Behind the Serpent Throne (CK2)
- Thread starter The Laurent
- Start date
- Original Fantasy
Random Member
Gardener of Human Happiness
- Location
- Behind You
The loyal opposition might take a backseat to the Rassit action. I mean, all Kuojah's enemies are going to do is oppose him like they've always done, nothing new and unexpected there and nothing that Kuojah can't handle. It's not really time sensitive to talk to them, as opposed to housing the Rassit.
@veekie @No7sHere @Zeitgeist Blue @Random Asian Person @wingstrike96 @Broken25
Would you guys mind if I changed those two around in my plan?
@veekie @No7sHere @Zeitgeist Blue @Random Asian Person @wingstrike96 @Broken25
Would you guys mind if I changed those two around in my plan?
Opposed.
They are going to oppose KUOJAH, but before we permanently tie ourselves as Kuojah's heir, we have a chance as a newcomer to peel them away, because we have policy differences they can benefit from.
Random Member
Gardener of Human Happiness
- Location
- Behind You
Okay, if there are people against it I'll just keep my plan the way it is. It's weird to see it winning despite me not voting for it though....
- Pronouns
- They/Them
Vote closes tomorrow!
keios
very normal
- Location
- US
[X] Plan not really going to win but here we go
-[X] Father
First for obvious reasons. I wanted Yanmae, too, but (see below) I think eunuchs will help us get a grasp on court politics. Yanmae can wait a bit; courtly politics starts now. Never underestimate the power of eunuchs at court!
-[X] Eunuchs!
-[X] Before the Snake's Throne
-[X] The End of the Prince
Kiralo would want to watch Jinhai's execution, I think. Plus, I'd like to read that scene.
-[X] The... loyal opposition?
-[X] Pressed For Time
Hiro we need is really tempting, but hopefully we'll get a chance to give him something better later. Pressed for time just sounds intriguing.
-[X] The Price of War
-[X] Rassit Rambles
Kiralo's heart is with the Rassit.
-[X] War Mages
-[X] Due Diligence
I think secretary may fall into our lap with all the talented people we keep running into, and a specific search may not be what we want.
-[X] Father
First for obvious reasons. I wanted Yanmae, too, but (see below) I think eunuchs will help us get a grasp on court politics. Yanmae can wait a bit; courtly politics starts now. Never underestimate the power of eunuchs at court!
-[X] Eunuchs!
-[X] Before the Snake's Throne
-[X] The End of the Prince
Kiralo would want to watch Jinhai's execution, I think. Plus, I'd like to read that scene.
-[X] The... loyal opposition?
-[X] Pressed For Time
Hiro we need is really tempting, but hopefully we'll get a chance to give him something better later. Pressed for time just sounds intriguing.
-[X] The Price of War
-[X] Rassit Rambles
Kiralo's heart is with the Rassit.
-[X] War Mages
-[X] Due Diligence
I think secretary may fall into our lap with all the talented people we keep running into, and a specific search may not be what we want.
- Location
- Canada
[X] Plan Random
- Pronouns
- They/Them
So @Random Member , how does it feel to both win and lose at the same time?
Random Member
Gardener of Human Happiness
- Location
- Behind You
- Pronouns
- They/Them
Update when I get back from the Ren Fest.
- Pronouns
- They/Them
I have a cloth fan!
*is drunk*
*is drunk*
Turn 13B--Part 1
- Pronouns
- They/Them
Turn 13B--Part 1
Kiralo of Lineage Ainin arrived in style, a conquering hero, and yet one who came as all heroes came, to the throne to prostrate themselves. He came trailing prisoners, yes, but also a strange foreign woman, whose nature was unknown and whose plans were equally shrouded in mystery.
He came a changed man, to a changed court. The servants moved a little more carefully, and everyone watched each other, their spirits almost hissing with the tension. It was a court in which, all at once, the fruits of victory had dropped down into their laps. Some of those fruits were very, very difficult to deal with.
So too was the sudden prevalence of silver. Some of it was on people, for already those bureaucrats who dealt with the army had begun to be rewarded for their acts. But it was on the tapestries on the walls, and even in the spirits themselves, hints of color and light that all lent the whole court a martial feeling.
