After about two hours of walking on a road next to a giant green forest, and hardly saying anything, we finally make it to the Council’s meetinghouse. It’s a big round stadium, almost like the coliseum, although it isn’t that big. The walls only go up about twenty feet, but it is definitely wide enough to fit twenty-four people, and then some.
Before I enter the building, an attendant standing outside stops me from walking by putting his hand in front of my path. He’s dressed like anyone else you would see in the city, but is very muscular and clearly a guard.
“Who are you?” The attendant asks with a stern tone and face. I look behind me and see that Jun is still there. Jun walks up from behind to help me.
“My young master has defeated my old master, Eriko Orino, in a game where my old master bet everything that he owned and his job. My young master here won the game, and therefore is now part of the Ebys Senate.” Jun explains with a polite tone.
“I see. I’m going to have to report this to the head of the council. Give me some time to do that please.” The attendant says.
“Of course. My name is Jabari Camacho, by the way.” I say with a polite tone.
The attendant walks off into the building as we stand there, awkwardly. We wait in silence for a few minutes before the attendant comes back with someone following him. The person following him is wearing fancy clothes and is a little pudgy, but not very fat.
“Hello. I am Ansiau, Ansiau Keengrip. I assume you are Jabari.” The man wearing fancy clothes says while pointing at me.
“Yes. I am Jabari Camacho.” I say with an expressionless face. “Can I assume that you are the Head of the Senate?”
“That is correct.” Ansiau answers. “Now then, I heard you defeated Eriko in a game where everything and his job was on the line, yes?” Ansiau puts a look of doubt on his face. “How were you able to do that? Eriko would never put everything that he owned and his job, especially his job, on the line.”
“Oh, that? That was easy.” I say with a smirk on my face as I describe the events of what happened.
“I see. His wife certainly is a scary woman. Wait, is that you Jun?” Ansiau says, surprised. Ansiau points towards Jun as Jun begins to talk.
“Indeed. I am now Jabari’s personal butler.” Jun says, emotionless.
“Then you are certainly telling the truth. Welcome to the Ebys Council. If you were able to cheat our best game player, then you are definitely welcome in our council.” Ansiau says.
“Thank you. I’m sure that I will work hard in this council. May I ask one thing before we enter the building?” I ask Ansiau.
“Of course you may.” He replies.
“How long do the terms last? I’m from the country and I don’t really know much about the Senate. It was just luck that I happened to acquire this job.” I say, searching for answers. I had agreed with Kioko and the rest that this would be my story for now. We don’t really know what will happen if it is found out that I’m not from this world, so it’s better to just lie about where I’m from for now.
“The terms in the Ebys Senate are for life or until someone is able to take your job from you.” Ansiau answers.
“I see. Thank you for your answer.” I say with a smile on my face.
For life, huh. Interesting. So as long as someone isn’t able to take my job, I’ll be able to provide for my family for my entire life. That’s good. Now all that I have to do is live a long life, and I’ll be set in this world. I’m not even sure if I want to go back to a world where I have no memories of my family or friends!
Jun decided to leave everything else to Ansiau and left, so I follow Ansiau to where my seat is. We enter a big room with chairs and desks all in a circle with at least ten people already being seated. In the middle of the circle is a podium. I assume that is where the Head of the Senate sits.
Across the room, I notice Honcho sitting down behind a desk. I guess he is part of the Ebys Senate after all. This is going to be interesting. We begin to approach my chair, and I notice a young woman sitting to the right of where I’ll be sitting. She appears to be in her mid-twenties, though what she is wearing is pretty mature.
On the left of where I’ll be sitting is a young man, who seems to be around my age, no more than twenty years of age. He is well built, and decently muscular. He is wearing some less fancy clothes than most, but they are still very stylish.
“This is where you’ll be sitting. The woman to your right is Imeyna Ravenhide. The man on your left is Ingelrandus Shadowbough.” Ansiau says.
“It’s a pleasure to meet you.” I say with a smile as I sit down.
“Who’s this?” Imeyna asks Ansiau with confusion showing on her face.
