A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor

Neither of them were the type to grow embarrassed around the opposite sex. They'd been fine and friendly with each other until now... So what had changed? Whatever had changed was Nila's fault, and she knew it.

She had accepted Oliver's proposal readily – well, not directly, she had altered it into something lesser, knowing he was reaching too far in his recklessness, she had lightened that burden on him. There should have been nothing that could go wrong. It was a thought that she'd had in her mind for the longest time.

With every new marriage proposal she received from overeager merchants, both old and young, promising her all sorts of things, her true want was cemented.

"Do whatever you want," Nila said, tearing through the last of her bread, as one of her subordinates asked whether they should butcher that day's hunted meat now, or wait until the morning. The weather was mild enough that it would not matter either way, and Nila was too distracted to see much further than that.

There was a problem where there ought not to have been one. She propped up her chin with one hand, and chewed her bread with a morose expression. She tried to find a solution in herself, but she couldn't place it. It wasn't that, suddenly, since obtaining the object of her desires, she stopped liking Oliver. It was the opposite. The emotion that afflicted her was not indifference, but fear.

She shuddered to think about it. 'Me, scared of Oliver?' She thought. It seemed a ludicrous notion. He was a terrifying man for a certainty, but there was a beast in him, it only made sense that he was such. It was his very danger that made him as interesting as he was. Her fear had never held her back in the past, but now it immobilized her.

'Fear of losing him,' she thought pathetically, hitting the nail on the head in her mind, as she had already once before. It made her shudder that she would allow such weakness to wander into her everyday thoughts. She was acting like one of those pathetic city maidens in all the stories that people would tell, as if she was flushed with innocence at her first love. Nila hated that.

It made her grow red just to think about it. It could not have gotten more embarrassing than that.

"Are you alright, mistress Felder?" Her worker had the gall to ask, as he decided to proceed with the butchery that day, seeming to think that Nila's disinterest was a test, and that he'd fail it if he put the work off until later.

"Are you saying that I look unwell?" Nila said, glaring at him.

The man flinched. He was double her age, but somehow he still had it in him to flinch when she looked at him.

"N-not at all. You just seem. I don't know. Troubled by something?" The man said.

Nila went silent. She swallowed the last bit of her bread, and voiced her distaste around the mouthful. "It's none of your business," she said. "Finish that butchery before the sun is up, and get it out of the light." She said, pointing, and then she stalked away, as if she had somewhere to be.

They weren't due to meet for another couple of hours, but it felt as if time was short. She hadn't come up with any sort of solution that might fix that problem that they had. At the very least, she wanted the courage to offer some sort of reassurance to Oliver. He'd begun to doubt – she could see it written on his face. It hurt her to know that she might be hurting him.

But merely going in with such intentions wasn't enough. She mustered all of her courage, and then it was as if her heart froze over in self-defence. As if, in order to bear the weight of being around him, she had to distance herself from him entirely, and better still, jab at him, and try and rake her claws into the relationship that they'd built up, in an effort to tear it apart.

Now, even Oliver was beginning to bite back. He was prone to his indignances. He'd show her his teeth, at times, and the barest hint of gold in his eyes, and she was able to get the flames in him to smoulder, as she'd always been able to. It made her heart beat with excitement, but immobilized as she was, there was nothing she could do to enjoy it.

The villagers seemed to think that everything was going well, which only made matters worse. Everyone was always asking how things were going. They seemed almost as interested in it as Nila was… No, that wasn't true. She spent little time thinking of anything else these days. Something about her was causing a problem, and she didn't have the slightest clue how to solve it.

"Good afternoon, Lady Felder," a couple greeted her. They'd had their house destroyed during the attack, but just last week a replacement home had been built for them, even better than the last, and they were in the process of making it a home. Their gratitude was a heavy thing. She waved a hand to them in reply.

In truth, she thought, it was more Oliver's coin than her own actions that had seen their town restored. She had just barely managed to defend it, with the help of a Queen that Oliver had made his ally, and somehow, he had the nerve to show her that overwhelming gratitude. She thought that any of his other retainers in her place would have done her job all the better.

They'd sustained too much damage, and the Ernest Guild was making sure to punish them for that.

She sighed. More doubts. When she doubted herself, she only made her meetings with Oliver all the worse. She didn't know what to do. 'That's the common thread of it, I suppose… That I don't know. Have I ever known?

Since when did I start thinking so much about things? Haven't I always just done as I thought best?'

In the past, it was almost instinct that she moved by. But now it was that same instinct that rebelled against her, and raised these walls up in an attempt to keep her heart from breaking with Oliver. 'Why did I become so fragile… Why do I fear so much?'