SSS Talent: From Trash to Tyrant

They all left the dimension together, though Trafalgar was the last one through.

He had stayed beside the pool for a little longer, sitting at its edge until his breathing settled and the last of the soreness Dravok had beaten into him faded from his ribs. The training had been brutal, but there wasn't much room to complain when every beating was leaving him stronger than the one before it.

Once he stepped through the Gate, the black emptiness disappeared behind him and Caelvyrn's castle returned in its place.

Trafalgar didn't follow the others. He started walking instead, taking one of the long corridors without any real destination in mind, and made it less than a minute before a dull pressure pushed behind his eyes.

'My head hurts.'

He rubbed his temple as he walked.

The feeling had been building for a while, easy to ignore when Dravok was trying to put a fist through his ribs and considerably harder now that there was nothing else demanding his attention. The strange flow of time inside the dimension was finally beginning to collect its price.

Dravok had warned him about that from the beginning.

His body could train, break, heal, and continue for as long as the pool allowed. His mind was different. Every hour inside was still an hour experienced, every day another full day remembered, while almost nothing passed in the world outside.

After so long repeating the same routines beneath that endless black sky, the strain was beginning to sit somewhere deeper than simple exhaustion.

Sword Insight was probably the only thing Trafalgar could compare it to. That skill had done things to his head that nothing else had ever managed, especially when he'd forced himself to understand techniques far above his level, but that pain was violent and immediate.

This was slower.

It accumulated.

If Dravok was right, and Trafalgar had little reason left to doubt him when it came to this kind of thing, then taking breaks wasn't optional. If he intended to leave the dimension stronger without also leaving half-mad, he needed to let his mind remember what ordinary time felt like.

He passed through another hall and spotted Caelvyrn near one of the older sections of the castle.

The dragon stood before a tall stone structure built into the wall, one hand resting against its edge while he studied the carvings across its surface. Trafalgar couldn't tell what it was, but after everything Caelvyrn had shown him, he wouldn't have been surprised if the man who built it had been dead for several thousand years.

He left him alone.

Dravok was easier to find. The old Primordial sat farther along in an open chamber, a porcelain cup held loosely in one hand while he stared at the bare wall opposite him as though there was something written across it only he could see.

He looked deep in thought.

Trafalgar decided against disturbing him too.

There was only one person left, and she was the one he'd actually been looking for.

Rhosyn.

He hadn't missed how exhausted she'd looked before leaving the dimension. She hid it well enough when there was something to do, but Trafalgar had spent far too much time around her by now to miss the heaviness around her eyes or the way she'd been moving a little more slowly than usual.

The dimension was tied to her mind.

Trafalgar still didn't understand exactly how deep that connection went. He doubted she physically suffered everything that happened inside it—if that were true, after the last stretch of training she should have looked as though Dravok had spent a month beating her instead—but the mental cost was clearly another matter.

And if Trafalgar was only beginning to feel it now, Rhosyn had been carrying much more of the burden from the start.

He eventually left the inner castle and stepped into the gardens.

Finding her became considerably less simple after that.

Calling them gardens almost felt dishonest. Caelvyrn had carved whole stretches of living land beneath the mountain, with paths winding between trees, fountains spilling clear water into pale stone basins, and hedges shaped into animals and creatures Trafalgar didn't recognize.

There were entire fields hidden between the larger terraces.

For someone who supposedly lived alone, Caelvyrn had put a ridiculous amount of effort into giving himself places to walk.

Trafalgar searched for a while before finally finding Rhosyn in a field of roses.

Red and white flowers spread around her beneath the mana-light, thick enough to hide most of the grass. She sat among them with her legs folded slightly to one side, looking out over the flowers without appearing particularly interested in any single one.

The black rose in her hair stood out immediately. Same as always.

Trafalgar crossed the grass and lowered himself beside her without asking. Rhosyn glanced toward him, and the tiredness he'd noticed earlier was easier to see up close.

"Taking a break?" she asked.

"Trying to." Trafalgar stretched his legs out across the grass and leaned back slightly on his hands. "I figured sitting somewhere that doesn't look like an endless black hole might help. What about you? You look exhausted."

Rhosyn gave a small shrug. "I'm all right. I've been doing this for a while now, so I'm used to most of it. I won't pretend a little break like this doesn't feel good, though."

Trafalgar studied her face for another moment. "How exactly does that connection work? You explained the basics before, but looking at you now, I'm starting to think I underestimated what it actually costs."

He tilted his head slightly.

"You usually look like someone decided black was the only colour worth inventing. Now you're starting to look pale enough that I'm worried you're changing sides."

Rhosyn looked at him for a second before a tired laugh slipped out.

"That was awful."

"I know." Trafalgar nodded without shame. "Comedy isn't one of my talents. Fortunately, I have other things going for me."

"Quite a few, apparently." The faint smile stayed for another moment before she looked back toward the roses. "But you're right about the strain. I told you before that my mind is connected to the dimension. That connection doesn't disappear because we're standing outside it."

Trafalgar shifted his attention fully to her.

"So you're still maintaining it now?"

"In a way." Rhosyn drew one knee slightly closer. "I don't have to actively hold every piece together every second. We built it better than that. But I'm always aware of it, and some part of my mind is always watching."

"For damage?"

"Damage, instability, anything entering that shouldn't be there. Anything trying to find it." Her fingers brushed absently through the grass. "We don't think anything can reach it without me noticing, but I've lived too long to turn 'we don't think so' into 'impossible.' Those are very different things."

Trafalgar gave a quiet sound of agreement.

"So basically, you're permanently standing guard."

"That's one way of putting it."

"And here I thought you weren't the nervous type."

Rhosyn turned toward him. "Nervous?"

"Careful, then. Maybe a little paranoid."

"Oh, come on." There was more life in her voice now. "You can call it whatever you like, but being careful has kept me alive for a very long time. You're hardly in a position to criticize me either. You check exits when you enter rooms."

Trafalgar looked at her.

Rhosyn's mouth curved slightly. "You do."

"All right, you've got me there." He looked across the rose field again. "I don't like leaving things outside my control either. If I know something can go wrong, I'd rather have some way of seeing it coming."

"Exactly."

"Although I think you're taking it slightly farther than I do."

"I've had longer to develop the habit."

Trafalgar couldn't argue with that.

For a while they sat without saying anything, and the quiet between them felt different from the silence inside the dimension. There, silence was another part of the training. Here, with water running somewhere beyond the roses and actual life around them, it felt like rest.

Rhosyn eventually broke it.

"For someone who likes having things under control, your family seems determined to make your life difficult."

Trafalgar breathed out through his nose. "Yes. I've noticed."

"I assumed you had."

"It's not exactly making me happy." He picked a loose blade of grass and rolled it between his fingers. "But that's where things are for now. Valttair is sitting at the same table, and as long as our goals keep pointing in the same direction, I'm willing to let him handle what he can."

Rhosyn studied him. "You trust him that much?"

"I trust our interests to align. That's different." Trafalgar let the grass fall from his fingers. "If that changes, I'll deal with it when it happens. Until then, I'd rather not waste energy fighting someone who's currently useful to me."

"That sounds more like you."

Trafalgar gave her a sideways look. "I'll take that as a compliment."

"It was mostly one."

He smiled faintly and looked back over the flowers.

"Speaking of objectives..."

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