Granted - insisted on - that his primary responsibility is to the EoC. That said - where does he have to be to satisfy that responsibility? When he's not alone on the throne, when the Empire needs a monarch to make the calls, Sharleyan suffices inside the EoC. (Possibly better than he does.) Cayleb being in Siddarmark doesn't mean the difference between no resident ruler and one. It just makes the difference between one and two, one and an extra. (Plus opportunities to jack up the heir count from one to one and an extra, if he's in the same place as Sharleyan.)n7axw wrote:I am not asserting that there is no role for Cayleb in Siddar City. However that being said, his role as Emperor means that his primary responsibility is to the EOC. The role is primarily political as at this time the dynasty is the glue holding the empire together and he should be spending time in Telesberg as well as visiting other parts of the empire to facilitate things meshing together.
For roaming around, meshing the Empire together, you've got a stronger point. It's one thing in favor of staying on Tarot for awhile: he'd be in a place that can use that imperial meshing and relatively close to the mainland in case of additional imperial work to be done there. (Or secret seijin work, for Merlin.)
But if he's got more than zero use as emperor in Siddarmark, might that not be enough use to justify remaining there? (Or enough, in addition to it being perhaps convenient for future imperial mainland work and Merlin's cover.) I wouldn't be sure enough to say not. Granted, he does have a lot more to do even in Tellesberg than tea and groping, but symbolically, it would be easy for people to get that impression or have a little doubt that way. And it would be far, far too easy for Cayleb to feel that way, when he's another able-bodied man who, but for accident of birth, would be out on the snow or mud of the Siddarmark battlefields. Siddar City is at least on the same continent as them, and he's at least serving a somewhat more immediate military oversight role there than he would be in Charis or even Tarot.
Right. There's business to be done in either location and some downtime to be had in either as well. A lot of the immediate imperial work is going to be done so much better inside the empire, but not so much the work that's already being done wherever his co-ruler is. So the comparisons run (1) Siddarmark vs. (2) backing up Sharleyan and maybe help back up Alahnah wherever Sharleyan is vs. (3) being the Emperor inside the Emperor somewhere Sharleyan is not.My comment about Cayleb carousing was intended to be taken tongue in cheek sinse it was in response to the tea in Tellesburg comment as if ruling an empire is a less than full time job, even in peacetime--an assertion which would be nonsense. There is, by the way, textev for me to base my comment in.
I doubt (2) is going to win that priority race, and if (3) comes ahead of (1) at all, I would not put much money on it.
I think that it was a good thing for Cayleb to go to Siddarmark to stand with the Protector in the crisis. But now that the ICA is in place and Siddarmark is making good progress rebuilding its army, the crisis phase of the conflict seems to be largely over.
Maybe, though the bleeding, dying, and killing part has a lot of progress to go, and being far, far away from it will not look or feel good to Cayleb, the troops, or the people sending sons and treasure to the mainland.
And with all that killing, there are other crises ahead. With the camps to be liberated in coming months, it's going to be hard to talk Siddarmark down from counter-atrocities all the way to Zion, even across Harchong. There's a crisis that's imperial work. (It may be better for Zhasyn Cahnyr or Maikel Staynair, but hey, Maikel's busy and Cahnyr can use all the backup he can get, particularly at his age.) Chances are there is no single better place to do that work than in Siddar City itself.
