I am sometimes a fox and sometimes a lion. The whole secret of government lies in knowing when to be the one or the other.
-Napoleon Bonaparte
***Fallen Stars***
This meeting was exhausting. Alfred groaned as he leaned back in his chair. Arthur sighed beside him, leaning heavily on the table in front of him. Lovino had managed to start a fight with Clubs and Francis had managed to make Elizaveta pissed off with his flirting. Yao and Kiku appeared to be having a fight, though just with words and not fists. Ludwig was silently fuming, looking about ready to snap at all of them.
If Alfred had known how much could change in just a year, he would have had everyone keep in closer contact. He was already tired enough from all of the work he was going through trying to keep Spades in control. Many people had tried to attack their castle, thinking that they could get rid of the risk of going to a dungeon by ridding themselves of the new royalty. People asked for help and gold nearly every day. Some kings even tried to stage their own coups, which were swatted down easily enough. Alfred could only wonder if the other countries had the same problems.
Not like he would be able to ask with all of the arguing.
"This is useless," Arthur sighed.
"So, I have heard no news about you wizard," Francis smiled, standing between Alfred and Arthur in an attempt to get away from Elizaveta. "How have you been?"
"If you intend to harass us in any way, we'll have to insist that you…fuck off," Arthur stated. Francis laughed, though he seemed rather startled by Arthur's eyes and regarded him a little closer. "We haven't even missed your magic boosting powers, just so you are aware."
"We?" Francis asked with a smirk.
"Side-effects," Arthur muttered with a wave of his hand.
"Of what?" Francis asked curiously.
"Would all of you shut the hell up!" Ludwig snapped, standing up. Everyone in the room quieted down and looked at him. Alfred was actually quite in awe, but he figured Ludwig get a lot of practice reigning attention, considering he was practically constantly around Feliciano and Lovino. "We're here to discuss matters of our countries, not sit around to talk and argue about trivial matters. I would have figured that our 'King of Kings' would have thought about that by now."
"Right, sorry," Alfred laughed slightly, standing up quickly from his seat. Francis scurried away to return to his seat, along with all of the others. "It's been a while, right?"
"Quite the opening line," Ivan smirked.
"We should start with what our countries have accomplished in our time separated," Alfred said. "After that, we can decide on what we can agree on as basic rules for all of our countries. Then we can decide the limits we have for creating our own laws for our individual countries and towns."
"We should start with Spades, in that case," Francis offered. "And the status of your wizard."
"You are aware that I am a wizard, too!" Yao huffed.
"Once you can single-handedly take out an entire thieves' guild with a few spells, we will talk to you, too," Natalia huffed.
"If you must know, our personalities have merged," Arthur sighed. "We don't see what the big deal is about this, but if you insist, you should know."
"You've merged?" Roderich asked. "From my understanding, that's near impossible."
"The Joker said that as well," Arthur smirked proudly.
"We should be focusing more on our countries right now," Alfred sighed. "We can talk about personal stuff later, alright?"
"He's right," Ludwig said. "Spades, you should go first with your report."
"Sure," Alfred nodded, staring down at the papers he had in front of him. Arthur had helped him learn how to write a little while ago, but he still wasn't the best at it. He was good enough to make notes that he could understand himself, but even Arthur couldn't understand it. Matthew was getting along so much better with his literacy, but Alfred wasn't about to pout about that. "We were able to nearly wipe out all of the thieves' guilds close to our castle. We have been able to get the towns about halfway into our country to obey our laws and we haven't met a lot of resistance. We still have yet to reach the ocean on our side, but I'm sure we'll make good progress soon. We've already had people offer themselves to help us as a military and I'm having them wait until we get back from this meeting with my decision. I'm not sure if we will create our own militaries or whatever…but that's something we can talk about later."
"Diamonds has been able to reach the ocean, though our luck with keeping control of a lot of our towns has been a more difficult task," Francis sighed heavily.
And so on it went. Each country was able to gloat about their accomplishments and discuss their hardships. Alfred decided not to ask how they managed to create their own peace, since he knew he would probably be a little disappointed or something with what he heard, so he stayed silent in his seat. Arthur looked fairly bored while Yao glared at Kiki from across the table and Matthew took an interest in the table. Alfred had to admit, this was very boring. But they couldn't exactly mix things up and make it more fun. Nothing in this past year had been very fun, but they'd somehow managed to make it more…interesting.
Alfred and Matthew were able to have more fun when they were trying to write and read by coming up with stories like their dad used to and laughing about them later. Taking trips to other towns was always fun for Alfred because he could hang out with the little kids and they always managed to improve his mood. Just sitting around and doing business like this was just boring. Even working with Arthur about the prisoners had a way of getting boring. He would always space out like he was at that moment.