Kiralo had thought a lot about silver as he paraded through the city, going to the ceremonial wall that separated the Court and the City and kneeling at it to pray. He'd realized that this would take a lot of money to manage, but that it could just barely be borne by the treasury… but that as the phrase just barely hinted, the reforms themselves would stretch the Empire to its breaking point, unless they squeezed Hari-Os and Basrat very tightly. Which they could, Kiralo thought, if they were careful that it didn't wind up hurting the peasants.
He had stayed up late the last night, considering options, though of course he'd also have to see what the Imperial coffer was like. That was an important question, and one that couldn't be answered early. He'd have to just see what he could do.
He knelt in front of a crowd of hundreds, the Emperor sitting on the throne, dressed up blues and silvers, with rings on every single one of his fingers. His hair was pinned up neatly in a child's bun, and his Imperial Guards were on both sides, visible this time.
Kiralo wondered how many back-stage political arguments had been made over that little detail. It was an element of distrust, but one he could stand. Of course the guards were always there: always in the shadows.
Showing them openly was meant to be a calculated insult, and he saw the calculation, judged how much it was worth,a nd then decided that it didn't matter.
He was dressed in armor, though of course he had no weapon, and he'd been very carefully searched. As if a returning General would spring upon his Emperor to kill him.
"Humbly do I request the right to approach the Emperor, as a worm might a man, to confer with him on the deeds that have been done in his name, deeds of greatness for which the only true architect is the Emperor, whose will I have faithfully carried out." Kiralo said it all in one breath.
"You may approach," the Emperor said, after a pause long enough to imagine the guards striding forward to kill him. The army was where it was, and the Rassit were dealing how they could to try to get settled in, which meant that other than his guards, left behind in this room, out of reach of an immediate threat…
That was the thing he didn't like about the court. The feeling, at times, that danger was about to become present, and yet there was no easy way to simply refuse it.
Kiralo crawled, aware that his knees would be worn out eventually if she kept this up for too long. He had no idea how his father dealt with it at his advanced age. Spirits helped, but they were stripped on the way up the levels of the center, towards the Imperial Seat.
Finally, he lay down before the Emperor, who leaned down slightly.
"Rise to your knees," the boy commanded.
Up close he looked even more uncertain. "We think we owe you thanks for your service," the Emperor said. He said it privately, my spirits making his words louder, and Kiralo couldn't nod or smile, had to accept it without showing anything.
For his heart of course skipped a beat. Such a thanks, said in the royal 'we' was… vast in its implications.
"There have been suggestions that you are perhaps lacking in loyalty, or with improper ambitions. But I've met you." The Emperor bit his lip. "Look at me."
He looked into the Emperor's eyes.
"I have met you, and I think that my judgement is better than theirs. I am the Emperor, not they. I shall reward you, once I have judged what is appropriate to reward."
Kiralo didn't heave a sigh of relief. At the moment, with the pay still pending and the desperate need to take loans from merchants, and otherwise gather in the center the vast amount of resources that victory required… he would have hated if he was given something material. A hundred tael of silver would be silver that the Emperor then lacked.
"I ask for nothing," Kiralo asked. "I accept, though, all that you in your wisdom seek to offer me, for I am a humble subject unworthy and yet grateful for everything."
The Emperor frowned. "We shall have an audience with you soon. You stopped our cousin, who would have surely killed us, no matter what his words. Your father is a good servant, and so are you."
"Thank you, Your Eminence." Kiralo used the old Csiritan word, the one that struck a deep, almost old-fashioned note of reverence. The perfect choice, for the level of formality required.
"You may tell him that. You may tell him many things." The boy frowned, and suddenly the pose of wisdom and grace seemed ill-fitting. He'd been practicing those words in his head again and again.
Kiralo wanted to take the boy aside, and tossle his hair, and ask him just what he wanted in the world. Anything he wanted, anything he asked for, he would get: but did the Emperor yet know how to ask?
That was a question. Kiralo held his back straight as he began to bow once more. "I shall, Emperor. Your Imperial Wisdom leaves me without anything but honest speech."
"Then speak freely, in private. Let us find something like wisdom on matters of policy, that you may more fully implement my… will."
He was almost stumbling over the words, but Kiralo didn't notice, merely bowed once more. He'd gotten what he wanted: that was the takeaway. Everything he wanted, and probably more.
