>>5629741“You wish to meet with my father?” Rufos asks.
You meet with the younger Prince again in his out-of-the-way meeting-room—small, humble, furnished to intimidate and impress but seemingly little lived-in, cleverly selected for a certain distance and privacy from the finer discussion-spaces favoured in his less clandestine affairs.
“I wish to marry Eka,” you raffirm. “To earn your blessssing in thisss, I will earn you your father’sss blessing to be king. It isss a ssimple exxxchange, yess?”
The Prince leans back, crossing his arms.
“Oh, yes, VERY simple,” you replies with dry disdain. “Don’t be stupid, creature. Birth is birth. I can no more be Paladin King with a word from you than I can knight you and make you a man.”
You gesture to your adopted form, and counter: “I can passs well enough for a man, yess? If I can make you heir to the throne, can you passs sso well for a King?”
He frowns, and you raise a hand to appease him.
“I mean no offenccce,” you add.
“Yes, well,” he says, then looks down at the desk. “A king… Certainly. But a Paladin…”
Ah. So it is not birth alone that is the issue here. Alexos, elder son, is also PALADIN Prince—and paladin-trained, Paladin-capable. He is favoured of the Gods of Light, as you are of the Gods of Dark, if perhaps not quite so individually and personally singled-out for greatness as you are by your (superior, truer, greater) pantheon.
Well, perhaps you can work with that…
“Arrange the meeting with King Archosss,” you say again. “I will do the ressst.”
