Till Kingdom Come [Closed: Maredoratica]

by **Boaga** » Mon May 02, 2016 9:12 pm

A Thread By

“In the kingdom of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.”
― Desiderius Erasmus, Adagia

by **Boaga** » Mon May 02, 2016 9:16 pm

“For whatever we lose (like a you or a me),
It's always our self we find in the sea.” ― E.E. Cummings

Baratza Palace
Baratza, Boaga

He dreamt an old dream, one of dark blue water under a midnight sky, with only the pale light of the full moon to illuminate his surroundings. He could feel the cold water against his pale flesh, lapping against him ever so casually. He floated in the water upon his back, staring up at the moon above. His mind was free of its troubles, at least for the time being, comforted by the silence, and finding solace in the watery abyss that stretched out in all directions as far as his eyes could see.

The sudden blue of the water enveloped him as his horrified fingers slipped under the surface. An iron grip held his shoulders tight, softly holding him in his space. Like blankets, the water wrapped tightly, coldly shocking his body into warmth- a gentle glow upon the skin. Tearing open his eyes, he saw a long far away world of blue, stretching away from him, taunting him. Oblivious to his struggle, to his panic, he saw legs and arms and excitement over some concept lost to him.

The water had neither the time nor patience for his panic, and insisted wholly upon the hands on his shoulders and liquid glass now pervading his lungs. The water seemed to hold him under its own thumb in an attempt to extinguish his blatant nonconformity. The clicking of his heart was strained now, and veiled in bubbles of oxygen, his vision was obscured. He noted the valiant white bubbles straggle away, across the blue world, and more importantly, away from him.

The words he heard where only a muted bass now held down oppressively by a harsh droning sound. Such an uncontrollable sound, such a rampant all consuming bodily humming that drove him insane. The hands stayed firm but ceased to exist, Slipping away from him not unlike the precious oxygen which had so recently evaporated. His lungs, heavy with hydrogen, reacted slowly, and like drinking a long smooth flame, the chlorine burned his insides, like knives eviscerating his corporeal form. He realized his skin had dissipated, bursting open like a translucent sac, and flowing like the water, he was no more. Only a single fading window of consciousness, desperately clicking and wanting, and with one drowsy struggle, gave up. He looked skyward, making amends with his Gods, preparing for death, preparing for serenity. He released my muscles and relaxed. There was one final click.

And then he was let go.

The world ripped back into his corpse with such force, the whiplash had yet to catch up to him. The encroaching darkness faded, and his skull was again buzzing with electricity. Taking full advantage, he kicked himself up and away from the floor, his muscles springing back to life. Hope flooded back into his body, like a cruel joke, humor striking him. A sick watery laughter evaded his lips as he climbed the neverending torrential waterfall, clawing through handfuls of water, handfuls of sand, handfuls of broken glass with his lungs literally weighing him down.

The world exploded into color, the soft comforting blue turning to a cackling red sea of death and eruption, familiar faces warped into unrecognizable blurs, as he forced himself to the edge. He pulled his cold body onto the contrastingly warm concrete, scraping his stomach. Throwing up water and coughing, he wretched, thankful for every molecule of air. His lungs burned like whiskey and every breath tore him in half. He pulled his legs out of the pool, whilst the beautifully glowing oxygen torched my skin, lighting it all aflame.

Fading in and out of consciousness he hunched over his elbows and threw up. Indistinguishable from the water, bitter tears rolled down in handfuls, all whispering of their sweetness. Tears not of sadness or of fear, but of pride, of victory, and of the allowance of continued suffering. Convulsions wracked his body, he shivered and his limbs collapsed as numbness was wiped away by the sweet sultry air. He laid down in his puddle to feel for the first time. He felt the texture of the air in his lungs, the texture of his organs, his lungs moving, and the blood pulsing in his veins…

…And a growing white light. A young woman stepped forth from it, clad in a white gown embroidered with pink roses. Atop her head she wore a wreath crown of pink roses as well, while her long brown hair flittered all around it. She smiled brightly, her hazel eyes twinkling with the reflection of the blue water that lay beneath her feet, for she walked on the water as easily as it might have been if it were solid ground. One hand was open and at her side, while the other cradled a baby clad in a white shawl.

“Your troubles consume you, brother,” she said sweetly, a harmonic elegance to her voice. “Do not be troubled…have faith,” she said as she stood over him and reached down with her hand to lift him up.

“Faith in what?” he asked his sister. “What is there to have faith in? There is nothing for me anymore…I am nothing…my country is nothing. You were fortunate…you left long ago…you did not have to pick up the pieces and struggle in it like I have.” Despite her offer, he didn’t take her hand.

“Faith in doing the right thing, brother,” the girl said as she held her hand there still, for him to take. “The right thing is often the hard thing. Those with courage do not do what they do because it is easy…they do it because it is hard. It would be easy to lay there in the water and let it consume you, drowning your soul into the murky depths. It would be hard to take my hand and lift yourself up…but alas, my brother, you must be strong. Not just for yourself, but for our family.”

He laid there still for what seemed like an eternity, caught between his spectral sister and the watery grave that he floated atop of. Then without really thinking about it, he reached up and took her hand. She pulled him up as though he were light as a feather, and then he stood in front of her, his feet on top of the water. “...Why are you here?” he asked her suddenly after he let go of his hand. “You shouldn’t be here.”

“Neither should you, brother, but here we are, all the same. In a fever dream, between life and death…my time has come and gone, but yours…it is not your time yet. There is still work to be done. You must do it…for you are still king. Will you be the king that I always knew you could be?”

“…I will try,” he said cautiously. “I can most certainly try…”

“Very good, my brother,” she smiled as she captured some light in the palm of her left hand. “Be well, Gozo. We shall see each other again, soon I suspect…mother will be waiting too.” Having said that, she shoved her open hand into Gozo’s forehead, and everything around him exploded into a bright white light…

Gozo suddenly awoke in a burst of energy, shooting up from his bed and staring around the dimly lit room. He was no longer in the water, but in his chambers, with a sheet atop him. The stench was the first thing he noticed…it reeked of death. He wore only a thin white silk bedgown, but in spite of that he felt hot and feverish. Breathing hard from his nightmare, he wiped the sweat from his brow with a heavy hand, and flicked it out towards one of the gilded walls.

