Chương 1264: 1294 - Prize for Victory

"Miuna," Leon warmly said, his antipathy for her rude friends hidden behind a host's courtesy—though given the way the Basilissa, Perenelle, and the Strategissa, Mizuno, studiously avoided his gaze, he almost thought the concealment a waste of effort. The Despotissa of the group, Akasi, however, beamed at him, happy as a clam. As she was the only one of the three who hadn't treated Leon like someone to fear or denigrate, he found nothing disagreeable about her attitude.

"I'm surprised to see you four here."

"I would've visited sooner," Miuna said as she all but bounded over and threw her arms around him in such a blatant display of affection that Leon could only assume it was performative for his other guests.

"Unfortunately," Miuna said as she pulled back, though her hands lingered on his arms, "my duties have required me to be present for many of the events, and then the parties afterward. It's all been terribly droll, but now that I have some free time, I thought to visit my nearly exiled friend!"

"Nearly exiled?" Leon repeated with an amused grin.

"Such is how the rumors paint you," Akasi said as she rose from where she sat. The dusky-skinned woman sauntered over, her hips swaying in a way that didn't strike Leon as particularly enticing or intimate, but rather as a way to show how comfortable and welcomed she felt. He was almost surprised she hadn't thrown a smug look over her shoulder at the other two.

"It's good to meet you again, Basileus Leon."

"My name is enough," Leon replied as Akasi boldly did as Miuna had and gave Leon a loose hug. He hesitated a moment but returned it after a moment.

"You've made quite the impression," Akasi said as they parted.

"How can you be just 'Leon'? Surely you'd rather have grandiose titles attached?"

"My name is all the title I need," Leon succinctly explained.

"If my name is insufficient, then that just means that I have to work to make it sufficient."

"An interesting perspective," Akasi replied.

"Ambition is always an attractive quality in a man, though perhaps my friends here might disagree…" She glanced over her shoulder, directly turning the attention of the entire room, Leon's wives and their attendants included, to Perenelle and Mizuno. Perenelle looked like she'd rather be anywhere but there, while Mizuno hardly seemed able to lift her eyes from the chamber floor—though it was their second time meeting, Leon still found it strange that a woman reached the eleventh-tier with such a meek attitude.

He wondered if she had any particular reason for it, or if she simply found him that intimidating. Leaving them alone for the moment, Leon asked Akasi, "And how much do you think I should care about being attractive?" Akasi snorted, and her dark eyes assessed him closely, scanning him from his leather boots to the collar of his blue and silver tunic.

"Everything about us is a statement, doubly so for Lords. The clothes we wear, the weapons we use, the way we style our hair; all of it speaks about us as people. Take yourself, for instance: short hair makes you look practical, but also well-groomed. Same with your clean shave. I tend to prefer men with beards—makes their jaws look stronger, if the beard is trimmed well—but the clean look is nice, too."

"I'd probably grow my beard out more if some people let me," Leon said with a pointed look cast in the direction of his wives.

"It looks barbarous and it's itchy when kissed!" Elise loudly complained.

"No beard! None! Gross!"

"There you have it, from the mouth of a goddess in the flesh," Leon said as he turned his golden gaze back to Akasi.

"So I do," Akasi said, her eyes continuing to roam his body.

"You project an air of practicality and a shunning of excess. Virtuous, by certain moral systems, but the practiced eye can see through it. Your clothes are simple, lacking much decoration, but whatever material they're made of—and I must get some of it, by the way, it's gorgeous —is clearly magnificent in the truest sense of the word. Your clothes also have an incredibly flattering fit, indicating the work of master tailors.

If you claimed that you didn't care much about your appearance, then I would call you a liar."" Are you?" Leon asked with a playful smile.

"Going to call me a liar, I mean?"

"Maybe," Akasi whispered, matching Leon's smile with one of her own.

"But as I said: you already know what my point is, and I suspect you agree with it." Chuckling, Leon said, "I believe that men will follow someone for reasons that are entirely their own. Some follow the successful, some follow the charismatic, some follow the skilled. A person's appearance comes down to how they want to play to various types and who they want to attract. It's important, yes."

"We agree," Akasi said.

"In a broad sense, at least."

"And we agree," Miuna said as she took Elise's arm.

"Beards are for uncouth barbarians!" She and Elise immediately began laughing, but Cassandra hissed, "Heretic!" Despite her words, Cassandra joined Elise and Miuna in a giggling fit, all of them looking for a moment like they were barely sixteen despite them being at least a quarter of a millennium in age. He even saw Valeria crack a smile, and Maia's stoic detachment soften.

"Enough about that," Akasi said as she once again turned in Perenelle and Mizuno's direction.

"Was that enough humanizing? Are you still terrified, Mizuno? Or are we going to have to get more creative?" The young Strategissa shrank in on herself, her eyes flickering from Akasi to Leon and back again. Noticing her friend's condition, Perenelle rose and properly joined the conversation.

