"The education of a man is never complete until he dies."
-Robert E. Lee
...
...
Once upon a time, there was a girl. A girl who was tired of her nickname of "Zero", she sought power in order to live up to her proud family name. On the day of her summoning, she declared that she was prepared to sacrifice anyone, do anything, and she truly had meant it inside her heart. The depths of hell were nothing to this girl who wished to go and seize her destiny beyond the stars.
Now, as she lay in the courtyard, with her legs burning and her heart ready to give out, she thought that maybe it hadn't been such a good idea after all.
Napoleon sat on the grass, watching her recover from their run. Honestly, she was doing better than he had expected her to do. Anyone who exercises routinely knows that it is the second day of training which is always the hardest, and while she lay there dead to the world on this attempt, the fact that a girl whom had barely exercised before managed to run for 3 miles without stopping was really highly impressive. If she continued to do this routinely, there would be no doubt that she would be able to run, jump, and move like any proper fighter should. Whether someone like her, a petite girl, should be able to learn that was another matter, but Napoleon had to work with the partner he had, not the partner he actually wanted.
He quietly stood up, moved over her. Her face was filled with nothing more than exhaustion and pain, and for the moment that determination which had defined her character had vanished. Perhaps he had really pushed her too hard.
"Can you stand?"
Louise gave a snort which could have been interpreted as laughter, but then she slowly struggled to her feet. She stumbled, and was forced to learn on Napoleon's shoulder as the two stumbled off towards her room.
"I thought Emperors shouldn't show mercy, Bonaparte."
"That doesn't mean we can't award people whom did well, which you did. Remember that story I told you about the bridge, where I ordered my men to charge into certain death?"
"Yeah."
"When I finally negotiated with the defeated enemy, I ordered them to pay those whom had survived that battle with real gold and silver, not just coins. It was their reward for facing certain death and not failing me. An Emperor must demand the utmost from his men, but when they do, he must give them a magnificent award for fulfilling those demands.
But come. We both really could use a bath."
...
Napoleon whistled as he held a basket of dirty laundry, thinking about how he had once a legion of servants at his command to deal with trivial tasks like these while he conquered Europe. But the past was the past, and he rather liked talking to the maid whom he dropped them off with. Besides, he had a request for her.
"Good morning, Siesta."
The maid turned around her face, bur her hands continued scrubbing as she beamed at the greeting. Napoleon noticed that they were turning red from the soap and the hard washboard, and inwardly grimaced. Being a maid was always a tough job, and she'd likely lose her physical beauty from grime and hard labor within 12 years at most. A shame.
"Oh, hello Mr. Bonaparte! It looks like you have more laundry?"
The voice was gay even as she knew that he had delivered more work for him. Even Napoleon couldn't tell whether she was genuinely happy to see him or whether the tone of her voice was forced to hide her resentment from more scrubbing.
"Yes, unfortunately I do. But I also have another request."
"Sure, what is it?"
"What are you doing for the next few months anyway?"
Summer vacations were supposed to begin next month, but in light of the Fouquet disaster, Old Osmond apparently made a declaration that summer vacation was to begin one month earlier, and so granted additional free time to the noble students. Most of the students, including Kirche and Guiche, had headed home to meet their families whom were all dying to see their children and personally insure their safety after the tragedy. However, some had chosen to stay at the Academy over the vacations. Napoleon had seen Tabitha wandering the academy with a book in hand as usual, and Louise had also for some reason chosen to stay. However, she had not actually made any plans for the months, and so Napoleon had decided to come up with something by himself.
"Oh, I'll be here for another week, doing my job. But then I'll be going back to visit my family."
"Your family? Do they live in a distant village?"
"Oh yes, it's a place called Tarbes. It's a wonderful place. I sometimes like to head out in the fields in the morning and just look and look and look."
"Would you mind if Louise and I came with you?"
Siesta said nothing, but the quizzical expression on her face was enough of a statement.
"Well, Louise and I will be staying at the Academy, but we don't have much in the way of plans. And I'd really like to visit a pea-, I mean farming village. Would there be any problems?"
Siesta simply stared at Napoleon for a while before slowly phrasing her response.
"Don't tell me….. Are you interested in the Dragon's Raiment?"
"The what?"
"It's the treasure of Tarbes, the heirloom of my family. It doesn't work like it's supposed to, but we've had a couple people try to buy it off of us, but we aren't so humble that we would do such a thing. I- I mean, I would never think you're the kind of person who would do that, Napoleon!"
"No, of course not. Anyways, I've never heard of the Dragon's Raiment. I just want to see a peasant village, and drag Valliere out of that musty academy and into a place which no doubt has some good air. So, could we come?"