"For God's sake," Arthur hissed, slamming an elbow into Alfred's side. Alfred jumped, but didn't make a big show of it, since Ivan was talking, but he chose not to listen, since it was all just so boring. "At least make it look like you're paying attention to this."
"It's just so boring…." Alfred grumbled quietly.
"If we have to wake you up every ten minutes, what purpose does this meeting even have?" Arthur muttered.
"Yeah, yeah," Alfred sighed and noticed that Ivan had finally stopped talking. That was the last suit to talk and Alfred was incredibly thankful as he stood up to talk once again. "Alright, I think we all deserve a break after that. I can tell that if we keep going like this, we'll get onto the topic of personal stuff. We should just get that out of the way now and get back to business in a little while."
"What an eloquent way to say you're bored," Arthur snorted beside him.
"That sounds like a fantastic idea!" Feliciano said proudly. "We can all catch up and act like the happy group we were just a while ago!"
A few others made noises of assent and several people stood from their seats. Alfred smirked proudly stretching in his chair, which was really starting to get uncomfortable at this rate.
"It's all good," Alfred boasted to his Queen happily. Arthur simply rolled his eyes and swiftly stood up, stretching his arms as well.
"Since we were so rudely cut off last time," Francis smirked happily as he made his way over to them. Alfred stood up as well, making sure his sword was securely in place on his own chair, "I will have to resume my questions."
"If those questions have anything to do with our past as a prostitute, we will end your life," Arthur threatened.
"I just have questions regarding you and your King," Francis laughed. Alfred laughed a little, too. It was funny how quickly people were growing used to the idea of the rules of a deck guiding them. The look on Arthur's face at Francis' words were also hilarious.
"If you are suggesting anything beyond a simple relationship, we will personally rip out your throat," Arthur growled, his face turning a light red.
"It is rather hard to take you seriously when you talk like that," Francis laughed. "You're so much more entertaining like this, I have to admit."
"Are you quite sure?" Arthur smirked. "You seemed rather entertained when you were moaning underneath us a year ago."
"You learn to look past those things," Francis chuckled, but Alfred took pleasure in the fact that he did look a little flustered, no matter how well he masked it. He definitely didn't like the idea of Arthur's exploits in the past, but he was able to ignore it easily enough. Especially considering the fact that he'd changed so much since his personalities had merged. He even seemed to move past everything so easily after all of that, forgetting about their past arguments and his past hatred. Alfred could only do the same for him. He just hoped everyone else here could do the same.
"I heard the bitch figured some of his shit out," Lovino said, walking up to them.
"We're still not very fond of that name," Arthur shook his head. "Though it is rather a relief now that we can walk around without everyone hating us."
"Whatever the hell that is, it's annoying," Lovino scoffed. "If you merged properly, there shouldn't still be two people to refer to."
"We'll admit, it's not perfect," Arthur sighed. "Gilbert did say that it was the closest anyone has ever gotten, so that is something for us to be proud of."
Alfred noticed that Matthew was talking with Lili happily about something and smiled to himself. Everyone seemed to be happier and definitely more relaxed now that things had sort of calmed down. Sure, there were bumps here and there, like a horde of dragons apparently attacking Clubs a while ago, or the growing, powerful thieves' guild that was in Hearts, but it was all mostly calm. Everyone had a time to unwind from their constant travels and they had a fairly clear plan laid out. At the rate they were going, it would only be a few years before they had full control over their entire countries, at least where the borders were. Then it was just a matter of getting the people to adjust to a completely new life.
Suddenly, lightening cracked outside and everyone in the room shut up. The thunder that rumbled shortly after set them all on edge.
"It didn't look like it was going to rain today," Roderich muttered, swiftly running to one of the many windows in the room. Several people followed after him and Alfred turned to the main doors. He could already hear rain landing on the ground.
"How are we going to make it back home?" Vash asked. "There's no way we can stay in the forest the whole way back."
"This doesn't feel right," Alfred muttered, quickly running to the door and pushing the first one open. The second one was slightly ajar and he could smell the rain, but it didn't smell quite right. "Just one second shouldn't harm me too much," Alfred mused. His sword was just a few steps anyway if anything harmed him from the rain. Quickly, before he could change his mind, Alfred walked forward and thrust his hand outside, in the way of the possibly acid rain. He winced when it hit him at first, but quickly found that it didn't cause any pain. It was just a little cold, but it wasn't hurting him at all.
Alfred couldn't stop the smile on his face when he stepped out completely in the rain, getting thoroughly drenched fairly quickly. He laughed and quickly ran around the outside of the building, over to the window that everyone was looking out of. He laughed as he ran up to it, clearly seeing the faces of shock and horror turn into confusion. Alfred motioned for them to join him.
