Book 3. The Long Journey. Chapter 104. Beginning of Negotiations.
Being the one least affected by the weird atmosphere, Laien quickly shrugged off the events of the past few minutes and spoke up with a smile. “Just in time. Let’s go to talk with him! I wonder what he’s going to want from us,” he suggested openly, without trying to be secretive about everything.
“What’s it all about?” Albert inquired, similarly leaving the conflict between Sarah and Johan for later. He was already used to Sarah being extremely emotional, so he wasn’t in a hurry to fix the problem at hand; the best solution, in his mind, was to wait for her to calm down and then try reasoning with her. Thankfully, despite her hot-blooded character, Sarah was open to arguments once she actually calmed down as long as she was approached with a calm enough attitude. Had it not been for that, he would have probably started having doubts about wanting to marry her… though it wasn’t like he mentioned those plans to her at all.
“The Grand Elders want to strike some kind of a deal with Arslan, probably,” Laien replied to Albert’s question in a casual manner, causing the fifteen-year-old to easily accept this explanation. It wouldn’t be anything strange for the Grand Elders to want to establish a closer relationship with Arslan, so there was no reason for him to suspect that Laien wasn’t telling him the entire truth.
“It shouldn’t take that long,” Laien added lightheartedly. “But in case it does, don’t wait for us. We can always play some other day… and since Johan will be tagging along with Arslan, we won’t be parting our ways quite yet,” he mentioned and smiled at Johan, whose expression, in turn, turned quite a bit brighter with even a hint of a smile appearing on his face.
“See you all later,” Laien waved his hand briefly and glanced at Arslan as he was turning around, causing the five-year-old to quickly get up and follow him and the other two outside.
“Smoothly done,” Jasmine praised once their group of four left the house. “As expected of someone who grew up amongst the nobles,” she added wryly.
“Is that even a compliment?” Laien asked with a laugh. “More importantly, I’m surprised you guys let the Prophet walk in just like that. I thought you’d be more stressed about it,” he mentioned randomly, knowing that they wouldn’t be able to start any serious conversation about Elder Samuel at the very least until they left this provisory village they were in. Thankfully, they were on the edges of it to begin with, so all it would take was a few dozen more steps.
“I was away with Sirius,” Jasmine explained. “It must have been Reian who made the call and I agree with his choice not to stop the Prophet… oh, look, speak of the devil,” she said with a smile, looking towards the two approaching young adults; Reian and Kasha. It probably needed not to be pointed out, but now that she was managing an offensive-based plan, her mood improved rapidly. Originally, she had fallen into the same dark pit most if not all members of the White guard had fallen into after they learned of Mustafa’s state. However, now that she had regained her spirits she was full of motivation and desire to do battle.
“What did he wants from you guys?” Reian greeted them with a question. He and Kasha had just led the Prophet away, watching him from a distance and making sure he left the area properly and now, they returned to see Jasmine leading the three youngsters to the fort. Thus, Reian couldn’t be bothered to wait for a ‘good timing’ to ask his question; he just wanted to know already.
“He said that he and his people will go with Arslan,” Laien relayed, using the same words the Prophet used for the sake of avoiding any misunderstandings.
“Really?” Jasmine ended up being the one who voiced her surprise. “Did he want anything in exchange?” she asked suspiciously. In situations where one side wasn’t vastly superior, she was used to both parties making a deal that was beneficial to both sides, so having the other side concede so easily left her rather restless.
In response, Laien shrugged his shoulders. “Apparently it’s what Karta showed him,” he said in a hard to ascertain tone, as if he couldn’t bring himself to be fully confident in what he was saying.
“Eh,” Jasmine sighed a little. “I don’t think I would ever get used to that. This make-believe approach of doing everything according to his visions or whatever is disturbing,” she complained in a bittersweet manner. She was happy that the Prophet wouldn’t cause them trouble with his attitude as she had been a bit worried that no logical arguments would reach him, and for this reason she wanted to talk the deal out with Samuel first and then use his influence to make sure the refugees would be let out at the correct time, but it looked like it wouldn’t be necessary.
