When most nations thought of the Mongol Empire, they pictured a horde of barbarians flooding the homes of the world and plunging their arrows and swords of death. And if it wasn't that, it was always something grisly and horrifying (just ask Iran). But for Tibet, the memory that came up were their "spiritual advice" sessions.
"I can't believe my Khan is making me do this," the most powerful empire the world has ever seen grumbled, shuffling uncomfortable on the exotic couch he was laying on.
"Well, you have been kind of, um, off lately." That was putting it mildly. Munkhbat had been scowling and stabbing things left and right for weeks ever since he came back from his raiding exhibition. Everyone in the entire palace was skittish, and nothing could get done because the servants were too scared that the irritated mongol would find something wrong in their work and stab them with any number of objects, which has already happened at least 5 times already.
"You try getting stabbed twice by Yao and then putting up with his endless complaining!" the man combated, waving his hands in the air and scowling. "The man should just be grateful I can't kill him! I mean, what is he made of? I've tried beheading, water board torture, respiratory failure, blood loss, puncture wounds, at least 15 arrows to the face, and I even tried smashing his head with a rock! He never dies, well not permanently anyway. It is so irritating! And- hey, are you writing this down?!"
Tibet was busy scribbling something down on a piece of paper, before whipping his head up and raising and eyebrow. "Well your Khan needs proof you were actually here right?"
"Bah, he's such a baby. Temujin, now HE was a real Khan. Also, what are the point of these sessions if you don't say anything?"
"My job is to listen and give you spiritual advice," Tibet smiled, cribbling more things done and wondering why the heck he had agreed to the job. This level of, um, let's say disturbance, was way past whatever advice he would give. Not that he would tell Munkhbat that, after all what he doesn't know can't hurt him.
"Spiritual advice? That's stupid. What use do I have for higher powers?! My job is to stab things and not ask questions. If there is an underworld, I'm probably not going to the place the saints go," Munkhbat grunted, and Tibet couldn't agree more.
"So you feel like you are going to face retribution for all the horrible and mindless destruction of lives you have done since you came into existence?"
"Do you have something against me Tibet?"
"No I'm just writing things down. Now, which religion do you prefer?" Tibet pivoted, wisely deciding to change the subject before Munkhbat started going all empire on him.
"Religion? Are you deaf? I don't have one! Except for shamanism, a little bit. But other then that I couldn't care less about what fabrication humans think up to convince themselves that their entire existence ends when they stop drawing breath."
"Hmm," Tibet noted.
"That sounded condescending. Look, I know you're a Buddhist, but I honestly don't care! Did you know there's this religion up north called 'Christianity' that celebrates this demigod by going inside this building and chanting in some weird language about how thankful this demigod existed, and then they eat the demigod's flesh and drink his blood to bring themselves closer to him? One of my prisoners, Ivan, went to do this every week! To this day it still freaks me out. And don't even get me started on the people of the east call 'Islam.'"
"What about buddhism?"
"Er, um, a perfectly fine and sane religion," Munkhbat remarked, and Tibet now felt the mongol was that one pivoting this time. "Anyway, why does it matter? It's not we're ever going to die."
"We're not immortal Munkhbat. We can die," Tibet advised darkly, looking down at his paper and gripping his writing tool.
"Yeah, after all of our people have been killed and we no longer represent anything, but c'mon, how many times has that happened? I can't kill China no matter what I do, so I'm just going to assume that we're all just gonna live forever."
"Haven't you killed personifications before?"
"Not really. They always come back. It might take months, years, or centuries, but eventually they're back."
"What about Persia?" Munkhbat froze at the mention of the name.
"Let's talk about something else." Tibet pursed his lips and wrote something down. Clearly Mongolia was still sensitive about the subject.
"So from what we have gathered here today, you believe that all representations are immortal and that's why you don't like any religions?" Munkhbat opened his mouth the answer, but then closed it. He opened it again, tilted his head for a second, before his furrowed brows turned angry and he threw a pillow at Tibet's face.
"Stop analyzing me you NUTBAG!"