“Bring the generals in!” The bald man with rippling muscles that strained the fabric of his gown who Alexander had come to know as Joaquin bellowed out an order with such ferocity Alexander was sure the black curtain could not contain it.
Once he had entered the war room, Joaquin and Jai had let him know they fully intended to support them so long as their goal was truly to banish the Green Mamba from Kedra. For them, Alexander’s willingness to channel his flames until he suffered from a tremendous mana overdraft backlash was proof enough of their character, but there were others in the Puma and Eagle tribe hierarchy who required convincing.
A parade of men and women entered the room as the black curtain was drawn open. This was the first people Alexander had seen wearing different clothing so far. While most members of the tribes wore beige, unassuming gowns, the generals wore fur cloaks and headdresses.
Their movements were more pompous as well; it wasn’t overbearing, though. Alexander merely felt like they didn’t trust him and wanted him to be aware they were important. Whether this was intentional or not, it did the truck. Alexander shifted nervously in his seat as he prepared to rise.
As previously directed by Jai, Alexander, Thomas, and Kai moved to the center of the room around the generals who had now taken their positions in the cushions and knelt down. Again shifting uncomfortably, Alexander felt two different hands supportively grip his shoulders and dispel some of the nerves. He turned to Thomas and then Kai and nodded in thanks before clearing his throat as he prepared to speak.
“Good evening, brethren-warriors. My name is Alexander, a fellow warrior tired of the tyranny the Green Mamba has inflicted on these lands.” Fighting the urge to look up as he strained to recall the words his group had prepared with Joaquin and Jai’s help, Alexander instead stared directly in the eyes of the generals, holding eye-contact for a few seconds before moving on to the next. “I dare not call these lands my home. I am but a humble traveler. I do, however, promise you the Green Mamba is mine and my brother’s enemy. If the Puma and the Eagle are to wage war, we will be in the frontlines.”
At this time, phantom wings unfurled behind one of the generals, the symbol for acceptance according to what Joaquin had informed Alexander. Emboldened by the positive start, Alexander spoke louder, lacing his words with passion.
“To ally with us is to gain another brother in your tribes. The chance to once more run free through Kedra. That is what we hope to return to the warriors of your tribes. We are not here to direct you, nor do we want to establish ourselves as your new tyrant. Ours will be a temporary aid as we seek to cleanse these lands from those who have disrupted its life.”
Two more pairs of wings expanded behind the generals, but they did not raise fully. Beside them, three of the Puma tribe generals began snarling, their puma phantoms manifesting partly within their mouths.
Alexander was perplexed for a second but quickly realized this was indecisiveness. The generals were receptive to his message, but more was necessary to convince them. Okay, I can do a final push. As Alexander moved to speak again, one of the two generals who had remained stoic spoke.
“Your words ring true to the desires of our tribes, but how can we trust any of this to be true? Simple, it would be, to use the strength of our brothers with malicious intent.” It was an elderly woman who spoke. Wisdom and age wore away at her body, but the frame of a warrior was still visible fitted leather armor she adorned herself with. Upon her crown, the largest headdress Alexander had seen ran beautifully along her scalp, mimicking the figure of their patron harpy eagle. “Are we to believe in three strangers… three outsiders… with no proof?”
A fully formed puma materialized in the air before slamming its paw on the ground. “Charity in these lands is rare. Rare enough that I would suspect he who feeds and clothes me without a price. The cost, for there always is one, is always a greater burden than the worth.” The last general spoke slowly from beside the phantom puma. He was a thin and unassuming old man. A great white beard hung well below his chest, but even with that, his presence was difficult to focus on. It was as if he was the same color of the walls of the room. Alexander’s eyes had occasionally slid away from his frame and unto the generals beside him until the puma appeared. “Tell me, boy. What is the cost of your aid? I warn you, our tribe may be starving, but a starving lion is still more dangerous than a healthy gazelle.”
The general’s influence on the room was clear to see. Each of the other generals who had previously snarled or held their wings half-extended returned to a quiet, pensive state. The two older generals did not appear convinced, and so, they, too, would wait.
“I have backed my words with actions, brothers. Against the snakes, I used every drop of mana in my body and then some. These are not the actions of a trickster!”