"Awesome, right?" Gilbert cackled behind him and Alfred glanced back to see him standing there happily, Peter running around him, laughing happily in the rain. "It's been taking forever, but we were finally able to get the rain to be harmless. It's just a matter of time now before we get normal weather. Soon, you'll be able to grow crops normally."
"Thanks, man," Alfred couldn't hide his smile, no matter how hard he tried.
"Good to see you're not pouting anymore," Gilbert smirked. "I guess it was just too much stress on you. Looks like you were able to calm down well enough, though. I'm sure the whole Arthur thing helped matters a lot."
"Yeah, well, I can't be a good leader when I'm freaking out about killing people, right?" Alfred said.
"Gil?" Matthew asked, running through the rain and up to the three. "What are you doing here?"
"Like my rain, Birdie?" Gilbert cackled happily and Matthew smiled slightly. Alfred found that Gilbert normally visited them for no good reason at all, he only meant business when Peter was there, too. He seemed to always want to be around Matthew and, as much as Alfred had come to terms with it before, he still had to be a protective older brother. Well, as protective as he could be when the person he was going against was an immortal creature that had enough magic to kill him with a flick of his finger.
"How are the stars coming?" Matthew asked.
"Peter's still working on it," Gilbert laughed slightly. "There's a lot of stars out there that we need to fix."
"Why do you insist on going into the rain without any protection?" Arthur sighed, walking over them. He had a spell over his head that was blocking the rain from hitting him and Alfred laughed. "You're as stupid as you look, honestly."
"Come on, this rain won't even hurt you!" Alfred tried.
"You'll catch a cold if you're in it for too long," Gilbert shrugged. "Not like that affects any of you, since you've been so exposed to diseases that they don't even affect you anymore."
"Hey, jerk!" Peter shouted and clung to Arthur's leg.
"Get the hell off of us, brat!" Arthur snapped and attempted to kick him off. "The others are coming slowly, they're just afraid of a little water coming from the sky."
"I don't blame 'em," Alfred shrugged.
"We should be focusing more on the meeting," Ludwig sighed heavily, joining them. Gilbert caught sight of him and immediately teleported over to him with a wicked smirk.
"Been a long time, eh, Luddie?" Gilbert laughed.
"Gilbert, you are distracting important matters," Ludwig sighed, though he honestly didn't seem to mind him being around, if you asked Alfred. "If Alfred weren't so easily distracted, we would have been a lot further by now."
"Should I feel offended?" Alfred asked.
"Nah," Gilbert shrugged. Finally, more people came after seeing that multiple people had managed to come outside without harm. Vash still seemed a little on edge, but Lili was having the time of her life, running around in the rain without a care in the world.
"Does this mean that the snow will become less dangerous as well?" Ivan asked curiously. "I rather liked the snow, aside from the side-effects."
"Yeah, the weather's been fucked up for a while, but I'm getting it under control," Gilbert said proudly. "Instead of world-wide conditions, we've now got certain areas with certain things. It can be sunny in Hearts and raining in Clubs while the wind's really bad in Spades."
"That's very interesting," Kiku mused. "How do you accomplish that?"
"Well," Gilbert smirked, draping an arm around Kiku's shoulders, not noticing the smaller man's distress at their sudden closeness.
"We think this is going quite well," Arthur chuckled beside Alfred, who just smiled proudly.
"I think it's going perfectly," Alfred announced. "We can get to the boring stuff later. We have people guarding our castle while we're gone. I say we let go and de-stress for now! Come on! Let go of that spell and have a little fun."
"We don't intend to get wet, love," Arthur shook his head.
"Well, too bad," Alfred laughed, leaning close to him to give him a short kiss before shoving his wet hair into Arthur's face. The murderous look on Arthur's face, however, made Alfred run for his life just a few seconds later.
All was right with the world with people arguing and laughing with each other. The world was improving and at this point, they could only direct where it was going. Alfred's goal was being realized slowly, even while they dragged themselves back into the meeting building and created more laws. The world was becoming better, a place where you wouldn't have to worry about getting killed or pillaged by a group of thieves. Where, at least for the time being, you wouldn't have to worry about a King only caring about themselves. The ones chosen by fate for that moment were just what the world needed to get itself back on the right track.
***Fallen Stars***
I feel so bipolar now. First I say I'll update once every day, then once every other day, then I update twice in one day. Maybe it's because I'm just excited to be done. I don't know. I really want to start new fics and so I have to finish this soon. I have stuff to do in the epilogues, though I'm not sure if they'll be as long as my normal chapters. I want there to be two, though, just because putting everything in one seems like a bit much, you'll find out tomorrow. I plan on uploading both of the epilogues tomorrow. See you then!
And please review!