Souta:
The Giant's Glades are quite expansive. So expansive, that to travel across them with just a single caravan might be a two week endeavor. With an entire army…
Well, it's slow-going to say the least.
I expect the horde to slow us down, but no, they march along even better than our soldiers. It's as if they're… compliant. I don't know why.
I watch them now, that rotting mass, heads hung low, feet shuffling forward, no thoughts, no prayers, no soul to their movements. Even the ones that are only half-sick already look dead. The transformed children lead the pack, moving the fastest. But they too follow our prodding orders.
"Souta!" A voice calls. It is distant and hard to hear, but I know it is my uncle. I sigh and walk to the other edge of the cloud, sticking my hands to the underside and letting my green lightning hang me from the wisps of water and air. I find my uncle on a small hilltop below. He makes a fist with his hand and raises it.
Enough warming up then. Training begins.
I wait for him to call the drill. He holds up a single finger.
Easy. I smile and hold one hand, summoning forth a large bolt of verdant lightning. It thrums with crackling energy and at times, it creates little branching sparks of lighting.
I aim for field away from our army. Then, with a heaving throw, I send the bolt shimmering down. In the blink of an eye, the lightning strikes the field of grass and weeds.
When thunder follows, the field begins to bloom.
The grass extends, the weeds grow taller, the roots become sparse, small trees. One particularly large tree forms in the center of that field — a tree unlike any of the few sparse saplings that mark the glades. It must have been a seed blown away from the Brightbriars — or now the Blightbriars I suppose. Green lightning can grow and shape nature, but it can also disrupt it with overgrowth, such as in a situation like this. That dark, twisting, knotted tree doesn't belong in this field of green.
I summon forth another bolt and strike the tree. It grows even taller, stretching to my cloud, wood creaking and bending in the wind.
I step on one of the outstretched branches and let the tree take me down to my uncle, who looks particularly pleased.
"Wonderful Souta. Wonderful," he commends, clapping. I step off the tree, trail my fingers on the branches, and feel through its bark and its grooves, the already deep sense of absolute loneliness it feels.
So, as a mercy, I strike it again. My bolt explodes against it this time, sending burning splinters of wood scattering into the air, falling like ash.
Masaru frowns. "Why did you do that?"
I hesitate, shuffling my own feet. "I uh— it didn't want to be here."
"What?"
"The tree. It didn't want to be here."
"The tree didn't want—hmm," he looks at me. He always forgets that I can feel what they feel, know what they know. We've broached this topic before; had this conversation many times, but still, I can tell it bothers him.
However, my uncle, being my uncle, just gives me a smile. "I understand, young shogun. But, surely, you must understand this is an… unnecessary mercy to divulge."
"Unnecessary?"
"Yes young shogun," he says, now coming around to my back and slapping his hand on my shoulder. My angel dust runs thinner by the second, but I don't worry too much about wasting it: we have sackfuls. "You must understand, Souta, that you do not need to bend to nature."
He points to the black line of the Blightbriar's tree-line in the distance: "What do you see?"
"The briars," I respond.
"It's not just the briars. They are your briars. Your nature. Your world."
Back to this destiny lecture again. I sigh.
"What?" he asks, voice still light. "Don't believe me?"
"It's not that uncle, I just—" I just don't want to force nature to bend to my will. I don't really want to lead armies against armies. I don't want war.
I want…
I look at him. He prods me encouragingly. This is Masaru, the man who protected me as a child, saved me, secured my right to shogunate. This is the man who came from another clan and climbed our ranks for the sole purpose of serving me, of helping me.
He was my teacher when I had none.
My martial instructor when no one would take me.
My father, when my real father died during my childhood.
What right do I have to refuse him? It would be selfish.
"I want to please you," I tell him confidently. This surprises him, I think. His face nearly breaks down into tears—I didn't know such a proclamation would have that great of an effect. But it's only a flickering moment; then, he's back to normal, rubbing my shoulder.
"You do not need to think that Souta; I'm already very proud of you. I just want you to understand what is rightfully yours. The woods, the mountains, the grasslands, the kingdoms—all of it."
"What about that red lighting man?"
He pauses. "What?"
"The mancer, the other thunder watcher. If me being a thunder watcher makes the world mine, does that mean for him, the world is—"
"No!" Masaru hisses, startling me. "No, it is not. He is an interloper. A slave who tries to rise above his place. His angel dust belongs rightfully to you."
"If only I could make him give it over," a sultry, feminine voice speaks, breaking our conversation. Masaru looks away from me with a different sort of smile—a smile of older men who desire different things.
I look at the woman who has ingratiated herself with Sorayvlad over the past few months. She is beautiful: no doubt about that. But I don't like her beauty. It makes me uncomfortable. There's something about her dark red hair and maroonish eyes that disturbs me.
She struts up to Masaru now, dusting off flakes of tree ash from her brocade.
"Thraevirula! Oh how I've missed you over the past few days," Masaru says. I look away as the two of them share a kiss.
I don't like her one bit.
My angel dust runs out at that moment, distracting me slightly. No longer can I hear the fading call of nature. I feel empty without it—like some primal sense of mine is missing.
I might not particularly like uncle's lectures of destiny, but I much prefer it to watching him fawn over… that woman.
I turn around when they're done, only to find Thraevirula whispering something into my uncle's ear. At first I think it is some lover's thing—but that conclusion is proven wrong when Masaru begins to frown.
Then, he sneers in anger.
"Oh Souta! Come over here for a bit, would you? I've got a task for you," Thraevirula says. Masaru is walking away slightly, muttering to himself. I look at my uncle for a moment too long before finally, reluctantly, stepping towards the woman. She greets me with a bright white grin, as if baring her fangs. "Don't be like that, Souta. If you listen like a good boy, I might even give you a reward."
"What is it Thraevirula?" I ask. Her name has always sounded odd to me. As odd as her place in our army at least. She's Masaru's lover, yet she advises him like a general counselor. It worries me. I don't want her taking advantage of my uncle.
But I listen regardless, because Masaru would want me to.
"There are some rather… problematic people making their way through the briars right now. I don't have a particular handle of their location, but I will soon. When I do, I'll need you and that angel dust which you wield so valiantly."
"Why?" I ask.
She smiles before putting her finger to her lips: "A lady never tells."