Clang, clang, clanging echoed out around the three. Aren’s lips moved, but her voice, her potentially dangerous question, was completely drowned out by the ringing of the bells.


    Somewhere within Trici, Marina panicked, but Trici pushed down the feeling. She kept herself composed, at least outwardly. “Could… you say that again, Aren?”, Trici questioned to Aren.


    “Trici”, Aren replied, “I don’t really understand why you’re here. Why you’re with Quill and me here right now, why you were given a letter like ours. Yes, you have a speech, which can affect the results, but I have a direct vote, and Quill can twist wording in our favour.


    “Do you have any idea why you, rather than Eric or Pyros or anyone else with more direct or large-scale a sway, was chosen?”, Aren finished.


    “Quite honestly”, Trici replied, quickly thinking her way through a coherent response, “I don’t. Maybe other countries’ leaders weren’t willing to directly work together, or maybe I was just a convenient option who would likely be loyal to the Arinan crown. I’m sorry I can’t offer a better response than that.”


    “I understand now, I think”, Aren responded, “You were probably just a convenient, likely loyal option.”


    “…Yeah”, Trici confirmed, “Probably just that.”


    Internally, her panic slowly started to dissipate and fade. Moving forward, she tried to change the subject to something less worrying, “Their food’s good. You two are enjoying it?”


    “It’s not bad. You certainly have some good taste”, Quill said. He was sipping a rather dark-toned coffee from a cup.


    “I’d second what Quill said. But onto a more pressing topic, we need to figure out what we can do tomorrow and overmorrow once you can come on to answer questions”, Aren pitched in.


    “Not this afternoon’s events?”, Trici asked.


    “Since you can’t really impact it, Quill and I went over it without you”, Aren replied, a small bit too curtly for Trici’s liking.


    “Ah. OK, then, onto my speech then.”


    “Wait”, Quill butted in, “We should run over the speakers before you. It will probably help if we want to add built-in counterpoints or rebuttals into your speech. That way, we might be able to damage speakers’ points before Hothal or Mari takes control of the conversation again.”


    “That sounds good”, Aren replied, “Any objections, Trici?”


    “No, no, that would be fine.”


    “Okay”, Quill started, “Xaros Inexa and Kiera Patheos are the only two speakers, as far as I’m aware, that are openly for a diplomatic end to our war on your day. Kiera will go before tomorrow’s lunch break, so I think it would be best to plot out some counterpoints then.”


    “Wait”, Aren replied, cutting off Quill, “Mari couldn’t come today, but it would be a good idea to get her here tomorrow; she even offered to come. We can try to change her view then.”


    “Got it”, Quill said, sighing, “I suppose we’ll go over both speakers today.


    “The first, the aforementioned Kiera Patheos, is a minor noble from Zeryzian, though I believe she’s not from the city. We can’t say for sure, but we should assume that she’s worried about her house’s losses during trading to naval attacks. That’s what most upper-class Zeryziani seem to be worried about.


    “Because of that, I find that we should build in the idea of the risk in financial terms.”


    “I see”, Trici responded once Quill finished, “Maybe I could talk about it in terms of financial risk/reward?”


    “Yes!”, Quill exclaimed, “That’s it! If we can get our hands on some numbers for how many- or how much total value- goods are lost every… year, maybe, to naval attacks, then maybe we could build something from there.”


    “We should all be able to access that”, Aren pitched in, “Since we got letters from our heads-of-state. If we ask Arinan or Sterlir intelligence, they’ll almost certainly have something useful that they’ll be willing or forced to give us!”


    “I think that’ll work out”, said Trici, “But how are we going to make a point about potential damages if a gamble for peace fails?”


    “That’s what I’m stuck on, too”, Quill agreed, “We can get a real, solid number for current losses, but how would we quantify an uprising of the Evil if they integrate into society?”


    “Maybe”, Aren replied, “We don’t have to. If we also get a figure on total maritime trade, and the percentage lost to the Evil is small- maybe less than 2 or 3 percent- we can show it’s not worth it because of just how small the losses are in the context of the total trade volume.”This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.


    “I”, Trici said, “Think that will work.” Shifting her focus to Quill, “The other speaker. Their name was Xaros Inexa?”


    “Yes”, Quill said, right as the half-hour bells cut him off from finishing his sentence.


    …


    Clang, clang, clang, went the bells, echoing out yet another time throughout the city. Again?, Quill thought, It seems those bells can never ring when someone isn’t saying something important.


    Clearing his throat, Quill rearticulated his cut-off point. “The problem”, he said, “Is that while we can guess why Kiera Patheos wants an armistice with reasonable accuracy, Xaros, as a more ordinary Mexain, could have quite a few different reasons.”


    “Right… like what?”, Trici asked.


    “Mexain doesn’t see war the same way Arina or Ferthusa or any other border state does”, Quill answered, “It could be possible that they’ll argue that the economic losses aren’t worth it, whether that be as Terys did earlier, pertaining to the average citizen’s taxes, but it could also be a similar argument as what we think Kiera’s was. If that’s the case, we can make similar points against the risk of integration.”


