A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor

"Oh? You've realized?" Oliver said, turning to look down at him. "You're right. I'm not like my father. And nor would he want me to be like him. I'm Oliver Patrick – it's time you saw that name for what it was."

Oliver found his own way to the meeting room, with Lancelot staggering behind him, his feet as lost beneath him as his mind was. He didn't seem to know how to act now that his plan had failed.

Arriving at the door, Oliver saw it was as he expected.

Princess Asabel sat, alone, in the centre of her usual sofa, gazing out of the window, her forlorn expression obvious even from behind.

She turned her head, hearing his approach, and she smiled for him. A terribly sad smile, that brought her eyes closed as it rose to her cheeks. The fire that Oliver had arrived here with died out. She was such a thoroughly beautiful woman, it was hard to do anything but stare.

"Princess…" Oliver said, more quietly than he'd intended, bowing to her.

"Ser Patrick," she said. "You've arrived. I'm ready, if you will. I've already made my peace."

"Apologies, my Lady, I should have warned you…" Lancelot stammered, freeing himself from behind Oliver.

"Warn me?" Asabel repeated, tilting her head. "Did you not already warn me two days ago, when you set the meeting time?"

"Two days ago, was it…" Oliver said, giving Lancelot a glare out of the corner of his eye.

"It was," Lancelot said innocently. "Why does that surprise you?"

"I only received the invitation fifteen minutes ago, obviously," Oliver said, still glaring at Lancelot.

"Oh?" Lancelot met the accusation head-on. "How terrifyingly odd. To think that such a thing could happen, even amongst the Academy's courier system… Why, if you'd missed this meeting, what offence that would have caused, even though the matters were so out of your hands."

"Lancelot," Asabel said, firmly, a trace of life in her voice. "I can see now what has gotten Oliver so agitated. Apologise."

"My Lady?"

"Apologise, this instant. Both to me, and to him," Asabel said.

"But—"

"Lancelot."

"I am sorry, my Lady… I did not think you wished to see him," Lancelot said.

"It is not Ser Patrick that I did not wish to see, but who Ser Patrick has brought with him. I am terribly sorry as well, Lancelot. You have supported me well these many years. I have not been the Lady that you deserved, or even wanted, I am sure," Asabel said.

"My Lady?" Lancelot said. "What is this, all of a sudden? How could I ever dare express such dissatisfaction? Whatever made you think that I would have preferred a different liege? Even if I have disagreed with you at times, I did not doubt that, in the end, your decisions would prove to be the right ones. I can only do what I do as an advisor.

It is your own power that has granted you all the accolades you currently have – and the future should be brighter still… So please don't speak to me as though to prepare for a farewell… Don't do that, because even I might…" His voice choked up before he could finish.

"Asabel…" Oliver said, thinking that he saw a different meaning behind her words. It was as though two separate conversations were going on. "I arrived alone, Asabel."

"Oh," Asabel said, her eyes flashing for just a second, before that forlorn look returned. "Oh, but of course… You only had fifteen minutes in which to arrive. Of course, you couldn't bring anyone… Of course, perhaps another day."

"Asabel…" Oliver said, taking a few steps deeper into the room, so he could properly look at her. "Are you still thinking the same thing – that which we discussed? Are you still intent on putting that burden on me, as though you really deserve that sort of suffering?"

"Oliver – please, not in front of my retainers. Not yet," Asabel pleaded.

"I am not here to fight with you, Asabel," Oliver assured her. "The opposite, even. Skullic advised me to come here and apologise, for the sake of politics – but I can't bring myself to do that. Even though I'm being forced to wield politics for the sake of survival, I won't let it bend my own principles to do so."

"I know that, Oliver," Asabel said, a quiet smile on her lips. "I know that. Your honour is even stronger than your father's. You stick to your principles even more firmly than those that call themselves righteous – I feel it from you, that danger, and yet somehow, you continue to walk true. It is in that you that I entrust my fate, and I have decided I would not rather it be any other way.

If it was to be found out eventually, better you, a friend, than anyone else. There's a sense of destiny in it, after all?"

"I'm sorry, Asabel, but I'll have to shatter those self-destructive hopes," Oliver said. "I say my principles, because they are mine. Not the Church of Claudia's, not the High King's, not even the principles of nobility. They are mine. I feel more comfortable amongst peasants than I do amongst nobles – is it so surprising that I would not share the same worldview as you?

I don't understand how you could ever think I would turn on you."

"It wouldn't be turning on me," Asabel said. "I would never think of it like that. It would be doing me a mercy."

"Then I will not deliver that mercy," Oliver said firmly. "I care not, Asabel. You believe it to be wrong, I think the opposite. What you have, what you refuse to reveal and are so ashamed of, I think it to be a beautiful thing. Truly. It's far more beautiful than my killing.

To deny you would be to deny myself."

"Beau…tiful..?" She spoke the word like it was foreign to her tongue, her eyes round as she looked at him.

"I would say so. Would you ask me to turn the sun over to the Church if they too denied its beauty, or the moon?"