By the second day of the reception, the crowd around the new dragonslayer had thinned considerably. You had had the niggling sensation that something was off about him, ever since that night a year ago - the singe on his ears, the envious glance, and something…else seemed to be bothering you.
So you decided to risk the light possibility of rejection and disregard, and approached him. His mask of placid disregard broke when he saw you, a light coming into his eyes as he politely excused himself from their company to join yours.
"So, Agueda, was it?" he said, eyes shaded with a gleam. "I've heard much about you – compliments on Gorlin," his voice adjusted to pierce straight through the din. "The Ministries have scarce better Colonists among their ranks."
You bow lightly, graciously taking the polite remark of your ancestry. "Thank you for the compliment, Duke Valois. You do me a great honor by simply knowing a humble colonist, such as me," you respond, lightly bowing to the floor.
His lips quirked upward. "Shall we take a walk, then? The gardens are especially beautiful this time of year."
"By all means, Duke Valois, let us," you said, following after him.
You hadn't had the opportunity to see the gardens blooming in color during last night, as much as you proclaimed your vaunted vision in the dark – the flowers were vibrant, bursting with color in patterns that must have taken great effort and skill to create.
"So, Duke Valois, what would you like me to see?" you ask, as he leads you through the gardens.
"Please, call me Emir. Valois feels…uncomfortable," he said, with a touch more weight than was perhaps wise, stopping before a row of blue flowers. He cradled one in his hands, delicately threading his fingers around the thorns. It was a beautiful flower, pulled out from the bush to start at a green shoot until it reached the bud of the purest uniform icy blue.
"Tell me, Agueda, do you know what this flower is?"
"I can't say that I do," you freely admit. Lying seems like it would end…poorly.
"It is an Ice Rose Chrysanthemum, in a full, perfect bloom. To be in full bloom, it would have had to be nurtured through seven more blooms, twenty years apart each time, and demand perfection for every bloom. The slightest mistake or lean day will show up as a blemish in the buds, and the flaws never disappear either – so can you imagine, then, what it would take for this flower in my hand to be flawless?"
"An incredible amount of care – no one person could do it alone, could even live that long, so it would have to be an order, dedicated solely to raising this one plant," you murmur. "It sounds like perhaps you have tried to grow some yourself?"
Emir Valois laughed a shaded laugh, closing his eyes to conceal the moment of hurt. "I raise plants only as a hobby, and quite frankly, I'm rather terrible at it - I could never be so skilled as to bring such a thing as this flower to life," he said, gently cradling the chrysanthemum, "Let alone to such a beautiful perfection."
"Indeed," Emir Valois animatedly said. "To bring such a thing to a flawless full bloom would be the work of two lifetimes and seven generations to bring such a flower to bloom. It would be long and laborious and without the slightest tolerance for error. And look," he said, sweeping his hand at the row. "A row of these flowers, all of them without blemish."
You murmured your assent.
"Of course, all of this will be appreciated by those here for only a day, perhaps two if they can manage it," he soberly said. "This beauty and distilled effort will stay in its home among its brethren for only a day," he said, eyes clouding over.
"Then this reception will end," you supplied.
"Then this reception will end." There is a finality to his repetition. "And then the nobles of this kingdom will see these flawless Ice Rose Chrysanthemums, and demand to take it home – whereby the order that had so raised it for generations will be forced to cut off the bud and hand it over," he bitterly said, and you wondered whether he was still talking about the flowers. "It will be beautiful, nourished in water and nutrients and gathered with those not of its own kind, and it will die, alone without its brethren in a foreign vase."
"Indeed," you agree. "Some will inevitably go that way in life – but I think that you are too hasty to dismiss the other flowers as strangers to the chrysanthemum. Look, see how chrysanthemum grows alongside its brethren in the magnolia, the orchid and the daffodil?"
Emir chuckled, low and long, and in it you heard a dark echo of the terror two days earlier.
"I take your point, Agueda," he said, releasing the flower. "And yet the company of the daffodil, the orchid, and the magnolia are no substitute for the company of its family. At least, that is how I see it. I suppose, then, I should tell you to cherish your own," he said, as if the words pained him, eyes unfocusing to see all the chrysanthemums and their attendant flowers at once.
"Don't forget to take your own advice, Emir – I think you'd make a better gardener than you expect," you reply.
