D.E.M.O.N.S: Getting Summoned Weekly isn't so Bad

Chapter 1222 1222 Marriage Plan Failed

”That has to have come up before, right?” asked Kat.  ”I mean… youʼre older then us and have had this marriage thing as an active part of your life for at least a decade so itʼs a bit hard to imagine youʼre only now considering the idea properly. What turned things around so fast?” 

”Oh thatʼs quite simple,” said Oditr, ”I hadnʼt considered from the perspective of just handing everything over. At first, it was more about not having anyone that I love. My grandparents married for love, Thyme constantly marries for love. Really the only person Iʼm close to that hasnʼt is Titania, and possibly my parents? Iʼve never actually asked them. What I didnʼt think about was Ulf. He didnʼt marry for love, he married first and love came later. 

”Still, I realised that wasnʼt necessarily in the cards for me quite some time ago so I started to consider it more from the angle of ʼif I had to marry someone who could I trustʼ but I realise now that I donʼt actually need to trust them all that much. I just need to find someone that wants the best for the kingdom, and likes politics. Marry them, and then say ʼwell have a goʼ. As long as they donʼt completely screw up, it could work…” 

”I feel like youʼd start to creep back into their business as soon as they did something you thought wasnʼt good for the kingdom,” said Marigold. When Oditr turned a raised eyebrow to Marigold, the elf continued. ”Look, not to say that you donʼt want to retire, or donʼt wish you could do something other than rule, because obviously youʼd like a break… but at least for now it seems like youʼre going strong. 

”The real problem, is the weight of responsibility. Youʼve been carrying it for a long time. At this point, even if you intend to give it all over to someone else… I imagine youʼll still feel responsible for it all. It might take you years or even decades to get to the point where you can just accept that you donʼt have to keep the whole kingdom together anymore,” 

”Surely it wouldnʼt be that bad,” said Oditr. ”Iʼm usually bored in meetings, I donʼt always pay attention when ambassadors come and visit, and Iʼve been trying to find more ways to get free time for years at this point. In fact, I probably spend too much of my free time looking for more and not enough of my free time enjoying it, but thatʼs beside the point. Why would I want to go back to working if I can avoid it?” 

”Right…” said Marigold clearly not believing Oditr. Marigold let the word hang in the air for a few moments as she tried to think of the best example for Oditr to understand. It took a minute, but she had a lightbulb moment. ”Ok, Iʼve got it. Oditr would you say youʼre perfect?” 

”No, of course not, what kind of silly question is that?” asked Oditr. 

”Look, just humour me for a bit, ok?” asked Marigold. When Oditr nodded she continued. ”So you agree youʼre not perfect, so anyone you try to find to replace you wonʼt be either. Correct?” 

”Yeah… where are you going with this?” asked Oditr. 

”I AM getting there trust me. So youʼre not perfect. Your replacement isnʼt perfect. Weʼve established that. Now… how well did you do when you first started ruling?” asked Marigold. 

Oditr sighed, still not seeing where Marigold was going. She decided to just humour the elf until she finally got to the fucking point. ”It wasnʼt easy, but I had my parents there to help me a lot. The cabinet was mostly old guard as well. I didnʼt exactly go about replacing them all, but quite a lot of them wanted to retire with my parents so it happened. They did stick around for a while though, so it wasnʼt too bad. I only caused a few diplomatic incidents. Nothing major,” 

Marigold smiled and said, ”Of course. Itʼs nothing to worry about… except… what happens when your replacement starts making mistakes? Do you just… let them go about it?” 

Oditr shook her head, ”No of course I donʼt. I had my parents to help me so Iʼd help them out at least a bit at the start. Why?” 

Marigold made a ʼslow-downʼ motion with her hands. ”So youʼd stick around as an advisor for at least a little while… how many hours do you think an advisor works?” 

”Depends on the subject… but I guess around the same amount of time as me? They do need to double check all my work after all, at least for a bit,” said Oditr. 

”Right, so youʼd have stepped down from ruling, handed it over to someone you only sort of trust with the understanding youʼd quickly stop ruling and allow them to take over. That way thereʼs no betrayal or anything. Then you stick on as an advisor until theyʼre comfortable… but how long is that? And when would they start to think youʼre reneging on the deal?” asked Marigold. 

”What do you mean?” asked Oditr, even though she was starting to work it out. The confirmation would still be useful though. 

”Well if they were brought on as your husband or wife to avoid political issues… but you promise them you donʼt want to run the country anymore… then you advise them for decades… they might start to think either that you just wanted someone to do all the paperwork, or make the public appearances or heck, maybe just act as assassin fodder. Itʼd probably get messy,” said Marigold. 

Oditr let her head rest on the edge of the table so her hair wouldnʼt end up in her food. Once situated she let out a pained groan before sitting back up and saying, ”Yeah… shouldʼve known there was going to be a problem with that. Youʼre right I would totally do that. I donʼt like to think of myself as super controlling… but my kingdom is important to me. Itʼs basically like my child in a way. 

”Which… is weird as all heck to say out loud let alone acknowledge. Now that youʼve laid it out for me, Iʼve got no idea how Iʼd ever be able to just hand it over. Iʼve probably had this realisation before, but itʼs certainly sinking in this time. How the hell did my parents do that? Just… up and hand everything over to their daughter?”

Marigold shrugged, ”How should I know? I only know so much about how hard it is to step down from things because like half of my family is constantly complaining about how hard it is to retire. I think itʼs more of an in-joke then a serious complaint at this point, but I still hear it all the time. As far as I can tell Dad isnʼt planning to retire anytime soon and I donʼt think heʼs grooming anyone to take over yet… I mean, weʼve still been given some lessons. Mostly as a ʼjust in caseʼ type deal you know? If something happened… well… you know. Actually do you? Whatʼs your plan for if you end up in a coma or… something,” 

”Iʼm… not entirely sure I should answer that one Marigold,” said Oditr after a moment of thought. ”Thatʼs really close to ʼmilitary secretsʼ type of deal. I mean, we have a plan, obviously, but I probably shouldnʼt share it,” 

Marigold shrugged and said, ”Thatʼs fine. Iʼm not sure if I shouldʼve told you what our plan is, but itʼs not exactly a major secret. All the kids are trained at least somewhat in our motherʼs jobs should the worst happen, then weʼre also trained a bit about being king, but like, not too much. Though maybe thatʼs just because Iʼm so young. Perhaps my older siblings got the training,” 

”I canʼt say,” said Oditr. 

Marigold raised an eyebrow, ”Wait a second… do you already KNOW?” 

Oditr grinned back, ”Of course I do Marigold. Remember, little sister of the group. I know all sorts of things I really shouldnʼt. Heck, I know more about Auctifer and Titania then they know about each other. They both try to keep things a bit more professional with each other. Though in the case of Ulf… urgh,” 

Oditr winced. ”Itʼs probably something that shouldʼve come up back when we were going over him, and it sort of did… but there was no plan for if something happened to him. Iʼd guess there mightʼve been one millennia ago right back at the start of his reign… but they never made a new one later on. Itʼs probably another of the many reasons that the kingdom is doing so poorly without him,” 

Marigold winced and said, ”Yeah that does sound like something that would happen to Ulf. He wouldnʼt have wanted to make that sort of plan, and I know his wife wouldnʼt either… so I guess it never got done, or if it did, the guy who did it died, and the plan fell apart as well,” 

Oditr nodded, ”Ulf became a constant, and nobody knew what to do when he left,”