******
Yanmae looked like a doll, small and delicate, as she knelt at her table, upon which there was a huge, unbound book. Just sheet after sheet of writing. She looked up at him, as if she didn't expect him, as if she hadn't been listening. "Greetings, brother mine."
"Greetings, sister. What is that, Cs-Yanmae?"
"A book."
"You're writing a book?" Kiralo asked, a little startled, though after a moment's reflection he didn't know why he would be.
"I am writing several books, Cs-Kiralo," she said, but there was a delicate, polite hint of something more in her voice. She was annoyed with him, and more than that, she wished to show off in her own way. To try to prove herself again, as if she feared again what he would or could do.
"This is impressive."
"The new eunuch, Hao, does not approve. I don't like him. I want you to get me serving girls, who can go about the house, and beyond the house, gathering gossip for me… and I want more than that." Yanmae paused, as if the words had taken a lot out of her, and she hid her mouth with a sleeve of the robe she wore.
"Why are you so insistent?" Kiralo asked. "What do you have to gain that is worth this?"
"Can I not want something for myself?" she asked, and there was a brief moment of desperation in her voice so chilling that he felt as if he had walked alongside a grave-pool. "But sorry, Cs-Kiralo. I have been studying issues of importance. I am writing a commentary on the Imperial Law, as well as the local Csiritan laws in Csrae and the area, and where they differ, and where they are the same."
Kiralo smiled at her, already taken aback. But she had retreated behind her shell, at least for the moment, and he wanted to see what this was about. So he walked up and knelt by her. "May I please read it, Cs-Yanmae?"
"It is an idle woman's folly," she said. "And I do not think you would gain anything by reading it, for what could I--"
"Enough," Kiralo said. She meant it, or rather, she sounded like she meant it. Polite, perfect, with manners that once she deployed them couldn't be forced through. The perfect daughter… and yet the restrictions on her made no sense unless there was something deeper. "I understand. I respect you far too much. I am sure it is excellent. Is this about me? Did you get a marriage offer?"
She didn't speak, which was answer enough. "My father has gotten a dozen, in the last week. I of course am his to command, and I serve him in all ways." She sounded dutiful, as if she were a daughter who had never before thought, and never again would think, of anything except what her father, husband, and son would think.
She, who feared marriage as she feared death, for the same reasons. She was the same age as Ayila, and with the same brilliance in a field. But with a very different attitude.
"You don't want to take it. You don't have to. Has your father accepted one?"
"He must. For his reforms," Yanmae said. "It is only wise."
"I can argue against it, and for the female servants, if I know why it is so important."
She hesitated and said, "Good sir, I am sorry, I should have the eunuch get you tea…"
"No need now. May I read your writing, while you think of how to tell me?"
"There are no words for what I would say, brother."
He frowned and placed his finger on the front page, and began to read. The characters were beautifully written, scrunched upon the page so that one row almost touched the other, and yet each was perfectly vertical and clearly made with great care. He read quickly, his finger slowly tracing itself down and then up to the left for the next line.
'An Introduction and a humble apology for any errors.'
'As it is said that the ocean is one thing, and yet to it runs many rivers, so too is Imperial Law a single, vast thing. But so too is Imperial Law from many sources. One must understand the laws and rites of the Gods, one must respect the Judges in their right of judgement, and each village and city and monastery and province too has their own rules, or customs. Perhaps they are not written, and if that is so, they should be written. It is only by examining them that one can come to a conclusion.
It is thus that I must apologize for the format of this volume, and all volumes, for I shall humbly examine each issue among the many laws, and try to come to an understanding of the philosophical principles that should guide any complete and updated universal law to supersede and yet not ignore, the laws that come before.
This is an ambition rather beyond a--'
It stopped there, actually, with room left over for a lot to be wrritten. "What is this?"
"Should my future husband, or yourself, or my father needs to insert themselves within it," Yanmae said.
He looked at it. Over a hundred pages there, and probably more elsewhere. This was work beyond what he could ever even dream of trying, and he knew that it would likely be thousands of pages, if not more. "What other book are you working on, or is this it?"
