The wife and I were having a nice mid-day meal. Not brunch…Kind of lunch, but also a little bit supper-y, but then again it was still early for supper or dinner. I don’t know what you’d call that. Either that or I’m too lazy to look up the word. I’ll just define it as a mid-may meal and leave it at that.

Jo was eating a big steak that had been grilled and baked until it was somewhere in the ballpark of being medium-rare. Seasoned and cooked to perfection, but still left just a bit bloody, just the way she liked it. I was eating light, because I had a thing right after this that was also going to be in the form of a meal. However, since it was a business thing, I couldn’t really make a pig of myself, which was why I was eating beforehand.

Jo and I weren’t the only ones at the table. Of course, Brandy was there. She lived with us, and often shared our meals. Then there was Sawyer, who Jo and Brandy had gotten fairly close within recent times. Enough so, that she was often over, hanging out with one of the two women. She practically had a guest room assigned to her on a permanent basis at this point. Which isn’t like…a complaint, I more or less liked her too, we just weren’t as close because we didn’t really interact too often outside the context of work.

Then again ‘that’ was changing because of Jo and Brandy having her over so often. So, yeah, let’s just say she was a friend of a friend that was rapidly making her way to being ‘my’ friend, but we weren’t quite there yet.

Brandy and Sawyer were talking amongst themselves. Jo and I were talking amongst ourselves. We had a good mood going. A good enough mood, that I almost kind of wanted to call off the thing I had coming up next, so I could just hang out with the Missus and then maybe go do some tinkering in my lab afterward.

“So, what do you say to us, getting back out in the old dating scene again?” said Jo. After washing down a thick chunk of steak with a sip of spirit-fruit water.

“Huh?!...” I said. Thrown for a loop, because a second ago we were just talking about maybe making some additions to our shop’s toy line and adding new games and attractions to our arcade because Jo had gotten tired of most of the games and attractions we had already.

“Well, remember when we were talking the other day, about maybe taking that next step…Expanding our family, and finally having some pups?” said Jo.

I thought back, and first recalled the matter being brought up during the teatime with my mother, and then a few other times where it kind of came up afterward.

“Uh…I guess so?” I said.

“So…I figured maybe we should start taking some proactive steps in that direction…I mean its not like love is something that just happens. Especially with ‘our’ social life, we’ve gotta put some effort in, pudding,” said Jo.

My knee-jerk reaction was to pull away from this, but I was self-aware enough to know that I ‘was’ kind of complacent when it came to stuff like this. Jo and I’s relationship was one-off. The one time when I’d ever been proactive when it came to this sort of thing, because Jo had been maybe the one person I A)trusted enough to lower my walls with and B)attracted enough to take a chance on communicating my feelings to.

“I…suppose you’re right. How did you want to do this, hon?” I said. Finishing the last bite of the shrimp salad that I’d been eating.

“Huh…I’m…actually, not sure. I don’t know, I think there are maybe some dating sites for couples looking for thirds or fourths to add to their relation, but I’m not sure I’d want to go the online route either…Er, I wanted to bring up finally expanding our family, but didn’t really think to far beyond that…So, can I get back to you on that?” said Jo. Laughing lightly.

I chuckled. Feeling a sense of relief that whatever changes that might be coming wouldn’t be coming too quickly.

“Sure,” I said.

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This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

The final thing on my itinerary for the day, and the main thing on my itinerary for the day, was a late tea-time with the Queen of Eumelia. Queen Polymnia Melody and I were scheduled to have high-tea today. It was a bit of a pain, but probably wouldn’t be anything too troublesome, based on the info I’d had my agents pull on the Queen, I got the sense that she just wanted to meet in person so she could feel me out.

I wasn’t too worried. Whether in my past-life as a villain, or my past dealings with royalty and heads of state, as a businessman, by now I was fairly used to dealing with this kind of thing. That being said, I found myself feeling oddly more at ease, knowing that my mother, Alanna Dorothea, would also be present. It seems the feelings of trust and affinity we’d been building over the past few years, were stronger than I thought.

When it was time for me to head out, I kissed Jo goodbye because there were good chances that I might not be coming home tonight. There were some other errands I might stop over to do. There were a few hundred uninhabited star-systems that were due for server and collection, in some of the servers that our shop was present. We used the planets, moons, satellites, and of course, stars present within those systems as a major means of acquiring materials for our shop.

So, I surveyed them frequently, because it would be troublesome to suddenly be lacking in the resources necessary for my business to prosper, and I didn’t like the idea of being beholden to third-party suppliers. It was more boring work than it sounded and my figments did most of the heavy-lifting. Reaping the systems before any intelligent life appeared to avoid accidentally killing off a fledgling species or civilization. Shooing away other cosmic-prospectors that might have been sniffing around the areas that I’d staked out for the family and company.

Anyway, I teleported over to Eumelia. I summoned some of my figments. A couple of knights, to serve as my “security”. Some bishops who’d be my secretaries. A Queen, a vaguely feminine model of figment that looked unintimidating without its full equipment, but was the equivalent of a higher level undying in terms of overall abilities. The Queen would be my driver, and also coordinate and control the other figments I’d summoned.

All the figments I summoned used their shapeshifting and illusion-casting to transform into the guise of suited humans. Dressed business-formal. Wearing black suits, and a mixture of pink and/or yellow ties. As to why I was bothering to set all this up, the answer is that this was all purely for show. A whole lot of human interaction, and society as a whole, was almost like a stage-play or an extended game of pretend.

Despite its importance, and despite all the lives saved by and lost to it, Money wasn’t an “actual” thing, it was just an abstracted trade system created for convenience. Governments were just groups of people, communally staking claims on land and resources, and gathering for mutual self-protection and convenience. Friendships and romances were all give-and-take relationships based on explicit and implicit tangible and intangible benefits. Family was blood-related strangers clinging together to face a hostile and often alien universe. Yet people pretended these things were all concrete “actual” things”, because for the average person, even persons like me, reality and perception were often one and the same. By our beliefs and by our thoughts, we molded the material world and realms beyond.

Ergo, while I could just pop up at the destination where the tea was supposed to take place on my lonesome, it would have been exceedingly unwise for me to do so. The Queen of Eumelia and her people were expecting someone who matters. They were expecting an individual whose word could affect the fates and economies of multiple countries and continents.

By the rules of the game we were all playing, such a person didn’t just show up in places, and they certainly didn’t travel around on their own too often. They had people who worked for them. They had people who protected them, regardless of whether they needed actual protection.

To fail to follow the rules and fulfill at least part of their expectations, wouldn’t be fair to either of us. They’d end up either looking down on me, or feeling like I was completely looking down on them, and there’d be a feeling of the game not being played properly. That’s sort of why the “heroes” or “protagonists” that went too heavy on “laying low” were always something of a pet peeve of mine. Especially the kind that were addicted to face-slapping. Yes, Young Lord So-So was a total ass, and should treat even the weakest-looking strangers with dignity and respect, but in some contexts, if you’re going to roll around in acting like a house-cat, or purse-puppy, it’s a bit unreasonable to expect to get treated like a tiger, or wolf.

Thus as silly as it all more or less was, for the sake of my credibility, and their peace of mind, I needed to play the part of the person they were expecting, to at least some extent. Of course, I wasn’t going to just bend ass-backward to fit whatever models they’d made of me in their heads.

Yet, since this was an official state meeting, and unlike a few other such meetings I’d already had in Veleno-Rana, I wasn't friends with the other parties, or enemies with them either. So, it’d pay me well, to put the best foot forward, in such a neutral setting. Beyond my politicking, I also kind of didn’t want to make my mother look bad either…so there was that too.