The young boy who Lars had seen from the tower ran over and hugged him, "You saved me! Thank you, thank you, thank you! That was absolutely terrifying, what was that thing?"

Lars held his hands up awkwardly, then decided to gingerly hug the kid back. "Uh, you're welcome. I don't really know what that was, but I got it." He wanted to say, "You're safe now", but it struck him that he was currently part of a Haverdash attack on this city.

The kid looked up at Lars's face while still hugging him, and Lars was shocked to see that he looked like Lars did as a boy, "Are you the Haverdash deserter I heard about? I thought you were crossing the desert with the others!"

"Deserter? I just got here. There's a Haverdash living in Tubarai?"

"Yea, university students found him! He doesn't do anything bad and doesn't drink poison!"

Lars's heart skipped a beat. "Is he a bitter, empty person?"

"No way! The king honored him for being super helpful!"

Lars pushed the kid off of him, stepping away and falling onto his butt. "Maybe he has wine you don't know about?"

"Nuh uh. They kept him in prison for a week to test him."

"A week?" Lars shook his head. "I tried to go without wine once… for two days. I didn't end up doing it."

"Well we can't all be heroes, I guess you're just weak willed compared to him. But again, thank you for saving me."

"We can't- I want to be a hero! I don't know who this deserter is, but there's no way he's as strong as me, in will or power!"

"Uh, okay, then how come he is helping us from the awful Haverdash, and you look confused?"

"Maybe you don't understand the Haverdash!"

"Uh, yea I do. They're bullies. They feel big when they pick on people smaller than them."

"It's not that simple, there's glory, and exercising willpower, and feelings bigger than what a human can feel.

"That sounds like an adult way of complicating things. I know a thing about that, my dad is a politician. He tells me that he always makes things more complicated than they are, because it makes it harder to argue against him, and makes him seem smarter."

Lars snorted as a cynical laugh, "How old are you?"

"Eleven. Why?"

"You sound older than that."

"Honestly, I’m not very smart, but since we made eye contact I just feel way more knowledgeable and sure of myself. I am strong for my age though. I used to pick on people weaker than me, but my mom explained that a good person uses their ability to lift up those weaker than them, they don't show it off by putting others down."

"Like the Haverdash?"

"Yea, like the Haverdash! Except the deserter of course, he's brave."

"He's brave… I'm brave. That's me, I'm a courageous person."

"Then are you going to help us against the Haverdash? You have a bottle of poison on your belt, you can't go without that, can you?"

Lars glared at the kid, making him back away slowly. "Stay here, kid."

"But the Haverdash are attacking! I need to get a weapon, I need to get to safety!"

"No, stay here!" The particles that made up the kid and his surroundings stop merging with other things, freezing in place. Then Lars noticed that a lot of eyes were on them, people having gathered to watch this Haverdash deep inside the city. "You too, stay where you are until I get back." Everyone watching froze. He looked up at the tower and saw magicians looking down from the hole in the side. “Don't you do anything either, I want this kid undisturbed while I'm gone!" They froze.

Lars ran to the walls where the Haverdash were attacking from, speeding between houses faster than the humans could respond to a Haverdash-looking figure running past them. Lars reached a breach in the wall where Haverdash were pouring in, and grabbed one who had been chasing down a human, "Who is the Haverdash most knowledgeable about visions and glory and things that we have here?"

The Haverdash looked at the escaping human and tried to pull out of Lars's grip, but found it unbreakable. "Probably the general, now let me go!"

"General Ghaulos?" Asked Lars bitterly.

"Who else? Now let me go!"

Lars let go, but when the Haverdash started running off, Lars froze him in place. “No, you know what? Nobody move until I get back. All of you stop.”

The Haverdash around the breach froze, then a rock being hurled by a catapult froze, and arrows that entered the area froze in their flight. Lars ran down the hill away from the castle, and then up toward the Haverdash camp. He went to Ghaulos’s tent, and found the general standing outside of it and glaring. “Lars, you’d better have a good explanation.”

“You too. I have questions, and I know you’re not the most helpful, but I need you to pretend you’re Moxey for a minute.”

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

“Absurd! You get back down there and do your job!”

“Listen for once in your life!

“No, you listen!”