“Eh,” sighing again, Jasmine said partially to herself and partially to everyone. “We will just need to make sure that the Prophet intends to follow up on his word. The easiest way will be to see what he tells to people in his sermons… the other way will be to ask Samuel to aid us in checking out what the people are thinking outside of those religious talks. We have no information network here, so what we can do with our numbers is limited,” she mused aloud, sharing her thoughts with the others.
“So be it,” Reian nodded in agreement. He couldn’t see anything else they could potentially do with regards to this matter, so he changed the subject instead. “Are you going to lead the talks with Samuel, or are we going to have Arslan bring it up? He’s going to be the one honoring the promises we make today, after all,” he inquired, aware that compared to Jasmine, his experience in diplomacy was very much lacking.
“I thought about it,” Jasmine said with an appreciative smile, the smile of hers as she looked at Reian causing the young golden-haired man to blush slightly. As a teacher, Jasmine was on the stricter side; having her praise anyone, even subtly like just now, was a rare occurrence. “I intend to have little master Arslan introduce the plan and ask Samuel what would it take for him to agree. As for how the negotiations go after that, we will help a little if there’s a need to make a hard choice. It would be perfect if we didn’t need to join the discussion verbally, though,” she explained, hoping that the future relationship between Makarash and the Ruishi Federation would be established by its future leaders, Elder Samuel and Arslan, and not merely Elder Samuel and Arslan’s representative.
The difference was a small one… but she knew it would greatly influence the way the two countries would cooperate in the future.
“What do you think, can you do it?” she asked, moving her gaze towards Arslan. She was sure he would be up to the task, but she wanted to hear him say so.
“I will do it,” Arslan said eagerly and smiled back at Jasmine. He was a little nervous to have the success of the negotiations rest on his shoulders, but more than that he was excited. Also, he knew that Jasmine wouldn’t have told him to try and do it alone if she didn’t believe he had good chances of pulling it off, not when the fate of their whole plan was involved.
“Good,” Jasmine said contentedly. She would expect nothing less from Mustafa’s son and she needed to admit, this journey without his father was doing wonders for Arslan’s growth. “If anything, we were lucky to have had those two try and break into the Grand Palace back in Palee City,” she thought to herself and gave Laien and Yin a curious look. Those two boys were truly special in many ways, be it their strength, characters or the way they influenced everyone around them.
“Right, right,” she remembered and gave Reian a teasing look. “Weren’t you going to apologize to them and ask them something, huh? A lot was going on so you might have forgotten… so why not use this opportunity to do so? We’ve still got some time until we get to the fort unless you want us to run there,” she said playfully, wondering how Reian was going to react now that she brought it up in front of these kids.
“… Now?” Reian asked ruefully, all the while giving Jasmine a look of a sad puppy, though without doing so quite consciously. Alas, all that accomplished was to make Jasmine laugh happily and become even more insistent on having him do so right now and not sometime later. “Ugh, fine…” he conceded, already feeling awkward due to the questioning expressions on the faces of the three boys but knowing that he was about to embarrass himself even further.
“Um,” he began awkwardly while scratching the back of his head. “Laien, Yin… you remember how I told you I had nothing to gain from sparring with you about a week ago…? So, yeah… I wanted to apologize for that and ask if we couldn’t spar a bit after all…” he forced out, his face growing thoroughly red as he was completely unused to admitting blatant mistakes, especially in front of children. In fact, the reason for his inexperience was simple; he had been a diligent and talented person from the very beginning, so he had little to no opportunities to apologize. There had been situations where he hadn’t done something well enough, but for him to flat-out admit a mistake… it was the first time since he had been taken in by Mustafa and then become Jasmine’s disciple.
