Iancu moves behind the three of them and slaps all of their backs before saying, "Stop being a bunch of whiny babies, everything will be fine. Nothing is worse than being around Elia."
They all let out a sigh of relief before saying, "You're right."
Stelara says, "What has this girl done to you?"
"We have an epidemic of idiots who grieve our very souls that run around our country," Maple says as Willow and Suzuka nod behind her.
Abbán says, "We wish you never have to encounter such people in your lifetime," while Dumnorix pokes his face with his tail.
Stelara says, "It seems like you have lots of competition on being the most annoying now, Avram?"
"Never was."
Kneeling in front of Iancu, Stelara says, "Hey, if you ever feel like you want to become a part of our clan in full, you can just come to the Cursed Heart barracks."
Avram, pulling her by the hair, yanks her upwards and says, "He is busy."
"I can speak for myself."
"Iancu don't trust this prehistoric, withering, skin-rotting hag; she is only here to confuse yo-."
Stelara smashes Avram in the face right into the ground and says, "I will play with your disrespect no longer!" She grabs Avram's nose and swings it around, then turns to Iancu and says,"Though I do apologise for asking you a question like that."
Iancu says, "If I join you guys, can you teach me how to kick my father in the face, and preferably Elia like that!?"
"Of course."
Iancu, pulling out his sleeves, starts drawing on it with his blood, and says, "Where is the base?"
Stelara starts pointing it out, and Avram gets in between the two of them, saying, "Don't solicit my child."
She smiles a bit and says, "I will have my leave, and make sure you visit Iancu."
"I will."
"He won't," Avram says.
"It's fun to see you so flustered, I thought you could only care about tinkering with your trash, but it seems God has dropped another piece of glory within you. I hope life will continue to be good to you," Stelara says as she walks away.
Iancu and Avram say, "What an annoying woman."
Suzuka grabs Avram's arms, saying, "I have really been seeing how you're Iancu's father recently. You've been really erratic like him."
Iancu says, "I am not erratic!"
Avram, hearing these words, quickly composes himself and returns to a mental and physical state similar to that of when he was in Elpída. With a sigh, he says, "How annoying. Let's get this over with."
Willow whispers to Maple, "He tries to hide his true emotions just like Iancu."
"It is really adorable even when it isn't Iancu. It seems his mother really lost out."
"SHUT UP!" Iancu says while turning his head.
Avram opens the door ahead of them all, revealing a giant dinner table with the three ministers sitting on the other side. Vėja snaps her fingers, and the staff of the castle quickly come and set the exact number of necessary seats for everyone before vanishing.
Avram says, "Let dinner begin."
-Break-
Throughout the table, with everyone sitting on one side as the minister sits on the other, a large number of empty dishes lie in front of the Suzuka.
Suzuka stares at a giant roast bug whose body looks like a loaf of bread, and with a giant bite, she takes a chunk out of it before looking up to the sky and saying, "DELICIOUS!"
The ecstatic face of Suzuka, who is enjoying herself, aligns with Avram, Willow and Dumnorix, who enjoy the meal without any form of restraint. Though for the rest at the table fear grabs all of them.
Maple shakes, causing Willow to say, "Is everything ok?"
"Yeah, it's just what is the name of our country again, and what did we come here to discuss?" she says as she looks at Willow with panic in his eyes.
Abbán, in a similar state to Maple, holds his hands together under the table, and says, "It's just like Nialathrú, it's just like Nialathrú, don't be scared, don't be afraid."
Dumnorix says, "Abbán, stop being such a big baby. You can handle war, but not this?"
"SHUT UP YOU STUPID SCORPION!" Abbán says as he starts to grip and shake Dumnorix.
Both Willow and Dumnorix quickly place food in their respective allies' mouths, and as the flavour hits their minds, they quickly relax. Yet the three idiots beside them don't compose themselves so quickly.
Ivana, Gheorghe and Wadim all take glances towards the minister, locking their eyes with them. Yet as fear creeps into all their eyes, they all drop their heads low and hide.
Veekeeris, seeing this, turns their head to the side and says, "Cowards." Which sends tremors through each of their bodies.
Avram takes a bite of the food with a fork and stretches his arm across the table. "Hey Veekeeris, here comes the cannonball."
The tiny man who sits on a series of paddle pillows to reach his upper body over the table sends one of the tentacles across his body, smashing the fork away. Iancu catches it, quickly takes a bite of the meal, whilst he says, "More for me then."
Stiprais's eyes gleam towards Ivana, and under his breath, he says, "I would have picked a better dress."
Iancu says, "You want to wear big man? If so, I know a cute tailor."
Avram says, "That sounds amazing. We can get him some flowers on it, and maybe attach a doll to the side."
"That sounds pretty cute. It would suit treeman over there."
Vėja cackles in laughter, causing a glare to arrive on her from the other ministers. So she quickly turns to Suzuka and says, "You must really be enjoying the food since you ate half of it yourself so far."
