"So the entire city will be the grounds for the party?" Nin asks me as I attend to some issues with my many servants. Dismissing many of them aside so I can focus on my centrepiece attraction. Oh, there's no amount of colours or frilly patterns that will complement him. His posture, his looks, it all denies any right of the world to make him look good. He stands out of his own volition, regardless.
"Yes, that is the intention." I answer, joining him at the massive set of windows he's using to look out at the city. The capital is always decorated, but one can certainly tell there's a different intention about everything. It's lighter on the touch, disposable but welcoming and warm.
"How will you even manage?" he asks, and I give a light shrug, looking back to what staff of mine linger. One gestures to the diagrams on hand, and I point to the furthest right. She mistakes me and shakes the two options that way, and I point right again. We share a quick smile, and I focus my attention back on Nin.
"The people will give up their spare rooms to harbour who they can. Leniency will be given to vagrants, camps in public spaces and the like. I respect the fact that it's a fair few days of travel to get here. The palace will also be opened up in a way that certainly seems baffling to some. We'll be more like a block of flats in a rundown neighbourhood." I explain, smiling and giggling at times as I look out at my city. It's already more crowded than it's ever been before, and it will only get busier.
"Can't imagine people will be happy about that." Nin scoffs, and I give him a wry glare.
"It's a party, they'll be happy for the sake of it." I go, leading to him shaking his head in utter despair.
"At least they have every reason to be drunk, then. Will help dull the pain of offering their sofa as a bed," Nin chuckles over.
"All dozen of them." I correct, snickering as I look at how many lounge chairs and the like simply exist in this room. It's not even a proper room for sitting in, it's just one of many rooms with a place to sit. Visitors, staff, the like — all of them and everyone. And soon, there shall be blankets and pillows for all as is appropriate.
"Don't worry about my bed and board. I'll happily give them up for some young couple coming in the city right now," Nin comments, his hat tilting so he can rest the top of his arm against his forehead. His hand spread out, tapping on the glass as what he just named possibly makes their way in. It's hard to tell who is coming into the city proper and who is just on the streets. But there are certainly plenty of pairs one could call a couple.
"Is that because of your charitable spirit or just you having so much magic in your system, now?" I ask him, keeping the latter details quiet so as to not ruin the great act of what I expect of the kingdom's doctors.
"Let's say both." he snickers, leaving me with the slightest of smiles. I follow the tip of his beak and look back to the city. A lot of work is being put into this party, and a lot of work will carry on in the party. It's simply too grand an event for all the work to be done on time. It'll be like a stone on a perfectly flat body of water. The ripples will go out and then back in, out and in.
Looking away from the window, I return to my staff to leave Nin to his thoughts. Being around him is lovely and all, but I have my beliefs that he will just draw out the most noteworthy of subjects. Our mutual experience in the subject and the recency of it all will certainly bring it up and out.
I gesture for some staff to approach with their items of note, and I indulge myself in it all. Choices of drink, glassware, the distribution of it all and who is allowed what. Snacks on the trays and silverware, heartier meals in the bowls and plates. The carpets for the floors and the tapestries to be unrolled and laid out on the barest of walls and between the lamps and more.
It's practically unending in its quantity, something that will only benefit the lives of every family. There will be far more out there in the streets, in the homes of the nobles and in the halls of my palace. So much will be put away while so much more will be placed in the open. For a moment, perhaps a day or even three, everyone is welcome to all parts of the capital.
The rights and privileges of the nobility be damned, my privacy in much the same way. Everyone shall enjoy the splendour of my capital, and I will ensure that to be the case within tolerable reason. The kingdom survived its destruction, and its bountiful wealth shall be distributed in a way that makes us glad to have saved it. Not just those who have lost teeth and nail, but limb and life.
My hand sharply rises, "That will be enough for the moment. Find other tasks for now. We can make more choices later."
The staff nod their heads and file on out, those lingering with other tasks offer their eyes. My hands gesture in the same way, shooing them off until it is just me and the kingdom's saviour. No... I need to think of another way to think of him as, and in turn, speak of him as. This kingdom has many saviours, many of which will not be able to celebrate this party.
The lucky few can have cake, and treats shipped to their addresses. Presents and ceremony delivered by courier, on foot or by cart and wagon. It matters not. Too many died because I could not save them.
I've received the reports, I've learned what has happened of the missing villagers and farmers. Those not butchered into snacks were ruined in other ways. Mutilated in a way no hand paired with a tool can ever achieve. There was something horrible about the way their bodies were damaged, and they could only inspire my imagination so much.
