In Huck's Hands

Chapter 18: Precipice Of Truth

The jade-plugged earlobes of the white-robed man swayed disgustingly before my sights, all sounds of ocean waves were drowned out by the sheer volume of the band loudly playing the Coalition Of Sovereign Nation's anthem. The notes all chimed acidic compared to the harmonious harp melodies I was so used to before the coop. It seemed that this was my chance to break some sort of actual way forward in the summit's washing votes.

"Tell me..." I paused to linger for his response. "I am Fawie Urso, Headmaster of the C.S.N.'s general happenings...While it is charming to meet you I must--" Fawie endeavored to crumple his countenance into a smile that quickly tumbled back into the same anxious and blank stare he had earlier.

"Remind me what a peaceful organization such as yours has enterprise appointing my own people as mere slaves AND to spy on me no less." Though Tella was far from present I knew that he was being reprimanded for not even knowing who he was meant to meet.

"Please, my time is very infrequent and problematic for me to manage...I will discuss with you anything you desire after the proceedings--I beg you to consider taking note of those around you more than me." He swayed for a moment on his hobbled right ankle then made his way to the long trek up to the mahogany podium.

Deep violet blossom petals blazed the exotic parrot skin rug he pattered his way so painstakingly slow that I had time to regroup with my entire cabinet...Including the now-heavily ceremonial robed Kyler. "I hear you have been having a good time down here, cousin--May I ask for you to permit us an instance of respite and clarity?"

His sardonic short comment fits well with his large mauve dressings, bedecked like my father while complaining like his brother...I would be glad when the motions of my ascension were over and I could liquidate all old Vascan temporal holdings and authority-- A simple move to bring me close to the Buritians and also possibly grant me access to a more substantial linkage to the goddess. "Do not agonize yourself, Kyler, I do not intend on any more exhibits of my hand...Not with you stalking so pig-nosed."

"You have always been so discourteous, Aunt M--" Kyler eyed me up then down, already seeing my rigid posture while grasping a hand around my king's blade. Yana made an action between us in a request to push our probable fight father from the earshot of the assembly. "What is the meaning of this? We look like children, are behaving like children, and cannot make any crucially needed moves for aid coming into the winter months!"

Yana's voice had swerved to brazen levels of retaliatory bitterness in her mind, tome this was merely more dissent from the forming coop I knew to be brewing behind closed doors...I needed some way of knowing, some way to be among them without the shade of my position.

"Carry on your duties...I need to clear my mind, if any matters are of import then vote as you see fit, Yana." My voice carried more of my weariness than I cared to depict though it did not matter; Only Aygu stayed behind as the sole entrusted powers of my nations fell in line with taking their assigned seats.

My father's apex rival and the facade of his night terrors stood with an unbreaking stare while only twitching his eye, my own regard falling to the still bandaged fingerless hand I had given him. "I would ask to join you...but I don't really care what the answer is."

"Do as you wish...You are as much an enemy to me as this humidity." I curved my body in an exaggerated imperial waltz that caught him off-guard, my only tell being his slightly bulged eyes...I wondered if he hated me for taking his combat ability along with his prowess in self-loving.

Most likely I found more humor in the idea that my father's antagonists were all within slicing distance of his own exiled baby boy than they did. "You still seem to smile despite it all," Aygu rattled through his few sharpened teeth, I could hear the graze of his metal boots on the cold steel of the assembly's semi-domed terrace.