“Bad dreams again?” a girl with long braided dark brown hair and eyes in a pink gown asked. “I know when you have them, because you wake up feverish.” With a swift motion, she dunked a large sponge in a bucket of water sitting on the floor, and proceeded to dab his forehead with it. The water was cool, and most refreshing on his pallid skin.

“…Yes,” Gozo muttered as he breathed hard under the wet sponge, feeling the cool water run down the side of his face onto the bed sheet. “Why are you here, Ines? You should be off, enjoying your youth. Before long you’ll be old, and tired.” Gozo sniffed the air and cringed. “You shouldn’t have to suffer the air in here anyway…it stinks. I stink.”

“I don’t mind the smell, father,” Ines told him with a faint smile. “Where else can I go and what else can I do? Ever since Aunt Katalina came to stay with us, things have been tense. People at court are worried…first Styria, and then Jumieges. One after another, the dominos fall…and people fear that we shall be next.”

Gozo chuckled, before it ended in a cough. “We are not so easily changed as Styria and Jumieges, dear daughter,” he consoled her as she continued to wipe his forehead with the cool wet sponge. “Boaga is made of sterner stuff, and has weathered worse storms than this so called ‘Republican Spring’ of late.”

“…That’s easy for you to say, father,” she responded worriedly. “But you’ve been cooped up here in your chambers for some time. People are in the streets…it is spilling over, slowly but surely it seeps in like water.”

Like water. Gozo found the thought ironic, and began to wonder if his dream was prophetic in some fashion. “The people are always uneasy over something,” he began to explain to his daughter. “Manuel Mardo has been Prime Minister since 2000. His Conservative Party has won four straight general elections, and with each one he’s become more and more…abrasive in his politics. He won’t win a fifth, precisely for the reason that you gave. The people want change, and are tired of his Prime Ministry. His policies have driven people…farther to the left.”

“Are you afraid that those people will turn against us, father?” Ines asked, fear in her voice. “That they will want a liberal democratic republic, like the rest of Alisna has been gravitating towards?”

Gozo shook his head after Ines pulled away the sponge from his face. “The people want good weather, food for their children and labors to keep themselves busy. If the king can make sure people get those things, then they will have no reason to cast him aside. This is what I have done as king, and will continue to do until I die. It will be up to your brother to continue to so after that.”

“…But Eneko isn’t interested in such things,” Ines pleaded as she dropped the sponge back in the bucket. “He wants Boaga to go back to the old ways, and be more aggressive in Alisna. He wants to make Boaga powerful and rival the likes of Morieux and Questers, and help restore our kin to power in Styria and Jumieges…”

“…And Eneko will learn that the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few,” Gozo spoke as Ines trailed off. “The people won’t accept wars with every nation that abolishes their monarchies. They won’t tolerate it if we send people to die for wars that they see as lost causes.”

Ines gulped as she stood up and smoothened out the wrinkles in her skirt. “They say our family is cursed, for one only needs to look at our history to see the doom that befalls us,” she stammered. “Questers, Styria, Jumieges…our friends grow fewer and our enemies many. What ever shall we do, father?”

“We will survive, as we always have,” he told her as he propped himself up using his elbows. “We will adapt and grow as a family, as a people and as a nation. The alternative is doom, and we are not so easily forsaken, daughter. If we were, we would have succumbed long ago, if not to Varnia then to another. Yet here we are, still here, and none the worse for it.” Gozo winced in pain, and added “help me get out of bed…I mean to see this state of affairs that you speak of. Knowing your brother, he’s already acting as though he were king. I should remind him that I’m not dead yet,” he flashed a grin.

Ines looked at her father incredulously. “Are you sure, father? Didn’t you say that you didn’t want the court and nobility to see you in such a weak state?”

“…That would be better then them all thinking and behaving as though I’m already dead,” he laughed as he gestured with his hand. “My wheelchair…bring it forth, Ines.”

Doing as her father bid, Ines fetched the wheelchair from the other side of the room. Gozo watched the small flames burning from the tall wax candles, the only source of light in the room besides the fire burning in the fireplace. There were no windows, and where there might have been there was artwork hanging, dark and dreary. Everything of late reminded the ailing king of death, even those things that had once brought him joy.

Gozo had taken to drinking during his illness, with the drained flagons sitting empty on the table beside idle dishes of fruits and vegetables. He was once a large man, portly and rotund, though now he had been growing thin and gaunt. He loathed looking at himself, finding the sight of his pallid, loosely hanging skin to be most appalling. Last time he looked in the mirror, he could see that his once lush dark brown hair had turned a dull grey, and his beady brown eyes sunken into his face.

His daughter fetched the wheelchair and returned with it promptly, letting it come to a standstill beside her father’s bed. “I will help you,” she told him as she helped pull him up and swing his legs around. Then she helped him rise from the bed and into the chair, wincing a bit as he did so, for the smell that arose with him must have been most foul, Gozo suspected. He wore only that long bedgown and nothing else, and it fell just past his aching knees. It was dirty too, though it was only put on him the night before.

“Where would you like to go?” she asked him then.

“…Anywhere but here,” he said firmly. “If you would be so kind as to push me.”

Ines nodded, and then they were off. She pushed her father along through the dimly lit, stench filled chambers, through one quiet room after another. They arrived at the large double doors that led out into the palace interior, and Gozo reached out feebly with his weak arms to push them open. Statues of knights with raised halberds stood on the other side, and guards posted around them. They turned and looked at the King as though they had seen a ghost.

It wasn’t the statues or the guards that Gozo concerned himself with, however. The light shining through the tall windows made him squint in pain, for his eyes had grown accustomed to the darkness. Have I been in the dark so long, that I am now afraid of the light? Still onward they went, in spite of the light. Slowly but surely Gozo’s eyes adjusted to it, and of his surroundings.

