Don Quixote

"Come now, Minoth, that's ridiculous."

It wasn't an uncommon rejoinder from Addam. Lora could likely testify the strongest, among the party, to the number of times she'd heard it.

"Trust me, Prince, I know how to handle these things. All in time."

And, unfortunately, this air of unsubtle arrogance from Minoth was also all too familiar.

"Yes, and it's time! Leo's returned, and Rikoko wants to have her audition. The poor thing has been practicing nonstop. I should think you would understand - aren't you an artist?"

Minoth pursed his lips, evidently at war with himself on how to explain it to Addam gently. It wasn't that he refused to be wrong (though he rarely was). But shouldn't the logic of it have been baldly obvious?

"Got nothing against the little lady's playing, and her pursuit of her craft. I want to help her just as much as you do, my prince."

Addam seemed cheered to hear this, but only slightly. "So then?"

(All the others who might identify as nosy also sidled closer to hear the answer.)

Unable to resist a captive audience, whether numbered one or nine, Minoth spread his arms wide: "It's about...the rustic chivalry."

"Rustic? And here I thought you were the city slicker, Minoth."

Since Minoth fancied him a scholar of all peoples and behaviors, he only characterized himself as a city-dweller when convenient. More often, he indulged in the codes and scenes he was able to ascribe to any given situation. Even if there was no situation, and he was just making one up.

The current scenario...well, by this point he was in his glory about it just as much to irritate Addam as to settle the score.

"Leo may be back," Minoth began with intrigue and a flourish, "but he pulled a couple of fast ones to make his entrance. If we approach him now, he'll be singing a shyster's song. The Cloud Sea hath no emptiness like the head of a man who doesn't realize he's been scorned. But if we make him wait..."

Indeed, Addam was less than convinced. "What, you think Rikoko doesn't play well enough to make it without you pulling strings? Chivalrous, or otherwise?"

(However, proper musical politics aside, Addam did have to concede that at the present moment, telling Leo "Minoth's looking for you" would do naught but make him scarcer than he'd just recently been.)

"I never said that," Minoth replied loftily.

Addam frowned some more, hmmmed some more, and overall began to develop a separate frustration with just how little this all mattered. Did he like scheduling? Absolutely, he did. Any apparent spontaneity he achieved carefully concealed an intricate mapping of contingencies. And yet...

"Ridiculous," sighed Addam.

"And yet, quaint."