Sophia woke up from her sweet dream by the soft knocking on the door of her bedchamber. Irritated, she threw away the silk blanket that was covered her across the room, but it simply landed gently on the floor, to her dismay.
“Lady Sophia” The knocker spoke to her from behind the door, judging by the low and submissive tone of his voice, Sophia assumed that he was a servant “The supreme leader wishes for milady to meet him at the spiral step.”
“Now?” She groaned.
“His leadership said to be as soon as possible.” The servant replied, “The supreme leader also requests that milady put on her finest gown for the day as well.”
Sophia sighed and told the person in front of her door to take his leave. Normally Gorbach had never dictated what she needed to wear, as long as it was ‘noble-like’, which was quite hypocritical coming from the person who wore commoner’s clothes half the time. Regardless, to make her dressed more properly than usual likely meant that what would be happening today must be pretty darn important.
Sophia hopped off the bed and threw open the curtain, letting some light entered the room as a meant to refresh her mind. The sun had already risen over the horizon a few hours ago.
“It’s this late already?” Sophia muttered, maybe reading files from the achieve till it passed midnight might not be a good idea after all. She pulled the gown she was wearing yesterday off her back and threw it messily onto the bed. Searching through the closet, she picked the most unnecessary beautiful piece of fabric in her possession, a sky blue gown, decorated with series of tiny bows on the chest, not to mention flowing sleeve layered with transparent grey satin and bordered with linen of gold. The skirt part of the dress was very thick and on one side of it sewed near a hundred tiny piece of amethyst, each likely worth as much as her parent’s house, arranging into the pattern of a flowing wind and fucking flower.
Sophia took around 5 minutes to put on the gown, having the need to adjust the various bow and strap of this grossly beautiful dress. It was cut for obviously different girl, with perhaps fuller breasts and less thin body, the area around her chest felt strangely loose and the cloth did not manage to touch her waist, though she grew increasingly alarming as every time she wore this dress and any other one, she felt that the area was getting tighter.
Sophia grabbed for a comb, though ornate, seemed quite old and tried to entangle her messy hair. When that was over, she noticed that it was growing longer; the lock that she remembered only reaching her shoulder was now tumbling over and reaching the top part of her chest. Sophia did not remember her hair growing at this sort of rate.
‘It will be the length of Lana’s at year-end.’ Sophia thought ‘I best find a way to cut it before that.’
To look her best as Gorbach demanded, Sophia grabbed a necklace of sapphire and pearl, which brought out the color of her eyes, and then tied it around her wrist as she thought it looked better on her that way. After all that finished, she slipped on a pair of cloth shoes and made for her room’s door.
The person waiting for her was her personal guard in her usual guard outfit, but this time instead of tugging her hair under the helmet, Teera let a short braid of brown hair dangling out instead, which was quite a strange sight to behold.
“Were you ordered to be my escort?” Sophia asked her essentially babysitter.
“Not an order, really. More of personal duty.” Teera replied back “Shall we go then?”
“I don’t really have a choice.” Sophia muttered as they started walking “I’m basically living in his house, after all.”
“That’s one way to look at it.” Teera response “Him commanding absolute authority over all of us is another.”
Sophia nodded, but didn’t actually agree to it. For if there was one thing she learned from living here, it was that the supreme leader did not, in fact, hold all the power, and could not, like the myth said, control everything.
They found the man in question waiting the carved and ornate stair that was the place he asked her to meet him, standing behind him was his two usual guards. Gorbach had dressed himself to look extra Supreme leader today; cladded in a long crimson trench coat, the outfit was linen with thick gold threads, giving it an unnecessary glorification. Under it was a black thick shirt, linen with silver this time for some reason in the pattern of a blurry smashing fist, his golden symbol of position pinned properly above his right breast. His long slack pant was held together with an oiled leather belt with a dark metal buckle, a chain hanged from his right hip, hanging on it was a silver medallion and his thick boot was so polished that she could nearly saw her reflection on them.
“You are going all out.” Sophia noticed.
Gorbach shrugged “It’s an important meeting, and sometimes you have to dress to impress.”
Sophia remembered discovering a line similar to what he said in the book Gorbach had given her “Isn’t it dress for success?”
“Reality is often worse than fiction.” Gorbach replied back in a relaxing tone and reached out his hand “How about we attend to our business then?”