The older lady pressed on. “That is a small sacrifice in a short scuffle. Do you dare compare that to the trials and tribulations my clan has faced?” She turned to face the rest of the generals, incensed. “They do not know our pain. They never had to kill their brothers because there was simply no chance to heal their ailments. They never had to choose what children to leave behind because the food could not sustain everyone. They never felt the gut-wrenching feeling from having your lands be ripped away from you. Outsiders cannot know our pain.” Turning back to Alexander, the general stared him down with the ferocity of a mother. “There is too much at stake to commit to a final battle on the words of outsiders we do not know.”
Scampering to salvage the situation, Alexander retaliated. “My apologies, Generals. We dare not say we understand everything your tribe has lived. It is something we will try to honor but never understand in the same way you can. My intentions were to pursue camaraderie, not minimize your accomplishments and certainly not your heritage.”
“That doesn’t answer the question at the heart of the matter.” The unassuming gentleman spoke once more. “The most important factor to me is the reasoning behind your aid. I said it once, and I will say it again: true charity is rare.”
Alexander opened his mouth to speak several times in the next few seconds, but a noise was yet to escape his lips. There were many things he could say to answer the question. He could talk about his creed as a healer or his personal distaste of the Green Mamba. He could also lie and come up with all sorts of reasonable excuses to gain the tribe’s trust, but for some reason, Alexander really wanted to be honest with the old man.
Breathing deeply, Alexander looked back at Thomas and Kai. Thomas shook his head. He could immediately tell Alexander wanted to share the truth and seemed quite against the idea, but Kai smiled in his lackadaisical way giving Alexander confidence.
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“My brothers and I are not a charity. Despite how much I desire to help your tribe now, we did have ulterior motives.” The older woman nodded her as if she had expected as much, while the older man merely continued listening. “The truth is we traveled Kedra in search of a dragon, and upon finding him, he set the price for his cooperation as the liberation of these lands. This is a mission for us, one where we will likely be renumerated greatly.”
The explanation took the older man and the rest of the generals by surprise. All of their phantom beasts dissipated and even Joaquin and Jai seemed rattled at Alexander’s words. Ignoring etiquette, Jai stepped off the platform and stopped the meeting.
“Alexander, this dragon you met, did his name happen to be Nidra?”
“How’d you know?”
Rubbing his chin, Jai walked away from Alexander and approached Joaquin. “What do you think about that? The Beast Faction is sending us reinforcements now? Could be a scouting mission to assess our strength before subjugating us.”
“A dragon has no need to waste his resources scouting our tribes. Don’t flatter yourself.” Joaquin refuted flatly. “It is interesting though. The Beast Faction hasn’t been active for decades, maybe even longer. Why would they take action now?”
“That’s exactly my point. Nidra abhors Hunters, and the only tribes nearby are ours. Perhaps he is to-”
“I’m gonna stop you right there, brother. I am certain my clan’s records documented a peaceful relationship with the beast faction. For a being of that level, I do not think we are remotely threatening enough to share the brunt of his hatred. It would be more accurate to say Nidra abhors the 6 Great Hunter Clans. To him, we are just citizens of his kingdom who happen to be Hunters.”
Driving Alexander and his group from the war room, Jai quickly explained, in light of new information, they needed to discuss privately before giving Alexander a chance to speak before the generals again. With a quick goodbye, Jai promised an attendant would go find them to bring them back to this room when the council was ready and shut the curtain.
Kai laughed a hearty laugh, dissipating some of the tension. “We should totally let Alexander do our public speaking more often.”
“I told him it wasn’t a good idea being so honest. Gave him a firm shake of my head, but of course, he didn’t listen. Now what? The seemed like they would be busy for hours, and I want to destroy the Green Mamba as fast as possible.” Thomas paced back and forth, irked at hour their meeting had gone down.
“Well, if its hours, let’s go back to our little break room. I bet Pola is going crazy waiting for me to come back.” Ignoring Thomas, Kai began the trek back to the room Alexander had woken up in. Lost in thought, Alexander silently followed him until he heard a friendly chirp.
Welcome.
Oh, Pengu. It’s good to be back. I think I messed up our important meeting. Bending down to be eye-level with Pengu, Alexander gave the little penguin hug.
