Affairs of the Throne
Eighth Day of the Fifth Month 294 AC
It takes several hours and more consulting with your companions and with officials familiar with both Anlyse and Veda before you finally choose the latter for the Ministry of Education. Sooner the trouble of one who has no use for gods, which will hopefully change after you inform the Curia of the Breaking of the Spheres, than the trouble of someone who thinks you are a god, or the agent of one.
When you give that very reasoning to Lya, she actually giggles. "You know that Marco boy sure has faith in you."
"That is different," you note, but before you can explain just how that is, she shakes her had and smiles.
"Well sure it is.
You made up that legend instead of having it be made by another. It is natural to prefer things of your own making, I guess, but you really should not hold it against poor Anlyse. She is really quite lovely, even if she did compare me to a woman famed for getting stabbed through the heart."
It is a good thing you are not eating or drinking anything right now or you would have choked. "She said that, in so many words?"
"Well, she couched it as a great honor, of course..." Lya breaks off, seeing your expression. "Really, it's not a problem. 'Tragic heroine' is a damn sight better than some of the things I was called in the past and some of those I will no doubt be called going forward. Apparently, I beguiled you with my non-existent feminine wiles if you listen to some of the rumors that are going around the ladies of the court."
You deliberately look Lya up and down from the tips of her lustrous hair, so black it almost catches shades of blue in the mage-light, to the drake-skin boots barely peeking below the hem of her star-strewn robes, before looking right into eyes alight with arcane fire in colors the tongue struggles to define. Drolly, you ask, "Really now, no feminine wiles at all?"
"Well now, I guess I could be persuaded to try something..." she trails off suggestively, glancing ever so briefly towards the bedroom.
"You are going to make me late," you reply, keeping your tone level, or trying to at least.
"Art thou not a master of time?" she asks in draconic, the form of 'thou' leaving if anything even less to be imagined, for dragons which little sought the company of their own kin of old had a particular form of the pronoun for a partner in a mated pair, and it was generally only used when a thousand wings colored the sky.
Granted, a display flight is not what is most upon your mind right now.
"I am not so quick, my lady, not so quick at all..."
***
You are about forty-five minutes late for the meeting and that only because you abused translocation to get there. Of course, master of time you may not be, but you are one no one dares call late, assuming no doubt affairs of state rather than those of the heart, but for once you take the dereliction of duty with a light heart. Once more three stand before you who could not be more different one from the other.
The first is a former merchant of Gulltown who, like so many others, came to the Deep in the early days looking for a cure for what was otherwise incurable. Unlike most others, however, he stayed and put first his personal fortune and then his skills in service of the state to ensure that others too would benefit from the same 'miracles'. A man of deep if eclectic faith, he has learned as much of low magic as is readily available, though he lacks the skill for a full Scholarum education. If anything, Hern's record shows him to be a touch too kind to subordinates who err, and if there could be said to be any anger in his heart it is towards the Faith of the Seven and the Septons whose calls of 'devilry' and 'foul magic' had almost dissuaded him from sailing to the Deep to begin with, which might have been the death of not just him but all those he had aided in the interim.
Next is Umsur of Mantarys, a Fallen Preceptor Archon who like all his kin is an expert in healing the mind. The spirit had fallen, but not to cruelty or callousness as much as a sort of pragmatism you can well admire, more interested in warding off extremes of madness and self destruction than the height of morals or ethics. Still, he has had only limited experience actually running a institution of healing and while he wants the job he is also invested in the study of mind magics which he considers the true way to mend minds that are otherwise broken beyond recovery.
If nothing else, an archon will make a useful foil to naming a devil as your taxman...
As you ponder the matter, the last of the potential candidates shows for her interview. The face of the woman you meet is familiar, though the coldness in her steel-grey eyes is most unlike her cousin Uthero. Este Argalys is an Accountant at heart and no sort of healer. She joined the Office of Health because it was by her measure woefully under-organized, something she was uniquely skilled in redressing. A political moderate as well as a woman with a fair bit of experience in dealing with the alchemical and reagent market, you have no doubt she would bring a steady hand to the Ministry.
Who do you choose for Minister of Health?
[] Hern Lampmaker
+Low Magician (One of the most skilled non-caster ritualists in the Imperium; Excellent relationship with the Scholarum)
+Philanthropist (A genuine desire to help others unburdened by ambition or pride)
+Eclectic Faith (If there could be said to be a man who holds faith in the Imperial Pantheon, it is he)
-A Touch of Kindness (Has been known to give people under his authority a few too many chance to mend their ways, at least by the measure of the Lawmen, though it has never gone so far as making him complicit)
-Dislike of the Faith of the Seven (Given his history, he dislikes the Faith in Westeros though not the Seven themselves)
[] Umsur of Mantarys
+Preceptor Archon (Socially skilled and likely to be well seen)
+Mental Health Expert (More likely to excel in the field)
+Pragmatic (Fallen to True Neutral)
-Limited organizational experience (Has never managed even a Regional Office alone)
-Fascination with Psionics (Invests a significant portion of his time in the field)
[] Este Argalys
+Skilled Organizer (Administrator of the Regional Office of Health under her cousin)
+Verdant Vistas experience (Knows how to secure arcane reagents and how to deal with the fey)
+Political Moderate (Considers any sort of extreme politics bad for business and bad for the state)
-Seeming Nepotism (Related to a Duke and a known friend of the Throne)
-Cold and Calculating (Might make for bad PR for the head of the Ministry of Health)
OOC: Well it has been a while since Lya and Viserys had the chance to flirt, so I thought by not touch base in that regard a little. I hope it did not feel jarring.