Chapter Text
“Laios.”
No response.
“Laios!”
Still nothing.
Kabru grabbed His Majesty by the shoulder and shook.
“Focus, Laios! Lady Granite and the rest of the Khaka Brud delegates are going to be meeting us this afternoon, and I need you to have our proposal down pat or we aren’t going to be prepared for their counter offers . ”
It was a delicate political situation: Lady Granite, the clan leader and noblewoman in charge of a large clan of quarrymen and pavers, was a notorious tight-ass. If they proposed 50-50, she would insist on 10-90 and not budge an inch. Kabru had already done as much research as he could on the dwarf, but her reputation was flawless. No connections with the former Shadow Lord, no criminal scandals, no labor disputes within her clan, not even a profligate son with a gambling problem. If there was anything he could use for leverage, it was shut up tight within the clan.
Worse yet, their own advisors were hardly in unison on their opinions of “Ol’ Gran”. The dwarves in their employ seemed to particularly resent her, and Kabru couldn’t help but notice how often their addresses to the incoming Khaka Brud delegate were aimed at the much younger, much more male Lord Aragon, despite him being a fishmonger with little ability to help get the roads done. Which was the entire point of meeting with anyone in Khaka Brud at all–to get a fucking road built from Khaka Brud to Melini and then on to the new port they were trying to establish.
All these political games made it even more important that Laios had the proposal down pat: that was the part he was good at.
Absently, Laios shoved Kabru’s arm away, and realized too late how much force he had used. He snapped back to himself with a look of remorse as he reached for where he’d hit.
“Sorry, I’m just… out of it. Your arm okay?”
Out of it was an understatement–he’d been spacey, snappish, and unshaven. Laios absolutely hated seeing his own facial hair, which likely meant he hadn’t bothered looking in a mirror or washing at all when he got up. It was unlike him.
Kabru rubbed the sore spot. It was tender, but not going to bruise, and the pain would be gone in a second.
“I’ve had worse. Do you wanna talk about it?”
They’d been friends for over two years, but for Kabru it felt so much longer. Since Laio’s coronation, Kabru’s studies in political science and stewardship had been everything he could’ve wanted. He was the one responsible for setting Laios’ schedule, and he’s been sure to put in lots of down time together so they can hang out and chat and decompress from the massive weight on their shoulders establishing a new country. They’ve played chess and poker (a good tool for teaching subtle body language); they’ve sparred, ridden horses, and shared a tent while they were out working on reforestation. He’d been unable to get close for so long, and now…
Laios turned his head away from him.
“I just didn’t sleep well last night. Don’t worry about it.”
…Right now it felt like he wasn’t any closer to him than he was the first time he tried to reach out only for Laios to ignore him.
After everything they’d shared so far, there were still some things Laios clammed up about. Mostly his past. Every time Kabru got close to the topic, he deflected in some way. It just wasn’t a good time. It’s not that interesting. It was worse for Falin.
Kabru wanted to know so badly, and Laios did not let him in to whatever really happened to him before he got to the island. And with how he was refusing to discuss it now, he had to suspect the past was coming to haunt him. He’d have to poke around and find out.
“Sure. I’ll just let you read the proposal on your own,” he said, as cheerily as he could manage.
“Yeah, I’ll see you at lunch. I’ll have it done then,” Laios returned with a tired smile that gave Kabru nothing.
Laios’ mood hadn’t seemed to improve over lunch: Marcille had to order the chef to stop serving because he was mindlessly over-eating. Vacantly he tore through rolls of bread and gnawed at the bones of the chicken drumstick he’d been served, only tossing in a comment here and there to the table’s chatter. If they were alone, maybe Kabru could’ve pressed the issue. Maybe he should’ve done it earlier, but it just didn’t seem like he was going to talk about whatever it was that was bothering him.
Kabru poked at his food, mulling over his options to get Laios to divulge what was bothering him. If it was something from his past, who could he ask? Falin can and had told many stories of their childhood together that Laios always glossed over, but she was in their homeland, several months away by sea. She also knew nothing more than anyone else about Laios’ years away from her. Ideally, if Laios wouldn’t open up, he could try to talking to contacts he’d had during that time, but that would present the same problem: months of travel away, and he doesn’t know where to even start if he didn’t want to try interviewing every teacher at Laios’ old school and every commanding officer in his home’s military until he could find someone who knew him. That left a singular option: try his other closest companion and pray he’s at least talked to her about it.
As they left the dining hall, Kabru waved down Marcille.
“Marcille,” Kabru called after her, “I need to ask you something.”
Her ears twitched as she turned around to look at him.
“Hm? What do you need?”
Over time, Kabru and Marcille had become fairly close. They shared a love of dramatic novels, which they could discuss at length when there was little to do. When they were both busy dealing with the inordinate amount of court intrigue their kingdom attracted, they still found time to gossip about nearly everyone in the court and those passing through. She was almost as nosy as he was and almost as tight-lipped as he was with others' secrets, which made them the perfect people to share other people’s secrets with.