“I suppose” Sophia then glanced at his gesture, remembering it was something that nobles do as a sign of closeness, so she hesitantly slid her arm into Gorbach’s, who took hold of it and led her forward.
“So what did you need me for anyway?” She asked the supreme leader.
“You will know of what I need you for in a little while,” Gorbach said with a small sly smile, which did nothing to quell her dreading curiosity.
The two and their three guards went through the corridor of marble, finery decorations and stained glass. With Gorbach around her arms, Sophia felt more anxious compare to the time before when she was just trailing after him. The nobles they passed were eyeing her more than usual, though Sophia could sense that their gazes were different somehow.
“I was thinking…” Gorbach started to say a minute into their walk “What should your noble’s name be?”
“This again?” Sophia asked with mild irritation.
“Dirtthrow or Earthball came into mind.” He continued, not listening to her “But if you had better suggestion then I will be willing to hear it.”
“For the last time, you are not giving me a last name,” Sophia replied with a frown. She wished to remain a common, and what Gorbach’s doing wasn’t really helping.
“Very well then, you will just be Sophia for now.” Gorbach finished their little conversation and glanced forward “And look, we’re here.”
Sophia raised her head; in front of the two of them were the ornate and polished double gate of the council room. The wood that made up the door was carved into a scenery of military battle, which seemed to be very one-sided as she saw a platoon of wooden guards firing into a horde of rebel mob, in the midst of battle was a person floating high above all in a shining radiant ‘Wonder who’s that supposed to be?'
Normally, Sophia would have parted with Gorbach at this spot and waited for him to finish his meeting, but Gorbach did not seem to have any intention to release her arm as he went forward to push open the door.
“Gorbach…what are you doing?” Sophia asked in a slight panic, she was his personal advisor, aye, but she did not sit at the table.
“I decided that you will be joining the council from this point on.” Gorbach said as he partially dragged her into the room, which was devoid of anyone but servants and guards “I wish for you to voice your opinions in front of my other advisors, sharing your view without having me to tell you the content of the meeting afterward.”
Sophia bit her lip “I suppose I did not have a choice in this matter.”
“You do” Gorbach countered and released her arm “You can leave now if you want, but know that I need you to help me keeping my sanity intact in these sorts of council meetings.”
She sighed “Fine, I’ll stay for this time.”
Sophia turned around to see the room, which she had ever only seen in pictures when the teachers taught her about the politic in school. A near perfectly circular room, it was decorated with the most needless finery she had ever seen in this damn castle. A golden statue here and there, cart of multiple bottles of wines, shaped wine glasses, and shiny grapes, not to mention the floor was covered with velvet carpet in a strange and exotic pattern. Around the marble wall were the painted canvases of all 53 previous supreme leaders, arranging around the room, and over the ornate stone fireplace was the picture of Gorbach in a golden frame. Sophia looked at the canvas then to the current supreme leader, Gorbach had already possessed a good enough face as he is, but the painter had made him even handsome somehow, though the guy also gave him a solemn expression, like he had everything under his control, which contradict the frown, sigh and smiled he always seemed to express.
The centerpiece of the room was unarguably the majestic round table in the…well, the center. Carved, polished and of course ornate, its size could easily fit a group of 60 people, the content of the carving was an unexpected map of the entire city. The last stronghold, the 5 main roads, major buildings like and the city wall were sculpted into the table so unnecessary vivid that it was nearly better than the hologram map her Stalus could displayed. Around the giant wood map were expensive cushioned chairs, six of them.
‘Six? But there are only three advisors and the supreme leader.’ Sophia contemplated as Gorbach took the most ornate seat behind the last stronghold part of the map. Trying to be seen as humble and not overreaching, Sophia took the one which was two seats away from the left of the supreme leader, just over the lower common district.
“It seems that my other advisors did not decide to come early.” Gorbach said, rather not disappointingly “I already ate, but, you seem to haven’t, so let’s get you something.”
In response to that, the servant in the room pressed something into her hand device, and not even a minute later another servant entered the room with a silver plate in hands. He gave a bow to the supreme leader and then placed the dish in front of her.
Sophia looked at her meal, three sliced boiled eggs with a distinctive purple outer layer, showing that it was cooked in wine, a few sauce-covered asparaguses, chipped sizzling bacon and finally a pinch of orange spice. It was an exotic food, a noble food, and Sophia was already uncomfortable just from looking at it.