Statues, busts and paintings lined the way, the hallways colored of blue and white marble. It was a palace that Gozo always felt was better than his house deserved…when it was built in the late 19th century, it was so done in order to convey the power and prestige of not only the royal family, but of Boaga. Now it served only as a grim reminder of how Boaga was a country out of place and time, growing more isolated with each passing year.

Through more double doors and past more shocked guards, Ines pushed her father along, until Gozo began to hear voices. Courtiers… he thought. And many of them at that. “The reception hall, Ines,” Gozo commanded to his daughter.

“…But father…” she stammered, prompting the king to furrow his brow.

Gozo rasped his hand on the handrail of his wheelchair. “Take me to the reception hall. I command it.”

Gulping, Ines did just that. When they had arrived at the grand reception hall, Gozo narrowed his eyes and ran a hand through his long grey hair. Courtiers were present, dancing to the sounds of orchestral music, with wine in their cups and grapes in their hands. The overall atmosphere was one of merriment, and all of it was centered around a young man with dark brown hair and hazel eyes dressed in an extravagant court uniform.

Slowly, Ines pushed Gozo into the room, though at first no one seemed to notice. Once someone did though, they all seemed to. The music continued to play, though everyone stopped and stared at the dying king as Ines pushed him in the direction of the young man at the center of the room. The courtiers surrounding him began to whisper to each other. They flock to my son and heir like vultures hover over a dying animal, he thought. I am not even dead and yet they treat him as though he is king.

“…Father,” Crown Prince Eneko said as he bowed slightly. Not far behind him were Queen Urraka and Princess Katalina, Gozo’s older sister. The former was a northerling with a handsome face in spite of her barbaric proclivities, her hair still long and raven black with blue eyes. Katalina had short, graying brown hair and hazel eyes with a look of contempt on her face. She’s still angry with me because I haven’t dealt with Styria yet.

Ines brought the wheelchair to a halt, and Gozo sat there with his limp wrists resting on the handrails. “What’s the occasion?” he asked his son.

“…There is no occasion, father,” Eneko answered as he handed his father a glass of wine. “We are only happy, can’t you see? What is there not to be happy about?”

Gozo looked around again. He noticed his contemptuous sister and his scheming wife. He observed the whispering nobles and the lurking military brass. Gozo saw them all, and then he looked at his son again. “If there is no occasion, then why is there a party?”

Gozo’s wife the queen answered for their son. “A reception, my husband, for the realm to become better acclimated with their future king. Is it not wise, prudent even, to groom our son for the throne that will be his…” her voice trailed off.

“Soon?” Gozo finished the sentence. “I’m not even dead, Urraka. Not yet. I wasn’t even aware of any…celebration taking place, under my roof, between my walls and within my halls. Who’s idea was that?”

“It was mine, father,” Eneko said, standing tall and proud, defiant before his father, but still offering the wine.

“Stop the music,” Gozo commanded, and the orchestra obeyed. “You are not king yet, not until I die. Do I look dead to you?" he asked him as he snatched the glass of wine from Eneko’s hand. “What treachery are you all hatching, hmm?”

Eneko matched his father’s fury. “You do nothing but waste away and drink, while the realm grows uneasy and our enemies usurp our allies, one by one. Now we are surrounded and their knives are at our throats. A burden is being thrust upon me by our enemies, for you will not live long enough to see the war that is to come. Our enemies would drag us out into the streets and beat us to death, and take everything that we hold dear. And I hate them for it.”

Gozo laughed, and looked at the glass of wine in his hand. “Hatred is a poison, and keeping it is like drinking it and expecting the person you hate to die.” After he spoke, he threw it against the wall, causing the courtiers to gasp collectively. “You may drink of poison and sup on hate all you like, but while I am still king, you will respect me. The realm is growing unstable by the day, and animosity grows against the throne. Throwing frivolous parties does nothing to abate that.”

“Understood.” Eneko narrowed his eyes with a scornful look on his face, and inclined his head while stepping aside. “Shall we cancel the party then?”

“No,” Gozo chuckled curtly. “By all means, enjoy yourselves.” Gozo threw up his hands, and told Ines “take me outside…I need some fresh air.”

Ines obeyed, and as she pushed him past Eneko, Urraka went to her son, while Katalina went to Gozo in order to walk beside him as he was pushed along. “It’s easy to speak of respect when you’ve done little to earn it,” Katalina snapped at him. “It’s easy for you to speak the way you do when your family is safe and secure. Mine’s confined in prisons where I have to worry if they will be executed or not. I was queen, my children princes and princesses…now we are nothing but outlaws and fugitives. And what did you do, Gozo? You let us rot…the same as you did Seina.”

The nerve of this fucking bitch. “What would you have me do, Kat?” Gozo said softly as the three of them excited the ballroom into the courtyard. “Would you have had me fucking invade Styria, the same as Oduan wanted me to invade Questers?”

“…Father would have,” Katalina countered. “He would have not stopped until the traitors were hanging from a rope.”

“And Boaga would have been destroyed, and been no different from the rest of Alisna,” Gozo roared. “You’re delusional if you think we could have won against Styria or Questers by way of force. We would have been crushed. What I’ve done I’ve done to keep this country and its people safe. I’ve worked towards peace, I’ve engaged in diplomacy. I’ve made sacrifices for the good of the realm. Maybe if Stephen or Konrad would have acted as I have, they’d still be ruling their countries and our family wouldn’t have suffered. They made their beds…they must lay in it.”

Katalina threw her head back and laughed dryly, before looking back at her brother and shaking her head. “You’re a fool, Gozo. Did you know that father never wanted you to be king? He always thought you were weak. The throne might have been yours by right, but you never deserved it. A shame really, that you won’t live to see the damage you’ve done to this country come to a head. I’d give much so that you could see the end of us.” With one last shot of daggers from her eyes, Katalina walked away, leaving Gozo to stew at his sisters words.