    “Right”, Aren said, “But the problem is that we don’t know that their argument uses the economy as its crux.”


    “Yeah”, said Trici, “What, then, are the other realistic options in your mind, Quill?”


    “Well”, Quill answered, “If they make a theology-based or religious argument, then we don’t have much to go on yet. If Mahir Gethalt’s remaining time goes poorly, then we can assume that Xaros’s argument will also fall flat. But if he successfully defends himself in his remaining time… who knows.”


    “It might be good to talk over after today’s hearings are over”, Aren added.


    “That sounds good”, Trici said, “And the last argument to expect would be based on the human cost of war, right?”


    “Yes. Given that Terys seemed to sway Mari”, Quill answered, “I think we should worry about Xaros giving a speech about the human cost. It could go very poorly.”


    “Wait”, Trici butted in, “But Mexai doesn’t share a land border, or even a maritime border, with it. Why would they argue that? And wouldn’t it fall flat if they haven’t had personal losses like Terys to draw from?”


    “Trici”, Aren replied, “Just because Mexai doesn’t directly border the Evil doesn’t mean that Mexain soldiers don’t fight against it. It’s perfectly realistic that Xaros lost someone.”


    “Oh… Yeah, that makes sense.”


    Aren swirled her still-untouched wine in its cup. “We just can’t guess with good accuracy. Our best bet is to either have more general attacks and try to get you back up regularly as an attack dog of sorts.”


    “An attack dog?”, Trici asked, “That sounds a bit… aggressive.”


    “Trici”, Aren said, “Let me finish. We can try to build up as many points into your speech as possible, so that I may call you back up later, and you can answer loaded questions that we think up beforehand to act as attacks against those who want a peace pact by firing off each off those loaded questions, letting you answer our ‘perfect answer’, and hopefully diminish a speaker’s point, or maybe even eliminate its effect entirely.”


    “I’m… not sure I got that. Is what you’re saying that we come up with answers to questions beforehand, then you call me up to answer those questions later?”


    “Yes”


    “And then that will… help us somehow?”


    “Yes, hopefully, we can make pro-peace speakers’ points weaker by calling you up and having you answer a question that would act as a counterpoint to the speaker’s point.”


    “That sounds fine by me, but what about the other option you mentioned?”


    “Right”, Aren said, finally taking a sip of her wine. Quill had finished his drink before she even started her own. “The other option is that we make a few variations of your speech for each realistic option for Xaros’s speech.


    “We’d take the base speech that you already have, then tweak a portion that counters said speech into a few variant speeches, and then you just will have to orate the right one when it is your turn to speak.”


    “I… I think I’d rather do the latter option”, Trici replied, “It’s not like we have forever to draft up some perfect speech, let alone work out a bunch of counterpoints.”


    “Okay”, Aren responded, “That’s fine by me. Quill, do you have anything to say? You’ve been rather quiet.”


    “Oh! No. This is just a bit out of my range of control or expertise. You’re the ones who can do the most with speeches, especially those in Zeryziani.”


    “Got that”, Aren said, “So we have an agreement, then? You’ll write a few variations of an attack against Xaros’ possible points into your speech, which I assume already exists-”


    “It does”


    “I would hope so. Back on track, you’ll then give the right one.”


    “Wait”, Quill asked, “What happens if Xaros’s speech fits none of Trici’s variations of her speech?”


    “I can just exclude the section entirely and surrender my remaining time to questions”, replied Trici.


    ”Good. That should work out.”


    …


    The remnants of their shared lunchtime flew by. It had little heavy argument or discussion, which helped Aren fully calm down. At some point, Nyx came out to their little shielded balcony and, balancing each of the three’s dishes on the server’s midnight-toned forearms,


    Her food was delicious. The fried salmon tasted much better than salmon ever should. It was cooked to perfection and complimented perfectly the accompanying fries. She’d always loved Fish & Chips as a dish, but this dish was the perfect form thereof.


    “Trici”, she said, “You really lucked out finding this café.”


    “Thanks. The staff especially are great once you get to know them.”


    “You said you’ve only been here in Zeryzian for a short time, right?”


    “Yeah. No more than a scattering of weeks at most. They’ve just warmed up to me rather quickly.”


    …


    Only a few minutes after the three-fourths-hour bells, Aren and Quill left the table, leaving Trici with their meals’ cost in coins. Trici didn’t mind much, as they had more reason to get back than she. She waited on her little balcony until Nyx came back. She made small talk with them, before counting out her own meal’s cost and giving the three’s total to the server.


    There was another reason for her to wait, though. She’d been late to Quill and Aren’s lunchtime meetup for a reason, and she hoped to collect on her investment of time. To do that, she wanted to avoid having to explain why she would split off from the pair if they were to walk back together.


    Marina had sent a message to her intelligence agency, and she fully intended to check for an answer to her question; so that she could hopefully figure something important out.


    Aren might have been rightfully suspicious of why someone like Trici, with so little influence on this trial, was included in their group. But Marina thought someone else was the unusual outlier in said cadre.


    Why in the world would kings of nations almost always at one another''s throats choose to go for the translator firmly set in his views, rather than the person who was much more important and whose position was so, so much more volatile?