"Hm," Emir said. He leaned backward, one hand shading his eyes from the sun as he stared into the sky. "I wonder what gives you that confidence. I suppose it must be Fortune's blessing, or perhaps history choosing its favorites."
"You speak as though history has finished choosing," you dryly utter.
Emir chuckled, though you wonder whether he's laughing because of your wit – or at something else.
"Well said, I suppose. Thank you for listening to my ramblings – though I had not known you to be a poet!" he laughed.
"Being an agent of Justice may as well be an admission that one is a philosopher – though I too am surprised at your own skill at poetry," you reply. "The warrior-poet ideal is frequently sought after, but so rarely achieved, after all."
"Then, I suppose, one poet to another, I'll offer you a favor, if you so require. Should you need my help in changing history, I will lend it to you," he said. "Think of it as a gift for hearing me out."
"Consider it done," you said, and the two of you headed back to the great hall.
+1 Respect. +1 Favor.
Vivien stood on the sidelines, her hair slightly askew and a cup of tea valiantly fighting a losing battle against the bags under her closed eyes. She seemed to have intentionally come to the second day of festivities in less attention-grabbing wear - ah, wax in her ears. Seemed to be another late night at the party, which could be interpreted any number of ways - though it did seem interesting that rather than head out into the gardens, she remained in the halls. In either case, the lack of people around her spoke to the effectiveness of her self-isolation.
Ah well. Time to get her attention, you supposed. Poking her in the leg would be entirely the wrong move, so you decided to step up onto the wall and elbow her in the side a little bit.
You're frankly shocked that the only reaction you get is a side-eye and a raised eyebrow.
"What is it, Agueda?" she said, holding her hand to her forehead. "Everything is a little too loud right now," she hatefully said. "The little side rooms are worse! I just want some peace and quiet, is that really so much to ask for?"
"Are the gardens not an option?" you asked.
"They irritate me," she said, waving her teacup around. You were genuinely shocked she didn't spill a drop - probably a low level lid spell. Though it did raise all sorts of questions that apparently the lid spell was so instinctive she could do it without gestures or words, you note.
"Very well, Minister Vivien," you replied.
"What's the occasion," Vivien sighed. "I know you too well to think otherwise."
"Why I never," you fake-exclaim. "I just wanted to pay my respects to my superiors."
"I'll believe that when the people here actually give me something to work with," she grumpily said. "The generals want me to produce money enough for the armament of 30,000 men under arms in the middle of winter, and the nobles want me to do so without actually imposing upon any of their privileges and understandings, and my family expects me to produce something from this position - either a marriage or a fat lump of wealth for a dowry," she said, tipping the last of her tea. "If they wanted that to happen by putting me in the financier's office, I suppose I can't give anything but disappointment," she laughed, low and sharp.
"Hmph," you commiserated. "I can report some amount of success, though," you said. "The Sarkozy family has agreed to a loan in order to help pay for things. Should be a decent chunk of federal income," you say.
Vivien eyed you without turning her head. "Do I want to know the cost of this small loan?"
"I may have threatened a war if he fails to comply," you shrugged.
"Ah. Wonderful, my subordinates are either untrustworthy or uncontrollable," she sighed. "Don't give me that fake outrage, you know it's true and that I can't do anything about it. You're lucky I happen to hate you less than all of your potential replacements."
"And I appreciate it," you said. "Having to regularly consult with you like the previous minister would have been made both of our jobs more difficult."
"So that's where you get your nasty habit of sneaking up on people from," she said. "I assume those chats were not at all friendly, mm?"
"I can't say," you drily remarked. "I have a reputation to maintain."
"Hmph," Vivien smirks. "Well, I assume you're not here to tell me just good news, are you?"
"Sadly not. I'm going to have to request a year of leave, either this year or next," you said. You still need to arrange the movement of your colonies - they're far too close to the Rusmysian border as is, and you
really don't want to see how the Rusmysians will treat your family.
"Hmph. And why do you feel the need to tell me, rather than simply doing it like you do with everything else?"
"Because I respect you, Minister Vivien," you said.
"I should believe that because?" Vivien said.
"Because I am genuinely telling you that I respect you, Minister Vivien?" you replied.
"Heh. I'll take that, I suppose. You wouldn't happen to respect me enough to tell me why, would you?"
