize for having you worry about me, Commander Blackthorn.
This sort of puzzling should be done in the quiet, and only the strength that comes from it should be given the light of day.”
She shook her head.
“I should apologize, for seeking you out when you wanted your peace.
For embarrassing you, as I continue to.
But I think that embarrassment to be misplaced.
Why should you be ashamed of reaching for further progress, or having me see you do it?”
“I am not afraid of my motives being known,” Oliver said, “but the condition of the man that pursues that leaves much to be desired.
It is not exactly the emblem of heroism.
It’s not the sort of man that my men should see.”