“This is our new Council member. He is Jabari Camacho. He was able to cheat Eriko out of his home, money, and job through a coin toss.” Ansiau says with a smile on his face.
“That’s quite impressive.” She says with a mischievous grin on her face. “Say, boy, how old are you?”
“Me? I’m only about sixteen years old. I consider myself to be pretty good at games, especially chess.” I say with a smirk.
“What’s chess?” Ingelrandus says with a curious tone in his words.
“Why don’t you ask Honcho? I beat him in a game of chess to free one of his slaves, who had helped me before.” I say with a smile.
“Is that so…” Imeyna says, smiling. “I like you already, kid.”
After that little conversation, we waited for everyone to get assembled in the conference room. It took about twenty minutes or so before everyone was finally assembled and seated. Ansiau took his position at the podium and began to talk.
“Well, before we get started today, I have something to announce.” He said with a joyful tone. “Apparently, yesterday Eriko was defeated in a game that took away everything that he owned and his job, so he will no longer be joining us at the meetings.”
With this, cheers started emerging from the council room, with many people clapping and standing as well. There were those that were booing, but the general consensus seems to be that Eriko wasn’t very liked.
“Today, in place of Eriko, is the person that won his job from him. He was able to cheat Eriko out of his job, so he must be very wise and skilled. Please stand up Jabari.” Ansiau says with a smile on his face.
I stand up and notice that Honcho has a worried and surprised look on his face.
“I am Jabari Camacho. I’m sixteen and just arrived here yesterday from the country. If you want to know a little bit more about me, you can ask Honcho, whom I met before beating Eriko in a game. It is my pleasure to be working with all of you from now on.” I say with a smile on my face. After I finish speaking, I sit down and wait for things to get started.
I hear whispers going around the room. Everyone is wondering how I know Honcho, and why I even decided to mention him in my introduction. I look over towards Honcho and see his face boiling with anger and embarrassment. I flash him a quick smile before looking back towards the podium.
“Everyone quiet down. First, we have some things to go over. I would like to ask you all what impression you have of the young Mr. Camacho and how you feel about him being on the Council, seeing as he is so young. Right now, he is the youngest person to ever join the Council, being only at the age of sixteen.” Ansiau says with a slightly worried face. Immediately, Honcho stands up in rage.
“I object Mr. Camacho’s being on this council!” Honcho says with a furious tone. I stand up to counter.
“Are you really still this pissed off about me freeing your slave?” I say with a smile. “I was doing her a favor in the only way I knew how, since she had been showing me around for the day while running her errands. I won that game fair and square. That game is impossible to cheat in, so there is no way that I could have cheated.”
Whispers start running around the room like a cheetah chasing its prey.
“He freed a slave?”
“A game where it’s impossible to cheat in?”
I look around the room and all the gazes fall back on me.
“If that is your only reason for not wanting Mr. Camacho to be on the Council, then I will have to ask you to sit down. The bets are absolute, and it is your fault that you agreed to the game.” Ansiau says with a fearsome gaze towards Honcho.
A chill runs down Honcho’s spine, anyone can see that, and he reluctantly sits down. I, in return sit down as well. I look around the room, and no one really seems to want to say anything. Well, it is too early to form an opinion of me, so it’s understandable. All of the sudden, Imeyna stands up.
“I support Mr. Camacho’s being on the council.” Imeyna says after thinking for a moment. Ingelrandus also stands up.
“I also support Mr. Camacho’s being on the council.” Ingelrandus says without really thinking too hard.
“Is there a reason to your supporting him?” Ansiau asks hesitantly. It would seem that these two are very influential in the council, just by looking at his gaze.
“I support him because he seems like a nice guy that knows what he’s doing. He was daring enough to free a slave from Honcho, so he is probably going to be a good addition to the Council.” Imeyna says, looking towards me with passionate eyes.
I think her reasons might be more than what she said, due to the look in her eyes, but I will accept her support.
“I also support him due to the fact that he was smart enough to be able to cheat Eriko in a coin toss. That and the fact that he was able to get him to bet everything he owns and his job. If he was able to do that, then he must be on the Council.” Ingelrandus says with a smile on his face.
