Seeing the envoys retreat one bye one, most of them paying reverence towards the emperor, the dog nodded back to each and every of them, displaying a small smile as they made their way out of the council chamber. Left only with Cyrus, whose vocabulary seemed to contain more and more words of praise; he started to believe that the old man had been trained like a common dog to spew nice phrases by all emperors and lords before him. He knew that at this point it would be fruitless to try to change the man's vocabulary, since his first attempt solved nothing. Feeling his innards rumble and form a familiar gap, Aleko acknowledged that he would have to pay the dining area a visit soon, but, he wanted to relax a little more in his chair and think some more over the decisions he took today. The more he reflected upon them, though, the more alternate solutions he could find, to his own dismay; but putting them through a more thorough scrutinisation, he realised that he preferred his final decision more and more, which made him appreciate his guts for knowing exact what to do. He hated his own mind for trying to find error in everything that he tried to do, mostly because he would always demoralise himself whenever he could think of a different path, a different idea or notion. He pushed all of those thoughts away, but it seemed that he remained affixed to his chair, staring down at the polished hardwood table with wide eyes, a heavy frown and pursed lips; hearing a scribbling sound in his right ear, he threw a glance over his shoulder where he found the scribe jotting down something about him. He felt a chuckle tickle his throat, thinking that the poor thing found his brooding somewhat interesting, for some reason.

His concentration turned to unconscious dust, Aleko stood up and pushed every chair in the room towards the table, making sure everything was as neat as it were before the envoys and himself arrived. He turned and headed out of the room, quickly followed by the skeleton which seemed to enjoy tracking Aleko's every step. The canine decided to enter the dining area, where there was even more activity compared to that morning, he barely found a secluded place for himself to eat. This time around, he planned to feast upon a more scrumptious meal, since the scrambled eggs didn't quite made it far into the day. Just before he could take his seat, he was distracted by a young elf trying to catch his attention; he turned his whole body towards her and offered her a smile, his eyes quickly glancing over her body. Seeing her apologise to him about her interruption, the canine chuckled and shook his head.

"No need to worry, Anny, I am not that hungry. Please, have a seat with me." He said, gesturing the elfess to sit down at the table, while he placed himself across from her. "You have my attention, darling." He liked her, her eagerness to seek for help reminded him of himself back when he was still a snotty cadet.

Taking a look over her scribblings, he took note of the requested resources, including doctor Hawke's request; it looked to him that he could afford the grain, vegetables and fresh water, but the dusts and substances the man requested would no doubt leave a hole in their budget. Aleko hummed as he inspected the quantities of the materials the man needed and tried to come up with a compromise that would at least help the man with his research, or what ever other antics he was up to.

"Yes, we will stop this week for a resupply, I cannot have the envoys and generals starving aboard this castle. But those materials dr. Hawke requested will reduce the weight of this castle, that's how much gold those... dusts will cost. Reduce those quantities to a half and tell dr. Hawke that if he wishes to have the other half as well, he would better tell me what he intends to do with them; as much as I appreciate ingenuity and progress, I would like to have this sort of reassurance that it will be useful research. I can't afford to fund just about any crazy idea, at least not now. Would that be all, Anny?"

Once she had left him to his own thoughts, Aleko had enough time to get an order of the tonight's special: a hearty crab chowder in a stale, hard bread crust, pulled pork with sauerkraut and more stale bread and finally, strawberry pudding. No stale bread for desert though. He actually had dug through half of his portion of chowder when he could see with the corner of his eye someone approaching his secluded table, instantly knowing that the individual wanted to have a private discussion with him. When Aleko raised his snout to look at Korvious, he could feel his muscles tense and lock, he had to fight to suppress his emotions and drown the shock on his face: he completely forgot about him and his plan. To make it worse, the man actually had some tomatoes on his plate, which looked highly ridiculous, especially because the envoy was an undead. Looking at the tomatoes, than at the envoy nearly pulled a laugh out of him, amused both by the silly situation, but also by the fact that he completely forgot about the thousands of lives that needed his final input. The man had present his tomatoes and situation in a rather convincing manner, Aleko nearly believed he actually missed the ability to taste food and feel satiation after a good meal; then again, he nearly felt pity for an individual that suggested to bring death to a handful of pilgrims.

"Good evening, master Korvius, it is my pleasure to have you here." Alike politely replied, placing the spoon beside the improvised bowl of chowder. "Baked tomatoes do sound like a delicacy, yes, and I must first express my sincere regrets that you are unable to taste one of your favourite dishes; I believe, though, this sort of sacrifice must be compensated with other perks, or at least, I truly hope so. As for myself-"

[i]Bullocks.[/i] He hesitated a little, nearly accepting the place of tomatoes.

"-I can't say that I have a particular fondness towards tomatoes, at least, not consistently. Maybe some other time I will enjoy some baked tomatoes. I hope that this does not insult your tastes, master Korvius, for I do not want to upset my loyal servants. I do promise, however, that we will enjoy meals together later in time."