Siesta stammered, hemmed and hawed a bit, before nodding.
"Okay! Sure! My family is big so the house is crowded, but there's always room for a couple more for a while!"
As Napoleon smiled and thanked her, he inwardly gave a completely different grin. He had known, of course. He knew about Siesta's situation, how she would be returning, her village, the Dragon's Raiment, he had known about all of that. Marteau was always proud to talk of his best helper, though he had initially wagged a finger at Napoleon when he had asked about Siesta, saying that Siesta needed a younger man, whatever that meant. He did truly wish to see a peasant village, but the Dragon's Raiment was also something which posed great interest.
Of course, he'd have to actually go persuade Louise of this course of plans. It shouldn't be that difficult, but knowing how things seemed to go in this land, who knows?
...
The Prince of Wales visibly shook upon reading the letter that Agnes had given him.
"My…cute cousin is to be married to the Emperor of Germania?"
Agnes gave no response to those words. Finding him had been an incredible pain. Given how badly the royal family had been crushed by Reconquista, the name that the Albion nobility had chosen for their alliance, it was probably a miracle that she had managed to find him at all. If her ship hadn't just happened to get captured by the flagship of the Royal Navy, she likely would be wandering around Albion without a care in the world, wondering where she was supposed to go next.
Wales sat down, his hands over his blonde head. While it was clear that he wanted to just release his emotions, he did not. Such a move would be unbecoming of the last member of the Royal Family. Instead, he pulled a jewelry box out from his desk, opened it, and removed an envelope. It was the love letter which Agnes was under order to obtain. If the Albion rebels obtained it, they would likely use it to prevent the upcoming marriage between the Germanian Emperor and her Majesty, and it was for that reason that she had received her special mission.
"Alright…this is the letter that the Princess gave to me in the past. It is under your care now, and make sure she takes great care of it."
And with those words of the prince, Agnes took the letter. She noted how old and tattered it was, how many times it must have been read by the prince. She wondered how long the relation between the Prince of Wales and her Majesty had lasted, and paused about how the cruelties of politics prevented the joys and happiness of young love. It really was terrible indeed.
And then she strode to the fireplace and contemptuously chucked the letter in.
"Wh-WHAT ARE YOU DOING?"
The prince rose up with a scream of shock, only for Agnes to pull out a pistol to prevent him from charging forward and dragging what was left of the letter out of the fire. Her voice dripped with annoyance, the first sign that she, the Captain of the Musketeers, was upset over such a secret and yet utterly stupid mission.
"What you should have done the minute you realized that your side wasn't going to maintain control over Albion."
"But- but you're disobeying Henrietta's command! What kind of captain are you, who can't listen to her?"
"What command?"
Agnes's eyes never flinched as she continued.
"Her exact orders were 'Obtain the letter, and prevent Reconquista from laying their hands on it even if you must give your life to do so.' Reconquista will never get their hands on the letter now, and so I have done my duty and can go back to my original task of finding a thief and murderer. Perhaps she did intend for me to give the letter back to her. She didn't explicitly say so, and there's no reason for me to do so otherwise especially since she will be soon married to another man."
She holstered the pistol, her back still covering the fireplace.
"But forget the letter, since this business is done and over with. Let's talk about you and your plans. We both know that what's left of the Royal Army at this point has no hope of defeating Reconquista, especially since their head, Oliver Cromwell, will be commanding this force personally in the upcoming attack. So what do you intend to do, Crown Prince of Wales?"
As the prince watched the letter, his last link of communication with the princess, fade into ashes, he gave a sad, bitter smile.
"We will go down in a blaze of glory. Even if we have to sacrifice one of our own lives, we'll be able to take some of theirs in return."
"What do you intend to actually accomplish with that, Prince? It makes no difference to you whether the Reconquista loses another three hundred soldiers or another three hundred thousand soldiers, as you will still lose. You could still fly to Tristain. Why do you refuse?"
"You know perfectly well why. If Germania discovers the affair between me and the princess-"
"Are you telling me that you would not be able to contain your emotions for her like a proper ruler if you went to Tristain? That is less than I would expect from an ordinary human, much less a ruler like yourself."s
The Prince looked down, his face turning slowly beet-red at hearing Agnes's words as she continued.
"You are hosting a dinner party soon as a final celebration, correct?"
The Prince continued to look down as he mumbled his assent.
"I will not be attending. I will be heading to one of your smaller ships, the Hobbes. I will wait there for 90 minutes, and then I will return to Tristain with that ship. I can tell that the clouds will be especially strong tonight, so detection from the Reconquista will prove more difficult. Come there if you wish to flee and preserve your life and your war against that organization."
"But, you're ordering me to escape and abandon my men!"
