<div class="floatleft">(http://cdn.dstv.com/www.dstv.com/content/DStv/Images/Nic/Thor/Thor_loki.jpg)</div><strong>Name:</strong>Sebastian Varta<br/><strong>Title:</strong>Theiri King<br/><strong>Location:</strong>Theiri Castle Throne room, having reached from the market place in the city<br/><strong>Tags:</strong>Queen Amelia and a few maids and the arriving Aserit royal family<br/><hr/><hr/><br/>There was law tieing a king to his duties. Sacred responsibilities, so he was told from maws tinted with intention ranging obsequious to pedantic. Customs commanded blind devotion. A king must look a king. His devotion to his Queen should befit the verses of stirring ballads of love. The Castle should never languish deprived of its king's presence. The cadence of knowledge, especially those pertaining to the safety of the royal family must suffer no interference. Guests demanded utmost respect and those laying boot on Theirian soil to discuss diplomatic amendments could be denied no request.<br/><br/>Tradition was absolute.<br/><br/>Unarguable.<br/><br/>Inimitable.<br/><br/>Sebastian Varta stood at the very heart of Castle Theiri, his tattered clothes and mangy appearance naked to the disapproving glares of his predecessors. Their high-nosed displeasure, however whittled against the scorn of his beloved queen. Her delicate features glistened with discord at his pitiful garb before it melted behind a mask of genial royalty. One side of his lips curved upwards, celebrating a delicious little victory. Swiveling his supposedly obscene cloak behind his frame, Varta gazed upon his bride. If his eyes held love, he was as adept as Amelia at masking it. If they revealed but the smallest whispers of rebellion, he simply could not help it. Amelia was his only equal. He adored her arrogance as he did his own. He relished being blessed with the opportunity to tussle wits with her. Indeed at this very moment, he had constructed a circumstance that already had their thirst for one-upmanship growling at each other. This was not love. This was simple and salacious competition.<br/><br/><strong>'Ah, yes. I did believe that matter to have found uncomfortable seat under your skin, M'lady'</strong>. Varta's words danced with a silken charm that led the medley of transfixed maidens to fall victim to further fairy tales. But the Queen's steely expression as she gazed upon him from her throne hardly spluttered,<strong>'Leaving my house to fend for itself amidst vulnerable times. Enforcing my dear, <em>delicate</em> wife to adorn the responsibilities of ruling our great city for days on end whilst I most obviously have been'</strong>, his arms rose from his side and spread in either direction, as if to present his indecent visage as proof, whilst his tone had seamlessly slithered into one of accusation<strong>, 'gallivanting, was it?'</strong>, he paused,<strong>'Darling Amelia, were you not taught to nay lay claim on the back of appearances?'</strong>. Sebastian gifted a rather roguish wink to the bevy of young virgins standing so utterly rapt with silly infatuation. He had always refused to accommodate Amelia's desires to smother him in guilt, even if he was treading thin ice in the innocent department.<strong>'But you are right on one count. I should not have assumed my kingdom would flourish without my hand'</strong>, Varta raised it and his glove caught the sun, casting him in an eerie concoction of stifling light and dirty darkness,<strong>'to guide it'</strong><br/><br/>He wondered if that was adequate ammunition to strip Amelia of her neutrality. Would she bristle? Oh, he hoped she would.<br/><br/>No one save Amelia would have summoned the tenacity to direct him, but as if fate herself had holstered her power with the Boy King, a mass of activity suddenly burst forth through the Castle doors. Varta slung one last, lingering smirk the way of his dearly beloved before slowly turning on the spot,<strong>'It seems you are correct on a second count as well. They <em>are</em> early. Come, my dear. We mustn't allow the ignominy of having our guests arrive to an empty castle'</strong><br/><br/>And with that King Sebastian Varta, sporting greasy cheeks and swathed in a common iron monger's garb strode forth. His cloak trailed a vivid path of city dust along the spotless marble floor and it seemed he would not offer the courtesy of being open to other solutions, even to his own Queen.<br/><br/><strong>'Tradition can go fuck itself. I am Sebastian Varta'</strong>, he spoke disguising it beneath his breath