A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor

"She killed those Goblins herself, it was only fair," Beam said.

But Nila's mother just smiled even wider at that, as though his words meant something else and she nodded knowingly, before disappearing inside the house.

Nila came out for her second load, glancing back behind her as she saw her mother go inside. "…She's really smiling. What were you two talking about?"

"I don't really know," Beam said, only half lying, for he knew the words they'd spoken, but he didn't really know what they'd meant.

"Hehhh… Y'know, you've only been here for ten minutes and I'm somehow already sick of you. Silly me for worrying, huh?" Nila said, getting more wood.

"You shouldn't worry about me," Beam said seriously.

"And why is that?" Nila asked, filling her green eyes with a false coldness, as though trying to threaten him. But in reality, it was herself she defended.

"I don't think I'm going to be making the right choices to keep people from their worry," Beam said, not quite knowing how to put it into words without saying it outright. In a week's time, he once more planned to fight the Hobgoblin. That was a situation for worry. And there was the corpse soldier and giant spiders that needed slaying before that. Those were situations for worry.

There was too much worry to burden anyone with.

"It doesn't make you cool to push people away, you know," Nila said.

"People have to get close before you push them away," Beam said.

"Is that your way of telling me the other week meant nothing to you?" Nila asked, struggling to keep the hurt from her voice.

"It's my way of saying I don't understand," Beam admitted, showing weakness.

"Ah…" Nila said, surprised by the expression on Beam's face, as he let his mask slip for just a second and his eyes shone with fear and pain. "If you don't understand… Maybe if you're patient, I can try to teach you." She reached out to squeeze his hand and Beam looked up.

"I keep getting told lately that I lack patience," Beam said, with just the hint of a smile.

"Hah… That makes two of us, I guess. I suppose patience is something we'll have to learn together," Nila said kindly. It was kinder than she had been to anyone, outside of her own family.

"Hmm… Are you two almost done?" Nila's mother chose that moment to appear, with a coy grin on her face, as she saw Nila gently grasping Beam's hand.

Nila flushed red. "Guh… I'm going to take this wood. Whatever you're thinking mother, stop."

"But I wasn't thinking anything?" Her mother said, sticking her tongue out playfully as she teased her daughter.

"Come, let me take those too," she told Beam, taking the wood that he'd gotten from the sled from his hands.

Slowly, Beam was becoming undone. A change was occurring inside of him, as the pressures built up and the walls crumbled. He had never been so weak before in his life, not even when Ingolsol had first cursed him.

Then, he was able to resist, through mere grit and struggle. Here, his grit and struggle were rebuked. It only brought with it more suffering. The world continued to ask something higher of him, something terrifying, something his mind could not even put into words. And yet still, he struggled.

...

…

The ninth day. Beam awoke and his leg showed no improvement. In fact, the recoil from yesterday seemed substantial. When he first tried to stand up, he collapsed from the pain.

But even then, he gritted his teeth and forced himself up from the dirt and began his new morning routine of walking to get blood into the leg, then lifting stones, then running.

By the time he was on to the stones, he was feeling much better. The soreness dissipated, and he was able to move a little more freely than he had yesterday. When he moved to lift the second stone, he was able to lift it three times before the pain overwhelmed him and he was forced to stop.

Then, when he ran, he was able to do so with just the slightest bit more freedom than he had the previous day. The difference was so slight it may not even have existed, but given what had happened on the stones, Beam was sure it was there.

He clenched his fist at the results. "Good… Good. I made the right choice pushing myself," he affirmed. There was at least progress now, some improvement. He was slowly getting there. But the weight of the approaching time limit kept him from really celebrating his victory.

With just a week and a half to go, he knew just how far he was from completing those tests.

However, in strategy at least, things finally seemed to be going well. Once more he played Dominus and once more he pushed the old knight right to the limit. This time he lost by three units – but those numbers were deceptive, for he'd actually come the closest to victory he ever had.

If just one more roll had been successful, then his knights would have made it to Dominus' exposed flanks and dealt a winning strike.

Alas, it was not meant to be quite yet, but with victory so close, Beam couldn't help but feel happy about it. Finally, after all the effort he'd put into it, after all the suffering and the worry it had caused him, he was finally seeing proper results.

Even Dominus spared him a bit of rare praise. "It would seem you're finally showing some level of competence," he'd said, in a usual dry compliment. Beam couldn't help but smile upon receiving it.

And then it was time to meet Nila to finish off his woodcutting for her family.

The previous day he'd stashed his log sled where he knew them to be meeting, covering it in leaves and debris as he'd seen his master do for him. His axe he kept with him, though, lest he lose it.

By the time Beam arrived, Nila was already ready and waiting, sitting on the log of a fallen tree, playing with the fletching of one of her arrows.

She'd dressed warmly for the occasion, more warmly than she had in weeks past, evidence that she was starting to feel the cold a bit. She now had a scarf around her neck and a woollen hat on her head, hiding all of her hair, aside from a thin braid of red that fell down to her cheek.