And when Laios was getting on their nerves, they talked about him together. It was a nice release valve to have someone to complain about their shared best friend when he gave himself food poisoning again or created a diplomatic mess for them because he mispronounced the name of an elven nobleman so it sounded like the word for ‘gaped asshole’ in elvish (Though, they did all three agree that guy was deserving of such a moniker).
Because he talked with Marcille so often, he knew that any time Laios felt upset, he went to Marcille first. It didn’t stir any envy within Kabru at all to consider that it was Marcille that Laios went to when he was hurting instead of him.
“Laios has been so out of sorts today, do you know why?”
With a little frown, she said, “Yeah, he got a letter from his father this morning. I don’t think he’s even read it yet but… I think just knowing he should is upsetting him.”
“That’s a bit over the top for just getting a letter, isn’t it?”
“Maybe, but he hasn’t spoken to him since he left home.”
“Wow, did he tell you why?”
“Because of how he treated Falin. He hasn't forgiven him for sending her away with no explanation. It's so sad seeing a family so broken, but they never responded to my letter,” she said, hand over her heart.
“But doesn't Falin write to them? Does she forgive them?”
“She's just that understanding, I suppose. The way they talked about it though, it sounded so scary for a little kid. I can't blame Laios for still holding a grudge.”
“I’ll see if I can cheer him up–just do me a favor and look the other way if we do something crazy tonight, okay? I promise I’ll give you the gossip later.”
Torn between knowing better and wanting both juicy details of a night well spent and wanting her friend to feel better, she puffed her cheeks out and said, “You better be careful! No dungeons at least, understood?!”
“Understood!” he called back to her as he left to prepare for the afternoon meeting.
Marcille hadn’t given him much he hadn’t heard before, but he at least knew his suspicions were correct: there was something about his family life that troubled him enough to avoid speaking to his family for over a decade.
When Kabru had asked Laios about his family directly some time ago, what he’d said was likely the same story Marcille had gotten and summarized: Falin discovered an aptitude for necromancy (which only through prying did Laios state she discovered it when a ghost possessed him and he nearly died–as if nearly dying is an experience a child should brush off), and was outcast from the village despite being a small girl. His father stated his intent to send her away to magic school without explaining himself after wholly inadequate (to Laios at least) attempts to mitigate the severe bullying that she received. In hopes of making a life for the two of them, Laios left home to join the military–when Kabru once asked why he’d deserted and become an adventurer, a dark shadow crossed his face and he had said, “I didn’t fit in,” and nothing more. Nothing of the period between Laios leaving Falin and reuniting with her again was a subject Laios let Kabru broach.
Kabru couldn’t be sure that anything had happened directly to Laios, but the memories of his time then were clearly painful. But there was an odd contingency in his telling of his past: he centered it around Falin. ‘My father didn’t talk to us. Falin was hurt. My mother scared Falin. I left Falin behind.’ Like his near death experience, any other negative experiences he had seemed to be ignored in favor of talking about how it had affected his sister.
And if he was refusing to speak to his parents again for Falin, wouldn’t he have tried to repair his relationship for her sake too?
“I call the meeting to order,” Laios declared before the delegation. Kabru stood to his right, just behind the throne at the head of the table, taking careful note of those gathered. A dwarven woman about 180 years old sat closest to Laios on the side of the delegates. Her stone-gray locs sat neatly on the shoulders of her high-necked black gown, which covered her from jaw to wrist and had swept the floor as she had walked in. She had the most dour look Kabru had ever seen. Frown lines were etched deep into her dark bronze skin, giving the impression she had never smiled before, and certainly wouldn’t start now.
Lady Granite pinned her gaze on Laios as he read the proposal. She made a good effort to keep her face completely still, but Kabru could read her in her breathing. Her breathing would get deliberate and slow when Laios made any point she didn't like, and her hands would clasp just a little tighter together in her lap.
She didn't like: splitting the costs of the road 50/50, keeping lanterns dim for the sake of recovering bat populations, working with orc tribes to preserve their land rights, restricting fishing to protect the fisheries, nor did she like hearing the list of clans who had already agreed to settle the new port. He had to presume then that all she did like is that Melini was willing to supply as much day labor as needed at their own expense.
The meeting concluded in exactly the place Kabru had predicted it would: Lady Granite didn’t accept any conditions of the proposal and intended to come back tomorrow with her counter proposal, while their own advisors seethed against the unified front Khaka Brud presented through her. Yaad ended the meeting cordially with a reminder that they are welcome to use the meeting room to draft their counter proposal after dinner–it wasn’t yet time to start yelling people down.
As they left, Kabru watched Laios. The way he was avoiding contact, his stony-faced demeanor–he seemed so sad. Kabru just had to hope that his plan to cheer him up, make him talk, would work.