For the past two weeks or so, if Sophia wished to eat something, she would walk to the kitchen herself then asked the servant there for the simplest food they had on hand, and even then she would usually get something like a bowl of spiced mushroom soup or a juicy sliced mutton. She just felt…wrong to have someone spent an hour cooking her meal and then brought it to her personally while knowing that near half of kids her age would go to bed hungry that very night. Sophia glanced at the commoner on work around her, but the only look they gave was lackluster.
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One of the servants served Gorbach a wine cup while the other poured the same purple liquid into hers. The supreme leader eyed her not eating the food, and said: “Dig in.”
Sophia nodded and decided that it was best to eat the food in front of her so it would not seem that she was being impolite. She grabbed the utensils the servant laid around her to slide the vegetable apart and ate them with the egg and bacon. It was delicious, but the fact didn’t really make her feel any better about herself. She grabbed the cup of wine and washed the food down; the liquid mixed with the spice gave a strange sweet aftertaste.
“Like my uncle always said…” Gorbach spoke in a slightly good mood after taking a sip from his own cup “One glass for flowing words, two glasses for courage and three glasses for losing your sense.”
Sophia did not know what to answer to that, so she simply nodded and returned to her plate.
As Sophia finished her meal and Gorbach flipped through a few pages of the book he hid in his coat, the council room’s door creaked open. Sophia turned toward the direction, expecting one of the old head advisors, but the person entering was someone else. A young man with well-combed hair, dressed in a proper yet plain suit and tie along with one finery as a side cloak, on his chest was the sunburst pin that still retained its gold texture.
Gorbach rose from his seat to greet the entering man, but instead of shaking each other hands, he pulled the man closed to him and gave each other a friendly hug.
‘This must be Howland Goldeye.’ Sophia thought as she handed her empty plate to the servant, Gorbach had spoken about getting one of his good friends to join the council, so seeing him here was no surprise. Sophia tried to recall the history of the Goldeye family, which was filled with 18 members becoming advisors, one fail coup which left only a single member alive of the family, and a few near extinction of their name. In any case, she had heard that this particular Goldeye had been Gorbach’s constant companion when they were young and that he was promised the hand of the supreme leader’s sister before the girl unfortunately died.
Gorbach turned for the general direction of Sophia and waved his friend to come to meet her. She stood up in response, as it was expected of her, brushing her anxiety away and confronted the two men.
“Howland, this is Sophia no-last-name-yet, that clever girl I told you about.” Gorbach introduced them to each other.
“It is nice to meet you,” Sophia told him as a sign of courtesy.
Howland studied her with a solemn expression for a little longer than she was comfortable with, finally, he moved away and gave her a little bow “It is a pleasure to meet you as well; I heard that you had taken on the many centuries worth of history in the stronghold’s achieve.”
“A person who did not learn from history will always be destined to repeat it.” Sophia quoted the line from Gorbach’s book, a small proud smile formed on her lip.
Howland chuckled at that “You are a clever girl indeed, reminding me of someone I knew.”
“I am reminding you once again, Howland.” Gorbach said to his friend grimly when they leave Sophia’s general presence “What I want from you is honest counsel, not empty flattery, and also try not to act strange with my personal advisor.”
“I will see to that,” Howland replied with a smile that only a longtime friend could give each other.
After that, Gorbach returned to his seat and continued reading his book, and Howland placed himself in the chair next to him by the right, filling up half the spots on the table.
‘I wonder if the placement meant something…’ Sophia contemplated, half sarcastically.
The remaining council members arrived at the meeting room one by one, the ugly and meak lord Rubos came in and seemed to be incredibly nervous on the prospect having two new people joining the meeting, one of them a girl of thirteen, for he was sweating frantically from his palm and soaking crimson coat when he sat on Gorbach’s left, between the supreme leader and Sophia.
Next came lord Corlius, bald, plump and always richly dress, his golden teeth shone every time he smiled. He wasn’t smiling at the moment though, for he had noticed Sophia and took the furthest available seat from her with a considerable defiant and irritated look, but seemed to be able to keep his mouth shut.