"I need far more information in order to truly write it. I have much that I can merely begin, but much will be needed. It will likely be the work of many years, and from it, and a book on the philosophy of law, then someone far wiser than myself can then work to create a new legal code for the whole of the Empire."
"What do you have so far?"
"I have a decent selection of legal codes from Csirit and Irit, the former at my father's… allowance. And one can easily request the Provincial laws. But they fall behind the law for the truly important cases: monasteries, local law, and city law. Hari-Os has the largest collection of such law, which… the Imperial Law is often ignored, or can be. Hari-Bueli and Hari-Su too have their own… traditions. And then there is spiritual law."
Kiralo stared, starting to see the full depth of the task she had set herself for. "This is very impressive, and--"
"Father caught myself and a maidservant having sex three years ago," she blurted out, a blush on her face.
"Oh," Kiralo said, stunned. The word she used almost made it impossible to understand, for it was the word for what a man and a woman might do. 'Sex' was the word used, but then again, Kiralo didn't even know if there WAS a word for what she had said she'd done. "And father… ah."
"I… I know it is, not what is needed. Though as a mere woman, it is no impediment to my marriage. But he--he took it hard." She was stumbling over the words now, slipping between usages.
"And you wish to be served again? So that you may continue…?"
"I do not. Feel towards men as a woman should."
"Ah," Kiralo said, trying to see things from her perspective, though it was difficult. Or at least, he hadn't really imagined that a woman could, or would, or. Though he himself had similar problems, in a sense. But not in a meaningful one. "Do you think it wise that I press for it, then?"
"No." In a small voice she said, "But I want it."
Kiralo paused, looking down at the writing. "You do not wish to marry?"
"No…" she said, and from the look in her eyes, she was near tears and even nearer begging and pleading.
"Then you shall not," Kiralo said. It was a choice, but he could not reasonably blame her for her choices, not when they harmed nobody else. "And we shall see about… servants. I assume you want servants because of… discretion?"
"Yes," she said. "I do not wish to be a disgrace to my father."
"You aren't. This is… you are more his daughter than I am his son, for I am sure that if I read what you were writing, I would be baffled by it."
Yanmae smiled. "...Thank you."
"Now, I do have a question, involving monetary policy, and the law codes for taxation and--"
Yanmae, seeing an opportunity to take the topic far away from her, smiled wider and began to explain it.
With Kuojah, what to focus on? (Choose 2)
[] The spoils and dealing with the entitlements there.
[] The costs, and deailng with those.
[] An overview of the politics of Kuojah's reforms.
[] A discussion of the opposition, and their stances.
[] Talk about "Foreign Affairs."
[] The Emperor.
******
A/N: It was so hilarious, watching you flail with Yanmae. Like with the 'compromise' that secretly get her nothing she wanted.
Kiralo of Lineage Ainin arrived in style, a conquering hero, and yet one who came as all heroes came, to the throne to prostrate themselves. He came trailing prisoners, yes, but also a strange foreign woman, whose nature was unknown and whose plans were equally shrouded in mystery.
He came a changed man, to a changed court. The servants moved a little more carefully, and everyone watched each other, their spirits almost hissing with the tension. It was a court in which, all at once, the fruits of victory had dropped down into their laps. Some of those fruits were very, very difficult to deal with.
So too was the sudden prevalence of silver. Some of it was on people, for already those bureaucrats who dealt with the army had begun to be rewarded for their acts. But it was on the tapestries on the walls, and even in the spirits themselves, hints of color and light that all lent the whole court a martial feeling.
Kiralo had thought a lot about silver as he paraded through the city, going to the ceremonial wall that separated the Court and the City and kneeling at it to pray. He'd realized that this would take a lot of money to manage, but that it could just barely be borne by the treasury… but that as the phrase just barely hinted, the reforms themselves would stretch the Empire to its breaking point, unless they squeezed Hari-Os and Basrat very tightly. Which they could, Kiralo thought, if they were careful that it didn't wind up hurting the peasants.
He had stayed up late the last night, considering options, though of course he'd also have to see what the Imperial coffer was like. That was an important question, and one that couldn't be answered early. He'd have to just see what he could do.
He knelt in front of a crowd of hundreds, the Emperor sitting on the throne, dressed up blues and silvers, with rings on every single one of his fingers. His hair was pinned up neatly in a child's bun, and his Imperial Guards were on both sides, visible this time.
