[WP] Sometimes, the best way to rebel is to join the system.
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"I feel like you've been... Well, don't take this the wrong way, but I feel like you've been trying recently." Aurum chose her words carefully as she set down her fork and knife, hand reaching for the golden goblet beside her empty plate. Across the way, her dinner companion for the evening looked up from his own meal with an expression of surprise.
"Ah, so you noticed." He said with a wry grin. "I wasn't sure if you had the time to spare for such trivialities."
"Your companions seem to follow your instructions as a manner of course, but with you... It's always been a bit more of an uphill battle." Aurum took a careful sip, hiding her own smile at the understatement.
"Your Highness, if it wasn't you saying it, I might almost be offended." He spoke with his mouth half-full, completely disregarding any sense of the noble aura that spun about him on the ever-present spirits, like orbiting webs of almost invisible specters.
Not all could see such things, but from her noble birth, Aurum had always possessed the gift. Across from here was, beyond any reasonable doubt, an anomaly of unequaled proportion in all of the East, borderline chewing with his mouth open.
"I'm certain that's a lie." She replied casually, goblet rotating the wine within it on a lazy spin beneath her palm. "If anyone else said such a statement, you'd probably laugh and redirect, like you always seem to do." Her eyes narrowed as the grin across the table of polished wood and finery faded.
"Well, I'm very sorry I've become so predictable." His face grew to emulate sadness in a false-effort. His mockery of sorrow only served to irritate Aurum further.
"That's fitting to my point."
"Is it?"
"Yes, and recently you've been doing the opposite of what I expect of you."
"Really?" Setting down his own utensils, food now forgotten as a servant swept in to retrieve the abandoned plate, he responded aloof of her seriousness. "How so?"
The servant's quiet steps were soon met by the muffled boom of the great doors beside them, gilded and worked with gold and magic to a wondrous sight- both for wealth and skill. In such a place, there were very few Aurum could find to speak with as equals. The man across from her was perhaps the most promising of that dwindled number.
"Trust is something I hold of highest importance." She said quietly, watching his expression. A simple nod, a focus of eyes drawn up and away from the glass of wine beside him. "You understand this, do you not?"
"I do, your Highness."
"I trusted your judgement when chose to leave the castle by your own initiative on that fateful day, and I trusted it further when you took it upon yourself to lead the City in the fight against that Western Invasion." Aurum picked her words carefully. "Considering your natural aversion to honor and putting your life at risk, I would never have predicted it, but I trusted it."
She let the silence stretch. A negotiate tactic tried and proven. Let the words sit until they sour, and let another speak their portion- regardless of if they would prefer not to.
As always, the reply came with at least the smallest hint of comfort lost.
"Well, it's not like I would have been well-off letting a bunch of Ghouls breach the city walls and kill us all, would I?" He crossed his arms and leaned backwards with a frown. Oddly defensive, she decided. "That noble of yours, Jean- he botched the Cavalry charge. Threw off all the plans we had made when he chose to die with a full half the knights we had in the city."
"Very well, but for you to go up on the wall and take command: You could easily have made one of your companions do this without personal risk."
"I might have left it at that if Eron hadn't spent himself casting waves of fire off the battlement, but he would have been the only one capable. After he was down and out, that left Sola, Lars, Julius, and Sandra: Short-sighted, immature, inexperienced, and probably hates me... In that exact order."
"So instead, you faced an Undead Dragon alone, sending even the common-guards back behind the safety of the wall." Aurum's expression grew stormy. "You faced down almost certain death and spared commoners the privileged."
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"So we wouldn't all die! Who else was going to do it- You? Your Royal staff was too busy either praying for god or watching for some devote follower trying to stick a knife in you. The Church would have sent someone to tackle you off the battlement!" Arms still crossed, he leaned in over the table, irritated. "That's not exactly the ideal environment for success, Princess."
She stared at him, and he stared back. The bait was in, there was no way for him to back out now.
"I'm glad you've mentioned that," Aurum's smile was cold, "as it was my next point. The whole city is singing songs of your heroic bravery as the efforts to march on the next campaign to the breached Holy wall are settled and finalized. Yet, instead of marching in parades beside my royal convoy, you're bullying the Nobles and Church Bishops of the Holy Order. You've been fraternizing with quite a few people I'm not fond of."
"Ah, you heard about that?"
"Of course I've heard. You've pulled them into at least three unwanted negotiations with the assistance of the Merchant Guild- which I might add is bloody terrified of what you might do to them, and its been more than just the talk of the towers."