He doesn’t’ seem to have any alternative motives, so this must be what he really thinks.
“Very well.” Ansiau says with a satisfied look on his face. “Since there are two supporters, and no objectors to Mr. Camacho’s being on the Council, he will now be officially allowed to join us on the Council from here on out.”
I look around as everyone starts clapping. Ingelrandus and Imeyna both sit back down with a smile on their faces. Ansiau waits for everyone to quiet down before saying anything else.
“Now then, we have many things to address. First off is the amount of new technology being developed. Ms. Sunstrike has been working with her family to develop several new technologies that will help with the agriculture.” Ansiau says with a smile as he directs his gaze towards Ms. Sunstrike. She is a young woman with brown hair wearing clothes that you would normally see in town. “As you all know, recently there have been increasingly more crop failures in the farms. She has developed new technology to help with this, though it hasn’t been tested. Ms. Sunstrike, I’ll allow you to take it from here.”
Ms. Sunstrike stands up from across the way. She waits in silence for a moment then begins to talk. “As you all know, the potato fields have begun to die off quickly. Soon we will run out of potatoes and many people will die of starvation. To counter this, I have developed a new technology.” She holds up a small device that looks almost like a watering can. “This new piece of technology will allow us to give more water to the crops and allow the potatoes to grow more bountifully.” With a smile on her face she completes what she was saying.
This sounds almost exactly like the Irish potato famine. A potato disease, causing the population of Ireland to either die off or emigrate by twenty to twenty-five percent, caused it. Similar things are happening here? I stand up to counter her position.
“While that certainly is a good piece of technology, and will help gardeners and farmers, that is probably not the cause of the potatoes dying off quickly.” I say with a concerned look on my face.
“How do you know that? No one knows the reason for the potatoes dying off.” Ms. Sunstrike says with a doubtful look on her face.
“I know because where I come from, we had a similar thing happen. Many people died because of it, but we eventually figured out why it was happening.” I say with a depressed look. “It’s a disease in the potatoes.” Ms. Sunstrike looks very surprised at this idea.
“A disease in the potatoes? That’s absurd. There hasn’t been a record of such a thing.” Ms. Sunstrike says with disbelief. So they don’t even know that plants can contract diseases and viruses, eh? That will make this difficult.
“A good way to get around this disease is to cycle out the crops on a yearly basis. Say this year we have potatoes in one area, next year we should have peas in that area, the year after that would have cabbage in that area, and the final year would have tomatoes in that area, then the cycle would start all over. This allows the soil to be replenished and the diseases that the soil harbors would go back down to a harmless level by the time we’re back to potatoes.” I say with a smile.
“But, how would you even pull that off?” Ms. Sunstrike asks, curious.
“Simple, you just divide your farms into four sections, one for each vegetable. Then you make sure that any one section doesn’t harbor the same vegetable for more than one year in the four-year cycle. It’s called crop rotation. My home town was the first place to attempt this, and it worked out incredibly.” I say with a smile on my face.
I look around, and everyone seems stunned. Everyone clearly seems to have doubts in my methods, but it would seem that they are more stunned that I am able to talk about more scientific things with Ms. Sunstrike. It would seem that no one here is very knowledgeable on the sciences other than Ms. Sunstrike. It would also seem that they are more stunned about my talking so much on my first day at the council, even more so at me proposing an idea.
“Does anyone object to trying this method?” Ansiau asks, also stunned by my audacity. Silence. Complete silence for about twenty seconds before Ansiau decides to continue. “Very well then. We shall begin to put this method into effect.”
“Thank you very much.” I say as I sit back down. Imeyna leans over to me and whispers in my ear.
“How did you know so much?” She asks with her curious tones clearly able to be heard.
“Like I said, it happened in my hometown.” I say, sticking to my story. Her face seems to be showing doubt.
“I never heard about any town or village doing that in Larekor.” She whispers.
“I never said I was originally from Larekor, did I?” I whisper back with a smile on my face. I wink at her while she puts a face of surprise and confusion.
