Richard Raskvor, Lord of Everlast
As they trotted on, Richard was expecting to see a greeting party to start moving towards them shortly. His mind was troubled, though. The Lord of the North did not feel nerves. When you've faced a Giant and any number of the terrible things that the mountains hide as many times as he had, fear and nerves cease to exist in a way. Walking into his own death meant nothing. You can only make peace with death and live past it so many times before you actually find the peace needed to die. He knew that he must not show any sign of weakness to this Queen.
At the slow pace they were going, his mind drifted off to the other regions of the kingdom. To them, this meeting with the Queen would most likely be seen as a negative. Hopefully, though, they wouldn't do anything stupid, like attack unprovoked. Richard was hesitant about the other rulers in the Kingdom. All of them were young, too young. Richard had at least a decade on all of them, and he remembered what it felt like to be late twenties. War to a young man doesn't seem as terrible as it does through the eyes of an old man. Richard knew war was coming; that much was clear. However, rushing into it would lead to mistakes.
It didn't help that the North was not as connected as the other kingdoms. While a vast amount of the metal in the kingdom came from the mines in the mountains, apart from trade no one really visited Everlast. Furthermore, the culture's between the North is incredibly different, due to the constant conflict with the Giants, as well as a disconnection from the southern regions that created a void between the citizens of the North and South. This disconnection could easily translate into distrust once the idea of war becomes more and more clear. Richard would not have any form of aggression allowed. He left instructions that any scouts from other regions discovered in Everlast territory were to be captured and arrested. All would be put into holding save one, who would be given instructions to return to his Lord with a message explaining that the other members of the illegal scouting party would be released, unharmed, should a royal ambassador of noble status be sent to meet in regards with the current situation. The scouts would not be harmed if they did not first attack, and even then the instructions Richard left explicitly stated that killing was to be a last resort.
Richard didn't want to fight a war with any of the regions. It just didn't make any sense. However, he had to do what was best for his people. If that meant war, then war it would be. He would by no means initiate any kind of conflict, but the moment another region attacked Everlast he would unleash a hell that would burn their worlds to the ground. Everlast was the source of most of the kingdom's metal. As a result, his men would be better equipped. Furthermore, Richard dared another region to invade Everlast.
He realized then, how simple it would be to fight two wars at once. No army from the south could survive in the North once winter set in, save his own. Of course. He wouldn't need to hold two fronts for very long; all he had to do was halt any invasion and wait for the cold to set in. Nature would rid him of any form of invader, and would open his men up to defeat the giants.
Richard hoped it would never come to that. He was an old man, who had seen enough death to last him two eternities. All these thoughts and more continued through his mind, though his outer facial appearance never changed. You never would have imagined what was going on in his mind if you looked at him.