In a way, she was right. Gozo never wanted to be king, but alas he was all the same. It had dominated his life in such a way that left him feeling overwhelmed, the burden of delivering the corpse of his dead little sister to their mother and of having to console the woman afterwards, before having to bury her too. Watching his family perish and their fortunes unravel all around him. It made tears well in Gozo’s eyes.

“Take me to my baby sister,” he said to Ines. “Take me to Seina.” Silently Obeying, Ines pushed the wheelchair through the courtyard of many flowers and blooming plants. The paved cobblestone paths had little plants budding through them, while wooden arches were adorned with flowers. An ocean breeze flew threw the air, caressing his face while birds chirped and flittered about under the morning sun.

The Baratza Palace courtyard was the by far the palace ground’s most famous feature. It was an expansive complex of plants, statues, fountains and landscaping. A person could spend an entire day in it, lost in idyllic daydreaming. Seina used to do that when she was a girl, often spending entire days lost among the hedges, singing with the birds and reading her poetry books.

The path that led to Seina’s final resting place was a long tunnel of arches covered in pink and white roses. In the tunnel the air was still, the flowers unmoving. “Sometimes, Erramun and I come here to see her,” Ines said, speaking of Gozo’s second son Erramun. “Erramun and Eneko don’t get along anymore. Eneko is so far to the right, and Erramun is…more to the left. He wants peace too, like you father,” she said sweetly. “Though Eneko calls him weak.”

Gozo looked straight ahead through the tunnel, and remarked to his daughter that “two things define a man. His patience when he has nothing, and his attitude when he has everything.” Then he sighed. “All I wanted to was be a king worthy of it. There isn’t much time left…but I intend on make the most of the time that remains to me.”

On the other side of the tunnel, a round area opened up, lined with tall hedges with elevated platforms with pink roses springing up from the dirt. There were fountains to the left and right, and there in the middle was a statue of Seina holding a cross and a baby wrapped in a blanket. The plaque at her feet read “Seina of Boaga, Princess of Boaga and Royal Baby of Questers,” along with the quote, “Love is Stronger than Death.”

Coming to a stop at the gravesite, Gozo rose from his wheelchair, prompting Ines to gasp. “Father, don’t!”

Yet Gozo stood up and walked forward, slowly but surely on wobbling knees. “My sister died standing. Surely I can stand while living.” While not a religious man, Gozo fell to his knees upon the grave at the base of the statue, and began to pray with clasped hands. He prayed for his children, he prayed for his people and for his country. He prayed for himself last, and then thought of his sister once more.

She lays there still,
Eyes closed for eternity.
She won't wake up,
Neither nudge nor trudge.

Mother said she was happy.
She has gone somewhere beautiful.
But, I was lonely.
Without her, it was not homely.

Speak to leaves.
But they fly away.
In the swift breeze, they sway.

I sing to trees,
Still forlorn.
No reply,
even with a please.

Moments I cherish,
Realized her perish.
I can't compare her pain,
Letting out drops of rain.

The night was young,
I remember the thoughts.
Her tears went on,
With the acts of the Devil.

Scars were hidden,
Masquerades were driven.
But oh how the pain was gone,
No sights of woebegone.

Slowly, Gozo tried to rise to his feet, but struggled. Ines came galloping towards him, and offered to take his arm and bring him back to his wheelchair. He made it back, and took a deep breath as he rubbed the tears from his eyes. “Let’s go back,” he said to Ines. “I know what I must do. There is work to do. We must get our house in order, dear daughter. For the water is surely coming.”

With that, Ines took hold of the wheelchair and started pushing him back the way they came. She didn’t ask him what he intended on doing, but she smiled all the same. And for the first time in awhile, so did he. What he intended wouldn’t be easy, but then again, nothing worth doing was. And that is what makes all the difference, he thought to himself as she smelled the pink flowers that surrounded him.

Gozo III
King of Boaga

To: Governments of Maredoratic Nations
From: Gozo III, King of Boaga
Subject: Boagan State of Affairs
Encryption: Low

To whom it may concern,

No doubt you are aware of my deteriorating condition, as well as various unrests ongoing in Boaga. I fear that I am not long for the world, and I wonder if I will live long enough to see the general elections this year that will most likely usher in a changing of the guard of Boagan national politics. I fear that this state of affairs could put my country into a state of fragility that will be beyond my ability to address should I perish.

All of this has given me many sleepless nights while I was on my sickbed, on top of my personal suffering. I have found that after all these years—during which circumstances and conditions have changed both in our region and at the national level, that my ultimate goal for Boaga was to achieve a high level of credibility, confidence and international recognition, and to work tirelessly and sincerely to provide the chance for young people to succeed.

Politics aside, I believe that is something that unites us all, regardless of our persuasions or proclivities. The dream of providing a better future for our children, and I believe that with this goal in mind, we can work towards that future together. I’ve encouraged the people of Boaga to remember these ties that bind us before they take to the streets in protest against Prime Minister Manuel Mardo, or against the monarchy, for we all value that very thing.

As such, I would like to invite foreign leaders to come and meet with me in Baratza. To Boaga’s allies, I would like to reaffirm our friendship. To potential allies, I welcome you to come and break bread and see the merits of my country. To Boaga’s enemies, I would like to at last try to bury the hatchet, so that I can die in peace, knowing that my country is free from threats of harm. For that is how I come to you. As a dying man wanting to die in peace.

Sincerely,

King of Boaga

by **Questers** » Tue May 03, 2016 7:01 am

On a field flanked by squat, redbrick apartments and under the shade of many tall and old oak trees, young people played football. A much larger building, with columns built from flat and cream coloured stone, sat to their right, and around it mothers with prams and gentlemen with walking sticks stood by younger people pushing full trolleys. Here and there, a police officer watched men in light brown jumpsuits and shaved heads water flower gardens, and everywhere there were short-cast shadows and also birds, who formed a rough congregation around a fish and chip shop.

And quite importantly, there was no chewing gum in sight.

From nowhere, a great big pair of fingers plucked a person from the sky, ignored by his comrades, and put him down somewhere else.

