“Milord, what did the queen have to say?” as I am approaching, Quexajo asks.
“Nothing. I just left a note on her desk during the instances that I was leaving her room.” as I pass him by, heading towards our next destination.
“Wait, milord,” as Quexajo stops me from proceeding forward, “Isn’t that kind of rude displaying such a pretentious stunt in front of Lady Anda?” and before my presence, he appears in front of me - making a testament to apologize back to Lady Anda.
“Let’s go, Quexajo! We don’t have much time left on our hands. The ship won’t wait for us any longer…” I dismiss his warning (as I consider it not much of a threat, to be frank of it), where I yank his shoulder, dragging him with me.
“Well, whatever you say, Lord Geoff. Let’s do it your way.” he then concedes to my demand.
As we have reached our supposed-location for our meet-up, Quexajo seems to have packed all our things for the voyage. The captain of the passenger galley meets us with a warm salutations: ‘Welcome aboard.’ he says. A hundred people have come to make a journey to Haganolopolis as it seems. There are no other inhabitant places that we can pass in our path, as far as I can reminisce to it. Well, we can see many of them, actually, however, they are isolated in the face of the map - the naval navigators seem to not care about small details. I assume it’s too tedious when they do unnecessary labor for a price of low.
“Welcome aboard, Lord Geoff.” someone approaches us and the face of this individual looks familiar in any sense.
I get to catch his hand by offering me a handshake before he is about to initiate it, saying: “Have we met before? Did we coincidentally encounter ourselves from Lord Ameniah’s meeting, didn’t we?” where he bops his head in response - agreeing, as I get it right but I don’t remember who he is.
“I believe so, milord. Quexajo…” he retorts, then he turns his attention towards Quexajo, giving him a handshake.
“You are Captain Pierre, are you not?” guessing if I am right or whatnot, I exclaim.
“Haha… close, milord.” where he performs a genuflection before us.
“Well, if you mind not… may I ask of you what your name is, dear gentleman?” I sincerely ask him, he rises from kowtowing.
“My name is Conrad Maria La Fayette-St. Cruz. It is a pleasure to meet you, Lord Geoff.” therefore he initiates the handshake which I forgot as of lately to have a contact to it.
“Oh… ! I am misidentifying people on a whim. That’s so silly of me. Jeez, that’s so embarrassing.” I gasp, where I only talk this all by myself - having second thoughts on how to interact with people for the next encounter without them being offended.
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“Likewise, Conrad Maria La Fayette-Santa Cruz. My name is Quexajo. Lord Geoff’s confidant trustee and his adjutant.” Quexajo intervenes, catching the handshake on my behalf because in the moment of seconds have passed… I just get a cold feet sensation. Good job, Quexajo. Thank you for saving my ass back here.
“Your safety is assured with us. Just sit back and chill down, Lord Geoff. Your welfare is in our cautious hands.” Conrad Maria winks at us, leaving.
We got his advice and soon we will be in Haganolopolis. For a small ship like what we are riding on, sure, it is bustling. Most of them, as far as I could imagine, are merchants and some independent traders who don’t have any affiliations with other guilds. Few are from Kehina, certainly it is, a small sort can avail services to go outside of the kingdom. I am quite familiar with other faces like: Sire Guͦnthræ (Gyun-thrae) af Güd and Ak’ga. For Sire Guͦnthræ, I know his existence is quite a name we would never forget in the diplomatic circles. His ancestor was the one who erected and responsible for making one of the most popular red-light cities out of existence - you name it; domestically, internationally, interplanarly. Actually, I am not acquainted with him that well. Ak’ga is having a conversation with him for a while, thus, it is too disrespectful for me to interrupt them. I make sure he is having a time of his life conversing to the the one of he look up to. And the rest are of the mixture of mercenaries, adventurers, liaisons, economical attachés, and everything else.
“Milord… ?” Quexajo whispers.
“Yes, what is it?” and right away I respond to his request.
“There are many personalities boarding this ship, are there not? Look over there, there is Guͦnthræ Güd of the Inglovia. Then, there is Akialom - one of the prominent polyarms users…” he is ardent to let me know of the gist of each big name around the deck, one-by-one he mentions with brief but definitive details of them.
“I, for one, do know Sire Guͦnthræ back in my education years.” I claim.
“What? You told me not about that story, milord? I’m perplexed!” natural reaction, he replies.
“Well, remember when my father - may the entities above rest his soul, both enrolled us in Lüadenstadt and but that time, you refused to take his offer.”
“Ah! University of Inglovian Occidental, isn’t that right milord?”
“Exactly, I came close to him for a while.”
“Then why won’t you take a time with him, if you are that cordial to each other?” Quexajo suggests.
“Well, long short story, Quexajo. It was not that very friendly so as I ponder about it. Since, during each semestral grand debate held in the campus, we battered ourselves into oblivion until one left standing.”
“So what happened? Who is taking the lead?” he is curious about Sire Guͦnthræ’s and my scores.
“Well, it has been a draw since then.”
“Shame.”
“Well wait, milord? Why won’t you ask him for a last time? Challenging him to settle the score, then?” he adds.
“Are you out of your mind, brother? Sure it has been busy as of recently, there is no way he will accept my invitation just for that - just on a whim.” I explain to Quexajo about the repercussions.