Kiralo wondered how many back-stage political arguments had been made over that little detail. It was an element of distrust, but one he could stand. Of course the guards were always there: always in the shadows.
Showing them openly was meant to be a calculated insult, and he saw the calculation, judged how much it was worth,a nd then decided that it didn't matter.
He was dressed in armor, though of course he had no weapon, and he'd been very carefully searched. As if a returning General would spring upon his Emperor to kill him.
"Humbly do I request the right to approach the Emperor, as a worm might a man, to confer with him on the deeds that have been done in his name, deeds of greatness for which the only true architect is the Emperor, whose will I have faithfully carried out." Kiralo said it all in one breath.
"You may approach," the Emperor said, after a pause long enough to imagine the guards striding forward to kill him. The army was where it was, and the Rassit were dealing how they could to try to get settled in, which meant that other than his guards, left behind in this room, out of reach of an immediate threat…
That was the thing he didn't like about the court. The feeling, at times, that danger was about to become present, and yet there was no easy way to simply refuse it.
Kiralo crawled, aware that his knees would be worn out eventually if she kept this up for too long. He had no idea how his father dealt with it at his advanced age. Spirits helped, but they were stripped on the way up the levels of the center, towards the Imperial Seat.
Finally, he lay down before the Emperor, who leaned down slightly.
"Rise to your knees," the boy commanded.
Up close he looked even more uncertain. "We think we owe you thanks for your service," the Emperor said. He said it privately, my spirits making his words louder, and Kiralo couldn't nod or smile, had to accept it without showing anything.
For his heart of course skipped a beat. Such a thanks, said in the royal 'we' was… vast in its implications.
"There have been suggestions that you are perhaps lacking in loyalty, or with improper ambitions. But I've met you." The Emperor bit his lip. "Look at me."
He looked into the Emperor's eyes.
"I have met you, and I think that my judgement is better than theirs. I am the Emperor, not they. I shall reward you, once I have judged what is appropriate to reward."
Kiralo didn't heave a sigh of relief. At the moment, with the pay still pending and the desperate need to take loans from merchants, and otherwise gather in the center the vast amount of resources that victory required… he would have hated if he was given something material. A hundred tael of silver would be silver that the Emperor then lacked.
"I ask for nothing," Kiralo asked. "I accept, though, all that you in your wisdom seek to offer me, for I am a humble subject unworthy and yet grateful for everything."
The Emperor frowned. "We shall have an audience with you soon. You stopped our cousin, who would have surely killed us, no matter what his words. Your father is a good servant, and so are you."
"Thank you, Your Eminence." Kiralo used the old Csiritan word, the one that struck a deep, almost old-fashioned note of reverence. The perfect choice, for the level of formality required.
"You may tell him that. You may tell him many things." The boy frowned, and suddenly the pose of wisdom and grace seemed ill-fitting. He'd been practicing those words in his head again and again.
Kiralo wanted to take the boy aside, and tossle his hair, and ask him just what he wanted in the world. Anything he wanted, anything he asked for, he would get: but did the Emperor yet know how to ask?
That was a question. Kiralo held his back straight as he began to bow once more. "I shall, Emperor. Your Imperial Wisdom leaves me without anything but honest speech."
"Then speak freely, in private. Let us find something like wisdom on matters of policy, that you may more fully implement my… will."
He was almost stumbling over the words, but Kiralo didn't notice, merely bowed once more. He'd gotten what he wanted: that was the takeaway. Everything he wanted, and probably more.
******
Yanmae looked like a doll, small and delicate, as she knelt at her table, upon which there was a huge, unbound book. Just sheet after sheet of writing. She looked up at him, as if she didn't expect him, as if she hadn't been listening. "Greetings, brother mine."
"Greetings, sister. What is that, Cs-Yanmae?"
"A book."
"You're writing a book?" Kiralo asked, a little startled, though after a moment's reflection he didn't know why he would be.
"I am writing several books, Cs-Kiralo," she said, but there was a delicate, polite hint of something more in her voice. She was annoyed with him, and more than that, she wished to show off in her own way. To try to prove herself again, as if she feared again what he would or could do.
"This is impressive."