‘This model,’ Gowans said, replacing some other figures, ‘Represents our new phase of planning for Marlborough centre. As you can see from the model, the entire lot is concentric, featuring four hundred and ninety eight three-storey apartments, in total housing a maximum of five thousand, nine hundred and seventy six people. And as you can see, there are currently seventeen different apartment block designs, each one slightly different, but still similar enough to fall into a general pattern.’

‘It looks wonderful,’ Baker said. Behind him, his private secretary, Morgan, played on his mobile phone, although if anyone looked back, his face could easily make candy crush seem like a difficult office e-mail.

‘These two fields here and here are for cricket and football respectively. The main building, which includes a deep underground station, a principal supermarket, a pub and a police outpost, next to the pub obviously, straddles the main road underneath, lowering the chance of young children running onto the main road. And as you can see here, the main road is crossed over by a short bridge.’

‘I just wonder,’ Baker said, ‘what about the winter? It’s quite a way for the old people to walk to the bus and underground.’

‘Yes,’ Gowans replied, ‘We have thought of that. Do you see this raised walkway here, that runs around the field?’ He leaned over with a toothpick and snatched something. ‘A pipe runs below it, pumping hot water underneath the walkway. If turned on at the right time, it will melt the snow above it. And this walkway is also wide enough for a pram. It has the added effect that any adult or police officer standing on it is overlooking the collective play area. And the pipe is accessible by hatches, so maintenance is very simple.’

‘And how about these trees? They’ll take years to grow.’

‘We’re having them brought in from the cardigan forest. They’ll be replaced, obviously. In total, there are three trees for every house. We’re going to include some chestnut trees and apple trees too, so the kids can play conkers.’

‘It looks wonderful,’ Baker said again.

‘This paved area here has been left open on the model. We will put a different monument of some kind in each concentric lot. It’s important that people associate something different with their living area. There’ll probably be a different type of shop in each area too. And there is an extra paved area with room for a plinth.’

‘Because?’

‘Because if there’s a war, we can build a war memorial there.’ Brief silence. ‘And on that topic, the underground station is deep and large enough to hold everybody as a bomb shelter.’

‘Well we won’t be needing that.’ Baker produced a piece of paper from his pocket. ‘Look Gowans, we go a long way back. And I trust you. I want you to read this.’ He handed the paper over. ‘This was posted to our embassy in Windstrand, from the Boagan consulate.’

Gowans read it. ‘Well my first thought is that his signature looks like my Martha’s. She’s eight.’

Morgan snickered as he blasted a piece of candy.

‘Be that as it may,’ Baker said, ‘I am interested. This is our chance to work on what we promised the people in the election.’

‘I am not elected,’ Gowans said. ‘I have held my position because I know what I’m doing. So I can’t sympathise. But yes, you are right.’

‘I think that the Commonwealth should apologise for you-know-what.’ Morgan stopped playing candy crush and looked up. Baker continued. ‘Everyone makes mistakes. Generalists makes mistakes, too. Well, not when they’re planning cities, anyway.’

‘Well that’s your choice. I’m just a humble town planner,’ Gowans said, moving around a woman with a pram. ‘Do what you like. For what it’s worth, I think it’s a good idea. If I had my way I’d abolish the Army and spend all the money on building beautiful houses and parks and underground trains.’ He paused. ‘Actually, there’s a … deeper point to be made there. You know what I mean.’

‘Socialism has nothing to fear from the capitalists,’ Baker smiled. Morgan put his phone in his pocket. ‘There’s no reason to hide from them, out of plain sight. We have scared them enough with our jets and tanks. Let them be scared of our social progress.’

‘I am thinking of putting a creche here. It’s just a matter of arranging the space,’ Gowans said to nobody.

‘Why don’t you put a peace monument here?’

‘A peace monument?’

‘I’m sure you have sculptors for that. I’ve made up my mind. We’ll do it. I will write to Gozo personally.’

‘Perhaps you’ll show him what a real man’s signature looks like,’ Morgan said.

‘Be serious, please. This is a serious matter. I will visit Gozo in person. I will apologise for what happened. I will invite him, or someone he likes and trusts, to visit our country and see what we are doing. Everyone should be able to see the marvels of what the working class can do, if they are allowed to put their minds to it.’

Morgan went back to candy crush.

by **Van Luxemburg** » Tue May 03, 2016 1:46 pm

Luxembourg, Ministry of Foreign Affairs

The two-car convoy weaved through traffic with relative ease, thanks to the Marechaussee motorcycle escorts that paved the way ahead by emptying one lane of traffic and blocking intersections. It was a convoy like many others that were seen throughout the day, guiding ministers, high-ranking diplomats and others through the city.

In the backseat of the first car, Grand Duke Konrad II reviewed another round of papers, going through personal correspondence and that of his office.

“Amelie, what is next on the agenda for today?” He calmly inquired to his secretary, who was busy working on a laptop whilst seated next to him.

“His Excellency Foreign Minister Fassbinder requested a meeting with you. As you were nearby today, I took the liberty of scheduling it at his ministry on the way back, Sir“

Before Konrad was able to respond, the armoured Monteluci Ducareale already made a right turn and slowly descended into the parking garage of the ministry.

“Very well.” He remarked, as the door was opened and he exited the car as soon as the vehicle halted. A waiting ministry employee guided them to the elevators, taking them to the seventh floor.

Konrad had never been a huge fan of displays of power or influence. He was glad his personal assistant was aware of this, as well. Others might have preferred a ostentatious drop-off at the main entrance of the Ministry, where the Minister would be expected to wait. Konrad would not be one of those men. An unremarkable drop-off, a quiet trip with the escalator.. Far preferable, he thought. It had taken only a day for Amelie to notice this when she started her job; Perhaps his media appearances had already tipped her off.

He was brought back to the present by the doors of the elevator sliding open. At the other end, he looked directly into the face of Fassbinder. The man had been gaining weight, Konrad thought. He however had no time to ponder further, as Fassbinder started.

“Your Highness, welcome to my office. Let me show you the way.” He spoke, with his typical German accent.

