Rethais never enjoyed reading through paperwork in the throne room. It wasn’t a particularly satisfying or comfortable working area. Sure, it worked fine for meetings and discussions, but for quieter work, it was useless. And while, yes, Rethais was the High General, they could change these things, there was never really time to do so, and always a bit of pushback from older, more traditional Rethans.
Luckily, since Rethais had been in power, they had been slowly improving things. Mostly by gradually replacing the ancient traditionalists with younger people who were a bit more in touch with the general population. Generals Hasvik and Veksar had revitalized their Legions and reorganized them nicely, and while Lepidas, the Vice General, was older than Rethais, they were of the tail end of the previous generation and more open to new ideas.
Out of all the other Below Twenty Generals, who mostly managed top level stuff and delegated thing to other Legions, Rethais was happiest with their new General of Hidden Internal Affairs. Ritlir Psykolakos had been an utterly charming new addition, too young and far too aware of the vast corruption of the previous High Generals to repeat it. They had replaced General Kuta, who had been moved to the newly formed Legion of Deitic Affairs. Kuta wasn’t a bad Rethan in any way, in fact, Kuta was hard-working and had sworn loyalty to Rethais. But Rethais didn’t want a former 606th Legion soldier having too much power, and they had been looking for an excuse to move Kuta for a while.
Rethais hadn’t gotten rid of everyone though. Kaldoran was an ancient Rethan, but they had loyally served the Rethavok as General of Medicinal Affairs for the last 70 years, and they only intended to retire after Rethais finished their duties as High General. Considering terms lasted 10 years, Rethais was halfway through their first term and they planned to run for a second term, Kaldoran would probably be 170 years old when they finally retired. Close to death. But Kaldoran believed they were doing good work for all Rethans and was happy to continue working as long as they could.
Sometimes, Rethais did feel a little bad. But most of these changes had been required. The last Rethan government was a disaster, and Rethais was still trying to fix things. Photis Helionos had started off with good intentions, but the power got to their head and they became rather closed off and desperate to keep power for as long as possible. Many believed that, had Rethais not won, there may not have been future elections.
“High General, do you have a moment?”
Rethais glanced up from their work. Really, they hadn’t really been paying much attention to anything.
“Lysar!” Rethais smiled as they looked up. “I always have a moment for you.”
Lysar was the General of Hidden External Affairs. A stressful duty, one that involved making sure other races didn’t try to kill Rethans. They were a blue-plated Rethan with rather swirly silver higher-caste trims. They were about ten years older than Rethais, and Rethais had admittedly always had feelings for Lysar. They had a lot in common, but the Bloodline Traditions meant Rethais had only recently managed to confess those feelings.
With a frown, Lysar glanced around the room. There were lots of 47th Legion Rethans around, acting as security or waiting on hand to offer advice. Lysar wanted the chamber to themselves, and they had already convinced the High Advisor to leave (which was now very easy to do since they were in a fresh, new, loving relationship) but everyone else would be a problem.
“Do you have a private moment?” Lysar asked.
Rethais’s troops had all realized what Lysar wanted. They nodded at Captain Prostar, who tutted and told everyone to leave.
“Ten minutes, High General.”
“Prostar, I-”
“You have a meeting in twenty minutes. High Advisor Relkir will be back as well.”
Rethais grunted. “I want fifteen minutes. I do not need more than five minutes to sort out this stupid tele-meeting with the damn Torr again.”
“Very well, High General.” Prosar bowed their head, then left alongside everyone else.
Rethais sighed, then rubbed their eyes, before getting up and making their way to the large window that overlooked the city of Phos, the Rethan capital. Lysar swiftly joined them.
“Tough day, High General?” Lysar smiled weakly.
“You do not need to call me by my title, Lysar…” Rethais tutted. “But yes, tough day. The Torr are angering me, making impossible demands. We are always happy to offer protection services but we cannot bloody teleport. And if they ask me to renew our ties to the Lady of Light again, I swear, I will declare us an atheist state and deny all ties to any deity.”
Lysar blinked in confusion. “You… you want to… dismiss the deities?”
“We have just finished rebuilding this city because the being we worshipped was vaguely angry at another deity, was upset that we had been underperforming in some statistics that none of us are even aware about and was annoyed that we were not worshipping her enough while allowing others to worship other deities. And according to Kuta’s recent report about the goings on on Kolasi? We are currently without a matron deity and, in all honesty, I think we are better off!”
