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Standing among the crowd of villagers, Ignatious wore a troubled expression as he looked from the young man to the ’older brother’ beside him.

The pair of vampires had arrived in the village along with Lady Ashlynn, but even though the Mother of Trees had invited them down to stand at Ollie’s side, Thane held back, saying that this was a moment for witches, even if it was also Ollie’s vigil of knighthood.

"Why is it that you’re the only one here who doesn’t look worried?" Ignatious asked as he studied the calm, confident expression on Thane’s deceptively youthful face.

"Because I know young Ollie better than anyone else here," Thane said, his amber eyes twinkling in the flickering light of the lanterns carried by the villagers. "I know him even better than Lady Ashlynn does, though that may change once he completes this trial of witchcraft."

"Don’t look down on Ollie for growing up in the kitchens," Thane said confidently. "He grew up believing that knights embodied the greatest ideals a man could ever aspire to and that they were unstoppable champions, capable of achieving anything. He won’t fall short of that ideal now that he’s on the verge of becoming a knight himself. "

"I was a woodcutter’s son, you know," Ignatious reminded the vampire knight.

"I know what it means to come from humble beginnings and to look up at lofty figures as though they were paragons of virtue.

I used to think the same way about the priests who took in orphans and preached to the masses.

That they were good and godly men, dedicated to the ideals of the Holy Lord of Light and willing to dedicate their lives to helping all of us meet our struggles. "

Now, he knew better. The Church’s charity never bled the treasury dry and never lifted the masses out of their daily struggles.

It provided just enough support to sustain the faith in the masses, creating the illusion that the Church cared but that its power was limited and unable to overturn the life of struggle led by the common man.

In reality, Ignatious had seen the halls that had been covered in gold and the coffers filled with jewels in the vaults of the Holy City.

He’d watched the commoners endure famine while the kitchens serving the Inquisition never lacked for meat or bread.

Always, there was a reason for the excess and the unfairness, and Ignatious had believed in those excuses until Lady Nyrielle tore him away from the life he knew and forced him to see the world through different eyes.

"You and Ollie are different, though. You lost your ideals," Thane pointed out before placing a comforting hand on the younger vampire’s shoulder.

"And you experienced a greater struggle than a hundred men combined in order to find your way back to the ideals of your faith. You’ve come full circle in your journey. "

"Ollie’s feet are still planted firmly at the beginning of his journey," Thane said. "He still believes that knights are great champions of virtues, and he’s willing to work as hard as it takes to become one of them. He never accepts that something is too hard or gives up because something is impossible because he believes that a knight could accomplish any of the tasks he’s been set to, so if he wants to be a knight, then doing the impossible is the lowest bar he has to leap over. "

"You’re saying that he’ll succeed, no matter how hard this trial is," Ignatious said. "Just because he believes that a knight could succeed at the trial? And because he is going to be a knight, he must be capable of doing it?"

"No," Thane said, shaking his head. "You’re close, but what you’re describing is the sort of self-delusion that affects the sons of countless noblemen and knights. They believe that they can do things because they are already knights," he said, adding extra emphasis to the word ’already.’

"Ollie isn’t a knight yet, so he’ll expend endless effort to achieve the impossible, because he thinks that a knight could succeed. Therefore, since he wants to be a knight, he has to work as hard and as long as it takes, because a real knight would never fail."

"That’s... Naive," Ignatious said, returning his gaze to the struggling young man surrounded by the witches of his coven. "But also very pure. I pray that he’ll be able to keep that purity in the days to come."

"If I know Ollie," Thane said with a smile. "He’ll replace the capabilities of a knight with whatever he imagines a witch is capable of doing, and then he’ll strive to be even greater, believing that he isn’t good enough and that another witch would be capable of easily accomplishing the things that he struggles to achieve.

It will be years before he realizes that he’s walked further on his road than many witches will in their entire lives. "

"This is a big part of what makes Ollie so extraordinary," Thane said. "While Mistress Nyrielle was away, Ollie dedicated every waking moment he had, and several that he didn’t, to the challenges I put in front of him. Caring for the refugees and building this village would have been enough of a challenge for men twice his age, but he never stopped trying to do better for these people than he’d done before. "

"During the summer, I only had a few hours of darkness each night to tend to the Vale, but every night, Ollie napped between dinner and sunset so that he could come visit me.

For at least an hour every night, he came with his problems and his thoughts on how to solve them.

He asked for advice and guidance, but he rarely asked me to tell him what to do. "

"I can see why Lady Ashlynn believes he’ll be a good witch," Ignatious said. He’d only spoken to the young man briefly before the start of his trial, but his impression of the young man was very good.

Talking to his ’older brother’, however, it sounded like Thane’s estimation of the man was even higher.

"He’s done well as a village leader, but that’s different from being a knight, especially with the battles to come. Will he be ready for war?"

"Were you ready for war the first time you stepped on the battlefield?

" Thane asked, raising an eyebrow at the fallen Inquisitor. "Was I? I don’t think any of us are ever ready, but Ollie has been putting in the work. Marcel can only return to the Vale occasionally during the summer, but every time he did, Ollie sought him out to train with knives, honing his fighting skills. On nights that he didn’t have questions for me, he asked me to be his opponent so he could learn to counter a swordsman. "

"Ollie doesn’t give up," Thane said in a tone filled with praise. "It’s one of his greatest assets. That, and his ability to accept anyone into his heart, caring for such a wide range of people that..."

-CRACK-

A sudden, startlingly loud sound interrupted the vampire’s musings, drawing all eyes to the flame-haired youth and the witches surrounding him.