build a royal advisor

Chapter 01: critical eye
Chapter 02: communication skills
Chapter 03: ulterior motives & traitorous tendencies
Chapter 04: wisdom & prudence
Chapter 05: weird gay thing with the king
Chapter 06: connection to the people

When it came time to inspect the current structure of the Tornan government, it was with no great reluctance that King Khanoro the Second looked upon Prince Addam's party of talents. The Ardainians, he graciously departed, and the children he offered the finest education his country could. Azurda he couldn't quite get a handle on, but knew that trouble with women was as it did.

Minoth knew this too. And when the king looked upon him and Mythra, since Lora and her Blades weren't long for the audience, the king knew that Minoth knew it.

It wasn't knowing about women that was important. Lord (pun half-intended) knew the Tornan palace wasn't the place to go for that.

It was that look. The blue eyes, yes, and the deep olive skin with tones of peach, and the long, wavy hair that oftimes spiked when arranged to flow, but beyond all that...

The discerning. The portent of awareness.

The parts of Amalthus that were admirable, and admirable by more people than just Zettar. The craftiness that didn't scheme.

The king knew his son, however bastard, needed an attendant like that. He also knew Addam would not be swayed from the one he already had.

It wasn't for nothing that Minoth had spent years upon years perfecting his craft, honing and homing in on the most precise - where applicable - way to say something, the most accurate - not to say efficient - method of describing a sight or a scent or a sound. By studying the components of a conversation, one can replicate; one can direct.

To advise royalty, one need know how best to talk to a variety of individuals. Minoth hadn't done too much talking to the visitors of the Praetorium, when working with and/or under Amalthus. He had, however, done a lot of watching and a lot of listening.

He knew the tells of pigheaded statesmen. He knew the cues of those who offered something purer, underneath the necessary façade. And he had noted all these things, in just about as many ways as you or I could conceive possible, in his journals, and he had spent a pretty penny, when necessary, to keep those journals locked up safe.

So his royal safe was quite the commodity. Addam never looked. Addam never (well, hardly ever) asked. Addam just watched, and wondered, and whiffed on a great many interactions that Minoth, the master, could have saved.

Minoth did not particularly stand up straight. He was not, particularly, the model of a Tornan soldier. And he wasn't one! The duties of one such as Onyx didn't align with the duties of one such as Minoth. (However, Minoth did oversee the military, a position once cursorily filled by Zettar, as Addam oversaw the budget.)

Many a traveler who'd been away at the height of hostilities returned to find that, in their estimation, they'd found someone worse than Zettar! Someone slimier, more crooked...

(Minoth the Blade had never dripped an ounce of specious slime. Perhaps inkstained fingertips did just as well.)

Whenever prompted to any more rigorous degree, of course, it fell out that the funnelled funds - yes, there were funds being funnelled, which was a double whammy when one considered that embezzlement required proximity to the accounts - were merely directed toward an orphanage in Lasaria, and its satellite branch in Torigoth, at the behest of the lady knight proprietor who'd shrunk from public life, somewhat, and needed her in with the palace to get things done.

The fastidious royal accessory rolled his eyes, but nodded. He agreed, it was ridiculous, but anything for a friend of the royal family, y'know?

One aspect of Minoth's character which may be forgotten in the most frequent of historical accounts (and those less than historical, as Minoth himself might have been fond of making) was his reticence. Not only in times of gruff and sullen nature did he reserve his words. Indeed, the opposite may more readily have been true: only in times of gregariousness and high spirits did his words tumble forth toward anything more full-featured than the blank (or, alternately, much-scribbled) page.

One cannot say for sure. One can only postulate.

But, regardless of his debatable, apocryphal, histrionic traits of volubility, Minoth could always be said to display a keen insight and caution in the preponderance of instances. Whether or not this was merely in comparison to Addam, again, one could and cannot say with absolute certainty.

Addam shouted. Minoth spoke. Addam laughed. Minoth chuckled.

Addam assumed. Minoth could never stand to be the ass.

Problems arose that necessitated audience with Mor Ardain or Uraya. Where Addam would turn with a frown, wishing it needn't be so, much as he loved Hugo, Minoth would take a step or three back, and figure a way the problem could be solved neatly, perhaps even by omission.

Now, this...this was the Armu in the room. Ardun, rather, except that Arduns' tank march didn't allow for such a big hulking thing to actually lurk, unseen. The whispers about the king and his advisor were more like an Aspar in camouflage - very poor disguise, for all how flamboyant it regularly and naturally was.

Minoth would make a suggestion. Addam would pretend to consider it. Minoth would call him out on his pretense. Addam would call him out on his knowing it so.

And on it went. They were good suggestions, to be sure, but...never quite that good.

It wasn't that Addam appeared to have colluded with Minoth, either. The suggestions were sometimes bad, but not that bad. Never insidious. Nothing out of touch with the overall strategic vision for the nation and the Titan upon which it rested.

Things like spare inductions into the budget, guards who'd likely need leave soon, special exceptions for this idiosyncrasy or that. Minoth was Addam's walking, talking, squawking to-do list. (You see? In more ways than one.)

Not suspicious activity, no. It was more so that they knew each other's habits more intimately than anyone so believably could, unless...

Well, you know. Unless!

Gregarious though he may have possessed the tendency to be, Minoth didn't exactly win over wide swathes of the Tornan population as Addam's band progressed about the capital, before Malos's attack. Besides the outlier example of Mireille, who professed to see worth in the crumpled cowboy regardless of anything he had done or very nearly would do, as she did in his former Driver, there were Freja and Joey, Teeco and Marcus; even Martha, it turned out, was a fan. Not that it surprised Minoth to know that he could count old women and children among his blessings.

Folks like Jerry and Gio - even Charlet - took some more time to warm up to this new presence in the palace, dressed in a fair few of the symbols of Torna but devoid of the accent and the hidden prejudice. They had too many other things to worry about. But once they did...

Well, that was the connection right there. Addam had a connection to the people more or less because he didn't want it, because he knew he didn't deserve it. Minoth had one because he'd won them over, little by little, without much more than a roving pen or a winking eye.