The previous Sassy Saturday post can be read here: Tiza the Tank
The context for this post: Being queen is difficult and tricky, so Kasile regularly vents her frustrations to the one person she feels comfortable doing so, Eric. This is one of those times.
After Tiza's action hero exploits last week...huh? You say that was three weeks ago? My, how time flies...Anyway, I felt that Kasile's "fighting" in her government was a tempting contrast.
______________________________________________
Kasile's guards opened the door for him, and Kasile herself welcomed him with poise and grace. She dismissed the guards.
It was only when he sat down across from her that he saw her legs jittering
underneath her heavy skirts.
“The Knight of Education is an
insufferable ass,” she said while pouring tea.
Eric sipped it. “You don't say...”
Kasile made an unqueen-like groan.
“Yes! She created a new scholarship centered on a trading card game just so her
grandchildren can attend a private high school at taxpayer expense.”
“A trading card game? That’s
ridiculous.”
“I know! My auditor protested that she
had the gall to play the ‘diversity’ card and accuse him of discrimination
against the non-athletic.”
“Are we talking about a political
maneuver or the card game?”
Kasile rose without elegance and hiked
up her skirts so she could round the table and smack him on the head. Then she
slumped back into her chair.
“She’s the kind of smug, entitled, and
entrenched bitch that my dad warned me about before he was possessed by an
enforcer. That condescending tone she took when I summoned her…! ‘You’ll
understand when you’re a grandmother, my little queen’ GRRRR! She makes me want
to splash this tea in her face!”
Eric munched a biscuit. “What are you
going to do about it?”
“I’m going to host this card game
tournament of hers and personally invite the best players I can find. The prize
will be the scholarship. If her smothered brats want it, then they have to earn
it!”
Eric drank more tea and poured himself
some more. “Why don’t you just say ‘no’?”
Kasile threw her fan at his forehead
and, after it impacted, she held out her hand in a silent command for him to
return it. He pushed it back into her reach without a thought.
“If I did that then I’d open myself up
to ‘the queen is anti-education’ propaganda and I don’t need that kind of press
right now. Besides, Ataidar is not an autocracy and my status as a demi-goddess
does not entitle me to ignore the free will of others. Indeed, my divine
ancestor is the Goddess of Desire and as such –”
This was followed by a summation of
over two thousand years of political philosophy mixed with fire-themed
theology. It went all the way back to the founder of Ataidar and earlier. Eric
involuntarily tuned it out. It was a habit from listening to Dengel all day and
all night. Because of this, he didn't realize she asked him a question until
she smacked him again.
“Are you listening?”
“You lost me around King Steiner IX and
Queen Fran the XII. Why do all your ancestors copy each other’s names?”
“Irrelevant. Besides, the card game is
trendy right now, and so I can use it as a fundraiser for mana mutation
projects.”
“Like me going to the Mana-less
Abysshole to look for Dengel-era research.”
“I don’t expect you to find anything. The point is that I’m making an
effort.”
“You
are making an effort?”
“Yes, me. As queen, I am an administrator. If a god wants to get
something done, they don’t descend from the Celestial Realm to do it
themselves. They tell a monk or a nun to do it. I work through agents like you
and Gruffle. I stay here in my heaven while you go out into the world to put my
plans in motion and watch my enemies.”
“So that’s
why Gruffle is following Nulso.”
“Of course. Arresting a mana mutation
pioneer who turned to ordercraft is also bad press I can’t handle right now, so
I assigned someone to watch his movements.”
“You trust him to do that?”
“Of course not. That’s why I placed a
Fire Blood spell on him. If he breaks his parole, then his blood will turn into
fire. This means he can’t leave Nulso behind or work against my interests.”
“Couldn’t Nulso negate it with his own
power?”
She tried to smack him a fourth time,
but Eric caught her wrist. Then, noticing that the biscuits were gone, he moved
her fingers into his mouth and mimed chewing them. She made a face and pulled
her hand back, wiping it on a napkin.
“I am a divine being. I have divine
blood, which means I use divine magic. Furthermore, I am the lawfully
designated authority in this country and I administer punishment for crimes
occurring within my own home. Put these two facts together and Nulso cannot
touch my spell.”
Until the meeting of the Noble Council,
they spoke of other things. There were other knight departments giving her
grief, nobles that hounded her with proposals, the Summit projects, and the
soon in-coming suitor line. This led to talking about Siron and his honoring
ceremony that very night. He was a brilliant hero during Tasio’s prank and she
wanted to make sure everyone knew it.
“Thus my excuse for why I summoned you:
I need your opinion on the Tazul attack.”
_________________________________________________________________________
________________
To learn more about the heroines of Journey to Chaos, visit the Tvtropes character sheet.
The next Sassy Saturday post is Plundering Dengel's Treasury
Brian Wilkerson is a freelance book reviewer, writing advice blogger and independent novelist. He studied at the University of Minnesota and came away with bachelor degrees in English Literature and History (Classical Mediterranean Period concentration).His fantasy series, Journey to Chaos, is currently available on Amazon as an ebook or paperback.
No comments:
Post a Comment