"Well, if it's any consolidation, they'll listen to me now." Irritation faded into a distant expression- thoughtful. "Before they just wanted me dead, now they'll work with me."
"...You understand the significance of what you just uttered in my presence might have set one of my ancestors to draw their sword here and now?"
"Hey- wait a damn second. Don't give me that look, you know as well as I do that they still hate me- but they're not about to assassinate someone still basking in the love of the people." His arms unfolded, fists setting themselves with thumps onto the table. "I've got a feeling if someone tried to take my head, even if it was the highest Bishops claiming God ordered them to do it- there would be riots. I'm untouchable for the time being here, I need to use that before it fades."
"A valid point."
"To go further, have you heard the song by Bard Edly?"
"It paints a much more beautiful picture of your actions than the account I heard personally, but redirecting this conversation is not permitted in the slightest."
"I feel like he could have added a verse for when I had some soldiers dangle that Merchant over the edge of wall to spill the beans on his personal barrel of Sulfur."
"Yes, how very Noble and Heroic that was of you. I presume that has much to do with their current cooperation."
"Well we're not dead, are we your Highness?"
"No, but if you don't stop testing my patience-"
"I suppose cursing and cussing and kicking a big-box of gunpowder off a battlement is exactly most people's mental picture of a Great Commander and hero. Despite that, personally I also like the song. It holds a nice ring to it."
"You're trying to change the subject, and I won't let you. Not for this." Aurum let her words come out in a harsh chill as she set her own fist down to the table, eyes wide with anger. "You need to swear to me I can trust you. Right here in this room- right now. If you continue down this road, it's only a matter of time until we could find our interests are separate."
"Your Highness, if I didn't know you as well as I do, I'd might think you're politely saying that you'll have to take my head."
"That's exactly what I'm saying." She watched his expression shift between dumbfounded and wronged, mouth agape ever so slightly.
"You honestly think I would betray you? After you pulled me and my friends out of that Dungeon? After the Church demanded you hand us over to have our bodies dismembered and our entrails paraded about the city?" His voice raised.
"I wasn't aware you knew the full details of that request-"
"Well I wasn't aware you thought the Great BattleMage of the South-Western Territories was a no-good-dirty-Benedict Arnold." Almost to a shout now, one of the doors was opened, personal guard quickly dismissed by a practiced wave of Aurum's hand to retreat once more. "What do you take me for, Aurum? Honestly!"
"I, wait... Benedict Arnold?"
"Not important- what I'm saying is that I'm not a traitor. I still hate the Holy Faith of this crazy country as much as I hate the Ghouls marching in from the West." He had stood, leaning in over the table with an angered look, palms flat on the wooden surface. "Those people are no friends of mine."
"Then what are you trying to do? Speak your mind clearly, here and now. Rubbing elbows with the High-Orders of the Church, running your trusted companions into the noble circles, manipulating the Merchant Guild and drafting contracts for Adventurers and Mercenaries? Do you deny this?"
"It's all true." He held his posture, unwavering. "I have to move quickly and force them now while I still can."
"Then tell me. Tell me before I'm forced to take action: What are you doing?"
"Setting things in motion."
"But what? You understand how close I am to throwing you back in a cell right now? Do you? Setting what in motion?" Aurum also rose, staring down the man across from her, purposefully ignoring the more-vibrant swirl of spirits and fae now about him, dancing in the flame and glow of glass. Eyes stern, voice strong, she spoke again. "As Royal heir, I demand an explanation before I'm forced to do the inevitable. Tell me, or you don't get to leave this room."
Their eyes stayed locked, a combat of its own until finally, he spoke.
"Your Highness, there are two systems in place right now. The first is an Monarchy. An instrument of control- though arguably flawed in some regards, currently ruled by someone I personally trust as a sane and logical individual. The major issue with this, is that this person," his stare narrowed, "is perhaps a hair's breath from being assassinated on a daily basis."
"Go on."
"The second system is something different entirely. An Oligarchy that abuses its power, ruled by a bunch of zealous mad-men who keep blatantly buying the knives and poison for the sake of finalizing their hold on this country. How much Gold they've wasted on such an effort, I can only imagine."
"Two systems."
"Yes. Two, where there should only be one." He nodded, affirming. "Sometimes, the best way to rebel is to join. As I said before: I'm taking advantage of what I can, while I can."
"You're not possibly suggesting-"
"Yes, I am. The country can't possibly defend itself while its wasting resources on petty squables so badly that an outsider like me has to step in and save it. Something needs to change, and soon."
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We're going to tear down the Bishops.