"...You did your best, brother. Worry not. I have returned now. We can do our best together," the knight said. "I have failed you in the world. I did not manage to beco as strong as I intended to. So many battles, brother. So much lost. I ought to have brought you new allies. Do not feel the burden of our waning strength yourself, for I have been unable to do my part properly."
"How do you see the Stormfront, in returning?"
"...Changed," the knight said. "I am unsure in what direction."
"War. Much war. How much news were you able to steal?"
"The fact of the war, but not much of what has occurred during it," the knight said.
"A blessing, that, I think. I will not burden you with it straightaway. You will see for yourself. What of the rest of the world? The Syndrans, and the Yarmdon, and the Verna?"
"The Yarmdon find their way through darkness as well. Unrest. Cruelty seems to be the true strength of arms there now. Only the most cruel make their nas heard. A youth called Vol... I followed him for so ti. A great storm cloud he is. So much so that the Yarmdon King himself turned against him, for fear of what he would do. Tainted by Pandora. He was chased as far as the Syndran lands."
"A youth blessed by Pandora?" His comrade asked.
"More so than many," the knight said, shuddering at the mory. "I witnessed it with my own eyes. He makes goblins of the corpses of n. Hobgoblins. Rumour has it even Ogres do battle for him."
"Dark ons," his comrade said. "But I wonder if there is light to be had here, after all. For without us, without the Order, a seed of Pandora was struck down. A mighty powerful seed indeed. Ah, I said I would not burden you too soon with talk of the country... but this is hope I speak with, truly brother... you must trust . The gloom sits in my voice, but do not misunderstand, I believe this to be a ti of hope."
"Then speak to of hope, brother," the knight said. "I feel my own hope waning in my own company. Only now, in your presence, do I begin to feel it again."
"Tiberius," his comrade said.
"Ah, that youth. King Wyndon’s experint."
"He was unleashed. Pandora found him in his confinent. He brought her wrath upon the Stormfront, and saw her poison unleashed," his comrade said. "Queen Asabel – a mighty fire she was. Lord Blackwell, ever a servant of Claudia, though misguided, I have to say. Karstly... Karstly was promising, but dangerous, near corrupt. He needed guidance. And young Skullic as well, an honourable man. Children of Pandora, far too many lost."
"Powerful n," the knight said, awed, and chilled all in one. "Tiberius slew them all? We are in danger, then. You still speak of hope?"
"I do, for the young man that slew him. Oliver Patrick. King Patrick. A peasant, brother."
"A peasant!?" The knight said. "What say you, brother, when you speak such contradictions. You insult the man as a peasant, when he ensured victory for us against such a foe?"
"I speak only of his true birth," the man said, nodding. "I had him watched, and investigated, and he is that."
"Claudia... Claudia allowed him to climb all that way? From a peasant, to a King?" The knight said.
"To ensure victory against Tiberius, he made himself that."
"To what purpose? That’s corruption, brother! A dangerous thing," the knight said, outraged. "One can not take progress for oneself, it has to be given."
"So too did we think," his comrade said. "So too did we think... but his was not a corrupt thing, not in the mont. How could it be, when he saw even our Erson Prince Hendrick and our General Fitzer – his very enemies – inspired to fight alongside him? Inspired, not goaded. The evidence of Claudia’s purity in it."
"Still... it’s... unnatural..."
"Indeed," his comrade said, sighing. "Indeed, and I fear for him. I fear for the door that he has accidentally opened. The world that he has plunged himself into. That young man that he was in that mont, who had the courage to turn that handle, and throw himself into such a world..."
"Now he must be that young man all the ti," the knight finished for him.
His comrade smiled, delighted. "Even after all these years, brother, we still share the sa mind. You understand as well as I. To cross a Boundary, especially in those first instances, it is not such a rosy thing. It is a burden. And he has crossed a Boundary, as clearly as we know it."
"For Boundaries exist in all things, even if we know them not by the sa na, we feel their presence," the knight said, nodding.
"Have we learned the sa things, on different roads?" His comrade said, impressed. "I had thought that realization to be sothing that I had acquired with so difficulty."
The knight smiled sadly. "I found difficulty in enduring it as well. The Boundaries of Claudia that hold us from our progress in combat, from greater realms of achievent. Naturally, we Stormfronters knew to na that. But the other Boundaries, the many flowing streams that run through the rest of this world that we live in... There are so many more realms than combat. The Boundary he crossed, to find the strength of heart to be a King, not out of desire, but out of naturalness – he crossed a Boundary that rendered him a different creature entirely."
"Indeed. Do we call it a Boundary of spirit? A Boundary of person? I know not, for the realm one would need to change in, to render such a thing possible. It borders on magic."
A loud snort could be held from the old man when the knight’s comrade ntioned magic, but the knight was far too focused on his conversation to see him chastised for it.
"Brother, to endure that..." the knight said. "We all wish for progress, in following Claudia, progress in all realms. But sotis the burden of opening one of those doors, and falling into it... That ought to be too much. He has entered into a different realm, with a different gravity, a different pressure. It is one thing to maintain enough strength in an instant, to confront a foe, but that young man would need to maintain that sa level of strength that he confronted Tiberius with and constantly, lest he be torn apart."
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