“Sure,” Laien said with a quiet laugh and exchanged a glance with Yin, then laughed again alongside him. The request itself wasn’t anything special and they hadn’t minded that Reian looked down on them prior to seeing their true strength, but the way in which Reian asked them… it was just too priceless. “He’s a bit like Anatis in this aspect. They both get so shy when you tease them,” Laien mused quietly. Was this a trait all golden-haired people shared or was it just a coincidence of a kind? Probably the latter of the two, but it was still pretty amusing to think about.
“Eh?” In contrast to the rest of their little group, which without exception had amused smiles on their faces, Reian was rather startled. “Really, you aren’t angry? You won’t poke fun at me?” he asked, having fully expected to need to hear about how he was thoughtless and blind not to have recognized the potential of those two. Yet, those boys were approaching it so carefreely?
“Well…” Laien smiled wryly. “If you really want, we can do that,” he said with a laugh. Normally, he would have teased Reian further given the opportunity, but this time around, the way Reian apologized was more than enough to sate his playful desires. The way he blushed and looked around nervously, it was way too amusing to see.
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“No, please spare me from that,” Reian raised his hands and said hurriedly, causing Laien, Yin, and the other three to either laugh or chuckle.
“I’m up for a spar any afternoon,” Laien mentioned lightheartedly. “But if you want to spar with Yin too…” he said and glanced at Yin.
“If it’s just a light spar, then in four days will be fine,” Yin said with a smile. “You know, it would be fun to fight against you two on one with Laien. You are much older than us, so don’t you think that’s only fair to give us a handicap?” he suggested, not planning to let Reian off as easily as Laien did.
“Ah… yeah,” Reian groaned, seeing the smirk on Jasmine’s face out of the corner of his eye. He could imagine how much she was going to enjoy herself while watching this spar. At his current level, he could defeat either of those two boys in a one-on-one fight fairly easily, but he had seen what they were capable of when working together. Two on one… he had a feeling he was going to get thoroughly abused by the two of them. “I need to make that last stretch and break through to the fourth Realm of Heroes within next four days,” he told himself, finding yet another reason to gain some more strength as soon as possible.
“In four days then,” Yin said happily. It would be fun to team up with Laien and bully Reian a little, so he looked forward to this spar a lot.
Reian, however, could only shake his head helplessly. “Ikarians were right, you are both Devils,” he said with a grin. Had some of Yimar Furi’s subordinates escaped with their lives, those two nicknames would have stuck to Laien and Yin like a glue, but the fleeing remnants of them had been killed to the last man by Julien and his Cherubim. As a result, the world didn’t learn of that crazy battle, perhaps with the exception of some rumors being spread within the Ruishi Republic due to Jasmine.
“Maybe,” Laien said with a laugh and exchanged a glance with Yin. ‘Ice Devil’ and ‘Lightning Devil’, it wouldn’t sound so bad now, would it?
“Okay, enough for now,” Jasmine said in a merry, but at the same time a little more calm tone. “We are close, so let’s all calm down a bit and collect our thoughts,” she suggested and gave Arslan a brief, meaningful look. He was pretty much going at it without preparation anyway, but spending those last few minutes on thinking what he could say and what Samuel could say would be a nice idea now that all the stress had left him thanks to laughing with everyone.
With no disagreements, their group of six walked without speaking for the remainder of the distance to the fort and to the quarters occupied by Elder Samuel and his retinue. Knowing where to go, Jasmine led them to the spacious meeting room that had been set up in a mix of Ikarian and Ruishian styles. The room itself was filled with a delicate aroma of oranges, while in the very middle of it was a rectangular table, at the two long sides of which two sofas layered with dark brown fur were placed. Each of the sofas could comfortably fit four adult people and at this time, four men were already sitting on them; Sirius on one side and Elder Samuel with his two private guards on the other.
“Welcome,” Elder Samuel greeted with a smile. The side he occupied was very thoughtfully facing the door, so he didn’t need to turn around or move in any awkward way the moment Arslan and the rest entered. “Please feel free to take your seats. If you find any of the drinks and foods desirable, you should also go ahead and enjoy them,” he said amiably, observing the newly arrived six with a great deal of interest and attention and undoubtedly enough, just a moment later, he ended up being surprised.
