Frost 88, 121, Continued from here
Franky sipped at the remains of his cooling cocktail as he waited for the other shoe to drop. Ferra got up, bending low, "Let's top up." Franky took a long view down the valley beneath her blouse, offered up freely. "I'm no specialist at making drinks, so I hope you don't mind a bourbon, neat?"
Franky smiled, "On the rocks, please."
Her demeanor was far different now than while Merielle had been pleasant. She took her time making the simple drink, and sauntered over when finished. She handed it to Franky, and then she sunk down into the sofa next to him. She turned, leaning back against the arm of the sofa, letting her to look at him, while putting her feminine figure on display. She adjusted her glasses a bit, "You know you got me in trouble with my boss."
Franky raised a brow, "And how did I do that now?"
"By defying my predictions." She took a sip at her drink, watching Franky over the top of her glass, "And not in a small way. You absolutely embarrassed me. It felt like I was a child again. It has been many years since I've been so wrong on something in my field." Her leg pressed into Franky's, "There must be more to you than the numbers are showing. No one becomes such an outlier on accident, what are those lofty goals of yours? You're more than 'just a bartender and retired soldier'. That much is painfully obvious."
Franky let a slight grin pull at the corner of his lips, looking across the room at the blazing hearth as he took a slow sip of the sweet bourbon. He let that flavor a hang a moment before he side eyed Ferra a bit. He could see the way her eyes were locked on him, the bit of flush in her cheeks and the tips of her ears. This was going to be an interesting meeting.
"I do have some ideas, and I am laying the ground work for them, Auditor."
He watched as she leaned toward him, the amber in her glass bouncing slightly.
"You've seen my expenses, surely. You know I notate my expenditures."
The auditor purred a bit, "Of course. I can remember every single note in your ledgers. So clean and concise."
Franky grinned over his glass as he took another sip. "There's a pattern there, but not one you can see solely through the numbers and notations."
Ferra tipped her glasses down her nose, "There's a story there?"
Franky leaned back, "Numbers and notations and order might give plenty of insight into the story of one's life. But it is an insight looked down on from on high. When you're on an airship over a battlefield, you can see who has the numbers advantages, where the strategic hold points are, the ebb and flow. And that in and of itself is a beautifully crafted story."
He could see Ferra finding comfort in this viewpoint, relaxing more, "But there's also the grittier, up close and personal parts of the story that can only be discovered when you get to know one of the people." Franky scooted in closer, allowing their legs to press together more. "Searing 15, expenditure 5."
Ferra squinted at him, her lips uttering, "The Riverland Festival, Deconstruction of Kissing Booth."
She arched one of her perfectly sculpted eyebrows and Franky continued, "An investment in the safety of the Knob and in one particularly enthusiastic but lacking foresight young man."
She looked genuinely confused now, "I'm afraid I don't follow. I am not good with people, I like the comfort of my numbers."
Franky grinned, his mind whirring as an idea was forming now, a way to describe this belief of his that he was trying to put to words. "Bear with me, I'm by no means as well practiced at this as you."
She nodded, "So we both know that all money in the world is based on land. Whoever controls the most and best land inevitably generates more money. It is why Dukes and duchies exist, it's why inheritance laws exist, it's why we use precious metals for currency. They represent the very land they were extracted from. Land is coin, coin is land, it is the one real truth of the world. It's why the Bank invests in wars, if invested properly, the winning side gains quite a bit of long term investment returns."
She shrugged, entirely unimpressed, this was the most fundamental thing taught in economics. "But I've learned two important lessons in my time as a bartender and a soldier." He leaned in a bit closer, a teasing grin on his face, "Tell me, how do I profit as a business, since I broke your model."
She practically recited her notes from when she was at the University, "Taverns continue the conversion of land into wealth. Each conversion adds value, so land becomes grain becomes beer becomes coin. Land becomes food becomes cooked food becomes coin. Land becomes shelter becomes coin. A reliable, low yield, low risk business model."
Franky snorted, "Yes, that is true, for most. But that's not what I did. How did I," he leaned in even closer now, resting his arm on the back of the sofa behind her, "Break," a devious grin, "Your model?"
A deep red flush from chin to tips of her ears, "I... don't know." She was biting her lip, "How..?"
Franky pulled back, watching her chest rise and fall rapidly as she tried to catch her breath, "I sell the intangible. I don't sell reality, I sell the escape from reality, I sell confidence, I sell comfort."
She looked almost offended at those words, "You can't quantify those things, there's no value in them."
A confident smirk on Franky's face, "You can't quantify them, but I can find unlimited value in them."
He rested on his elbow on the sofa back, "But more than that is what I learned in the military. You've seen my record. My real record. You know more about it than the Zaichaeri government was allowed to know. I'm sure you've heard the adage, 'An army marches on its belly,' yes?"
Again, perplexed, "Yes, of course. An army can't survive without the coin necessary to supply it."
Franky nodded, "War chests win wars."
She shook her head, "I'm not understanding what this has to do with anything."
The corner of Franky's mouth turned up, "I'm going to war."
Shock crossed her face, "Against who?"
"The old way of making money. Of taking it from the lands we walk."
A spark of curiosity returned, "How..?"
"By selling belief in coin itself. Confidence in a business, in a person, in a currency even, has tremendous value. The more people believe, the more they will buy, the more they will spend and invest, the more they need. It's an addictive model but one with unlimited potential."
"I.. I don't. That can't work."
Franky leaned in close, "It works every single day, at every tavern in the world, in every army. Bankers worry over the coin to feed an army, Kings worry over what the soldier believes in."
He moved in close, an arm draped across the back of her shoulders, "I intend to cut out the middle man. We'll sell belief without the need for kingdoms and duchies and wars between nobility."
She fluttered her eyes at him, her face close to his own scarred up visage, "We?"
"You need to know how I beat your model, don't you? You don't want it. You need it." He looked down her body lecherously then back up to her eyes, "You can feel it deep inside, you won't rest until you get it."
She was silent a moment, followed by a soft nod, "Yes.."
The fierceness of him as a soldier, young and proud, "Then give me a year to show it will work at scale. In six months, it will be working in the Knob, another six months, all of Zaichaer."
She swallowed nervously, "And what do I get?"
Franky smiled broadly, "A pile of coin so large, you'll need to hire dragons to guard it." Then he leaned in, whispering into her ear, "And anything else you might desire."
He didn't pull back, but rather turned to look at her from this close vantage. She looked at him and he could see her mind racing on the calculations, weighing the risk. An instant later, a glint in her eyes showed she'd made up her mind. Breathily, "Okay."
Franky grinned as he entangled a calloused hand in her hair along her neck, pressing his lips against her, and guiding her body down toward the cushions.