"Of all the stories of ancient Clans that have plagued the universe, can you blame her for being nervous when the one our Princess is interested in professes kinship with one of the violent?" Leon recalled her sharing a similar sentiment before, but where before it had been almost accusatory, now her tone suggested she thought she was just stating fact.

"More," she continued, "he just a few weeks ago showed even more powers that have cast doubt on accepted reality. Others have said that you taking the shape of the Thunderbird was an illusion of some sort, or a magical projection. I suspect it was something else, as I'm sure many of my power do. Our senses are not so easily fooled, Leon, and especially not those who are even stronger. But even more important than that was your revelation that you have a second bloodline! And with the Great Black Dragon, no less!

It defies all logic! How can the universe allow someone like you to exist? It's unfair in all ways possible!"

"It's not been a straight road for me, believe that," Leon said.

"Sure," Perenelle said with a shrug.

"But don't blame others for being intimidated."

"What about you?" Leon asked.

"Are you intimidated? Or are you still caught up on me being a 'beast'? Am I unfit to live in your idea of civilization?"

"I can take that back easily."

"Can you? So easily? Perhaps I don't want to give it back."

"Then keep it. In the end, what does my opinion matter? I'm hardly the most important Basilissa among our illustrious Ocean King's vassals."

"There's no need to put yourself down, Nellie," Miuna quickly said as she sprang to her feet and hurried over to her friend faster than her robes, which appeared tightly wound around her legs, should've allowed.

"Opinions are one thing, and actions are another." This novel's true home is a different platform. Support the author by finding it there.

"Yes, they are. So let me make myself clear. Leon, if you can find any grace in your draconic heart, I ask for your forgiveness for my words those weeks ago. They were said in haste, and I regret them. Had I known then what I know now, I wouldn't have made those statements." It took Leon a substantial amount of effort not to dismiss her 'apology' out of hand. It validated some of what the Thunderbird, Great Black Dragon, and Xaphan had been telling him in ways that he didn't like.

'Seek power. Everything else will fall in line…'

"There is no substitute for strength when looking for friends," Leon said aloud.

"Though, since you inflicted no lasting injury upon me or mine, I have no problem accepting your apology."

"Thank you," she hurried to say and bury that part of their exchange, choosing instead to focus on what was the more philosophical issue that they'd raised.

"The best way to make friends is to be useful," Perenelle countered.

"Not even useful for the one seeking friends; just useful in general. No one wants to make friends with someone useless. There are reasons why that person is useless, and they're unlikely to enrich the lives of their friends."

"Thought about this a lot, have you?"

"No. I don't have to, not when I have principles and convictions." Akasi remarked, "I'm always surprised at just how utilitarian you consider your relationships to be, even though I shouldn't be at this point."

"I'm a bitch," Perenelle smirkingly replied, "but I'm not wrong. What do you think, Mizuno?" The other woman looked like she'd been trying to disappear into her robes, but the moment she was called out, she practically jumped out of her own skin. Looking like a startled deer, her eyes darted first to the door before closing. Leon watched, curious, as she took a long, deep breath, and when she opened her eyes again, she looked much steadier.

"My friends are people I enjoy being around," she said, her voice steady and her posture perfectly prim and proper. Leon knew that she was a shy woman, but after she took that moment to compose herself, that shyness was nowhere to be seen.

"They are not commodities to be traded or dispensers of favors." She paused, her eyes lingering for a long time on Leon. No one spoke, however, as it was clear she had something else on her mind, and everyone wanted to give her the opportunity to say it. Finally, she stated, "Everyone can enrich my life, if given a chance. I choose whether or not to allow them based on my own preferences."

"Darling," Perenelle said more than a little condescendingly, "do you have a preference for weakness? For the unskilled? For those so useless that they cannot even take care of themselves if deprived of civilization?"

"Hardly a reasonably-phrased question," Mizuno pushed back.

"And yet it's one that demands an answer," Perenelle sniped in response.

"Feel free to answer it as I asked it or as you interpreted it. Either works for me."

"My preferences are my own," Mizuno said.

"And like the tides, change with my mood." That elicited more than a bit of laughter from the other women, and when they were done, Miuna approached Leon and took his arm.

"Could I steal you away for a moment, handsome?" She flashed him a winning smile bright enough to illuminate the abyssal deep, while her touch was both feather-light and intimate. Leon shot his wives a questioning look. Elise nodded, the trust she had clear in her emerald eyes. Cassandra was less trusting, but it was Miuna she didn't have trust in, not Leon. Still, she silently assented, as did Valeria, who looked like she didn't even need to think about it.

Maia, meanwhile, smirked, the connection she shared with Leon allowing her to monitor them more closely than Miuna could realize, so there was no reason for her to put her foot down.

"Have a destination in mind?" Leon asked as he allowed Miuna to maneuver them toward the door.

"I just wanted to talk," Miuna said.

"The destination doesn't matter. It's been a while, Leon; is wanting to talk that big of a deal? Does there have to be some reason that I want to spend time with you?"

"No," Leon responded as they left the others behind, if only temporarily.

