First Squire of the Overlord: Mind and Body

[Nick Allen]

2 October 2016

…I’ve been filling my days, much the same as I had to during the Lucis Weeks. Practicing, fighting, bantering back and forth with Addie, and Michi. I’ve been a performing act where circus clown meets the high wire and trapeze. I have to, or the thoughts of you would be so hard to face, they’d stop me cold. You already do that when you’re near…
…So I run, I fight… I practice and play and do everything I can think of to keep myself going. I have to if I’m to come back to you. I’ll give everything I have to be able to see you, to touch you once more.

Running, his training had to begin somewhere with Claire. That she seemed determined to impart as knowledge and skill on him as possible before her challenge seemed obvious to Nick. She was worried, about the challenge, sure that was part of it but Nick couldn’t help feeling that another part had to do with him personally. It was early, and Addie had tried to get up the morning after the release party, but that had ended up with her falling back to sleep practically in her stack of pancakes. It was okay, she should stay in, stick with Ro and Michi and anyone else who had come to the after party. Nick had things that needed to be done, promises made not the least of which was the one to Claire about making her proud.

Overlord Island, comparative to the city proper it was tiny. Even to the seven baronies it was just a small piece of land. To one kid running it was immense. Especially using the route that Claire had marked for him to follow. Maybe she knew too much about him already, but he was quick to note that she left off any of the stairwells. Maybe she didn’t know, but she wanted to see how well he could handle having to make decisions when faced with obstacles most people would avoid. Maybe that was a remote controlled drone up there in the sky and not some sea bird on the wind. Nick was not a novice to this kind of thing. He’d been competing for a long time, had started Free Running with Alex when they were even younger. Their styles differed slightly which only made them closer friends, playing off one another and daring each other on to more difficult tricks.

Nick didn’t so much as pause as he ran, it didn’t matter what was in front of him. Unexpected gaps were leaped, and drop offs were descended with seemingly little concern taken for his own safety. He did these things by instinct, which left him with one thing he didn’t need… time to think. He did his best to push distractions from his head, and focus on what lay before him. Maybe that was what Claire wanted him to learn? She was so hard to read, harder still to see like this. She wasn’t the woman he’d grown up around, or not exactly. Where she would likely stop young Nikolai from doing something dangerous, she pushed Nick to confront it head on and overcome it. She pushed him to succeed. What did that mean? Did it have to mean anything? Had his imposing himself into her life now colored what would come in the future for them? Would she try to keep him from Alex… from Avy knowing that this is what he would become? Did she like what she saw now, or had he erred greatly? It was hard to say, but he still remembered them both. He remembered every dangerous and ill-advised thing he and Alex had ever done. He remembered every debate with Avy over things that she’d learned. Those debates, so heated back then made him smile now despite the ache in his limbs and sweat soaking him. He’d begun at the top of the island, and pushed his way downward in a long run of leaps and vaults that most people would balk at attempting. Old hat for Nick, and who did he have to thank for being this way? He’d been petrified the first time he stood on a wall and looked down. His father had been there next to him, telling him it was okay to be afraid, but letting that fear beat you was the worst kind of sin. Over time, Nick had learned to turn these fears into something different. It became excitement, and showmanship. He supposed this made him more like his father than he wanted to admit, using look at me tactics to overcome. It was a tactic, and it simply said look at me do this even though I should be too afraid. He had Alex to push him further. The pair of them pulling the best from each other even if it did end them up in trouble with their parents a lot of the time.

This was at the core of Nick’s confusion about Claire today. How often had she stopped them from doing these things when they were under her care? How many times was it because Avy had suddenly decided to join them? How hard was it for him to stop thinking and just run? He could almost hear the echo of Claire in his head saying the words, and a few more. Run Niko, just run… if you carry the world on your shoulders, it will send you falling from the heights.

Did that mean she wanted him to make it back home again?

[Nick Allen]

“The point of a squireship is to benefit the squire, not the baron, or in this case Overlord. If there’s something, anything, I can do to help, just say the world and I will. You know that, right?”

The Pit was gone, in its wake a simple platform was all that remained of the structure and the bleachers that had surrounded it. It stood like a skeleton, bare and abandoned. Nick looked at it from above and felt an odd kinship. Days he’d been coming here. Days he’d practiced alone inside and pouring every bit of his heartbreak into the movements. Alone, stripped bare and aching for someone far beyond his reach.

