“I heard that you pissed off Prime Minister Panos…”
“Oh, did you?”
Aesop was clearly in a bad mood and didn’t want to talk, especially while he was in the Back Room at the Castle at the Centre of the Universe, eating in silence. After Epani had learned that some of her deities were struggling and not always remembering to rest or eat (mostly Litvir, but Murum’Va occasionally forgot to rest too), the Allmaker set up a special place for the Twelve Anew to rest up, relax and get something to eat.
Aster and Kohra had popped by to get something to eat as well. They all had a meeting with Epani in about an hour, and Aster had been on guard duty, so he wanted a quick snack. Kohra was just bored, having just spent ten hours monitoring the ball, and wanted something else to do.
“To be fair, it’s pretty easy to piss off that guy…” Kohra muttered. “I mean, Litvir’s aunt or whatever seems to piss him off by existing. But I heard that you got pissed at him because he wanted to do something stupid or something.”
Realising that Aster and Kohra did want to talk, Aesop nudged his burger to one side and started picking at his plate of chips. Torr weren’t known to eat particularly healthily.
“The fucker accused me of collusion because I invited little Litty back to my place to chill. Kid needs to do more manly things and generally just do stuff, since he’s young and can do with new experiences. I was genuinely insulted, doubly so since Litty is completely harmless if you’re not mean to him… them.”
“Yeah, I like Litvir too, I think everyone does!” Aster smiled briefly, but that smile turned into a vague annoyance. “I’d recommend not pissing off Prime Minister Panos though.”
“Why?” Kohra asked. “The guy seems like he needs a kick in the dong. Or maybe a knife to the balls. Because a punch in the face clearly didn’t do enough.”
“I definitely agree, Prime Minister Panos is, as most would put it, an asshole, but we need to not piss him and the Torr in general off right now.”
Aesop eyed Aster. “What the fuck are you on about?”
“Uh, I’m just suggesting, as the god of diplomacy, maybe we shouldn’t be angering the leader of a race who is itching to go to war.”
“I won’t fucking let them go to war!” Aesop growled a little. “I’d do my own fucking coup if I had to. Panos may not respect me but I’m pretty sure the average Torr has my back. They don’t want to go to war either.”
“Still, their leader is-”
“I know what Panos is like. And me threatening to do a “Kohra” to him will keep him in his place.”
Kohra blinked. “What do you mean by that?”
“You went to your dad and threatened him and forced him to change and start work on all that democracy stuff. Proper democracy stuff. You are making him get rid of a monarchy because you threatened him.”
Kohra hesitated, then frowned. “I, uh, am forcing him to create a democracy because he disowned my brother. If my dad decides to do a decent job of making a democracy, then maybe I’ll consider allowing him to be my father again.”
Aesop grunted. “Still, you get what I mean. You threatened your dad to make him do something positive. And that’s pretty much what I’m doing with Panos. I threatened him to keep him in line, and I will keep on threatening him to keep him in line. Because Panos only understands Torrian power and doesn’t respect anyone else.”
“I get that, and I appreciate you helping keep him in check…” Aster sighed. “But we… somewhat need you to also keep him sweet.”
“Uuh… why?”
“Well…” Aster sighed some more. “Epani is starting to consider your… suggestion to just… nuke the Episkept.”
“Well, about fucking time!” Aesop exclaimed. “We’ve been dancing around that ball for too fucking long, to the point that we’ve almost all been a little too exposed to it. So we’re going to blow the fucker up and… wait… what does this have to do with the Torr?”
“Aster has an idea to kill two birds with one stone. Or, like, loosely solve two problems at once.”
“And that is…” Aesop suddenly paused. “You want the Torr to give up their nuclear weapons?”
Aster nodded. “The idea is that we get the Torr to use a lot of their nuclear arsenal against the Episkept. You guys use up all your nuclear weapons, we hopefully scare the ball away, we all get to see some pretty explosions, everyone wins.”
“That… is pretty sneaky… and clever… But in all honesty, not sure if they’ll go for it. Because we… like the perceived safety that our nuclear weapons provide us. Even if we know that, if we use them in a first strike, everyone else will club together to murder us.”
Aster glanced at Kohra, not quite understanding.
“The Torr believe in something called Mutually Assured Destruction, the idea that if everyone has world-destroying weapons, everyone silently agrees not to use them because everyone would use them all at the same time if one side decides to use them. It’s… it’s stupid.”
Aesop nodded. “It is pretty stupid but it somewhat works.”
“It’s insanely stupid!” Aster protested. “And that’s why the Allmaker will potentially want the Torr to use them on the ball.”
“Hang on…” Kohra interrupted. “The Allmaker can make her own nukes if she wanted to. It’s literally in her name… This isn’t her idea, this is your idea.”
“Actually, it was Murum’Va’s and Elkay’s idea, but I agree with them. Letting the Torr use their bombs for an assault on the ball is only beneficial for everyone here.”
“This feels… a little unfair. Like you’re targetting me and my fellow Torr. Like, sure, we kinda deserve it, but it doesn’t feel nice.”
“Sometimes things don’t seem nice at first, but are better once they have been done!” Aster tutted. “Do you think you’ll be able to convince the Torr leadership into assisting us on this?”
Aesop grunted. “Only if I can make it seem like we’re the heroes for once. Might be able to swing things if we get something out of it.”
“Well, we’ll discuss it proper in the meeting!” Kohra smiled too. “But right now, I want something to eat. That’s more important.”
“Fair enough…” Aesop tutted as he got up. “I think I might… step outside for a few minutes. Just need some fresh air…”