"But most people do under conditions such as these. And I wanted to know. But moving on, what did you want to talk about?" They walked amiably through Storm Herald's halls, never leaving Leon's family's private chambers. They were trailed by Tempest Knights and Miuna's guards, though they followed at a respectable enough distance that they could talk without much fear of being listened in on.

"I wanted to check in with you," she said.

"See how you were doing after the Sun King paid his visit. What was that even about?"

"I got into a bit of a scuffle over one of my people," Leon explained.

"I wound up injuring one of the Sun King's Lords in my haste to get my man back to this ark. The Sun King wanted restitution and demanded that I remain in my ark for the remainder of the Games. Given that that's my natural inclination, I suppose I leaped too quickly to accept that particular stipulation…"

"It's a true shame. I'm told that your charioteers and gladiators have done well, though I haven't had the pleasure of seeing them perform since leaving Artorion. They've fought well even without the eyes of their King upon them. Imagine how well they might have done if only you'd been there, encouraging them with your presence."

"I can't be everywhere," Leon said, momentarily thinking of what was going to happen once he'd returned to Aeterna. The Great Strand of Rhea was enormous, and to properly push his Kingdom into it required campaigns on multiple fronts. Even at the thirteenth-tier, moving between the forces making these pushes would be prohibitively difficult, with task forces weeks or even months away from each other.

It was going to be the largest and most difficult task of coordination that his Kingdom had yet achieved, but he was confident that they were up to the challenge.

"But you can be there for the most important things," Miuna replied.

"Now, as I understand it, you have only a single opportunity left to acquire an angel feather." Leon froze in place, Miuna almost walking past him and only halting when she did, since she still had a gentle hold on his arm.

"A what?" he asked in astonishment.

"An… angel feather?" Miuna said hesitantly. When he nodded, she said, "The prizes this year for the winners of every event are angel feathers."" Every event?" Leon asked, astounded further by the sheer scale—this put the Sun King on the hook for more than a thousand angel feathers, which were one of the rarest 'resources' in the universe.

"How did he get so many?"

"He managed to hunt a six-winged angel," Miuna elucidated.

"Those creatures' wings are large and have many feathers. Each wing can hold twelve to fourteen-hundred feathers. Even after paying the hunters and trackers who did most of the work, the Sun King would've had many feathers left over." Leon stroked his face as if he were wearing a beard.

"I've heard that when planted, angel feathers produce fruit-bearing trees. Can you elaborate on that at all?" Miuna nodded.

"The aptly-named angel feather trees take half a century to fully mature, and when they do, produce a fruit that's rather Hesperidic Apple-like. Unfortunately, ambrosia, or an ambrosia equivalent, doesn't exist for angel fruit, but the fruits themselves are potent training tools, helping a mage not just with power but also with control and sensing magic. They're extremely helpful and valuable."

Leon thought back to the final battles he'd had with the pirate Jormun—first of the two-winged angel that Xaphan had contended with, and the mutilated eight-winged angel far beneath the blasted island that Jormun had led them to. He'd refrained from looting the latter angel after the encounter with Krith'is, and he assumed the former angel had been either destroyed by Xaphan or stolen back by Krith'is. Either way, he had never even held an angel feather despite encountering the beings themselves.

"That's interesting," he said.

"I was unaware that there were many angels left."

"They're extremely rare," Miuna said.

"The Primal Gods and Devils each created separate races to act as servants—the Devils created demons, and the Gods created angels."

"And both claim to have created humans," Leon stated, which Miuna confirmed with a nod of her head.

"And the Great Dragons," she added with a knowing look, "created the lesser dragons, by whom other draconic beings were created."

"But these other beings weren't hunted down," Leon said.

"Angels were too useful to be allowed to live."

"A few pop up every now and then. There may still be communities of angels living out there, too small and weak to claim great swaths of the universe as humanity and demonkind have. The universe is too large to know for certain, though. My father 'controls' the Great Strand of Bylissa, but he doesn't have a presence on every single plane. The places angels could hide after the fall of their creators are endless, and it's likely that completely wiping them out is impossible." Leon thought about that for a long time.

Endless places to hide in a universe with billions of planes. No one man could ever truly hold them all, let alone add the Elemental Planes at the edge of the universe to that domain.

'I can't believe Khosrow even tried, let alone that he so nearly succeeded…' Again, he thought of the Great Strand of Rhea and the challenge ahead of him. Trade routes and the largest population centers would come first, as a rule. Even then, taking the entire Great Strand would be the work of centuries, if not millennia. Hells, even just becoming the dominant power in Rhea was likely to take centuries, if not longer. And that wasn't even including the Great Strand of Atreus.

By the time he'd retaken all of the Thunderbird Clan's old holdings, let alone properly united the Storm Lands under him, the next Nexus Constitution could very well be upon him, which was quite the sobering thought. He was two and a half centuries old, but even that timescale was nothing compared to twenty-thousand years. It was a challenge of epic proportions that lay ahead of him, but he intended to meet it head-on.

He just had to wait for the end of the Games before he could fully throw himself into that campaign…