She quickly composes herself and looks down at all the food she has eaten before turning red in embarrassment. Vėja, looking towards Suzuka, says, "Don't be embarrassed, it is an honour to the chefs."
"No, I am not embarrassed; it is just that the food is barely here."
Taking the giant roasted worm, Suzuka grabs Cyrus and stuffs it down his mouth, then in one gulp, Cyrus takes it all and devours it. "See, it is all gone. None left for me to eat!!!!"
Cyrus, chewing, rubs Suzuka's head as she turns her face towards the table in embarrassment. Seeing this, he quickly uses his tail, and then starts tickling her cheek, which gets her to laugh before he places some food into her mouth.
Suzuka is quickly overwhelmed with the flavour shouts, "DELICIOUS!"
Causing Vėja to laugh a bit, and Iancu staring at her says, "This meal is delicious, but I am wondering when you all will get to the point of this meeting because we don't want to spend the rest of our night chatting away with you."
Stiprais says, "Just as rude as your father. Behaviour like this is not only an insult to us, but to the blood in your veins."
"Considering the amount of trouble we visitors have been put in under your rule, we have at least some right to complain."
Vėja says, "I cannot argue with that."
Veekeeris says, "The boy is brave, yet arrogance is a killer child. Now let's actually get to the meat of this dinner. The deal you all brought to us."
Maple and Abbán's attention falls back towards the ministers, then Stiprais says, "After reviewing the information given to us by Dragoste, we have decided that we are inclined to accept your deal."
Maple and Abbán face light up. But Stiprais says, "Though we do have a few issues? First would be production. To my knowledge, a giant portion of Victoria is still frozen and filled with snow correct?"
Everyone turns to Maple, and after taking in a deep breath, she says, "That is true, but Orb is working to clear out more and more habitable land each day we stay there. In the almost two months since he has arrived, he has cleared out an amount of land equalling half of Nialathrú, the settlement where the beastkin say underground."
ΦWhile I wonder if I should be giving them information like time and the placement of Nialathrú, I think that regardless they have shown they don't really communicate with the outside world en masse enough for this information to be used against us. If anything, it is a sign of good faith to say it directly to them, especially if Dragoste hid this information to protect us.
"Though that's still rather small, don't you think? You're society is somewhere around 57,000 people if I have this right, and you've already had large food storage, correct? At the rate you're clearing land, you have basically only gotten half a large city in about two months. It would be years by the time you have farmland equalling what my region can produce domestically. Then there would be cultivating, we are all sceptical about how the weather or Fimbulwinter would affect crop growth, as well, slowing down this process. What exactly is the timeline for when this deal would even start?"
Abbán claps his hands together and says, "Realistically, if we devoted every single day towards this goal, it would take five years till where are able to deliver domestically on a sustainable level. Orb's pace, while impressive, is equally unsustainable, so it will probably slow down, but after that time, we could start with transport."
Veekeeris says, "That boy has lots of energy and vigour, but to my knowledge, he is a human?"
Maple says, "His legacy is a beastkin, but Orb is a human."
Veekeeris says, "There are multiple questions I have about how his legacy would be able to control the snow of Fimbulwinter, but I will ask those to his face. Still, an issue occurs. Even if he were to spend every day for the rest of his life clearing out the snow, we all know that he will expire before the continent is free."
Maple says, "That is in fact true. Orb won't live forever, but I can assure you that he will be able to get rid of the majority of his snow. From past experience, he has already witnessed that his legacy can control the snow in Fimbulwinter to a much greater extent; that's why he constantly trains to achieve that level of strength."
Vėja says, "That level of determination to realise your goals reminds me a lot of my second son, at the very least, he is an offspring I can be proud of."
Wadim lowers his head and lets out a half-hearted laugh as he rubs his head. Suzuka looks at Vėja, peeved, but Veekeeris quickly says, "Then I will bet on that for now, though the next question is transportation, how do you plan to get this mass amount of food all the way from victory towards Blestemate?"
Maple says, "A series of ideas is being debated. First would be using the Zetties from Skydust?"
Stiprais says, "The Tavises?"
Willow says, "We can't decide on their nickname, so we just kind of switch between both."
Vėja says, "I see, but that isn't very smart. The main reason is, to be frank, wartime logistics. Thanks to the scummy vampire over there are domestic productions have increased quite a bit, but we still rely on foreign imports for a lot of things. That's what we would like to change, and flying a bunch of food across the continent is a very easy thing to intercept, especially given the main hostile country close to us is Gevurah."
Maple says, "We don't have to fly them directly across; we could go to the west or east of the continent, and circle around."
"If you fly west, you'd be flying through Molstoria airspaces, and the Rinastcean union has invested in anti-air technology as a way to fight back against Gevurah. You'd be shot out of the sky. And if you went east, you'd have to cross all the way around Enotita, which would delay your journey so much that certain types of food wouldn't be transportable. So how will you solve this problem?"