“Now that’s curious,” he thought with an ever so slight smile. Arslan sat just about in front of him, what he had expected to happen. To his left, the boy had those two companions of his, Laien and Yin, while to the right on the same sofa he had Jasmine, with the remaining three White Guards occupying the second sofa. However, it wasn’t this particular order that caused him to be surprised, but the way in which everyone sat down. It didn’t escape his attention that Laien and Yin seated themselves first, without looking at anyone to look for permission; they even sat down before Arslan did and none of those White Guards looked displeased.
No matter how much more relaxed the approach to formalities was in Makarash, it would be unthinkable to have the friends of a young master choose their seats and sit down before the said young master during an important meeting. Yet, Arslan and his White Guards took it for granted, as if they had already expected it to happen.
“Could it be that there’s more to those two youths than I thought?” Elder Samuel wondered in silence. “I’ve received the reports about the role they played in the fight with Yimar Furi and his men, but was I supposed to believe them…? Two Arkarian Devils, was it? I saw them as the icing on top of the cake, but perhaps I should consider them as a full-fledged dish in those negotiations,” he thought slyly, intending to probe around with his words and see if those two boys were worth his attention. A favor from a young genius wasn’t worth much to the likes of him, but the friendship of two extreme geniuses? That wasn’t something he would simply gloss over without regrets.
“It’s a good thing I called them here,” he told himself, watching how the youths in front of him were picking drinks and snacks for themselves. The older boys appeared to be fond of wines, but Arslan appeared to be content with juice; a wise choice for a five-year-old whose body wouldn’t tolerate even small doses of alcohol so easily.
“I’ve only heard the gist of it,” he said after a while, picking out a moment when Arslan was beginning to think about starting the conversation. “I know that the deal you intend to propose to me may involve long-term benefits on the scale of our countries, but I am ignorant of the details you wish to put forth as I didn’t wish to hear them outside of the negotiations table,” he explained with a calm smile, just in case Arslan’s attendants didn’t mention to him exactly how much they had spoken about prior to this meeting. Then, he asked with a look of intrigued anticipation on his face.
“Will you lead the negotiations yourself, young master Arslan, or will one of your attendants do it in your stead?”
“I will speak for myself and for my country,” Arslan replied without wavering or betraying any hints of being nervous, using one of the many phrases his teachers had hammered into his head during his studies in Makarash. “Can I also consider you, Elder Samuel, as someone speaking for your country?” he followed up with the question, causing the look on Samuel’s face to change, his smile somehow becoming more genuine.
“I assure you that as long as the benefits are satisfactory, I will make it so no one opposes to whatever terms we come to agree to today,” Elder Samuel declared confidently. Although not all of the Grand Council agreed with him on some more moralistic matters, he had absolute confidence in being able to push through any decisions with regards to the economy and military matters… and even if for some reason the Grand Council refused to listen to him, the option of forcing them to do so through the public pressure existed.
“I’m glad to hear that,” Arslan said with a smile. “If so, then allow me to specify what the circumstances are,” he added, thus using up all the pre-prepared sentences of his. Then, following Elder Samuel’s nod, he proceeded to lay out the whole circumstance of their side. He started with telling Elder Samuel about Mustafa’s state, causing the man to frown visibly. Next, he explained his own intentions to win the battle with Yimar Maar instead of defending or running away and mentioned it being Laien’s plan, what served to further throw Samuel off his usual cool and collected mindset. Finally, he laid out how their plan looked, thus indirectly revealing what request they had of Samuel, leaving the meeting room in complete silence.
“Interesting.” After almost half a minute of pondering what he had just heard, Elder Samuel revealed a smile. “Young master Arslan, allow me to confirm, your father doesn’t know of your intentions, does he?” he inquired, seeing as Arslan failed to bring this matter up in his explanation.