Nick had just returned from his run. Perhaps he’d gotten back a little sooner than expected since there was no one but staff upon his arrival. They’d supplied him with enough water to satisfy a camel, but for the most part they left him alone. Part of him understood, it was a transition to move between overlords, they’d gone from Matt to no one. Then Six had come onto the scene only to be deposed by Claire. Before they could even begin to adapt to her, she was under challenge and the truth for them was they had no idea who would be overseeing them in the days to come.

Stripped bare, it had happened the moment he’d set foot on the balcony. The shirt he’d worn for his run peeled away, a sweat soaked second skin that parted from him and left only the clammy feel in its wake. Claire had insisted that his runs come first, telling him it was not enough to be able to fight and run. Endurance existed in it sure, but what would happen when the run stopped and he was forced to fight again? She wasn’t preparing him for the rings. Deep down he understood that, and maybe it only served to increase that feeling of being alone. Perhaps that’s why she delayed in joining him. She gave the mission, and left him to complete it. He knew that was the purpose, or believed it so hard that he couldn’t come up with any other solution that was simple or petty. He might be assigning more intentions than were real. Nick knew that could be true, but he needed it not to be. He needed to feel that she believed in him, a surrogate to the one who had sent him here in the first place. Sometimes he wouldn’t look at her when she spoke. With his eyes averted, or closed he could hear the inflections, the tone and it was like Avy was in the room with him. Sometimes it was so hard to open his eyes and destroy that.

I'm tired of being what you want me to be
Feeling so faithless, lost under the surface

Nick couldn’t bear to see it any longer. That skeleton below calling to him had him moving under the belief that everything needed to have someone there to comfort it in its last moments. A two step wall run had him muscling up to the top of the platform. The construction crew had left for now, though a few were ambling back with lunch boxes and finding seats. ”Hey kid, you’re not supposed to be here!” The call came from below, though he had no idea who’d said the words. It really didn’t matter, the man was closer to the truth than even he knew. Nick was not supposed to be here, not in the least.

Don't know what you're expecting of me
Put under the pressure of walking in your shoes

Nick began to move, pulsing with energy and flowing back and forth like liquid. Blood and a heart for the skeleton. He would be the final beating for it until the time came for it to exist no more. It had served its purpose well, and he would be with it until the end. Maybe he was trying to make up for some other time and place. He’d have been there too if he’d been allowed, if things hadn’t happened too quickly. Capoeira, the Brazilian martial art that had to be disguised in dance moves because the government had forbidden the slaves from practicing martial arts. The form was about speed, balance and constant movement. He’d begun study early on, when he’d begun to free run, its technique meshing so well with his interest into Parkour. This was the main split between him and Alex where style was concerned. Alex preferred Wing Chun, or perhaps that was something which had been selected for him. Nick wondered what that felt like sometimes, to have only the choices others made for you. Did it surprise anyone that he rebelled against that so hard? It never did Nick, these things only had managed to make the pair of them stronger. He missed Alex, nearly as much as he longed for his friend’s twin sister.

(Caught in the undertow, just caught in the undertow)
Every step that I take is another mistake to you
(Caught in the undertow, just caught in the undertow)

He could feel the eyes on him as more men settled in to watch him give the object of their destruction one final tribute. Voices carried, sentiments filtered through the miasmic haze of memories about things Nick could no longer change. He might have caught a glimpse of something pink from further above, it could have been anything. It was probably nothing. If the men knew he wasn’t supposed to be there, and they should since it was already called out to him. They weren’t eager to attempt to remove him from the heights, besides it was lunch time, and this was better entertainment than the usual perverted banter about the manor’s latest overseer. Not that such things didn’t find their way into the conversation, and suggest the filthiest things their minds could offer. Why couldn’t they see that there was much more going on in this world?

I've become so numb, I can't feel you there
Become so tired, so much more aware
I'm becoming this, all I want to do
Is be more like me and be less like you

[Nick Allen]

Maybe she’d been there, maybe.. Could she know? Could anyone know how every move he made was tearing his guts out? Stuck in the middle of wanting what’s best for everyone else and what he felt like he needed most. How utterly horrifying that his father’s words had been right. Everyone’s needs would come before his own. What would that leave him when all this was done? Still torn in two, a heart divided. His body flowed from one move to another, as kicks and punches came from nowhere, or what should be nowhere. He may not know a lot of things, but really what twenty year old knew as much as they thought they did? He did understand Claire’s point though, there could be no end to the fighting he may have to face one day. His body needed to be ready, to go on longer than those of his enemies. While his body might be ready to do that, his mind was another story.

