A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor-Chapter 943: Setting out to War - Part 10

The girl looked away. "Are you really fine with me not coming?"

"We've been through this, Nila," Oliver said. "I think we've both agreed that you staying behind is in everyone's interests."

"But… Because of you, I passed through the Second Boundary, or whatever it is you call it. I don't need to be a master swordsman to know the power that it brings," Nila said. "I'm far stronger with the bow than I ever was before… I almost feel like I'm wasting the gift."

"No, Nila," Oliver said firmly. "Your talent is your own. It is not mine. You already repaid me back in full, in the battle against Talon. You didn't need to be there, but you were there and you kept me alive. This isn't like the situation with Talon.

The odds are against us, of course, but I am surrounded by people far stronger than I. There are twenty thousand of us. You don't need to try and carry the fates of twenty thousand people yourself."

"I'm not trying to," Nila insisted. "I'm only interested in one of those twenty thousand."

She looked at him with unsure eyes, as she bit her lip. "I'm almost certain that I will regret this. You're going to be so far away, and for so long. It isn't fair. Why do you have to get sent away?"

"I don't hate it, Nila," Oliver said. "The High King might have interfered, but in the end, it seems that the battlefield is my place. It's the only place where I feel I can make a difference. I'm not just a man on the battlefield. I have the power to influence my own fate."

"I do," she said. "Even if you like it, I don't. I don't think I ever will. Even your missions from the High King, just a weekend, or a week at most – and still it was terrifying. As strong as you are, how can I still not worry? A well-placed arrow from your blind spot, and even you would…" She trailed off, unwilling to finish her sentence.

"I promised I would return within a year," Oliver said. "I will make good on that promise."

"…Really?" Nila said. "I regret forcing you into that. It was childish of me, but…"

"I will," Oliver said. "I believe in the men that I'll be fighting aside, and I will spare no effort in making my own contributions. This will be done in short order."

"I hope so," Nila said, reaching out with a hand for Oliver's shoulder, as if to remember what it was like. "Just come back, Oliver. I'll have many surprises waiting for you when you do. The village will continue to grow, and I'll watch over it as I've promised to. You're going to be blown away when you come back."

"I look forward to it," Oliver said.

Silence descended, as they ran out of the words to say to each other. Each of them wanted to say something, but no topic of conversation could really run towards what they wanted to say. It wasn't enough.

Even as Nila said. "I will really, really miss you," the words hardly contained the full magnitude of the emotion. She wanted to see it ten times more, with even more volume. She wanted to scream it at the top of her lungs.

"I will miss you as well, Nila," Oliver said, smiling gently. "You're a good woman to have around."

Nila nodded, truly running out of words this time, but still, she seemed unwilling to let go of Oliver's shoulder. It didn't feel like a good enough goodbye. She wouldn't be satisfied like this. Even if it was terribly awkward, and terribly sudden, she found herself forcing it anyway.

She snatched her arm around Oliver's neck, and ran the other around his back, burrowing her face in his chest, as she hit him with a forceful hug.

It left Oliver stunned for but a moment, before he ran his arms around her as well, and returned the embrace. In the place of words, it seemed to convey far more. Nila drank in the smell of Oliver's chainmail, and his freshly washed surcoat atop of it, as well as his own odour beneath it, so very much like the pine trees of the forest.

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She did her best to remember it all, closing her eyes as she forced her brain to record it.

"I will very much miss you," Oliver said again, more quietly this time, as he patted Nila's head, feeling through her wild red hair.

A knock came at the door, interrupting the moment before either was truly ready for it to end. Hurriedly, they distanced themselves from each other. Nila looked shyly away in the corner, before hurriedly replacing that maidenly look with something far more intense – she looked genuinely angry.