"The new eunuch, Hao, does not approve. I don't like him. I want you to get me serving girls, who can go about the house, and beyond the house, gathering gossip for me… and I want more than that." Yanmae paused, as if the words had taken a lot out of her, and she hid her mouth with a sleeve of the robe she wore.
"Why are you so insistent?" Kiralo asked. "What do you have to gain that is worth this?"
"Can I not want something for myself?" she asked, and there was a brief moment of desperation in her voice so chilling that he felt as if he had walked alongside a grave-pool. "But sorry, Cs-Kiralo. I have been studying issues of importance. I am writing a commentary on the Imperial Law, as well as the local Csiritan laws in Csrae and the area, and where they differ, and where they are the same."
Kiralo smiled at her, already taken aback. But she had retreated behind her shell, at least for the moment, and he wanted to see what this was about. So he walked up and knelt by her. "May I please read it, Cs-Yanmae?"
"It is an idle woman's folly," she said. "And I do not think you would gain anything by reading it, for what could I--"
"Enough," Kiralo said. She meant it, or rather, she sounded like she meant it. Polite, perfect, with manners that once she deployed them couldn't be forced through. The perfect daughter… and yet the restrictions on her made no sense unless there was something deeper. "I understand. I respect you far too much. I am sure it is excellent. Is this about me? Did you get a marriage offer?"
She didn't speak, which was answer enough. "My father has gotten a dozen, in the last week. I of course am his to command, and I serve him in all ways." She sounded dutiful, as if she were a daughter who had never before thought, and never again would think, of anything except what her father, husband, and son would think.
She, who feared marriage as she feared death, for the same reasons. She was the same age as Ayila, and with the same brilliance in a field. But with a very different attitude.
"You don't want to take it. You don't have to. Has your father accepted one?"
"He must. For his reforms," Yanmae said. "It is only wise."
"I can argue against it, and for the female servants, if I know why it is so important."
She hesitated and said, "Good sir, I am sorry, I should have the eunuch get you tea…"
"No need now. May I read your writing, while you think of how to tell me?"
"There are no words for what I would say, brother."
He frowned and placed his finger on the front page, and began to read. The characters were beautifully written, scrunched upon the page so that one row almost touched the other, and yet each was perfectly vertical and clearly made with great care. He read quickly, his finger slowly tracing itself down and then up to the left for the next line.
'An Introduction and a humble apology for any errors.'
'As it is said that the ocean is one thing, and yet to it runs many rivers, so too is Imperial Law a single, vast thing. But so too is Imperial Law from many sources. One must understand the laws and rites of the Gods, one must respect the Judges in their right of judgement, and each village and city and monastery and province too has their own rules, or customs. Perhaps they are not written, and if that is so, they should be written. It is only by examining them that one can come to a conclusion.
It is thus that I must apologize for the format of this volume, and all volumes, for I shall humbly examine each issue among the many laws, and try to come to an understanding of the philosophical principles that should guide any complete and updated universal law to supersede and yet not ignore, the laws that come before.
This is an ambition rather beyond a--'
It stopped there, actually, with room left over for a lot to be wrritten. "What is this?"
"Should my future husband, or yourself, or my father needs to insert themselves within it," Yanmae said.
He looked at it. Over a hundred pages there, and probably more elsewhere. This was work beyond what he could ever even dream of trying, and he knew that it would likely be thousands of pages, if not more. "What other book are you working on, or is this it?"
"I need far more information in order to truly write it. I have much that I can merely begin, but much will be needed. It will likely be the work of many years, and from it, and a book on the philosophy of law, then someone far wiser than myself can then work to create a new legal code for the whole of the Empire."
"What do you have so far?"
"I have a decent selection of legal codes from Csirit and Irit, the former at my father's… allowance. And one can easily request the Provincial laws. But they fall behind the law for the truly important cases: monasteries, local law, and city law. Hari-Os has the largest collection of such law, which… the Imperial Law is often ignored, or can be. Hari-Bueli and Hari-Su too have their own… traditions. And then there is spiritual law."
Kiralo stared, starting to see the full depth of the task she had set herself for. "This is very impressive, and--"
"Father caught myself and a maidservant having sex three years ago," she blurted out, a blush on her face.