Can't you see that you're smothering me,
Holding too tightly, afraid to lose control?
'Cause everything that you thought I would be
Has fallen apart right in front of you.

Everyday for him was another where he’d failed. He still had no idea how to help Addie. He didn’t know how to get back to when he belonged. Nick had no plans that would rid his friend of the people whom he’d brought into her life to threaten her once more. The only things he’d managed so far was to arm himself as well as he thought possible, and gain a few reluctant allies in his quest. Maybe he wa expecting too much from himself. Perhaps patience was the better road to take. He hadn’t learned to fight over night. Hadn’t committed the moves to muscle memory in a single training session. He wished he could approach this the same way, but something in his torn heart told him that time was not a luxury he was going to be afforded. All he could manage to do was be as ready as possible, and actively seek the answers he knew he needed.

(Caught in the undertow, just caught in the undertow)
Every step that I take is another mistake to you.
(Caught in the undertow, just caught in the undertow)
And every second I waste is more than I can take.

If only the answers flowed so easily as his body through the movements. If only they would rise to the surface and run over the brim like the sweat that seeped from his skin and dropped uselessly to the wooden platform beneath his feet. If only, his world turned on those words, his life in the last two months seemed to be one huge saga of the two words. If only it had been someone else besides him, this would already be over. That belief had his eyes watering, more useless liquid coming from him in a time when he needed to be stronger.

I've become so numb, I can't feel you there,
Become so tired, so much more aware
I'm becoming this, all I want to do
Is be more like me and be less like you.

How did others manage to become numb to the things that they endured? He wanted to know, even if he wasn’t sure that he ever wanted to become it himself. Who was he if he felt nothing? There were still people he could talk to, they may not know him in the here and now but… It would be a mistake, another one in the string that he’d already made. No, he would go on and remain Nikolai even though that meant being inexorably flawed. He could understand his flaws at least, even when the knowing of them hurt.

And I know
I may end up failing too.
But I know
You were just like me with someone disappointed in you.

Would that decision disappoint people? Had it already done so and he hadn’t noticed? Was he as alone in these thoughts and feelings as he believed himself to be? Some days it seemed that his life was full of more questions than the answers he could ever amass. Some days he was certain of nothing, least of all himself. Some days all he could do was just keep moving no matter how much he hurt physically or emotionally. That was being human wasn’t it? Maybe it was just being so… Nikolai.

I've become so numb, I can't feel you there,
Become so tired, so much more aware.
I'm becoming this, all I want to do
Is be more like me and be less like you.

His time was up, that platforms time was up too, as lunch boxes were stowed away and the job foreman browbeat his men to stop gawking and get the job done. Nick hoped that he gave the thing one last sense of purpose before it was to hit the ground and never know such heights again. He sprang from the top of it, twisting and flipping before hitting the ground and rolling. He didn’t stop to take a bow. It didn’t matter that many of the workmen had offered compliments. It didn’t matter beyond they were going to take down the last remnants of something much bigger than all of them. He thought he’d caught that hint of pink once more, and sprang at the wall, climbing high to mount the balcony once more. Footsteps echoed away from him, their source long since hidden by a turn down a corridor.

I've become so numb, I can't feel you there.
(I'm tired of being what you want me to be)
I've become so numb, I can't feel you there.
(I'm tired of being what you want me to be)

Nick went to retrieve his shirt, but it was gone. In its place lay another, A long sleeved pink and black shirt was pulled over his head placing the large D on the front of it across his chest. Maybe that had been the source of the pink he’d seen earlier. Part of him wanted to speculate on how it had gotten there. The rest of him was afraid to for fear of coming to the conclusion that he’d somehow managed to disappoint his benefactor. It was better to leave now, all mysteries didn’t need to be solved by him. To try would simply distract him from his main quest. Later he would noticed the interlocked CC embroidered on the back of the left shoulder in a distinctly bubblegum pink. That would only give him more questions.