"Order? You are a prince, I cannot order you. I can offer you a choice. And since you are a prince, you are also a military commander, and you should know that if you die, the Royal family will have been utterly and finally defeated in this war. If you cannot sacrifice three hundred men, three hundred men whom you know will not even be alive anyways by tomorrow night, then maybe Albion will be better off under the Reconquista. Or are you telling me that you've waged this entire war while refusing to send men under conditions when they would likely die?"
"That's…"
He wanted to say that was different. But in a sense, she was right. Just to get these three hundred men to this harbor, he had left an entire regiment to buy time against the full Army of the Reconquista. Was this so much worse?
"I'll leave you to your decision, Prince, and I'll wait for you. It's up to you to decide which is more important. The lives of three hundred men who will die anyway or the chance to bring Albion back under your hands and not that of a man like Cromwell."
...
For once, things had gone smoothly. The fact that summer vacation had arrived so rapidly meant that Louise had formed no plans. As a result, she quickly accepted Napoleon's plan without hesitation, and she seemed particularly interested in seeing this Dragon's Raiment for herself as well.
"So, Siesta, what can you tell us about it?"
The three were riding on horseback carrying packs of food and blankets. Napoleon also had Derflinger strapped to his side. Siesta seemed to hesitate before she answered.
"Well, it's supposed to be a powerful wind magic artifact that lets the user fly without casting spells."
"Wind magic? Siesta, I thought your family wasn't capable of casting spells."
"Well, no we can't." Siesta admitted to Louise's inquiry. "It's something that my great-grandfather had with him when he first arrived, and we don't know where he actually came from. He said that he was using it to fly, and somehow he ran into a freak thunderstorm and appeared in this village."
She sighed and looked up at the clouds.
"I remember him meeting once when I was very little. It is my first memory. He always seemed to spend time with the Dragon's Raiment as despite my description, it doesn't actually fly. I remember him making some potion in an attempt to make it fly, but the potion set on fire. He was very angry about it."
It appeared that she was about to continue talking about the Dragon's Raiment, but all of a sudden the horses began to whinny and rear up. All three realized that the horses could sense that something was there, probably hostile. Siesta and Louise ended up dismounting while the horses pranced about, and only Napoleon seemed to be able to keep his under control.
"Siesta, what's going on?" Louise asked.
The maid seemed to be nervous, her eyes flitting about before finally answering.
"I believe we've run into a bunch of orcs."
"What's an orc"?
Both Siesta and Louise gaped at Napoleon's question, and the latter muttered "Of course" to herself. However, they never got to answer, as the ugly creatures showed themselves.
Napoleon was confused. It looked like a pig, with a horn on the top, wearing incredibly flimsy bronze armor and a sword which even the lowest blacksmith in his France would have been insulted to see come out of his forge. But as shabby it was, the sword remained a sword, and Napoleon guessed that this creature must be the equivalent of bandits in his home world. Still, since his pistol only had one shot, it was probably time to use Derflinger for the first time.
"For Brimir's sake, draw me out already, partner!"
He grabbed the reins of his horse with his right hand and pulled the sword out with his left before turning to Louise and Siesta. The runes activated, and once again that feeling of youth appeared in his brain and heart.
"Stay together. Do not split apart from each other no matter what. Understand?"
They nodded, and Napoleon kicked his horse. The same applied to him. There were only five of the orcs, but if he strayed too far from those two, or if Siesta and Louise split up, there might be more surrounding the three who would split them up and overwhelm them. Still, it was clear as he swung his sword and sliced the head off of one that both the runes and sword were really powerful. As cheap as the orc's blade was, he shouldn't have been able to just slash right through the metal like it was butter. He also noticed that as strange as these creatures were, their blood was still red.
Three of the orcs charged at him, and Napoleon counter-charged. They didn't have the sense to group themselves like one is supposed to when facing cavalry, and thus it took only three slashes before they were done, all whom quickly and efficiently lost their heads. Wait, three?
He wheeled his horse around, and saw the last orc charging at Siesta and Louise as it appeared it had slipped past him. Siesta cowered, but while Louise was clearly afraid, she raised her wand and pointed it at the creature.
"Fireball!"
...
The three travelers finally arrived at the small peasant village as they tramped into sight. They had not said a word since the orc attack, but as they crossed a sign indicating that they had finally entered Tarbes, Napoleon spoke up.
"I have been in many battles, so naturally the sight of soldiers covered in blood is nothing to me. But all the same, you two are really going to have to wash hard to get the orc blood off you."
Siesta blushed, and Louise grimaced. It was clear that the latter was seriously regretting wearing a white shirt after the orc had just... disappeared into a pile of guts and blood.