“Thank you. There is something you had to see me about?” Konrad casually inquired.

“Correct. We received a communiqué via the Boagan embassy that I need to discuss with you. It is a letter direct from King Gozo, to all Maredoratic nations. This door please.” Fassbinder motioned to a large, oakwood door.

“Is that so unusual? Despite his ill health, I would say I have seen those more often.”

“That would be correct, however this message specifically invites us to Baratza. The Diplomatic Service believes it could be that Gozo is under the impression he will not live much longer and wants to deal with the last of his issues in this way. Gozo fears instability, which may be accurate. We can not use instability on our northern border, it would be important to maintain Boaga as an integral state. For obvious reasons, I would stress.” Fassbinder stressed, as he sat down in his chair, having provided the Grand Duke and his secretary with a seat.

“I think that goes without saying, yes. But why exactly would you have to convey this to me personally? I am sure that Lurani and you would be more than capable to handle this politically. After all, I hold no power in this.” Konrad stressed.

“Whilst that may be true, formally, I must remind you that Boaga as a nation is highly royalty-minded. The presence of a head of state could underline our intentions. Hence my proposal for you to accompany me on our visit to Boaga. Not as an official state visit, but rather as a work visit, if you prefer. Not only will we need to secure a stable Boaga, we will need to secure a stable relationship with them. I am aware you are not a man of formal appearances, but this is one of the instances where it might be necessary”

“Understandable. I of course cannot assist you with your work, but if my presence would be more appreciated by our partners, I see no reason not to attend.” Konrad commented.

by **Boaga** » Fri May 06, 2016 7:16 pm

"Breakfast Bedlam"
Baratza Palace
Baratza, Boaga

King Gozo may have been deteriorating, in ill-health and poor shape, but that didn’t mean he was a fool. The first thing they would try to do would be to intercept my letters, he realized not long after composing his communiqué to all foreign governments of the world. I am surrounded by carrion birds waiting to peck my eyes out. Let them choke on the air.

Gozo still had some friends in the palace, and he called upon them quickly. Fortunately for him they responded to his call, and privately exacted assurances from them that all communiqués addressed to his Majesty found their way to him unmolested, for certainly either his wife, his sister or his eldest son would try to intercept them in the hopes of undermining the King’s policy program.

It was during breakfast in the dining room that he received one directly, having been relayed to him from Questers, delivered via the appropriate foreign diplomatic channels. The dining room was spacious, certainly capable of hosting a great feast, though in the later years of Gozo’s reign this was seldom done, as Gozo was not the sort of man to favor parties of idle noble frivolity. State dinners were also increasingly limited, as Boaga found itself with fewer friends in the region with each passing year it seemed.

The dining room featured a long, elegantly carved wooden table covered with a white tablecloth, held down by heavy candle holders and fruit bowls. The tall windows on the backside of the room overlooked the gardens of the courtyard outside, with the light coming in from the morning sun sparking off of the bright white and blue marble floor and walls. Exquisite crystal chandlers hung above the table, swayed gently by the cool draft blowing through the room, causing the drapes to flap and the double doors to creak slightly for only the keenest eyes to see, which usually belonged to the servants who even then fluttered about with their trays of good and beverage.

The message from the Regent of Questers himself instilled feelings of both dread and anticipation in the feeble king. It certainly wasn’t one he was expecting to receive, and found it ironic that he received that first, before any other, be it Jumieges, Styria, Jungastia, Van Luxemburg, Sondstead of even Morieux. Although to be fair, it was practically a given that the Luxemburgers would come and treat with him. Will I finally find out the truth about Seina? he wondered. Will I finally be given peace of mind regarding her death?

Those were certainly heavy questions to answer over a breakfast consisting of BLT sandwiches, eggs, honey-baked ham, sausage and grapefruit with pitchers of milk, tea, orange juice and apple juice. Given how heavy breakfast was, it was not without a sense of irony that the tension in the room was even heavier then that. The message from Regent Baker was read aloud to Gozo’s breakfast companions, and the reactions were quite noticeably varied.

Queen Urraka snorted, scowling at both the words of the communiqué and at Gozo’s reaction to them. Crown Prince Eneko seemed brooding and no less disgusted. Ines, by far the most mild-mannered of Gozo’s children, had a muffled expression consisting of quiet contemplation, and Gozo’s second son Erramun seemed almost pleased at the notion. Only Izeba of his children was missing, and that was because she lived in Jungastia as queen consort of that country, with her husband the king and infant daughter Maria, Gozo’s only grandchild.

While Eneko favored his mother in appearance, Erramun favored his father. He was shorter than his older brother, stockier and more big-boned, with curly dark brown hair and greenish-brown eyes. He had a gentle, easy-going personality somewhat in contrast with his older brother, who used to be like that…but had grown more brazen with age. The two brothers didn’t get along much, and Erramun dreaded his father’s death nearly as much, if not more than Eneko anticipated it. After Eneko becomes king, he will give Erramun hell.

Prime Minister Manuel Mardo joined the five royals for breakfast. Manuel was, for a man who’s party won four consecutive general elections, a fairly simple man of humble origins as well as views. He was the son of a farmer and a seamstress from the inland provinces, who worked his way up through parliament as a man of the people, loyal to God, King and Country. That message resonated with most Boagans for a number of years, though now his base was limited to older, traditional segments of the population, while the youth and educated elite of the country were unable to relate to his views and felt alienated by his conservative policies.

Mardo was a stout man, with a wide face, blue eyed and black haired who’s trademark look consisted of suspenders and a bowtie. In the best of times he was chipper, and in the worst of times he was sullen and ornery, irritated with a country that with each passing year failed to see things the way he did. “In my day,” he would prattle on and on about, blah blah blah…

“With all due respect, your Majesty,” the Prime Minister began to say over his buttered toast dipped in runny yoke eggs. “It’s important to remain consistent. Since your sis…the Revolution, Boaga has been steadfast in its condemnation and sanctioning of Questers. Our entire foreign policy programme has been based upon a hostile relationship with Questers. They are a predatory, dangerous regime as devious and conniving as it is false and illegitimate. If you are seen as breaking bread with the Regent, you will be seen as even more weak then you already are. I advise against it…I would suggest politely declining.”