Lars froze Ghaulos, “You listen! If you value your life you will try to be helpful!” He sneered at Ghaulos’s scowling face. He sat Ghaulos down and grabbed his face, moving it into a friendly smile. Lars pulled up another chair and sat opposite him, “Alright, so explain to me why a life where we have to drink wine to be satisfied is better than a normal human life, where you can potentially be content with what you have. Moxey explained this to me before, but I’m wondering again, and I don’t remember exactly what he said.”

Lars unfroze Ghaulos’s head so that he could speak. His expression immediately reverted to a scowl, “You’re pathetic.”

Lars froze his head again. “Not like that, be helpful. Let’s try again.”

Ghaulos’s head unfroze, “You’re asking about simple things that you should have understood easily from your first taste of Haverdash wine. Human feelings are insignificant compared to what we feel; they could not even survive such intense feelings.”

Lars waited for more. “And? You know when a human constantly eats food and gets fat, they don’t praise him for being able to eat so much more. They call him a glutton, someone who can’t control themselves. So what do you think shows greater willpower, being able to endure strong feelings, or being content without them?”

“‘Content’, what a weak word. A Haverdash has no desire for such things. The one able to endure strong feelings clearly has the greater willpower, and is the superior being. That's as simple as the creature that can lift more being superior because its muscles can handle more pressure."

"Being able to lift more doesn't mean you always should though, that would break down the muscles. Wouldn't constantly experiencing your maximum break down the mind? It may not break down so that it fails to lift anymore, but it can fail in other ways."

"If it doesn't fail to lift anymore, it didn't fail. It simply changed in a way that fit its growth. You're repeating human weakness, next you'll probably tell me that you don't want to experience pain, because it's too 'unpleasant'."

"It is! I can handle more pain than you, but I'll tell you, remembering what it was like to just be happy, I like that better. Why, if I can face anything bravely, should I be constantly afraid anyway?"

"Because it's strong feeling, the whole reason for living is to experience such things!"

"You're going to have to explain that extremely well, because it doesn't seem that way to me. It seems to me that a content person can get more out of a small experience than a Haverdash can out of the most extreme high."

"That's utter nonsense, like saying you can get more calories out of less food. Experience is what you want, so you cannot get more of what you want from less experience."

"I don't want to be sad. I don't want to be in pain. I don't want to feel guilty, and most of all I don't want to be ashamed because I was a coward doing the wrong thing. I want to be happy, and that because I am proud of myself."

"As a human you couldn't possibly understand the ways Haverdash does. The best you can do is grope at the shadows, but it's far better than the pitiful human existence you once had. Unless you want to fall from your mighty status, you'd better get out there and grope."

Lars sighed, "Wrong answer, Ghaulos."

He left the tent, with Ghaulos frozen behind him. He ran back down from the camp, and up to the castle. He passed through the still-frozen assailants and defenders, coming back to the boy he'd saved from that demonic force.

The boy unfroze, and Lars told him, "I think a lot of doubts I've had throughout the years are coming to a head, and while I considered the answers I was given good, I can't answer them now. There was someone I walked with who seemed to always know what to say, but he isn't around now. I could just assume he would have the answer, but if my doubts are real, then I can't satisfy my soul with that. I'm thinking of throwing years of my life to the wind, and turning on the Haverdash. What do you think of that?"

The boy smiled, "Standing up to the people in charge of you, because you know they're wrong, and admitting you were wrong, while standing up for people in need? That sounds pretty courageous to me."

Lars smiled back, "Yea? Well, I haven't felt courageous for a while, just powerful. You can be courageous and powerful, but I definitely haven't been doing that. A lot of people in need died to people who are never satisfied because of me. I'm going to stop this attack. You want to help me?"

"Huh? Me?"

"Yes, you! You've been great, come help me!" Though the particles that made up the boy had been frozen moments ago, they suddenly became vibrant and active. They flowed faster than ever, filing the boy with energy, and making him instinctively bounce several feet in the air to test how he felt. Lars then turned to all that he had frozen around them, "All of you, come help me!" They went from frozen to vibrant and alive, bouncing up and down and having the time of their lives. "Let's drive out the Haverdash!"

