By the time all of the introductions are done, the rest of the caravan is ready to move. The rulers return to their carriages and Grimgar joins us in mine, his clan members already left. I was honestly expecting Grimgar to ride with Vex to continue discussing their alliance.

  Then again, they did discuss it quite a bit yesterday, so they may not have anything left to say. There will also be plenty of time while we are on the move for them to talk more. That is politics that doesn’t involve me and I already gave them my suggestions on what to do.

  What happens to this area in the future will have nothing to do with me, unless the clans decide to move. Once we are moving, I convince Grimgar to tell me about his adventures after I freed him. Brightfire cuddles against my side as we listen to the story of how Grimgar ended up as the chief of his clan.

  As he is telling us about all the things he did to try and avoid becoming chief, I can’t help but groan. Brightfire laughs at me as I am commiserating with Grimgar about getting stuck with leadership duties. Of course, she can’t let that pass and starts to tease me about how I don’t actually do any of my duties.

  Grimgar says “Is that why you have so many wives? So you can have them handle everything for you?”

  “No, that isn’t the reason at all! Things just kind of worked out that way!”

  Brightfire says “What he doesn’t want to admit is that he didn’t want to marry us. We had to bully him into it!”

  Grimgar is laughing very loudly as Brightfire tells him an exaggerated version of the story. I must admit, she is a good storyteller and it is an amusing image that she is painting. I end up chuckling a few times, I just can’t stop myself, especially when Grimgar laughs so hard he snorts.

  That is just hilarious and it keeps me entertained for a good while, but Grimgar isn’t as amused. In fact, he is fairly embarrassed by his snort and he tries several times to apologize for it. Brightfire, seeing how amused I was, does her best to get him to snort again.

  While she doesn’t succeed, her attempts do keep me entertained until the caravan stops for lunch. When we stop, the rulers join us for lunch, led by the women who want to talk to Brightfire. When lunch is over, they convince her to ride in Amn’s carriage, which means Amn is riding with me.

  “Amn, I have a question for you, but I needed to ask you in private.”

  Emperor Amn says “Alright, I’m listening.”

  Grimgar says “Do you want me to leave?”

  “No, it’s fine. I trust you to not go spreading rumors. Amn, how upset would you be if Gremshow suffered a fatal accident?”

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  Emperor Amn says "Personally, I would be thrilled! However, as an emperor I would be upset. As bad of a king as he is, his death would cause chaos within the alliance. It may be short lived, but now would not be a good time for that to happen. Especially not with us moving to have all of our elites work together to deal with the living desert.”

  “That’s unfortunate. Alright, I won’t kill him.”

  Emperor Amn says “Trust me, I understand your desire, but this just isn’t a good time for a change in rulers.”

  “Fine. Then tell me when things are stable enough and I will take care of it then.”

  Emperor Amn says “Alright, I can do that, but can you make it look natural?”

  “Sure. I have enough knowledge of human anatomy that I can make it look like his heart failed.”

  Emperor Amn says “That would work.”

  Grimgar says “Would you mind explaining why you want to kill this guy?”

  So, as we ride along I tell Grimgar why I don’t like Gremshow and Amn adds even more information. Amn has far more stories about Gremshow and the way he treats women, which just makes me want to kill him more. It also makes Grimgar want to kill him, which is more dangerous since he has less self-control.

  It is kind of sad for me to be the one saying that considering how little self-control I have. It takes some convincing, but we manage to convince Grimgar that this is a human matter. That helps to keep him from getting involved since he doesn’t want to deal with the politics.

  I don’t blame him, I don’t particularly want to get involved with them either, but I want to kill Gremshow. Although, if I am being honest with myself, it is because he annoys me more than the way he treats women. That is just an excuse, if I don’t need to be around him I’d probably forget about killing him.

  Amn promises to keep Gremshow away from both me and Grimgar as much as he can. That is about all that we can do considering that we are stuck in the same caravan with him. Especially now that Brightfire is with me, if Gremshow makes a comment to her, all bets are off.

  Amn is also aware of that and promises to keep Gremshow away from Brightfire. That shouldn’t be too hard, Gremshow has been fairly quiet since I threatened him. If Amn reinforces that threat, Gremshow should be pretty eager to avoid us completely.

  We should only have two weeks of travel time left before we reach the Magic Kingdom. If Amn can keep Gremshow in check for that long, then it should be fine if I can’t kill him. I will just be a little disappointed, that is nothing compared to dealing with my curiosity.

  We finally put that topic away and just chat about normal things until the caravan stops for the night. Kirito wakes up shortly before we stop and I finally get to introduce him to Brightfire. He is a little reluctant at first, but after I encourage him he starts acting all cute with her.

  Brightfire instantly falls under his spell, she really has no resistance against cuteness. Most women are like that, especially when the cute thing is furry, soft, or both. Him being a puppy just makes it that much worse, Brightfire honestly never stood a chance.

  In under a minute, Brightfire has him on her lap and is giving him all the attention he could ever want. The only one not happy about it is Asuna, she is jealous of Brightfire playing with Kirito. I notice what’s going on and spend some time giving Asuna some attention, which helps.

  As soon as we stop for the night, I set up the cabin and invite everyone inside. I even invite Grimgar to make use of one of the spare rooms rather than camping out on his own. When we sit down to eat, I give Kirito’s bowl of milk to Asuna so that she can feed him.