@governmentofficial continued from X
Well yes, Mycroft certainly agreed with that. The days of kings spitting orders and expecting the world to obey without consequences were long gone. Now, the monarch had to learn to be more subtle. Persuasion was good, as was manipulation (assuming, of course, that it remained undetected). In both Mycroft and the boy's worlds, one of the strongest tools at their disposal was the ability to convince another that a good idea was something that they had come up with alone. If somebody thought that, then they often worked harder to see it through - wanting to prove themselves and 'their' ideas.
"Very good, sir. And how is that going?" Mycroft asked, ensuring that he allowed himself to seem proud of the boy for even the mere suggestion of the idea. It was certainly something that he wanted to encourage - he'd even teach the boy about it himself if he had to.
"Have you persuaded anybody to do anything interesting recently?" And there was a chance for the boy to show off, should he want to. Mycroft assumed that he would - after all, he would were the shoe on the other foot.
Pride was something he thought was so rate to see from Lord Holmes that when it did appear on the other’s face, Albert could not help but excitedly soak it up, reserved and controlled as practiced but without a doubt beaming to himself when he turned his head away. His sudden feet swinging perhaps the biggest give away but he felt comfortable with Mycroft which left room for the occasional slip, or so he thought.
“-Good.” He answered to his first question, eager to show off now he had permission, especially with the confirmation with the second question. “I -talked -to Tommy about the -benefits of outside -time and now we -go on walks around the -g-gardens during our -morning -chats.” Notorious for his eagerness to be outside it may have been Tommy giving some ground for the gain of something else more than Albert’s persuasion but it had been a hard enough battle for the young king.
For a moment that appeared to be it before he appeared to be considering whether or not something else counted. “I also -talked -to the -foreign secretary about loyalty and -duty.” The Sovereign held the right to be informed and it seemed that the young King had caught wind that the minister was planning on resigning in protest, it remained to be seen whether or not a boy talking about pride in ones job or loyalty to the nations’ people would work, so far the news had not broke and he was rapidly learning that no news was good news.
His attention shifted back to Mycroft again, a check to see if he had done right. Sometimes people were ‘persuaded’ by others, older and more knowledgeable after all.