We continue to talk about many other trivial things, but they are things that must be discussed nonetheless, until we get to the end. Once it ended, I get up out of my seat.
“Finally over! That dragged on forever! Being a politician is going to be terrible if every meeting is like this.” I begin to walk over to the exit, whenever someone stops me.
“Hello, Mr. Camacho.” A female voice says behind me. I turn around, and I see Ms. Sunstrike standing there.
“Why, hello Ms. Sunstrike.” I say with a cheerful tone in my voice, although it’s fake. I really want to leave right now, so I don’t really want to talk.
“I would like to ask you some things about what you said earlier.” She says with a stern tone. I start looking for ways to dodge the subject, but it looks like there isn’t anything I can do to get out of talking to her about these things.
“Okay, what would you like to know about it?” I say, keeping up my cheerful tone. This time it’s real. Who knows, I might teach her something about science, and that could feel pretty good.
“How do you know all of that? I’ve never heard of anything like that, but you said it with such confidence. It was almost like it was common knowledge to you.” She says with a curious tone seeping through her words.
“That’s because it is common knowledge to me. In my hometown, everyone had to learn those types of things. If you want to know more about science, I’m very knowledgeable in the subject.” I say with a smile on my face.
“Very well. I guess you can help me with science experiments.” She says, hiding a smile. It looks like she is excited to have someone to talk science with.
“If that’s all, I’ll be leaving now.” I say, desperately trying to leave the Council meetinghouse. Ms. Sunstrike walks away as someone else walks up.
“You’re not going anywhere for a little while.” Ansiau says as he walks up to me.
“What is it now? I have to go back to my home to be with my daughters. I’m sure they’re going to be extremely mad at me if I’m late.” I say with a worried expression on my face.
“You have kids?” Ansiau says with a surprised expression on his face, though it’s only natural. A sixteen year old having two daughters isn’t exactly normal.
“Yeah, I adopted them yesterday. They’re really kind to me, though I’m not so sure they’d be friendly to many of the people here. One is an evolved owl that I defeated, and the other was a young elf slave girl that I bought, then freed and adopted.” I say with a smile.
“So they were both slaves? I can see why you don’t think they’d be friendly to many people here though. Both of them would be looked down upon.” Ansiau says with a worried expression. “Didn’t you say one was an evolved owl girl?”
“Yes! I didn’t really want to have a slave yet, so I thought about how to get around it. I figured that the law was there just to keep an eye on them, so I figured that it shouldn’t be a problem if I just adopted her.” I answer with a giant grin on my face.
“I see. You shouldn’t be in trouble as long as she’s kept an eye on, but don’t you have many slaves at the mansion?” Ansiau says with a troubled expression.
“Yeah, that was unexpected. I should’ve seen it coming though. I tried to free them and pay them for what they were doing, but they bet to be slaves for life, so if I tried to free them, they would die.” I say with a saddened expression.
“Well, let’s move off from that topic and approach the one I wanted to talk to you about in the first place.” Ansiau says.
“Sure. So, what do you want to talk to me about?” I say with a smile.
“There was an agreement made ten years ago with the Elves, I’m sure you heard of it.” Ansiau says with a troubled look on his face.
“I’m not actually from Larekor, so I haven’t heard of this agreement.” I reply with a troubled look. “But that’s not important right now. You wouldn’t bring it up if it wasn’t important.”
“That is correct. It has something to do with what that agreement had in it. It said that the youngest male member of the Council would marry the first daughter of the King of Eleild, who was six at the time, in ten years time.” Ansiau says, worried.
Oh, no. Don’t tell me. They said that I was the youngest member to have ever joined the Council in its history, and I just joined today… OH NO!
“You’re the youngest unmarried male member of the Council at this moment, and it has been ten years.” Ansiau says, smiling. Don’t give me that fake grin! You feel bad about this, I know you do! You have to! “So you will be meeting your fiancé in three weeks. She will be staying here a week before your wedding. I hope you two get along well.”
Immediately my world crumbles. I’m sixteen. I have two daughters, but I’m not married, I’m not in love with anyone right now, and now I’m getting married!
v7 Silent's Original Works 