It's a heart-cooling thing to learn. That despite all the effort I put into that siege and the battles before, such horrors still happened. I know I couldn't change anything even if I could, the options left to me just aren't there. And for all the partying we're about to have in the capital... There're too many funerals to plan and honour. We'll barely have any time at all to clean up the party before the all-blacks unfurl and the flowers wilt in appreciation for the event and its gravity.
Perhaps time will not be kind to us at all, as the war was not kind to them. There may be no time at all to mourn them appropriately with haste. The best place we might put a monument to their lost lives is a wasteland. Courtesy of the greatest hero of the bunch. I cannot blame Nin for it, however. He did what was needed in a world designed to accommodate the lesser.
Still... I would like most dearly for the Crack in the Sky to be where the monument to their lives goes. A reminder of where the battle was as it passes the memories of my subjects. Long after Daddy has come with his architects and engineers to repair the insidiously named hole in the mountain.
I turn towards Nin, leaving my thoughts as he still seems to be occupied with his. I head back over, joining him at his side and taking the moment to lock my arms around his free and loose one. He moves slightly, acknowledging my return with a slight tilt of his hat. An awkward gesture that takes him far too long to get to at the angle he's left his right arm at.
"You leave with a smile and come back solemn," he quips, and I give a quick nod.
"Yes, I was just thinking about the siege and that. The funerals and the more grim-minded events that will follow this party." I explain, and he doesn't seem to have a whole lot or anything to say about it.
"You should keep your mind on the party in its absolute meaning." Nin suggests, and I stew on his words.
He shuffles.
"Not like that, you'll think too much. Trust me, I'm quite the hypocrite in telling you this!" he exclaims, leaving me with something of a curl to my lips.
"One can find it quite hard to leave their thoughts behind. Much as I think little of those who lack an internal dialogue of any kind, one can't help but envy the inability to think or self-reflect at all." I tell him, my point being made exactly as I say it, with my mind recalling bothers right then and there. From the utterly clueless to the shallowly vapid and the obnoxiously egotistical. One can just never escape such thoughts.
"I'd keep my thoughts either way. It's what kept me alive over the years. It's what let me consider what I've done, and what I need to go on and achieve," he explains.
"It helps you keep your word." I add on, getting a fresh nod from him.
"Keeping your word is an important thing to do. You promised a party, and look what you have taken to ensure it's kept. I, on the other hand, have another problem... The one I made the promise to is dead, no doubt long since gone from Undwote's lap. Perhaps the people I am supposed to keep this promise to are also dead, I do not know. Either or, I need to keep on moving until I am certain the word is kept. I have a lot of people who deserve, at the very least, to hear the words, 'I'm sorry for how I was,' they all deserve that much." he explains, leaving me to my thoughts as there's just so much to consider.
Yet... I've already found something to speak about.
"That someone you made the promise to, she must be very important." I say, assuming the gender if only for the sake of an assumption. Court often holds many poetry sessions and the like. Romance tends to be quite the domineering motivator.
"She was very important to me, perhaps too important." Nin admits, his voice going so very, very quiet.
"I'd hardly call someone who can inspire action to that extent to be too important." I tell him, trying to at least reassure him of any doubts he might be having.
"She'd love a party like this. She loved any opportunity for fun, really. Even in a boring thing, she'd make it fun. Everything with her was a joy. She didn't expect people to entertain her, she simply enjoyed making others smile. Especially those down on their luck the most." Nin explains, almost choking on his words as a mental image no doubt flashes before his eyes.
Much the same, I see something, too. Though he's not one, I see a man, one whom's eyes are now rimmed with water. A weary, power-touched face, scarred over by so many things that have long since happened. A hardened face, one softened by a woman of indescribable influence, not in politics or over the future generations or anything so grand sounding. The simple power of being a warmth for his heart.
A power that affects everyone from the most naïve of newborns to the most broken of old men and women. Creatures of all species and all capacities. It's a real thing that can be done, no lack of exaggeration in fiction. He loves her, loved her...? It's a thing I can't quite understand, as I've never loved like that.
Maybe I'll understand at some point, but for the moment, I do not.
"I do not mean to offend in the slightest. But, perhaps... Enjoy this party as she might?" I suggest to him, and he looks my way, those reflective lenses of his hiding so much. He's in his head and I cannot see into there. Though I can see him physically, and he's relaxing, not tensing up. I can't do much myself, so I just offer him a quick squeeze, a silent promise to him.
'I am here for you, if you need me, like you were there for me.'