[i]I can't have those innocent souls murdered, at least, not this early. Let the pilgrimage turn into a monthly event and once it gains popularity, a sort of staged strike would be better suited.[/i] Aleko thought as he slowly blinked towards the envoy, a small smile on his muzzle to express his apologies. 

Once the man was gone and he found himself finished the venison, he came to the realisation that he mad decisions for large masses of people he couldn't possibly know, but were highly dependent on his behaviour and choices as a leader. He didn't know if he would ever grow used to tasking such amounts of people, which would eventually grow as he would progress through his new life. The responsibility burdening his shoulders had siphoned his enjoyment for food, the pudding becoming a tasteless goop for him as he scooped away at the large bowl. The issue in on itself wasn't an issue since he was used to administrating resources, but it was the larger scale that made him worry over pointless nothings. He stood up from his table and walked out from the dining area, bidding farewell to all of the envoys that were still having discussions among themselves.

[i]Scheming for a coup, I presume. Bah, what am I thinking?[/i]

Wishing to meet with Cyrus at the library, he headed straight towards the chamber, only to be halted by a guard that just told him that the area was off-limits, even for him.

"Well, I was living under the impression that I had the most privileges in this flying castle. Would you know why master Cyrus wants me outside the library?"

He was given no concluding answer, but Cyrus did make the situation a little more clear. Aleko couldn't help but find this whole situation peculiar, mostly because of the way the problem was dealt with: strange noises come from the library, guards are posted outside the door that grant access to no one, but for the person who was responsible with answering the issue, which was the court wizard. Why the court wizard and not a mechanic was the question that baffled Aleko, and, the more he thought about how the whole situation sounded, the more worried he grew. 

"Terrific. As a by the way, I am still waiting for your opinion assessment, master Cyrus."

Once the man had bid his farewell and good night, Aleko lagged a little to throw a curious look around the library's hall, marvelling at the stupefying amount of books, a number of which he recognised instantly, since, he also owned a copy of each in his personal collection. He picked up [i]Astralus Halloen’s Documented Personalities of Importance from the History of Avalon[/i] to take a look inside and skim the pages, his eyes following the paper sheets as the folded over and revealed blocks after blocks of texts, occasionally accompanied by illustrations. He threw a glance over his shoulder every now and then, convinced that one of the guards posted outside was peeking inside the room, waiting for the emperor to exit the library so he could lock the door for tonight; it seemed that the door was still closed and Aleko was fairly convinced that he was alone in the entire sector. With such thoughts in his mind, the canine placed the book back in its place and left the library behind, feeling a slight chill on his back that lifted his fur up.

He decided to retreat to his own quarters, where he politely asked a servant to bring him a large carafe with cold water and a steel waster. By the time his water was brought to him, Aleko had stripped from his more elegant clothes down to an undershirt and changing his exquisite trousers for a pair of loose pantaloons; the canine accepted the water with a smile and immediately took a few swigs to cool his throat, then accepted the blunt longsword from the servant with a nod. He then tried to clear the room's centre of any furniture, so he would have enough room to practice without risking to break anything. Once he was sure that there were no risks of property damage, Aleko swung his worries and doubts away as he initialised practice drills involving longsword fencing. He could feel some of the tension disappear as he focused more and more on his footwork, on his technique and hypothetical edge alignment to the imaginary target. With every passing minute, the drills intensified in voracity and speed, the dog starting to grunt in tandem with heavier swings or more difficult maneuvres that had him twist his torso, step sideways or forwards while he would moulinet the sword around his body to fine tune his technique. The training concluded two hours later, when he found himself gasping for air after an intense drill in which he accidentally etched a notch in his drawer with the help of the sword. The thing was blunt, sure, but it was thin enough (and Aleko swung with enough force) to actually leave a dent in the hard wood. He chucked the waster aside, which landed on his bed and assessed the damage; when he saw that it was purely cosmetic, he waved his hand dismissively and threw his undershirt off too, heading to take a cold shower to cool himself down. With not much else to do, the canine sat at the side of the bed and gazed at the large window viewing the outside world.

[i]And down there are the people that trust my decisions and my way of thinking. I've just changed a bit of their lives with everything that I've said back in that room; I could write a law that bans farting and I'd start to see people floating up from all the fart growing in their bellies.[/i]

The mental image made him snicker a little. He laid down on the bed next to the training sword, which he lazily pushed a bit further from him, and took off all his clothes, already feeling the heat of training coming back to him. He didn't feel quite tired enough to fall asleep straight away, so he pulled the first book that his hand fell upon and opened it. He recognised the tome about ancient sword fighting techniques, where the information was nothing new to him. It took him several pages to feel his hand fall on his chest, the book sprawl on his abdomen and his body fall into a comfortable abyss, where his worries were washed away by emptiness.