I fight?
No, no. We are looking for friends. People who will fight beside us not against us. There’s no need to fight anyone right now. I’m just mourning the loss of potential allies. It would have made our mission much simpler, and it could have saved their tribe's lives.
Pengu chirped again, not quite understanding Alexander, before waddling away to go play with Pola and Kai.
Alexander sighed heavily as he sat over his bed roll. Feeling defeated, he stared blankly, not even noticing when Thomas had taken a seat beside him.
Using his knuckles to knock on Alexander’s head, Thomas snapped him back to reality. “I’ve been talking to you, and you didn’t even answer me!”
“Oh… I’m sorry. I’ve just been mulling over what happened in there. I didn’t remember everything I was supposed to say, and then I angered one of the generals by misspeaking. I couldn’t get even one thing right, right up until the end. You told me not to be candid, and I should have listened to you. Why did we agree to let it be me who would speak. All I did was mess the mission up. And we need the gateway in the Green Mamba’s base. It’s not even just about me; how will you get home if we can’t-”
As Alexander began sputtering out more words, Thomas finally placed a hand on his shoulder, silencing him. “You’re acting like you went in there and insulted every one of the generals. It wasn’t that bad, dude. Sure, it didn’t go exactly as planned, but it was far from the worst possible thing that could have happened. I thought you conveyed our points well. Don’t beat yourself up over this.”
“We got kicked out of their planning room. It definitely feels like the worst way this could have gone.”
“Just because something feels terrible, doesn’t mean it is. My first address to the people of Mesto was awful. Sobek be blessed, I never could have imagined speaking in front of people could be so daunting, and I guess throwing up on one of my father’s ministers wasn’t the best way to begin but even that ended alright. You didn’t do a bad job, Alexander. This was just a hard task in the first place.”
Alexander’s frown eased as his friend consoled him. Leaning his head back, he joked. “Maybe I should have thrown up when they asked me about Nidra. Probably would have been better than admitting a mythical dragon that may or may not want to eat them sent me to their home.”
“You know, something tells me the meeting went better than we thought.”
“What could possibly tell you that?”
“Well, I do have killer instincts, and I would say my natural disposition as the prince of a planet gives me an edge when it comes to analyzing social situations like this one. But mainly I would say it’s from the fact one of the generals is standing over there.” Pointing towards the thin, silver curtain at the entrance to the room, Thomas chuckled.
Sitting upright immediately, Alexander stared wide-eyed as the unassuming older general awaited his approach. The man was the picture of stillness, waiting by the curtain with his eyes closed and a simple gown. As Alexander drew closer, the man kept his eyes closed but extended his right hand.
Frozen, Alexander observed at the general’s hand but did nothing. A tense couple of seconds ensued as Alexander wondered if he should do anything and the old man continued what Alexander figured to be meditation. Finally, the general opened his left eye and looked at Alexander.
“You do have handshakes where you’re from, correct?”
“Oh, yes! My apologies, I wasn’t sure if that’s what you meant to do and figured I would do best by not assuming. My name is Alexander, sir.” Alexander hastily introduced himself.
“Well met, lad.” Tightening his group on Alexander’s hand, the old man applied a hint of pressure before releasing. “Gather your two brothers so that we may return to the war room.”
Alexander smiled as he celebrated the opportunity to convince the generals to work with him again but his curiosity drove him to ask more questions. “If I may be so bold, why is it that one of the generals is guiding us now? I am in no way unappreciative of your presence. I just wonder why an attendant was not enough anymore.”
The old general circled Alexander before answering. “I suppose it was because I wanted to understand you a little bit better. It would take a certifiably insane person to find the holy dragon and even more so to seek to work with him… I wanted to be closer to one of such insanity.”
Hopeful, Alexander whispered. “Does that mean the generals have agreed to work with us?”
“Was that ever in question, boy? The true king of this island sent you and your brothers to drive away the invaders. That is the greatest news to come to our tribes in years.” The general paused slightly before he added. “Plus, it helps that you are honest to a fault. Will make working with you easier.”
Alexander winked at the nearby Thomas before bounding towards Kai. They should hurry to the war room if their alliance with the tribe was finalized. It was time to get on the offensive with the Green Mamba pirates.