A Formal Tongue

The blaze in the fireplace burned strong despite the late hour of the evening. Every room in the castle of Auj Oule's capital was well stocked with firewood prepared before the winter began, though the preparedness was now enjoyed by the throne's usurpers. They may have only been a few weeks into their reign over Auj Oule, but the increase in paperwork was already staggering.

While the duties of governing were notable even before they had the capital secured, the official throne brought many new clans under their command. On top of that, there were many unruly tribes who decided to bring problems that would normally be resolved within the clan to the king simply to create trouble. Wingul picked up a document outlining such a case, where a family was appealing to have a chef imprisoned in the capital's coldest dungeon because he'd accidentally fed their family member poisonous piggit ears rather than rappig ears. Wingul only stared at the document for a moment, well aware that the clan making the request had plenty of cold dungeons of their own, and quickly put it aside for something more important.

"Gaius, did you sign off on the second copy of the trade agreement terms for the western clans?"

"I did," he said, pulling the document in question out from under a folder.

"We'll see if they just burn our terms again," Wingul said, signing his own name as well, before squinting at a paragraph Gaius had written. "You forgot to put a comma in the third sentence."

"You can add it," he said, disinterested in the technicality.

"And there's something else," Wingul said, holding the document closer to the lantern on the table.

"What? Is there a mistake in the terms?" he asked. He doubted that there were any significant errors, but he trusted his right hand to be checking things carefully.

"You used a colon where there should have been a semicolon," he added as he very deliberately took his time making the minute correction.

Wingul was just checking things a little too carefully.

"Then I trust you to fix it," Gaius said, steering the conversation back toward the more important issue at hand. "If there's no chance that they'll take part in the new trade agreement willingly, we'll have no choice but to send someone to negotiate it in person."

"If there isn't any chance that they'll take part," Wingul corrected.

Gaius stopped flipping through the pages to look over at him, evidently having not noticed the slight change in the sentence structure. "Why are you repeating me?"

"I'm correcting you," he said brusquely.

"You just repeated what I said," Gaius disagreed flatly, as he stopped flipping through the stack of papers in his hands.

"No, I replaced the first 'no' with an 'any' to make it grammatically correct," he explained. "You used the word 'no' twice in one sentence, that's a double negative."

The new king of Auj Oule simply stared at him with blank expression that sank into a tired glower as he listened to the explanation. Finally holding the rank of king put him at a different level of expected formal conduct – or at least that was what the former prince of the Long Dau clan insisted. Gaius was still skeptical.

"Really, Wingul? Simple word choice?"

"What would noble guests from Rashugal think of such verbal blunders?" he questioned pointedly as he rolled a document and tied a golden string around it. "The noblemen and noblewomen would look down upon you even before they've heard half of your ideals."

"If he or she cares about something that minute, they shouldn't-"

"Pronoun agreement," he interjected, lightly tapping Gaius' head with the scroll.

"What?"

"He and she are singular pronouns, they is a plural pronoun," Wingul explained; Gaius was starting to suspect that he enjoyed correcting him.

"Does that really matter?" he asked tiredly.

"You have to use consistent pronoun tenses within your sentence," Wingul explained.

Gaius set the stack of papers down on the table with a definitive slap. He didn't see anything wrong with his speech mannerisms. He didn't make any glaring errors like some of the soldiers under him did, such as making informal contractions like ain't or omit the g in verbs; in his mind, that should have been enough.

"There's also the option of using the royal we in some circles; there are certain groups of nobility in Rashugal who would appreciate that," Wingul explained, barely looking up from his own work. "Probably a tribe or two in the north, too."

"No," he said pointedly. "Absolutely not."

"As king-"

"As king, I have the freedom to choose which traditions I want to keep alive."

Wingul frowned slightly. "You still need to work on your pronoun agreement. It's more than just nobility, the educated population would frown upon the man who is supposed to be leading them making such elementary mistakes."

Gaius let him have the satisfaction on getting the last word in on the disagreement. He stood up and walked over to the window overlooking the lower towers and ramparts that composed the capital's expansive castle. The sight was an impressive one, even at night; at least half of the towers still had lights burning within their walls. He stretched his fingers, not quite used to them hurting from writing too much rather than the more familiar ache of callouses formed by the hilt of a sword.

"I should just make you the prime minster of the public administration," he said, shaking his head slightly.

"Indeed, you should," Wingul said, taking him completely seriously. "I would accept."

"You want a third position?"

"My duties as head tactician are going to be significantly lessened without campaigns going on, why wouldn't I?"

Gaius shook his head slowly. "You're going to need to be very patient to be in that position."

"No more so than my current duties," he said dismissively, clearly thinking he was more than prepared for it.

He appreciated Wingul's volunteerism and tactfully decided not to mention his idea of holding open audiences with the people until after the tactician had already accepted the position.

Some happy, silly fan fiction to cope with the feels. :(

This was just a derpy oneshot idea that ironically came from comparing translations and looking at pronoun usage.

My sister suggested "the royal we" tidbit and I couldn't help but squeeze it in.