Meeting with the King.

Soon after returning to your party, the Chancellor leads your group through the ornate halls of the Palace, ending up in a extravagant set of rooms for you and your mother to share.

"If that is all, Your Majesty, I shall leaave you until King Pierre is able to receive you." The spindly, hairless official bows.

"So, what's the plan?" You ask, when it's just you and Marissa.

"We've still some time until my father can see us. For now, we simply pretend that we're here to visit with the king. The human king, that is. Who knows, love, perhaps his daughter will be to your liking in the end. I've heard she's decent to look at, in addition to her riches."

Staring out of one of the room's luxurious windows, you take in the early evening sun, creeping inexorably down towards the western hills.

-

"Your Majesty?" Bistodeau raps on the door some time later. "King Pierre is ready to see you now. In fact, he politely requests the pleasure of your company at his dinner table."

Opening the door, you tell the Chancellor you'll be delighted to attend. You and Marissa quickly dress for the occasion, then are brought to the King's dining hall.

-

It's far less lavish a setting than you had expected. Pierre sits alone at a small table, joylessly eating a bowl of soup.

The King is a humourless-looking man of about seventy, his environs and expensive attire clashing somewhat with his pallid skin and greyed hair. Indeed, it's as if all the life and colour has bled out of the old man, and into the Palace around him.

"King Edward of Itheria and his mother, the former Regent Marissa, Your Excellency." Chancellor Bistodeau announces, stepping to the side and presenting you both.

Pierre glances up from his meal at you. His lips flutter, as if he's unable to find his words. After the briefest of delays, he makes a jerky gesture to the nearby chairs.

"...sit with me." the old man says.

You hobble over to the Sinnabarrovian monarch's side, taking a seat at his table. Your mother does the same, and in short order, bowls of soup are set before each of you.

"...Eat. Or don't. I care not." Pierre says after another mild spell of silence.

"I hear you want to marry my daughter." Pierre says, fixing his cold stare on you.

"I should like to meet her first." You chuckle awkwardly.

"Why? So long as she's fertile and strengthens your rule, what does it matter, your personal relationship with her? I married thrice in my time, never clapped eyes on any of them 'til my wedding days." The miserable old king grumbles.

Pierre's not neccesarily wrong, you muse. That said, any woman you intended to marry, you would prefer to at least see them in the flesh beforehand. Ideally, even more intimately, as you had Kara, though you kept quiet on that.

Plus, with this particular lady, you'd like to be sure whether Donald was exaggerating or not when he'd called her a lunatic.

"The irrational romance of youth." Marissa chimes in. "A good thing I'm around, to curb my son's... baser impulses."

You have to stop yourself from snorting into your soup.

"Ah, but from what I've heard, Itheria was taken by a certain frivolity during your Regency." Pierre observes.

"Well, I was scarcely older than Edward is now when that... unpleasantness occurred." Marissa points out. "We all have our wild phase, do we not?"

Pierre nods rather noncommittally. You catch his gaze roaming down your mother's neck, taking in her ample chest, constrained only by a thin, elegant gown. So the old bastard has a pulse after all...

"Madeleine is my only surviving child, and the way things are going, my heir." Pierre reminds you. "I'll not marry her off to a fool for a pittance. Tell me what you have to offer my kingdom, boy."

Glancing at Marissa, you lay out one of the proposals you and your advisors had agreed upon. Outlining plans for the alliance and union of your two kingdoms, what each would gain.

The Sinnabarrovian king listens in silence, occassionally getting something of a faraway look in his eye.

"Well, not as piddling as some of the offers I've had for Madeleine's hand." Pierre concedes. "I must confer with my Chancellor on this."

As if summoned by magic, Bistodeau enters the dining room once more.

"Your Excellency?" The financial minister asks.

"Mon Dieux, Gregoire, take that wig off!" Pierre commands him, pointing a shaky hand at the Chancellor's hairpiece. "It convinces no one!"

"Excellency-" Bistodeau shoots Pierre a false smile, before he realises there will be no swaying his liege. Reaching up, the proud minister removes his wig, revealing a completely hairless scalp, a rare sight for a man of his years, and paired with his lack of eyebrows, one you imagine he's highly sensitive about.

You feel the Chancellor's embarrasment at appearing so bare before you. Across from you, you sense your mother, struggling to contain a cackle.

"Is there... anything I can help with?" Bistodeau asks, cowed, holding his wig in his hands like a cap.

"The Itherians have made their offer." Pierre says, simply and slowly. "We have much to consider."

"Of course, Your Excellency." Bistodeau nods.

With some effort, even by your standards, the aged king pushes himself up from the table.

"I will retire to my chambers." He decides, his voice ragged.

With the same abruptness that had characterised much of your "meal" with him, the old king walks off. The Chancellor stays close at his side. Close enough, you imagine, for Pierre to grasp him to support himself should need be, yet far enough removed that the king could not accuse him of thinking his liege infirm.

With the two of you left alone, Marissa finally lets our a peal of laughter.

"What a decrepit fool!" The demoness exclaims. "I hope his attendants guard him against a stiff breeze!"

"Honestly, Edward, I do not envy you that." Marissa notes. "Even should your rule be a success, you have old age, senility, your body failing you to look forward to."

"T-thanks for reminding me." You smirk. There was also the matter of your infirmity, of course. Chances were, only the comforts of your royal upbringing had kept you alive so long. And though physicians had assured you your heart, lungs, organs were more or less unaffected, little was truly known about your condition. Why would nobles pay to have such things researched, after all, when the pox was a far more pressing concern for most of them?

"I'm only telling you." Marissa intones sensually, rising from her seat and crossing the table, leaning back against it beside you. "Because you need to seize every moment. Fill your life with wickedness and carnal pleasure. Take what you want, where-ever you find it."

Speaking of which, you find youself growing hard. Keeping away from your mother on the long journey to Sinnabarrow had been positively hellish...