“Why are we even talking about this to begin with?” the Queen groaned into her glass of wine. In addition to excessive drinking and hunting, Queen Urraka was also on poor terms with her husband. They had become estranged, and were married in name only. She’d probably have divorced me already if it didn’t mean sacrificing the title of Queen, Gozo suspected, hoping that it wasn’t true, but realizing that it probably was. There was a time that they were happy in marital bliss, but the whirlwind of events surrounding Boaga and the royal family eventually led to their relationship cooling considerably.

Urraka shook her head. “They murder your sister and her unborn child, we have to goad them into returning her body, and you want to break bread with them? No wonder the monarchy is seen as a joke by our countrymen, and why no foreign nation actually respects us,” she winced into her wineglass. “You behave with incompetence and do little to actually command respect from anyone, be it friend or foe.”

Eneko frowned as she listened to his mother speak, and then he too turned to speak to his father. “That’s not far enough. If we want to send an appropriate message to the world, we should invite the Regent to court. Once he’s here, we kill him and send his body back to Questers and claim it was an accident. Maybe then and only then will they know how it feels. I promise you that as king, I will make anyone bleed for the shedding of innocent Boagan blood. The blood of a princess is worth a thousand of their despicable peons.” Urraka nodded.

“Then we should be glad that you are not king,” Erramun snapped at his older brother. “If we did something as lowly as that, we’d be no better then they were when they murdered Aunt Seina. You’d bring this country to ruin if only for the sake of looking strong and acting like a tough guy. You’re so fast to portray father as a fool, but what of you, hmm?”

“…You sound like an apologist,” Eneko countered. “Shut the fuck up.”

The King was done. He slammed his fist onto the table and bellowed, “Enough!” he looked at his wife and eldest son, and then everyone else. “Foes and false friends alike infest my court like vermin,” the King said loud and firm. “I can hear them squeaking and scurrying, and I can feel them squirming all around me. The last place I want them at my table, in front of our own Prime Minister. Go on, keep it up…the more of this sort of behavior you commit yourselves to, and the sooner we end up like Questers and Styria. You can call me weak…you can call me foolish, but remember that it’s because of me that your ass will have a throne to polish after I’m dead,” he told Eneko while pointing a fork at him. “I don’t want to hear anymore talk of what you would or wouldn’t do if you’re king. You’re not king, and thank the Gods for that, because you still have a lot to learn.”

Then he jabbed his fork in the face of his wife. “As for you…I don’t know what’s gotten into you, Urraka. Maybe it’s too much wine, maybe it’s the fact that you’re having some existential crisis because you’re a grandmother now. I don’t know…but this has got to stop. You’ve been steering our son towards this path of ruin, filled with dreams of reactionary far-right politics. I know how much you love Questers…you’d pimp this country out to them the way you did to me when we first met.”

There was a collective gasp in the room, from the King’s children to the Prime Minister to the Queen especially. “How fucking dare you, Gozo,” she said with acid in her tone. “I have loved and respected you from the very beginning, and I’ve tried to even after everything happened with your sister, mother and father. It’s been hard, you know…you think any of this has been easy on me?”

“…So what’s your problem now, hmm?” Gozo jabbed with his fork again.

Urraka looked at him with a sorrowful look on her face, while their children sat in silence. “Everything changed after Seina came back to you a cold corpse, and all you did was…nothing. You rolled over and did nothing…and then you consider breaking bread with the very people that were party to your sister’s murder? After everything, I finally realized…that you are the sort of man that would let someone murder your sister, and then you’d try to get chummy with them. If you’d let someone do that to your sister with impunity? What else would you let them do? To me, or our children, or our country?”

Gozo sat in silence too just then, feeling the woman’s barbs sink deep into his flesh. After a few minutes, he finally broke the silence that hung over the room like a thick cloud. “My baby sister went to Questers as a guest. Sure, she married the Crown Prince, shared his bed and carried his child, but she was Boagan…she was a Buadua of Baratza. And they murdered her. Murdered, I say, and may they choke upon their half-truths. I shall treat with them, break bread with them even, but do not think that means that I’ve forgotten. Boaga remembers, and its memory is very long. There will come a day when her murder shall be avenged, and retribution attained. But I will not commit this country, or my family, to disaster in order to achieve that. My children are safe, and they have a place and position. The world isn’t what it used to be…I don’t think you understand that. All it takes is one thing…the drop of a pen can cause the whole thing to come crashing down. Look at Questers, look at Styria…it can be all over just like that,” he addressed his son as he finished speaking.

The Prime Minister chewed methodically on his toast, pensive as the royals spoke. “I respect the King, and his decisions,” he nodded slowly. “Always have. I don’t think anyone can doubt his commitment to peace and stability in the realm. A less shrewd sovereign would have seen this country become yet another republic with the blood of royal children on its hands. Though I stand by my previous words…if you are seen treating with the Regent, the people will be all that much more up in arms.”

Thinking on that over his bowl of grapefruit, the king groaned long and softly. “I will receive the Regent and hear what he has to say, because I wish to appear pragmatic. This is about building bridges with the international community, not about fading away in the corner of Alisna because we’ve made ourselves closed off to foreign diplomatic overtures. The people will be rid of us as soon as they think we are useless. I will show to them and everyone else that we are not useless at all, and that we still serve a vital function and have purpose to exist.”

“…The Regent invited you to Questers,” Mardo observed. “You are in no condition to go.”

“I know I’m not,” the King replied as he looked around the room at his family. “But someone else could go in my place. I would never demand anyone do such a thing…but I would ask if anyone would go.”

Eneko nearly spat but hesitated, saying that “I’d rather go to hell and back then go to Questers. They’d cut my throat while I slept and claim that some terrorist did it.”

Ines shook her head, clearly frightened at the notion. Good, Gozo thought. I wouldn’t want you to go anyway. One dead Boagan princess is enough.

