Eker downed his third glass of chilled elderberry juice as he regarded the ongoing feast over the golden rim of his goblet. He sat on a makeshift throne at the head of an impossibly long table and couldn't help but feel even more grateful to the staff for having managed to bring out the heavy furniture pieces surrounding them. They were all milling about, fussing among the perpetually contrarian courtiers and ministers, making sure their every culinary whim was immediately seen to. Ironically, they were all keeping as far away as they could from the king himself, which Eker wouldn't have minded on a regular day. Now, however, he happened to share the servants' aversion towards the man standing rigid as a pole at his side, encompassing the entire area with one glower to intimidate them all.

Priar, the new guard Hanadan had more or less shoved down his throat, was starting to give Karuss a run for his money when it came to who boasted the foulest mood or discontent for their current situation. As for his communication skills, he'd grunted a handful of monosyllabic replies or ignored Eker entirely when he'd tried to strike up a conversation.

Two seats remained vacant to Eker's left, and one to his right, but since Priar had positioned himself there, the minister who sat closest to the king - in this case, the ever petulant Amster - was judiciously avoiding the king's gaze while pretending to be thoroughly preoccupied with his pheasant soup.

Eker sighed and stretched his legs under the table, slouching against the uncomfortable backrest in a posture none could ever describe as royal. He let the empty goblet plop down on the armrest, perhaps a little harder than necessary, which somehow managed to do what he'd failed at for the last five minutes and draw Priar's begrudging attention. The man scowled down at the goblet, then his narrowed eyes slid upwards to fix on Eker himself. Having quickly decided this was not an opportunity to be wasted, Eker lifted the goblet again and tilted it suggestively.

"Wine?" rasped the bodyguard.

"No!" Eker pouted and let his arm drop. "More juice, please."

He hadn't thought that the other man's frown could deepen even more, but he was immediately proven wrong.

"I don't think that would be advisable for Your Majesty's health."

It was now Eker's turn to scowl.

"What do you mean? It's the only nonalcoholic drink available besides water. How could that be bad for me?"

Priar let out a slow breath and Eker could practically see the calming mantra the man must have been reciting in his mind so as not to throttle his charge.

"It would be inadvisable," began Priar slowly, "to keep putting your weakness on display. Real men drink alcohol, be it ale, white spirits, or wine - even though that last one is mostly for fops. One thing they don't do is drink fruit juice."

"So following that assumption," retorted Eker, "the man who gets wasted to such an extent that he can no longer form a coherent thought is the mannest of all men?"

"A real man knows when to stop."

"Well, I've stopped before I've even begun, so I know!"

Priar opened his mouth to no doubt continue arguing his point, but thought better of it and shut it back again, then turned around and flawlessly slipped back into the role of unapproachable and perpetually grumpy statue. Eker blinked at him, hoping that the bodyguard might return to continue their discussion, but he finally had to admit that this wasn't going to be a social gathering as far as he was concerned, despite the impressive number of guests and attendants. It seemed that the monarch's only task was to make sure he was seen, since no one appeared willing to interact with him, not even the servants who were supposed to bring out the food. He'd been given a few plates of appetizers, but pickled huvac feet and blood tarts didn't count among his favorite dishes, and so he'd pushed them to the left corner of the table. Naturally, nobody had drifted close enough to pick them up. As for the delicious plateaus of roast pork and glazed vegetables, they were too far away from where he sat, and he had no intention of shouting after people to bring him food.

The more time passed, the darker the king's mood grew. He wasn't angry at the people, but at the situation he'd placed himself in. He was starting to feel like an ornament that served no other purpose than to draw attention to itself when the others deemed it fit, and sit where he'd been left so the same people wouldn't worry. His hands were tied, and he had so much to do.

For one, he wanted to get himself something to drink because he was feeling thirsty again. Then, he wanted to have a serious discussion with Minister Sebek regarding the unfortunate path his daughter had chosen and what could be done to temper her behavior, perhaps integrate her back into society as a morally upright citizen. Next, he wanted real time reports about how the hunt was going, not pretend to be interested in the tales the courtiers were currently sharing about previous hunts, where excess, rather than deer or hare, had been the name of the game.

Lastly, he wanted to find Hanadan and punch him in the face. It appeared that after saddling him with an uncooperative army of bodyguards led by a man who clearly didn't want to be there any more than Eker did, Hanadan had pulled an Essar and made himself scarce. Fortunately, he seemed to have taken his horrible uncles with him, since Eker couldn't see any of them sitting at the table. Unfortunately, that left him in the hardly enviable company of the rest of the courtiers.

"Equality and equity aren't notions one such as you should deem fit to flaunt around with impunity," drawled Minister Chinchalla, shaking his fork at his neighbor across the table, the royal physician Eker had insisted on having nearby. Amster, who sat to Chinchalla's right, started wiping his sleeve after his colleague had dropped some gravy on it, but registered no success in his attempt to make the other man ditch the kitchen utensil and gesture with his hands instead. "You have no means of accurately comparing our performance."