“Yes,” Arslan replied without delay, scolding himself inwardly for forgetting to mention this fact on his own. “However, I know that he will agree once he hears of it. The Prophet has already agreed to cooperate too, so as long as we can come to an agreement, the deal will be set,” he said confidently, hoping that Samuel wouldn’t drill the matter. Alas, hoping for something to not happen wasn’t usually the best way to approach anything.
“Oh, that man did?” Elder Samuel raised his eyebrows, appearing to be truly surprised. However, he had no reason to suspect that Arslan was lying to him, so he asked another question instead. “It’s great and all, but what are you going to do if your father refuses, claiming that a plan that gives you a higher chance for survival is what he wants you to go through with?” he pointed out. What if he had agreed to Arslan’s demand to lend him out Julien and his elites in secret in exchange for a deal of a kind, only for Mustafa to overrule everything? Wouldn’t this meeting be utterly pointless?
“That’s…” Arslan couldn’t help but lower his gaze onto the table for the first time since this meeting began. This simple act of his made Elder Samuel shake his head, but astonishingly enough, the statement which Arslan made afterwards caused Samuel’s mouth open involuntarily.
“Even if father disagrees, I intend to follow through with this plan. Then, he will be forced to cooperate no matter what he thinks.”
Two sentences, it was all. Yet, they seriously stirred the atmosphere in the room. It wasn’t only Elder Samuel who was shocked, but also the four White Guards of Arslan’s. On the other hand, Laien and Yin, despite appearing surprised, weren’t as shaken as the rest of those present. They understood Arslan’s character quite well; he was the very same kid who wasn’t scared of them back in the Grand Palace just because he judged them to be similar to his father and the Commander Captain of Makarash’s forces, Kundar. Arslan was merely five years old, but he lacked no bravery.
Out of the adults, it proved to be Elder Samuel who regained his calm the fastest. He laughed helplessly and spoke up. “I’ve got no choice but to trust those words of yours. Yet, do your subordinates think the same? I see they were no less surprised than I was, so when the time comes, whose orders are they going to follow? Yours, or your father’s?”
The question startled Arslan, who at first resisted looking to the side, but in the end was unable to help but do so. It would be nigh impossible for his father to secretly send anyone but the reconnaissance troops over to the Ruishi Federation, the six-man units of which weren’t as combat-versed as the battle-oriented members of the White Guard. Thus, the decision of what to do would fall into the hands of three people; Jasmine, Sirius, and Reian, with Kasha being excluded due to being too weak and too low in rank. Those four, if they were faced with this choice, what would they do?
As to be expected, the four White Guards needed a moment to collect their thoughts, not having expected to be asked something like that by Elder Samuel. However, after the four of them thought for a bit, the originally tense looks of their relaxed by a great deal.
“It’s simple,” Jasmine said with a smile. “In such circumstance, we should follow whichever plan is the best. In this case, what we came up with is superior to attempting to evacuate little master Arslan without fighting,” she explained, then added just to be clear. “To answer your question, in case Lord Mustafa has objections, we are going to follow little master Arslan and just like he said, force Lord Mustafa to cooperate.”
“Well said,” Sirius supported briefly, while Reian and Kasha limited themselves to nodding their heads in agreement.
This unified response of the four resulted in Elder Samuel losing the last bits of his calm and collected mindset. He shook his head once more and laughed openly, finding this situation to be positively ridiculous. “I truly can’t say anything else to that,” he said with a bright smile on his face. He had seen his youngest son as exceptional since he was born, but it was the first time he thought that someone else would become an even more fitting ruler in the future than Mikaela. He fundamentally agreed that the plan Arslan’s group had come up with was superior to trying to flee, so he appreciated both Arslan’s own strength of character and the faith his subordinates had in him in spite of his young age.
“Very well, you conveyed your conviction to me very clearly,” he said, still smiling widely. “Now, let us say that I am willing to consider to go through with this idea and lend you General Julien and his people. What are you prepared to offer me in exchange?” he asked, the smile of his quickly changing from the purely merry one into the slightly dangerous, merchant-like haggling one.