“Oh…” Lysar didn’t really have a response. The one major thing that they and Rethais didn’t have in common was that Lysar was still somewhat religious, while Rethais had absolved themselves from religion after the earthquakes back in April. “But… the gods might get angry.”
“They already dislike everyone else. The Spasts are still cursed by their deity, the Thraki bow and beg beneath theirs and the Athrens and Vrekans are utterly ignored. As for us? We are not Torr so the Lady does not care for us, and the Thantophor has repeatedly and consistently stated that he detests religion, to the point that the damn Banikans, a race KNOWN for their fierce religious beliefs, are starting to back down…” Rethais trailed off and sighed loudly. “I apologise, Lysar, this is not what you wanted to discuss.”
“Well, you would be right. I was actually going to ask, when are you going to the Lake??”
Rethais paused. “Pardon?”
“Normally, every year, you take some time off, but you have not. And since you are the High General, traditionally, you should be arranging a trip to the Lake, the lovely villa at Limilian Lake with your partner and family. Photis went every six months and, as long ago as it was, General Kenis also took regular breaks.”
“I took a holiday. When we went to Portalia. I have technically already used my allotted holiday time.”
Lysar crossed their arms. “That was, like everything else, a business trip. You spent two days in a Temthan spa, the rest of it was political pleasantries. I think you need to take the advice you gave to little Relkir and take some time off so we can be together.”
Again, Rethais paused. They very suddenly realized why Lysar was here.
“I… I am sorry….” Rethais eventually muttered. “I have been somewhat neglecting you.”
“You are not doing so intentionally.”
“I am not, but still… I have much to learn about true partnerships. I do not want to call the Bloodline Traditions a crutch and hindrance to my growth as a person, but, well… I was brought up being told that, should I not have had kids by the age of 60, I would be forced into a partnership. To put it in a crude way, it has utterly fucked with my understanding of romance, and it makes me regularly go cold. Makes me forget that you have feelings too.”
Lysar relaxed somewhat. “We have only been together for two months, we are busy individuals and you have only just…” Lysar snarled. “Why in the name of the Light did we let those traditions go on for so damn long?”
“Traditionalists…” Rethais tutted. “People tied to nostalgia and the past, unwilling to let go. Why do you think I brought in so many new Below Twenty Generals? Yourself included. Still, you are right, we ought to take some time off, and going to the Lake is a great idea… Hm… Do I have to bring the family?”
“Depends on how many more traditions you wish to break. You do not even know your birth parents, but I am sure Relkir would appreciate coming along with their new poten-partner. You could invite Retvik as well.”
“Hm…”
“Hm?”
“That would mean inviting Kuta as well.”
Lysar snorted. “You would be inviting General Gath and myself as well… I mean… assuming we are poten-partners. We somewhat never actually… agreed to anything.”
Rethais stuttered. All of a sudden, they were quite out of their depth. After all, while yes, Rethais had been in relationships before, they had been coerced, with the intention to get Rethais to have kids. “Hmph. I am genuinely bad at this relationship stuff. Can we be poten-partners, please, Lysar?”
“Hah, you are so cute when you are not your normal, all-powerful self!” Lysar smiled. “We can be poten-partners, but you HAVE to let me come to the Lake and share the master bedroom with you. I have always wanted to go, apparently it is very pretty. You also need to tell me why Relkir hates Kuta, because that hatred is clearly one-way.”
“I honestly cannot answer that question, but yes, of course you can come to the Lake with me. I suppose, it is there, Photis did spend a small fortune on the place in their later years, we might as well, use it for ourselves rather than leaving it in the hands of foreign dignitaries.”
Lysar smiled some more, then put an arm around Rethais. Most Rethans, most beings in general, wouldn’t dare even touch the High General in such a casual way, but Rethais did just ask Lysar to officially be their poten-partner. Even if the request was 7 weeks late.
“So, is it a date?” Lysar asked.
“Well, I need to arrange the actual dates, but yes, it is a date.”
“Good…” Lysar tickled Rethais under their chin, then let go of them and backed off. “I shall leave you to your meeting. Am I still coming to your place for dinner this evening?”
Rethais nodded. “Of course, dear. I cannot wait.”