"Far be it from me the wish to compare myself with one such as you," retorted the physician, a man Eker had always respected. Unlike most of the positions given out at court in the last decade, his father had ruled that some needed to be occupied by people who had earned them, and chief among them had been the one who needed to make sure the king was always in the best of health. Of course, no matter how skilled Mattas Brac - former Iskarian immigrant with not an ounce of noble blood in him - had proved himself to be when it came to ailments of all kinds, there was little he could do for failings of the mind, and so couldn't be blamed for Eker's father tragic, but thoroughly predictable demise.

"My dear Chinchalla," intervened Amster, opting for the not-so-subtle approach of grabbing his neighbor's arm and wrestling it back onto the table, "one could try the number of resolved petitions versus the number or treated patients." He directed a toothy smile at the doctor. "How's that for equal?"

"It would be irrelevant and pointless," replied Brac. "If you brokered the trading agreement between Terevansia's forward post on the Bastionic Sea and our own island provinces, while I treated one chatelaine for the cold, that would hardly seem fair. Now, if you finally made a decision as to what combination of gravel and cobblestones to use for the new country road in a medium-sized village and who to buy it from, while I treated the infant Crown Prince for the seven-day fever, that would again seem illogical. No, Councilors, I'm afraid the issue is still very much up for discussion."

"Which you very much seem willing to do," said Chinchalla, picking up a knife in his other hand and pretending to jab it at the doctor. "I don't think I've ever heard you speak so many words together in my life."

"How about customer satisfaction? Pleased citizens, living patients."

That suggestion had come from Zlobok, the Minister of Finance who sat on Chinchalla's other side. The man was a new appointee, following the discovery that the previous one had run away to Iskaria once Eker's father's reign had come to an end. Speculations had of course been made and now the vast majority of Zlobok's work consisted of trying to discover just how much his predecessor had stolen.

"Bah!" barked Chinchalla, swishing the knife around and coming dangerously close to slicing Zlobok's nose off. The Minister's eyes bulged alarmingly as he trailed the threatening implement. "There's hardly any point in that. I'm very much alive, but after my joint flare-up this morning, I couldn't feel less satisfied with my doctor."

"It is this doctor's firm belief," retorted the doctor, "informed after decades of practice, that one's patient will always be dissatisfied with one's service, naturally omitting to blame himself for the failure of following the physician's instructions. I know what sort of attacks you suffer from, Councilor, and have the evidence right before my eyes," - he paused to take his own fork and tap it against the rim of Chinchalla's goblet - "that you have been remiss in following recommendations. Therefore, any and all consequences must first be attributed to your own failings rather than those of your hardworking and no doubt sufficiently stressed doctor."

A momentary end was put to their discussion as several underbutlers filed in on the terrace, bearing stuffed quails on large silver trays, to the delight of almost everybody in attendance. For his part, Eker watched with barely suppressed irritation as they placed the nearest tray way out of his reach. There was only so much temptation he could take, so he begrudgingly reached for his previously discarded blood tarts. He popped one into his mouth and chewed with increased dissatisfaction as the pastry shell dissolved to leave room for the familiar tangy taste of the filling. He swallowed with difficulty and found himself seriously considering trying a pickled foot to get rid of the flavor .

"I miss Tersi," confessed Amster to Chinchalla in what should have been a whisper. "He was much easier to rile up."

Eker eyed the two Councilors who were still paying him no mind, then slowly withdrew his hands from the appetizers plates.

Feeling the onset of dangerously self-destructive boredom, he tugged at Priar's sleeve.

"Do you know why they're arguing?" he asked in an actual whisper when his bodyguard deemed to lower his gaze in his direction.

"I couldn't say," grumbled Priar. "If I may venture a humble opinion, this seems to be their natural state."

"You may be right about that one. Now, since you won't let me drink any more juice, could you bring Minister Sebek to me? I'd like to talk to him for a bit."

Priar craned his neck to survey the guests at the table.

"I don't see him," he muttered, something akin to surprise entering his voice for the first time since Eker had made his acquaintance.

"No? Too bad, but the request stands. When you see him, please send him to me."

He once again settled into the straight-backed wooden contraption masquerading as a chair, but which could easily pass as a torture implement if one had to endure sitting in it for hours on end while appearing to enjoy oneself. He cast a mournful glance towards the faces he could see from his current vantage point, but it wasn't Sebek's he was looking for.

Given all the precautions he usually took, Hanadan should have been more than capable of taking care of himself - usually with the help of the man who stuck to him like glue, but what if something had actually happened to him? Eker didn't want to intrude on his friend more than he already had, but worry was starting to worm its painful way into his mind. He was growing fidgety and distracted and there was only so much drivel he could stand from his courtiers before he gave in to the growing urge to crawl under the table.

If things didn't start looking up soon, he might just go looking for trouble.