He ran to the gates with the humans behind him, unfreezing all the assailants and defenders there. The Haverdash tried to surge forward, finally able to continue their attack, but the humans ran them over instead. The humans moved so fast and with such strength that even the unarmed ones would confidently run down a Haverdash and slap its weapon out of its hand before twisting its head with a fatal blow.

Where there wasn't room in the gates or the breaches they didn't wait for each other to go through first, scaling the walls in seconds instead. They ran down the confused Haverdash outside the castle walls and up to the encampment, raiding tents and killing the inhabitants.

Lars went straight to Ghaulos's tent to kill him, but when he paused to enjoy the moment he'd get to kill the Haverdash he personally disliked the most, a human rushed past him and knocked Ghaulos's head off.

Lars shrugged, stepping outside and looking around at a host of celebrating humans. They weren't celebrating a conquest; they were celebrating being alive. Though Lars didn't feel nearly as strong an emotion as he could get from something like Haverdash wine, he had to say, he liked this feeling better.

He looked up and took a deep breath, as if experiencing something he’d gone a long time without. Blowing in from behind the castle was a snowy mist, and in that mist a vision formed. He saw the one who he’d seen many times before, who his massless particles would merge with, and he saw the woman he’d seen once before. Only, they were not silhouettes this time. He saw them clearly, he saw their faces. Lars’s eyes welled up, “Andal… you’re alive?” He saw glimpses of Andal’s life: riding long distances and fighting Haverdash, healing, joking with Jeva, fighting Manier, and fighting Moxey.

Lars fell on his knees, “Oh Andal… I’ve been so wrong, I’ve been fighting on the other side…”

He saw Andal in a snowy field, riding a horse to a human city. Then, he saw a gleam outside of the vision, and he knew where Andal was. “I’m coming, I’m going to see you again, and I’m going to meet your friend Jeva.”

The humans around Lars lifted him up in their celebrations, cheering for him and throwing alcohol over him. Lars jumped down, “Hold on, stop! I hate to tell you this, but I have to go North.”

They quieted down, hurt and confused, but then one of them raised his fist, “And so you should! Stop their advance, break their lines! Save humanity!” Others looked at that man with unsure faces, but he told them, “We have family that’s already fled across the desert, will we leave them to unknown lands?” He turned back toward Lars, “You’ve saved us and our king. Thank you, noble Haverdash. We will remember you forever, what is your name?”

“I’m Lars,” and he bowed the way he had been shown to greet people as a child.

The humans reacted quickly, bowing lower than Lars. “Then Lars, may all nobility be yours, and every good thing! Also, Ratam be with you.”

Lars stood straight and smiled, “Thank you.” He looked back at the vision in the snowy mist, wanting to see Andal’s face again before he took off, but he saw Trots. His smile faded. He saw Trots as a bird of prey, soaring among the clouds and looking down on towns below. He saw vulnerable targets wherever he went, and while they were wiped away in the wind of his passing, he had not taken notice of them. He sought a specific target, and was searching under all of heaven for it. Then the vision left Trots. He saw Andal and Jeva again, but they were glowing red hot like embers.

Without another word, Lars ran North as fast as he could.

*

Trots walked into the square of another town, one of many he’d been to that day. Night had fallen, but every human opened the doors to their houses and walked to the square as if compelled. Trots spoke to them, “I am looking for Andal, Jeva, and Tyrene. They killed someone dear to me, and should die in turn. If any of you know where they are, or have heard any information regarding their location, tell me now.” He scanned their faces, but saw nothing. “If you have any clue where they could have gone, any hint or hunch, tell me now.”

One of them said, “Tyrene was going down to Tiermac, last we-”

“I killed your nominees, Andal, Jeva, and Tyrene weren’t there!” He scanned the crowd again, “Oh, Tyrene wasn’t a nominee? He was a diplomat, with no experience in combat. Then, I am not looking for Tyrene. The other two were nominees, Andal and Jeva, does nobody know where they could have gone?”

The town had nothing to say.

Trots sighed, “At least I learned a little here. If you cannot deliver Andal and Jeva to me, I have no reason for this town to exist any more.”

A pulse came from the moon, and the air grew thicker. It felt like a liquid as they breathed, and it weighed down heavily on them. Trots leaped into the air and flew away, the townsfolk drowning where they stood behind him.