Jake opened an eagle eye as he heard the echoes of footsteps down the corridor. Slowly, he reached down towards the pistol in his right pocket, placing it there and holding the grip tightly. It was to his surprise that a happy, beaming John rounded the corner and walked through the door. Jake relaxed his hand and shuffled back up to sit up straight in his chair.
"Morning chap," he said to John, less enthusiastically than normal. No matter how hard John tried to hide it, Jake could see the obvious strain that covered his face; they were all strained, Jake just hoped that, with the meeting not so far away, things would be different this time. "The diplomats will be here soon and the girls aren't even awake yet. I'm worried we might have to start without them." John nodded in response. He wandered over to Jake and collapsed in the throne next to him.
Unbeknownst to the two princes, Kankri had arrived, taking a deep breath in front of the doors leading to the Prospitian meeting room. As his first meeting, Kankri felt a bit out of his depth; as a member of the Prospit kingdom his whole life, he'd seen the royals a fair few times in public events and had interacted with them before, however, he'd only ever seen the Derse royals on the battlefield, and they were intense. Kankri knew that was different, but he had to remind himself, that this was a peace talk, and the Royals were friends. All the two Kingdoms needed was a level-headed mediator to sort out their problems, this was in the form of Kankri, he hoped.
The meeting couldn't begin without representation from both the diplomats of Derse and Prospit, so Kankri was reluctant to stand in the entrance of the great hall, without any fellow diplomat, he felt it was insensitive to go in first, instead, standing anxiously, lingering around the entrance and fingering the fine material of his cloak. His mind raced, what if he was the only diplomat, and he had to present the whole case all by himself. Removing the notes from his pocket, he sorted through them, his hands shaking violently. There wasn't much point standing around like this, and so he turned and marched himself into the doorway, tapping his foot as loud as possible to try and get the royal's attention.
The room was oddly silent when Kankri walked in, and his heart sank when he saw that the two princesses were both absent. He bowed slightly; this, he had practised extensively to ensure he got the proper amount of respect, but not low enough to show servitude. He walked into the centre of the room where he was in full view of the elegant golden desk, but also the royals. He bowed again, and reminded himself, as he rose that his party needed to remain neutral at all times. Without any of the other diplomats currently present, he would have to make undoubtedly sure to equally represent both kingdoms. He stood straight, as regal as he could make himself without seeming disrespectful, and waited for one of the royals to speak.
Jake looked up, reacting to the small tapping of feet against the marble floor as Kankri shuffled in; he was familiar with the work of Kankri, and as a budding new diplomat, Jake was slightly more optimistic about the outcome of the meeting than he was before. When Kankri bowed, Jake lazily waved a hand to indicate the cease of such formalities.
"Feel free to sit down, Vantas, we won't be starting for a while I expect, so if you need anything, I can call a maid for you, but please, make yourself comfortable until then," Jake gestured to the chairs that laden the table, smiling as well as he could at the diplomat. Kankri smiled back at him and nodded, walking over to one of the chairs reserved for the non-nobles. Although there were almost hundreds of seats around the table, Kankri decided not to stray too far away from the door, making himself as comfortable as he could, trying to suppress his pounding heart and shaking hand but also the overwhelming urge to retract his neck and hide in the turtleneck of the sweater he had on underneath his other fancier clothes. To try and take his mind off things, he sifted through the papers, making absolutely certain that he had everything prepared.
"I don't know about this meeting, John," Jake whispered hurriedly, "I have a feeling that although we have our best diplomat here, Derse isn't going to turn up," Jake continued, "The meeting should have started over half an hour ago,".
John was worried too, not just because the diplomat from Derse was more fashionably late that he, himself mostly was, but also the fact that Jake was fidgeting in his chair, almost acting restless in the situation. "Look, Jake, it's going to be okay, things are going to turn out okay," John whispered back, mostly to try and convince himself of the very same thing. It was hard to believe that they were getting closer to a treaty than they ever had done before, but something was wrong about Jake's attitude, and John feared that he suspected Derse of trying to foil their plans, make them suffer winter for a while, before acting all "we want a peace treaty" before their own winter rolled around again. In fact, John wanted to disbelieve that, but it was hard, as the Kingdom's welfare was at stake.
As Kankri sorted his papers, he could hear John and Jake exchanging quietly on the other side of the room. He knew he should have felt safe, but he could tell that since his arrival, Jake was unusually on edge and unfortunately, the feeling was highly contagious. He moved a hand downwards, tracing the handle of one of the sickles attached to his belt before going back to his papers, just to reassure himself it was there. He looked up from his observations and towards the two royals in the room when he sensed a lull in their conversation, "I apologise if it's rude to ask, and I'm awfully sorry if any of you seem to take offence to this but I'm relatively new and it seems unlikely that the meeting will start without him but I don't feel entirely completely comfortable working without my fellow Derse diplomat," Kankri stopped himself from rambling too much by biting his lip, he couldn't help it when he was nervous, "Have you heard anything about him or his whereabouts recently?".