You look at Vivien. Do you...actually know her well enough to trust her with this sort of information? To trust a noble with the knowledge that the kingdom may be put on the chopping block in just a few short years? Worse, to trust them with that information, so that she can tell her family, who can switch sides and tell the foreigners who to target with assassinations?
You think about how you've seen her change over the years. From a bright and eager girl looking to please her family and do her duty to a jaded woman staring at the crowd of her peers, estranged from her family and allies.
You sigh. To offer trust may give her a real motivation to join forces with you - or it may be traded away for the vain hope that your sacrifice would be an acceptable payment for the adulation of her peers. But that was how life always was, wasn't it?
"Hm. How seriously did you take the King's Oath, Vivien?" you bluntly ask.
"Hm? Dropping the Minister title?" Vivien asked, looking over at you.
"Answer the question," you repeated.
"That damned oath is the only thing keeping me on my feet some days," she moodily replied. "Out with it - some threat on the king's life?"
"Hmph. No. The Rusmysians are liable to take their army through Oskaria at the end of the Crusade and not leave," you said. "I need a year to get my colony out of that path. Do me a favor and keep this secret, will you?"
Vivien looks down at you, an interminable eternity where your mind races for how you might need to secure her silence if she did not agree. Finally, she looks upwards, and takes a sip from her empty cup.
"On my word," she simply said. "You'll have your year."
"Thank you, Minister Vivien," you said, bowing gratefully.
The discussion with the lawyers, bureaucrats, and merchants seems downright relaxing compared to the last two meetings - a simple introduction to other notables, a rousing back and forth between you and Damien Jacquemin about the necessity for a truly just legal system that respected the rights of all those born with a soul, as the ultimate mark of citizenship. You and Jacquemin duly fought the most strident battle between the new state theorists debating on whether citizenship should be reserved for those who pay taxes - some argued that citizenship should only be reserved for those with enough of a stake in the nation to pay taxes, which you rebutted would immediately exclude the vast landholders who paid their way out of the taxes, and so thus both systems needed to be reformed, to understanding nods and light applause.
Somehow, hours have passed, and you're debating whether a proper system ought to reserve the death penalty as the highest form of legally permissible state sanction, or whether even that was too cruel and unusual of a punishment.
You're glad that you spent your time this way, and you think that many of your fellow bureaucrats and lawyers agree with you.
+1 Respect.
Now is the final day of the grand reception, you need to make your final decisions for what to spend your time actively doing. The rest of your team seems generally well-rested and glad to have come here - which is a good thing, in your opinion. Time to make this last day count.
Choose 3.
[] Emir Valois
You have one of his favors, and you need to negotiate a place for your colony to go to. Perhaps the Valois land might be willing to take a colony?
Diplomacy: 25
[] Countess Natalia
It's been a year, and you were quite impressed with her work the last time you visited her province - you'd like to know how she's doing now, as well as whether or not she might be able to accommodate a few colonies.
Diplomacy: 15
[] Lilliane Cecille - Intrigue
Quite aside from your professional loathing of this woman, she made quite a few attempts to distance herself from the King. On your own spare time, you've been looking into her habits - and you may have found where she keeps her secrets.
Intrigue: 25.
[] Lilliane Cecille - Reporting
Well, you have your information, and she is getting steadily harder to evade. You are technically supposed to report the matter to her - if you hadn't already reported the information to Antonin and Vivien too, now. You wonder whether it's worth bringing her in at all.
[] Ophelia - Oskaria
You do have another gamble in mind. It's a little bit gauche to attempt upstaging the main event, but if you can bring Ophelia - Oskaria to the grand hall, you can make a point -
anybody in Oskaria can become a warrior, given only the blessing of Oskaria. Perhaps that will dissuade the jackals.
Piety: 26.
[] The Spirits
You know there are spirits here, some of them quite powerful - perhaps this is an opportunity to secure a tentative agreement?
Piety: 28.
[] Besim Rosenberg
You spot one Besim Rosenberg at this assembly, and worse, you think he's spotted you too. Ugh. Best to deal with this interaction as efficiently as possible.
Diplomacy: 35.
Right now, analysis is very much welcome, and will be rewarded with meows as per policy. Due thanks to
@Vocalend for betaing the Valois segment for me, etc.
Naturally, there will be...some inaccuracy in this map.