Last to enter was the mighty lord Penis; he was beyond well-muscled, giving him a half handsome look in a freakish sort of way. His straight brown hair was longer than any woman Sophia had ever met. The lord displayed an amusing smile when he noticed Sophia, then claim the last empty chair, the one directly opposite to the Supreme leader.
“Now that the council members had all arrive…” Gorbach said to start the meeting “Let’s us attend to the matters at hand.”
“Yeah” Lord Corlius suddenly spoke in an annoyed tone, pushing himself off his seat “Why is ‘she’ here?”
“I believe that the matter Gorbach wishes to discuss about concern over the upcoming picking day, my lord,” Sophia told him with a hint of condescending in her tone.
Lord Corlius ignored her “I am willing to tolerate you having ‘this girl’ as your…companion. But a commoner does not have a place in the council.”
“I value her counsel.” Gorbach said plainly “Despite her age, she got quite an insight.”
“And this girl can speak, ser. Try to listen to her next time.”
Lord Corlius shook his head in defeat and went back to his seat.
“Do any of us had any furthers problems with the addition councilors, ser?” Howland asked.
Lord Penis shrugged, and the lickspittle Rubos responded with “It is the supreme leader’s decisions.”
Howland nodded “Then let’s continue our meeting.”
Sophia glanced at the direction of Gorbach and Howland, realizing their plan that had come to fruition. ‘They are using me as a distraction.’ She thought, biting her lip ‘So that the fact that Howland joined the council was not that big of a deal.’
But then a smile formed on Sophia’s lips, the naming of advisor was always a prickly situation throughout history, as the old one would always be worrying about their influence in danger. By having them worried about common joining, they would not concern themselves with another noble joining until it became normal for him to be in the meeting.
‘This is likely Howland’s first meeting too, by the way, he’s talking with Gorbach.’ Sophia could not stop to be amused by Gorbach’s deception and did not really mind that much on being used.
“Like lady Sophia said, picking day is coming in a few days.” Lord Rubos broke the short silence “Each order of work have been sending the numbers of recruits they wished to have.”
“We need to double the number of courtesan recruits.” The lord of Penis told the council as a servant poured him a glass of strong wine “There has been a shortage of them lately, most of the pretty one had gone to serve supreme leader Musol in his dark hall.”
Sophia flinched on that, remembering her short but dreadful time as an assumed courtesan. She had seen many of their order wandering aimlessly the hall of the Last Stronghold, snatched by the arm by the nobles to fulfill his or sometimes her desire. Gorbach had expressed quite a disliking of the order and Sophia very much shared his view. Not to mention, increasing their recruits would mean decreasing the other, which might interfere with his reforming plan.
“That would not be wise…” Sophia said suddenly.
“And why would that be, little girl?” Lord Penis said in a slight and annoyed surprise of having someone spoke against him.
‘Why is it unwise?’ Sophia asked herself, to say that it is wrong to treat people like the thing to fulfill your desire would not be a good argument for these corrupt men. So she needed other arguments…
“Think about it, my lords.” Howland came in “A double in recruit now would mean a double in yearly courtesan we actually got in two years’ time, and by that point, we would have sufficient amount of them already.”
Gorbach gave a nod to that, so lord Rubos came in “Besides, Lord Ptis, if we do what you said, they would need to pick the non-pretty one to fill their ranks, and it is best that we got the best of each year for our courtesans.”
Sophia turned to Howland and gave him a nodded of appreciation, then to Gorbach, whose face was displaying obvious disgust over the topic but was luckily hidden by his hands that were crossing each other.
“Very well,” Lord Penis said, seemingly giving up, but the vile smile still remained on his face when he glanced toward Sophia “It will be as the little girl’s liking.”
“That does remind me.” Gorbach spoke in a tone that did not seem like the thing he was about to say came up to him this instance “I had requested the order of distributioner and agriculturer to increase their recruit, do any of you had anything against that?”
Lord Corlius, who had been silent for a short while in what seemed like his own notion of displaying discontent, spoke up “So you are still going forward with ‘that’ plan, Supreme leader.”
‘Supreme leader, not your leadership.’ Sophia noticed, though it did not seem like much, the bald man had pulled off a layer of respect. Pulling a few more layers would likely resulting in him calling Gorbach ‘boy’ or even ‘little runt’.
“Our city had stopped growing for many generations now, and the restricted food had been a major reason of the problem. I don’t know about you but I am not content to rule a lone depressing city on this decollated wasteland.”
