166 The spark that broke the camel's back

{fantasy world}

The enormous golden door leading to the imperial throne room opened in a slow, almost daring manner as they produced a long ominous sound that seemed to drag on for far longer than usual, until the two doors finally reached their destination as confirmed by 2 strong metallic *thud* and a slight vibration of the doors, both caused by the very long and very fine but surprisingly sturdy metal roads that came off the door and planted themselves in preplaced holes in the ground, immobilizing the door in place.

On one side of door stood an old man, waiting in a poorly lit corridor much too big for the occasion and which countless decoration, ornaments, emblems, and paintings were partially covered, as if they were looking away from the scene, condemning the Tress's house elder, who, because of the multitude of guard standing around him, looked more like a prisoner waiting to be condemned then the highest ranked noble in the country.

On the other side, in the impressively vast, very well, almost too lit, grandiose throne room, sat the king. From the top of the staircase, which seemed much taller than usual Remord, who was wearing his unbelievably bright crown that shone like a miniature sun across the whole specter of color thanks to its 7 unique magical jewels, glared down at Oréh with a mixture of disappointment and spite before silently gesturing him to get in the room with his left hand, his right one being occupied by the imperial scepter, symbol of the divine right to rule of the king and of his innate talent to rule, guide and punish his people.

The old man walked up with confident strides, through the empty, cold, and somewhat threatening room until he reached the bottom of the stairs, at which point he bowed very, very slightly before looking up at the king. Oréh's expression was serious, calm, and concentrated, devoid of any fear or any anticipation.

After looking at each other for a while, Remord, who remained seated, asked, in a board and yet commanding tone if the old man had any idea why he had been summoned for a private meeting with him, to which the Tress house elder formulated an extremely long winded answer, filled with sentence ungloved in 3 layers of suppositions, quadruple negations, quintuple synonyms to describe the same action, 12 different conjugations and extremely technical over-elaborated terms on top of the usual sentence of style and courtesy supposed to show his respect, but which only served to boost his own ego by showing how large and developed his vocabulary and knowledge of unused antic titles, forgotten names and useless formulation was!

All the above combined all together to make an almost 17-minute-long speech, perfectly incomprehensible for the common man and any low ranked noble, even if only the most educated, curious and knowledgeable of the 0.01% of the population which were part of the high nobility could somewhat make out the bulk of the man's sentences.

However, for simplicity's sake, and in an effort to not waste too much of my preciously unlimited time, I gracefully decided to spare you of this miniature dissertation and sum it up in the 5 following points:

1-Oréh thinks that he was called because of interaction with the prince earlier in the day

2-The old man cast the blame of burning the engagement certificate out of himself and onto the 3 children

3-The elder downs play the gravity of his own actions and of the document being burned

4-He partially blames the king for being unable to educate the prince and suggests that he could do a better job (he also proposed to "re-educate" the prince himself to make him more "in line" with the royal expectations).

5-He demanded that that all wrongdoing, from all party involved be forgotten, the engagement be upheld (even if by burning the certificate he broke the contractual obligation)

After carefully listening to every one of his points, Remord thought about them for about half a second before saying:

-Then after forcefully entering my son's private appartements, threatening a royal guard with your title, interrupting the prince private meeting, threatening the prince, his right-hand man and his fiancé, before partially burning down the room which, besides the obvious risk for all people involve, contained thousands of official documents, tens of priceless artifacts and could have compromised the whole castle integrity, you still thought that ignoring all the formalities and immediately explaining your point of view instead of answering the question asked by your king was the right thing to do?" asked Remord in a curious tone that didn't seem that condescending, making it somehow even more condescending.

-No, your majesty is interpreting my explanation in a way that is simply not the path my thoughts used when I considered this option present." Explained the old man in a tone that made him sound very overconfident.

-Then you think I do not have the right skill to understand your sentence?" Asked the king with that same curiosity

-No! Obviously no, your majesty!" shouted Oréh in slight panic "It is simply that within the current context of events and after considering your negative reaction I concluded that you must have misunderstood my reasoning.

-I see, then it is that my skills aren't good enough, is what you're implying?

-Your majesty! You ar-

-ENOUGH!" Shouted the king while standing up, stopping the old men in the middle of his excuse "I am tired of trying to compose with a bunch of irresponsible, respectless, boot-licking fools who, instead of supporting their king during thought time prefer taking advantage of the situation for their own benefits!" he yelled while taking a step down toward the man. "I am more than tired of your incessant and outrageous demands to fix problems YOU have caused, and which responsibility falls onto me! I am NOT going to bend to your wants and act like a docile cat while you terrorize my son and my people! I will not let this sick brain of yours that doesn't understand the fact that YOU are not the king and that you in fact gave up on this very idea to help form this country!" With every new argument Remord took another step toward the old men and with every step looked taller, stronger, more threatening, his eyes glowing with a fire as bright as his crown and his voice reverberating through the whole room.

The once he reached the last step and stood right above Oréh, looking down at him, like a giant would look at an insect he was about to step on, filling up every inch of the old man's vision with his large dense magical aura that looked as if it could crush until he turned into a black hole.

-Thus, as you obstinately refuse to negotiate or compromise, I will take back what was never meant to be yours and always to be my son's and officially brake of the crown prince engagement with your granddaughter and, to make sure you learn command you, from now one and until the end of next month, to assist at every single meeting organized and public reunion by myself, without ever saying a single word, to make you understand a fraction of what you made me go through.

Remord stopped, glared at the shaking elder with hatred and disgust before climbing back up the stairs and sitting back on his throne.

-If I hear your voice ever again at any point during your stay at the capital, I will not hesitate to strip, not only you, but your whole house of their title. Am I clear?

Oréh silently and timidly nodded as his body was still completely frozen in place out of pure fear.

The king then pointed his staff down at the men and said:

-Be gone, you are dismissed.

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