Kichi didn't care about anything besides getting food down her gullet. The match had completely drained her, leaving a bottomless pit at her core.

As promised at dinner for each day of the tournament, Whitebeard began his story. His words weren’t loud but filled the entire chamber, swirled around the vaulted ceiling and down the long tables of knights.

The Duke fingered pieces of pheasant into his mouth and watched Whitebeard speak.

***

Seventy years ago, the capital city was often besieged. King Nagamoto asked the Dragon Order to patrol the skies of the West. So, my order built a castle in the territory of Midbluffs.

I traveled the region on foot and learned the land in an intimate way that many of my higher-ranking brethren could not. Swooping over the land in an eagle wasn’t the same as stepping into the forests and caves, crossing the flats and hills, and meeting the creatures that dwell in the lands. I wasn’t jealous, even though my family bemoaned the fact that I should start at the bottom of the pecking order.

I became an ally of the land and knew many of the most powerful entities in the wilds. This propelled me from a lowly squire to a knight, and I earned the reputation as a man who cared as deeply about the realm itself as the people who lived there. I didn’t mind since I spent long stretches away from civilization.

No knight should ever trust the witch, but every young man makes a mistake. This I learned after befriending a witch who did care for her wood and the creatures therein. On my third visit, she gave me a gift in the form of a potion. And when I closed my hands around the concoction, it changed my life. Yes, it was a mistake, but would I change it if I could do it all again? I haven’t answered that question yet.

I showed my best friends, who were also squires in our teenage years. “This is a potion of intelligence.”

Sanekuni, a bookworm and possibly my favorite of the lot, looked at me. “What will you do with it?”

“Drink it.” And I down the contents right there and then. I'd like to say that it tasted good, but it didn’t. It tasted like medicine that a wooly cow had eaten and vomited back up.

You might think that a portion of intelligence would just make you know everything. That suddenly, I would know all of mathematics, or invent my own. I did have a peculiar urge to have people start counting from zero rather than one, but that was neither here nor there. At first, I thought it’d warn off. But then, gradually, I became more aware. I became aware of a multitude of minds as vast as the constellations in the sky.

This was how it felt: I was like a sky whale, a massive thing. But not a solid thing like that, but a cloud of minds. They weren’t weren't me, but a part of me. They were all the minds of the realm, as far as I can tell. I was a huge lumbering gargantuan.

Lumbering was probably not the right term. Imagine if you had to shout down the hall to get someone to move your leg. That you were some vast contraption that could only move from distant shouts or beacons. Well, that's kind of how it was. It took a while to focus, to turn my mind to the thing that every knight pondered back then: where was the Grail?

I turned my great mind toward the cup filled with creation’s first water. It was a black liquid, for the primordial spirits created it before there was a sunrise, and so it didn’t know how to interact with light. I searched for it for what seemed like ages, but I still didn't know where it was. However, I had a direction. And that direction was across the sea.

I brought my findings to the Dragon Order. I wanted to take an eagle and go find the grill, but this was during a dragon incursion, and many eagles died. There were few to go around.

The archknights, and those of high rank, left me and the remaining order behind and flew toward the sunset for land I had envisioned to exist. People came out to the streets to see the eagles stream over the capital.

I, on the other hand, took a galleon called the Palfrey. The ship set sail along the coast and around fingers of land before turning its bow towards an empty horizon. The crew was excited and scared, for no one had returned from such a voyage before.

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I felt dumb. Not only because the intelligence potion wore off, but because they left me behind and what chance did I have to find it before they did? If I had stayed on land it would’ve made no difference.

Once I found my sea legs, I enjoyed my time aboard the Palfrey. It's great square sales billowed and dragged the vessel across the wide ocean. There were many adventures of little consequence, and I haven’t the time to tell them all, not even the mutiny. But I will tell you of an island of some importance.

We dropped anchor and paddled a boat to shore. Facing the sea were ancient stones that may have once been faces that have been melted by eons. We hiked for a full day into the mountains

There, I found a lion being raised by a family of griffins. The lion followed me, for he wasn't happy. When his siblings grew older and their wings strong enough, they spent most of their day flying, and some even turned against him. They pecked at him with their beaks.

I didn't encourage the lion to follow me, but I found him stalking me while I was looking for coconuts. Kept a wary eye out and went for a drink of water deep in the island jungle. I noticed his eyes locked on me from the shadows of the undergrowth. Well, I thought he would charge me, but he just walked out and lay nearby in the sun.

As you can imagine, I was a little nervous. I had no idea what I had done to cause this lion to pick me. But he’d now spent considerable time nearby and never seemed like a threat.

That's when it happens. You see, before I had left, I'd been given the gift of prescience. It was given to me by none other than the father of the Good King when he brought me to the last wizard of the Old Empire. And so, I saw the lion dead in a pool of blood.

I thought it was worth a try to ask for help from my patron spirit. “Crann,” I said, “I know that I am far away, and I don't suspect your roots grow beneath the entire world, but if you can, let me understand this creature.”

The power was granted. I began to share an understanding with the lion. And I felt its loneliness. It was a terrible thing. You see, Griffins don't stay on a single Island; they fly over vast areas, so the lion could never really be family.

The understanding that passed between us was not in words but in feelings, images, and some kind of knowing. It's like a type of intuition, you know when you just understand something without even thinking about it.

It turned out the lion’s name was Stretch. It was an odd name for sure, but the image that went along with it was of him stretching in the sun, yawning.

The reason Stretch was raised by a group of griffins was that his mother passed away. And his father had grown very old and very senile. Supposedly, the old lion didn't even know who Stretch was anymore.

After determining that the island was uninhabited, we wandered in various directions. The next morning, I heard that the captain had gone missing. No one knew what to do, and many looked to him.

The company of men and I pushed to the very center of the island. We discovered the tracks of wolves. Now, it seemed very strange to find wolves and lions on a small island out in the ocean. But I’d encountered stranger things in the world.

Stretch slunk along next to us almost the entire time we hiked through dense jungle, over gargling streams, and up the mountain at the center.

We learned that what we mistook for a pack of wolves was only a single wolf doomed to roam the island indefinitely like ants caught in a spiral of death. However, the wolf seemed to have figured out a way to survive.

In the night, under a gibbous moon, I saw the wolf as it tried to kill Stretch, who was sound asleep. It wasn't my job to interfere, this island was not my domain, yet still I yelled out.

The lion opened its eyes and rolled just in time to keep the wolf's Jaws from clenching on his neck. They fought each other, jaws snapping. The lion, as you’d expect, outclassed the wolf. He bit the front left paw from the wolf, and the canine limped away into the night.

After that, the lion trusted me. A ruffled the lion's mane and searched the island with him. The lion was able to find the captain. Well, the body of the captain.

The poor fellow had died from a coconut landing on his head. At least it appeared that way under the tall tree. It was possible it was murder, but no one could ever prove it.

The new captain was John, and he and I got along well. He was neither knight nor nobility but was a learned man who played the lute. In the evenings, his music drifted from his cabin.

Stretch and I gazed out at the sea, which was like polished metal under the light of a gray sky. The lion wouldn’t bother the crew, but they kept their distance and even issued complaints to John. But they eventually accepted his presence.

This was the beginning of the adventure for Stretch, John, and I. We experienced times in the doldrums, but the lands beyond were strange and dangerous.

But those will be told at the next dinner.