"But seriously, Louise, how the heck did you do that Explosion? It's not the first time you've done them, obviously, but that's the first I've seen one that, well, violent."
Louise's dark expression didn't change a bit after hearing Napoleon's question.
"I don't know, really. It was different. I felt different as I felt the orc approaching and as I casted the spell. I think it was the intent, that unlike before, I really, really wanted to save myself.
Maybe Void magic has something to do with how I'm feeling. I never told you, but I did the summoning spell four times on that day where you came, but the first three were complete failures. It was only on the last one, when I was completely desperate for something to appear, that you appeared."
Napoleon didn't say anything, but he couldn't help but wonder what a terrible thing Void Magic was. The power of the greatest magic in the land was dependant on the emotional state of a little girl? This would surely be a problem for both himself and her country, but for now he really did not possess a solution for how to deal with it. It would have to be arrived someday.
Furthermore, as the group entered the village, the Emperor was fairly surprised by the state of the peasants he met. They were hardly rich, but they were significantly better off compared to the peasants he had known under the Bourbons. While he had no way of making certain, it appeared that a fairly large group of them appeared to own their own lands as opposed to his world. Their methods of agriculture were absolutely hideously primitive compared to what he knew, but as the lowest classes of society they were wealthier than he had expected – there were some cases of pinched faces and beggars, but only a few.
Siesta's father, a bald man whose eyes twinkled despite haven seeing better days, had no objections to letting a noblewoman and a friend of the maid see the Dragon's Raiment after they all took a long bath and changed their clothes. Having given her daughter the key, the three of them walked through a dank cave, and then towards the old building that held the Dragon's Raiment.
Siesta unlocked the double doors, and then Napoleon and her grabbed one each.
"One…two…three!"
The doors slid open. And as Siesta smiled at what was inside, Louise and Napoleon gasped in shock.
It was big. That's the first thing they thought. This thing, made out what appeared to be metal, absolutely dwarfed all three of them. Napoleon could tell that it was hollow inside and from the windows guessed that perhaps people were supposed to be there. It looked like it could fit 200, maybe more. The center of it was almost shaped like a tube, with two planks that stretched out to the side in the center. These planks each had something which looked like a windmill attached to it.
But it was what was on its side that was the real shocker to him. There were words printed on the side of the Dragon's Raiment. But it was not the Helgekinian alphabet, it was the Latin alphabet. The Emperor remained in silence as he looked at the clear white words which were printed on the machine.
Nord Noratlus.
"Well, there's two parts to the inside," Siesta spoke up. "Would you like to see inside? It's the back that's always been the weird part about this plane."
The three had been watching the device from the side, but they now moved to the back. And once again Louise and Napoleon stood in surprise as they looked in the back.
There were books inside, hundreds upon hundreds of books. A vast pile of books lay inside what appeared to be the interior of this machine, neatly stacked and organized into various shelves. But as Louise moved inside and looked at the books, a puzzled expression rose to her face. She couldn't read any of them. They were written in some strange language, one which she didn't recognize in the slightest. The confusion on her face was something which Siesta noticed, and she apologetically shrugged as she stood outside, waiting for them to come out.
"It's always been the strangest part about this plane. Great-grandfather apparently could read these, but we never found anyone else who could. He always valued them highly, so we thought we had to keep these books as the Dragon's Raiment. Should we go look at the front? Great-grandfather said that's where you're supposed to make it fly."
Louise jumped down, turned towards Napoleon, and then stopped. He was holding a book, studying it, and rapidly flipping through the pages, far too rapidly to read any of them properly. And then he abruptly dropped it.
His shoulders started shaking, and Louise was thinking about to calling to him to make sure he was all right. Then it started.
"Heeheeheee…HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAA!"
It was unrestrained, unrefined, an absolutely exulting, powerful laugh which did not even remotely try to hide its limitations. Siesta, whom had never seen him laugh before, fidgeted as she didn't know what to make of it, and neither did Louise, whom had seen him laugh, but not like this. Then he abruptly began looking, grabbing through every book, randomly, without rhyme or reason, but treating each one as if it was his son as he flipped through its pages and then put it back. And the crazy unrestrained laughter never stopped, nor did the look of an insane exhilarated joy leave his face. Meanwhile, as he glanced through book after another, the first one that he had looked through sat there on the floor, with its title, author, and date of publication clear as day for anyone whom could read the Latin alphabet.
Achtung – Panzer!
By Heinz Guderian
1937.
And so a French military transport plane, containing the library of over a hundred years after the death of its Emperor, fell in to his hands. As Napoleon looked over his gift, he continued to laugh. Destiny had given him a second chance. He had failed to conquer Europe, but armed with this gift of knowledge, there was no way he could fail to conquer Helgekinia.