"Oh," Kiralo said, stunned. The word she used almost made it impossible to understand, for it was the word for what a man and a woman might do. 'Sex' was the word used, but then again, Kiralo didn't even know if there WAS a word for what she had said she'd done. "And father… ah."
"I… I know it is, not what is needed. Though as a mere woman, it is no impediment to my marriage. But he--he took it hard." She was stumbling over the words now, slipping between usages.
"And you wish to be served again? So that you may continue…?"
"I do not. Feel towards men as a woman should."
"Ah," Kiralo said, trying to see things from her perspective, though it was difficult. Or at least, he hadn't really imagined that a woman could, or would, or. Though he himself had similar problems, in a sense. But not in a meaningful one. "Do you think it wise that I press for it, then?"
"No." In a small voice she said, "But I want it."
Kiralo paused, looking down at the writing. "You do not wish to marry?"
"No…" she said, and from the look in her eyes, she was near tears and even nearer begging and pleading.
"Then you shall not," Kiralo said. It was a choice, but he could not reasonably blame her for her choices, not when they harmed nobody else. "And we shall see about… servants. I assume you want servants because of… discretion?"
"Yes," she said. "I do not wish to be a disgrace to my father."
"You aren't. This is… you are more his daughter than I am his son, for I am sure that if I read what you were writing, I would be baffled by it."
Yanmae smiled. "...Thank you."
"Now, I do have a question, involving monetary policy, and the law codes for taxation and--"
Yanmae, seeing an opportunity to take the topic far away from her, smiled wider and began to explain it.
With Kuojah, what to focus on? (Choose 2)
[] The spoils and dealing with the entitlements there.
[] The costs, and deailng with those.
[] An overview of the politics of Kuojah's reforms.
[] A discussion of the opposition, and their stances.
[] Talk about "Foreign Affairs."
[] The Emperor.
******
-[X] Before the Snake's Throne
Need: ???, Rolled: 1d100+12=64
-[X] My Sweet Sister
Need: Variable, Rolled: 1d100+12=106, one point off of a crit.
Need: ???, Rolled: 1d100+12=64
-[X] My Sweet Sister
Need: Variable, Rolled: 1d100+12=106, one point off of a crit.
A/N: It was so hilarious, watching you flail with Yanmae. Like with the 'compromise' that secretly get her nothing she wanted.
- Pronouns
- They/Them
To be fair, he doesn't know for 100% about Kiralo. And Kiralo is actually gonna marry. Or plans to, at least.
slybrarian
Creature of Fable
- Location
- A Far and Sunless Land
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Clearly we just need to find a wife who finds bookish young ladies attractive.
- Pronouns
- They/Them
That's certainly one possible solution.
Zeitgeist Blue
Currently Made of Metal
- Location
- Manila, Philippines, GMT +8
[X] An overview of the politics of Kuojah's reforms.
[X] Talk about "Foreign Affairs."
[X] Talk about "Foreign Affairs."
[X] An overview of the politics of Kuojah's reforms.
[X] A discussion of the opposition, and their stances.
Politics!
[X] A discussion of the opposition, and their stances.
It is easier in some ways for Kiralo. As long as he does his familial duty and has heirs, his romantic interest is irrelevant, and his wife in turn is going to be in this for political reasons no matter what, so her romantic interests is only relevant so much as it doesn't lead her to cheat and be found out cheating.
That is one hell of a political bomb you're planting in our basement. As scandals go you'd be hard pressed to find one as impressive. Yanmae knows this, which is why she requests for maids. Maids are not important enough to matter even if someone finds out....provided she's unmarried, because otherwise the husband would be forced to take action regardless.
Politics!
Random Member
Gardener of Human Happiness
- Location
- Behind You
Well, like brother like sister, I suppose.
[X] An overview of the politics of Kuojah's reforms.
[X] Talk about "Foreign Affairs."
[X] An overview of the politics of Kuojah's reforms.
[X] Talk about "Foreign Affairs."
- Pronouns
- They/Them
By modern standards, of course, this is all rotten maybe all the way down to the core. I mean, her requesting maids is her requesting people for whom she has near-absolute power over, though that's probably not, like, one of the direct draws of it. The power dynamics would give a conscientious modern person who isn't an asshole indigestion.