User blog:Ihaveawiixboxds/тринадцать

It took almost a whole week for Ihawxd to set up a conference with the king, due both to procrastination and lack of motivation. He finally did, however, by confronting a man who made himself look important by always striding around the castle grounds, head held high, reading long scrolls and ordering his subordinates to do unneeded jobs. When Ihawxd talked to him, their conversation was scarcely beneficial.

"I wish to set up a consultation with the king." Ihawxd answered when asked what he wished to waste the man's time with.

"At what date and time?" the man inquired.

"Uh... That doesn't really matter to me." Ihawxd replied. The man lifted his eyes from a scroll they had been writing upon just to roll them, and then continued writing.

"If you do not have the slightest amount of a plan for your meeting with the king, I'm afraid it will never happen."

"No, that's not what I meant. I meant that I can do whatever time works for you guys." Ihawxd explained.

"Planned dates and times work best for us."

"Fine then... Tomorrow, 10:00 AM?"

"Good. Tomorrow, 10:00 AM."

The next morning, at precisely 10:00 AM, Ihawxd arrived outside the throne room. The same man, still reading scrolls, admitted him in and briskly strode to his position next to the throne at the end of the room. The walls of the room were lined with large shields bearing various insignias. Ihawxd noticed as a he entered a balcony above him along with two staircases leading up to it, one on each side. There were stained glass windows above the shields and at the end of the room. Hanging above the throne were three blue banners, and sitting beneath them was none other than the ruler of those lands, Loney. He seemed far younger than he actually was in seemingly every respect. Upon spotting Ihawxd, he rose, said something to the man with the scrolls, and stepped down from his exalted position.

"Welcome to my throne room!" Loney exclaimed. "I hope you like it, I did spend a dreadful amount of time decorating it." Ihawxd made no reply, so Loney continued. "See those designs on the roof?" Loney pointed up at intricate designs of swirls, trees, birds, deer, rivers and assorted shapes that had been painted on the ceiling. "I designed those. I also designed those stained glass windows."

"So, you designed the room, you didn't decorate it."

"Yes, you could say that." Loney looked skeptically at Ihawxd for a few moments, and then continued in his regular, light-hearted tone. "I hope you don't mind waiting, I sent Walden to go get a table and some chairs. I like to be on the same level as my underlings when doing business with so as not to seem too menacing or anything."

Within a few minutes, the man with the scrolls returned, along with four servants, two carrying chairs, the other two carrying a small, rectangular table. Loney and Ihawxd took seats at opposite ends of the table, and Loney offered a drink. "My chefs have invented this wonderful concoction that we've called Kanada Dry. It's really quite delightful, you should have some."

Despite Ihawxd's attempts to refuse the offer, he was given a vial of the intolerable substance previously labeled as 'Kanada Dry'. He forced a small amount down his throat, but refused to touch it any further.

"Quite delightful indeed." he grumbled silently.

"Now, let us get down to business. I always hated business, it takes so much time away from life, and so much of it is time completely and utterly wasted. If even just a quarter of the time I've spent doing business with diplomats like you had been spent with my daughters, I would feel far better about what I've done in my life to this point. I realize that, as the king, this is my duty, But... So many days wasted..." Loney sighed a long, wistful sigh. He gazed outward and let his vision blur as memories flooded back. A flood wall was soon put up by Ihawxd clearing his throat stentoriously, and Loney was pulled back into reality. "But enough rambling. You don't want to hear my life story."

"Right you are about that." Ihawxd mumbled.

"What was that?"

"Nothing."

"Right. Now, you, I still don't know your name."

"Ihawxd."

"Ihawxd?"

"No, you have to put the emphasis on the W." Ihawxd explained. Loney sat, thinking for a few minutes before he replied.

"Do you have any nicknames I could call you?"

"Nope."

"Well, enough about names. Why don't you tell me why you've come here?"

'I was going to, but then you wouldn't stop rambling about how much time business wasted, so you never gave me a chance' was what Ihawxd wanted to say, but he instead went with a far more polite reply.

"I have come to ask for help in the form of soldiers, weapons or both, whichever is the most convenient for you."

"Neither."

"Huh?"

"Our army is frightfully small and unequipped as it is, if I were to send away even the smallest amount of troops my kingdom would become extremely vulnerable to an attack. There may be another way to solve your problem, one that you are overlooking. Why don't you explain to me a bit more about your situation?"

Ihawxd once again wanted to make a witty remark about how he was cut off before he could explain anything, but once again made a wiser decision. "My town, Holden, has been repeatedly raided and ransacked. What few resources we have left are bound to be taken eventually, and in fact may have been already been taken, as I have been gone for a while now. As you can assume, we have no way to defend ourselves when large groups of armed bandits come and ravage our village. If you know of any other way that we can save ourselves, please inform me."

Loney sat thinking, not as hard as he did when trying to pronounce Ihawxd's name, but still relatively hard. "I at first thought maybe you could just get the whole village to travel here. If your possessions have already all been stolen, it would not be too hard. Some young men like you could join my army, and if those bandits were for some reason really intent on ending your village, they'd be easily warded off. But the areas of my kingdom that are currently uninhabited have been left that way for a reason."

"And that reason would be...?"

"I think you'd better see it to believe it."