“Then it will be done, your leadership.” Lord Rubos jumped on it immediately “Your wisdom will not be blind to us.”
As Gorbach groaned under his breath, Sophia realized her time had come to input something important “This may not be related to the upcoming picking day, but it must be addressed.”
Lord Corlius raised his head, more confused for seeing Sophia actually spoke up than interested, unlike lord buffed Penis who seemed to be amused by her. Lord Rubos still was sweating, not knowing what to do.
Howland glanced toward her, and in an encouraging smile, said: “Then speak up.”
Sophia nodded “It concerns the sadness shelter and the misuse of its given supply.”
“The orphanage?” Lord Corlius asked, “Are you from that place or something?”
Sophia shook her head, ignoring the lord’s obvious condescending tone “No, I am not, but I had been sort of inspecting the place for a while now, and I had a few evidence that the caretakers are taking part of the children’s food for themselves.”
“I believe that we had a more pressing concern than a few priestesses stealing bread, little girl, let're the guards deal with it.” The despicable lord Penis said dismissively.
Sophia closed her eyes ‘Very well then, I shall appeal to your terrible nature as a means to make my case.’ She opened her eyes again and continued.
“Leaving this problem unsolved will make these priestesses believe that they could get away with defying the Last Stronghold, and it will be only a short time until this idea spread to someone else.”
Every council member considered what she had said for a moment, in which time she turned to meet Gorbach’s eyes. Sophia had spoken of this predicament with the supreme leader once before, but despite his promise, Gorbach was too focused on his big change to spare time to fix this minor problem, so Sophia felt she had no choice but to form her own solution and took initiative. She was afraid that Gorbach would be displeased by her taking action without consulting him first, but to her surprise and relived, he simply smiled back.
“Lady Sophia is right.” Lord Rubos said when he noticed the supreme leader’s indirect agreement “We must executed these thieves at once!”
‘No, we cannot answer it with death; fear can only do so much…’ The thought echoed in her head.
“That would be very much unwise, lord Rubos.” Howland told the older and uglier man “Thieves or no, the people we spoke of are still priestesses, there will be a quell from the city and from the church even if we had a good excuse, and doing so would likely cause more problem than it solves.”
“Then what do you suggest we do?” Lord Corlius asked, still frowning after all this time.
“A weekly inspection by the distributioners and the guards.” Sophia offered “This way, not only will it leave the caretaker less room to corrupt; it will also ensure that the amount of food could be better colorate to the number of orphans.”
‘And when we at it, maybe even increase their amount of food by a little bit too.’ She might have added, but Sophia knew she was pushing her luck; she could always speak with Gorbach later about it.
The supreme leader stood from his seat “Do any of us have any objections on Sophia’s proposal?”
No one spoke up; even lord Corlius, who had even grudgingly agreed.
“It shall be done then.” Gorbach said and returned to his seat “I will contact the order of guard, distribution and faith to implement this policy.”
The meeting went on for a few more hours, and the time period was filled with arguments, pleasing empty words and a few decision makings. After Gorbach dismissed the council, the old advisors made their way out of the room and the supreme leader and Howland turned to chat with each other. Lord Rubos quickly-paced passed her, Lord Corlius spat on her feet, which she brushed his stinky liquid away in disgusted. The last was lord Penis who walked to meet Sophia’s eyes; his gaze seemed to pierce into her and made her body felt like it was crawling with thousand spiders.
“What?” Sophia asked him as he stood there. He examined her for a few seconds, then suddenly lowered his head to give her blonde curl a small sniff.
“Hey!” She cried out and slapped him on his cheek, which barely left a mark. Her face's red from embarrassment.
“Not as pretty or as sweet.” The Penis lord muttered, his sly smile larger than before “But the resemblance was quite clear. See you on the picking day, Elizabeth.”
Sophia anxiously tabbed her fingers, half of her wondering what was that all about, the other half crept out by the chain of event.
By then, Howland had already left the meeting room and Gorbach was making his way toward her “The meeting went better than I expected.”
“Yeah…” Sophia responded in a daze, so Gorbach pressed his hand on her shoulder.
“No need to be nervous, you did good back there.” He encouraged her “Let’s go, I had ordered a tailor to make you your own gown for the picking day, and there is a slight chance that you might actually like it.”