"Some, your majesty." I say, straightening up on command. "You speak Japanese? Raise your head, my good man." possibly illegitimate son, raises his eyebrows. The King, who only knows of me as being Athos' uh. And then, determinedly, I make my way to the front, bow to the surprised king and, with my head still bent low, ask, "Your Majesty, may I please attempt to translate?" In fact, poor King Louis the Thirteenth is starting to look constipated, the diplomat is sweating and the Japanese nobles who came with him are all frowning at how ill received the diplomat's greeting is. I could totally understand what the Japanese were trying to say, and let's say yoda-speak would've been an improvement on what the diplomat was saying when what he was trying to do was to give a flowery praise-filled greeting. Thank God, that the ROB decided to give me translator capabilities. I covered my eyes with my hands as Athos made choking noises over what was apparently to him, a hilarious bit of nonsense and elbowed him in the gut. And the man dictating to him was frowning. It meant their current diplomat was mangling French, badly. What did that mean for the current events? The turnover was generally 1 diplomat every 2-4 years. trying to open the area up for trade.Īnd that wasn't counting the high mortality rate of their Ambassadors in that area due to the youkai and people taking offense to any rudeness.Įver seen Samurai X and those other animes where the Samurai were sticklers for protocol? Which basically meant they at least had some kind of defense against the ningyo, and some grasp of how dangerous the area was after losing a fleet. English traders, sure, and so did the Dutch, but the English were known for their navies and the Dutch had a habit of taking along their Pagan friends from the Protestant and Pagan areas, way north. Which basically was a problem since no French trader had ever made it to Japan. The Son of Heaven's dignity depended on it.
once Japan learned China had an ambassador here, and an Imperial Princess to boot, it had to one up them. To be precise, I was standing next to Athos at the time, and apparently the King wanted to meet the Japanese Ambassador, because, surprise, surprise. Yeah, I was having that moment right now. It's an instinctive response similar to the one where guys cross their legs or wince when they hear someone just got castrated. Have you ever, as in, ever had one of those horrible moments when you were cringing from the sound of someone humiliating themselves in public? Like you wanted to do something, anything, to prevent the.