Slow footsteps echoed through the hall as a tall shadow-like figure with blood red eyes strolled elegantly. No guards, no servants, nothing but assemblies of empty rooms and still portraits to be passed by. The hall was magnificent with only grand mosaic windows letting in small coloured light into the dark pathway in a haunted ghoulish manner.
As the figure approached a dark wooden door frame, a pale hand twisted the cold knob and pushed open.
To his surprised, it revealed a certain brooding man resting his head in between towers of cursed documents and refined portraits.
"Shouldn't you be in your dressing room preparing for your engagement?" The man said while he levitated to slide a thick file on top, to join the already stacked pile on the desk. Then he returned to the ground as he turned to face the Emperor.
"I can't seem to find the motivation, Roma." Najeer responded with his face still on the table
Roma chuckled a bit before moving to the seat in front of Najeer's desk.
"Since when has motivation been the leading factor for your actions?" Roma leaned in closer narrowing his eyes as he sat down. "Through out my years serving you, you have looked neither pleased nor displeased, excited nor discouraged. Even when you conquered your first realm, you showed no signs or joy—"
Najeer raised his head from the desk only to see the fair face of his brown-haired advisor. He looked refined as usual with his hair neatly groomed back.
"—Like there was nothing in here," Roma continued as he made a sophisticated expression while pointing a slender finger to the left part of his own chest.
Najeer's eyes narrowed as he understood the gesture. "I do not have a heart. Is that what you're trying to say."
"You have never been one to wait around searching for motivation, before you do something. You just get up and do it. Successfully too. Am I wrong?"
"Mm." Najeer shifted his attention to a standing clock my wall as he rested his cheek on his knuckles. The clock was a shining brown box with twelve light dots orbiting around it. Only eight hours till the engagement.
"Was that a confirmation?" Roma trained his eyes at Najeer, trying to read his expression. Well, Nothing. The Emperor was emotionless as ever. It had always been difficult to read him. His eyes told no truths or lies, neither did his expression give anything away.
Najeer didn't bother to respond, already bored of the conversation.
Roma's eyebrows shot up. Wait a minute. What was this now? He noticed something peculiar about the Emperor's face. Najeer's eyes held no light not surprising, but, his lips were more pursed. A thin straight line formed in between his pale pink lips.
"You are disinterested by the engagement?" A gasp escaped from Roma as Najeer's eyes flickered to meet his own. "You do not wish to marry!"
"No," Najeer responded brazenly. "I do not."
Roma adjusted his silver framed monocle with intrigue dancing in his maroon red eyes. "My worlds, I was right about something for once! Why do you not want to marry? You are the envy of every man, you know."
"A wedding is simply not my priority. Not currently" Najeer answered. To him, getting married was an annoyingly poor use of his time. it bewildered him how the Elders were still focused on an engagement. Now of all time. "Regaining access to Earthmen is."
"May I remind you that we have preserved meat enough to last each country in the empire twenty years," Roma scoffed. "Thanks to his Majesty's call to hunt for humans in larger population when the war began. The Empire has twenty years to think a solution. Isn't that enough time?"
"The method in which we acquired the meat was impure, the souls are tainted. The quality reduction has devalued the true quantity by half, we would be lucky if it lasts a decade."
"Fine a decade should be well enough to discover a way out."
"It is not so, the governors will hoard—"
"Your majesty, you worry too much." Roma looked to the side to see a liquor bottle with an half empty glass beside it. It appeared the Emperor had already been helping himself to a drink.
Roma grabbed the alcohol bottle and poured a drink before tapping it at the Emperor's front.
Najeer only glanced at it with distaste but he took it anyway and gulped it down whole. After all it would take a thousand more of it to get thim drunk. Well, drunk enough.
"It appears you underestimate the importance of what this marriage brings to the empire. Without it, there will be no peace. It is your promise that the empire requires more than anything else right now." Roma's tone Discreetly shifted.. "The Council takes this seriously because the fate of all of us rests on your marriages. And the coming years is most suitable for the union, as you are of the age your mother and grandfather, and great grandfather, and great-great grand—"
"Alright I get it."
"Do not let the issue of Earth distract you from the greater issue at hand," Roma said with all seriousness. "if the Great Emperor of the largest and most powerful Empire the universe has ever known is to birth the next heir, he must begin now, creating many offsprings as soon as possible, to secure a legitimate heir."
"Ah yes. Because I am merely a breeding machine," Najeer muttered sarcastically as he poured himself another drink. He absolutely was going to need another bottle.