There was silence for roughly a minute. “…I’ll go,” Erramun informed his father.

“No you won’t,” Urraka snapped at her second son. “The hell you will.”

Erramun laughed curtly, practically in his mother’s face. “After that little speech you just gave about appearances and behaving weakly, you’d tell me not to go and expect me to just meekly obey?” he asked rhetorically. “I’m a man, mother, and I’ve made my decision. I want to be an agent of good…of cooperation, peace and understanding. I won’t hide behind the skirt of your gown because you want me to be afraid.”

The Queen’s face turned red, and her eyes narrowed. “Fine then, go. I will be waiting for something terrible to happen to you, and when it does, I’ll say I told you so, assuming they don’t kill you first.”

“You’re an idiot, Erramun,” Eneko said to his brother. “You’re like that little lamb that gets led to slaughter. You see the knife yet you bray at it like it’s a treat.”

Eneko shrugged, and stood up from the table. “May I be excused, father?”

“Yes son, go on,” Gozo waved at him. The rest followed shortly thereafter, with the king departing last.

“This is a dangerous game you’re playing,” he warned the king. “Either it will work out very well for you, or it will backfire terribly. The worst part is, whatever comes of this scheme of yours, I shall pray to the Gods that you are still alive to deal with the consequences of it. Your son isn’t ready to in either event.”

Isn’t that the truth. “Yes, Mr. Prime Minister,” Gozo agreed as he finished eating. “That’s certainly the truth…”

by **Prekonate** » Sat May 07, 2016 7:01 pm

MAY 7 2016
ON FINAL APPROACH TO BARATZA

“Boaga and Prekonate are really quite similar,” Prime Minister Krejci said, glancing out the window of his jet. “Even the forests look the same.” His associates nodded eagerly.

“Yes, that’s an astute point, Mister Prime Minister.” Prekonate’s foremost expert on Boagan culture sat across the aisle from Krejci. His name was something unoriginal like Jan Kopeck, and he had just made his fourth sycophantic remark of the flight. Krejci knew an MSB man when he saw one.

“I can start my briefing whenever you are ready, Prime Minister.” Mister 'Kopeck' said.

“Please.”

“You have already met King Gozo and Prime Minister Mardo, the two most influential men in Boaga,” Jan the MSB man said. “On this trip, we will be meeting the entire royal family. I have prepared detailed dossiers on everyone for you to review, but – ”

“Only the essentials, please,” Krejci said.

“Yes, of course!” Jan said, too eagerly. “We’ll start with Eneko.”

“The son?”

“The oldest son, yes. And the presumptive heir. Eneko is…”

“I know Eneko, actually,” Krejci said. “I met him at a function in Ostrava once. He is cognitively very slow, but is fond of Prekonate. He’s a friend. Who else is there?”

“Katalina is King Gozo’s older sister. She only came to the palace recently, in the last few months. We assume that she is waiting until Gozo dies, to exert some influence on the selection of the next king. She has a deep hatred for Questers, and more recently, for Gozo himself. She feels that he mishandled Seina’s death.”

“And she favors…”

“Eneko.”

“Noted,” Krejci said, rubbing his temple. Boaga had to be experienced to be believed. It was like something out of an epic poem. “Who else is there?”

“Ines and Erramun.”

“And who are they?”

“Gozo’s daughter and younger son, respectively. Gozo is very affectionate toward them, but they are individually weak. They have inherited very little of Boaga’s warrior blood. There is a theory going around the Ministry that they are bastards. In particular, Erramun’s skull is not of the correct size and shape for a…”

“Please,” Krejci said.

“Yes, of course,” Mister 'Kopeck' said. “You should be aware that Prime Minister Mardo is very likely to lose the next election. A leftist coalition is expected to take power. They would probably be more comfortable with Erramun as king.”

“Understood.”

Now on final approach to Baratza, Krejci looked at the assembled staff in the cabin of the plane. Other than this MSB man, his Ministry entourage consisted of six analysts and two translators. At the back of the plane were ten or twelve young-ish looking Prekovi women, who Krejci was told had been selected based on a detailed analysis of Eneko’s sexual preferences.

The purpose of their visit was transparent enough: placate Gozo, curry favor with Eneko, and if possible, remove Ines and Erramun from the picture entirely. Baratza grew nearer in the window.

by **Van Luxemburg** » Mon May 09, 2016 1:04 pm

Slowly but surely, the Monteluci A100 continued its descent towards the ground. It was one of many flights between Luxembourg and Baratza on an average day, however this flight had not been scheduled. Having left from the now almost empty Findel airport, it most certainly wasn’t an airline operating the aircraft; something which the large roundel and inscription certainly also gave away. It was in fact one of the aircraft from the VIP pool of the Van Luxemburger armed forces, the Arméi. A pool from which both government and military officials could draw when in need of private aviation.

In this case, the aircraft was relatively well loaded. The two VIP officials onboard had taken some 20 supporting staffers, even though most of them would be based at the embassy of the Grand Duchy in Baratza for the time being rather than actually travelling with the VIPs.

The VIPs themselves were also not insignificant; both the Foreign Minister and the Gran Duke of Van Luxemburg were on board this flight, which had been scheduled for a morning arrival. The trip had been planned on relatively short notice, and only some embassy vehicles and a Boagan security detail would be awaiting the plane on the ground, as per the request of the travelling party.

“It has been some time since I last saw King Gozo, I could say” Konrad commented, as he gazed out the window on his side of the aircraft, pondering over the approaching cityscape.

“Has he ever commented on your previous dealings with his family” Mathias Fassbinder began cautiously, speaking in euphemisms while trying to inquire on what he could consider a precarious subject.

“The relationship with his sister you mean? I have not specifically spoken to him about that subject after we ended it years ago. It was all before I became a head of state myself, of course, part of my younger years. I don’t think he is keen to forget, but I do believe Gozo is a person of forgiveness in that regard. Besides, we ended it well, I think.” Konrad answered, sighing as he began his sentence to indicate the gravity of the subject.

“It is not as if he would have any other option at this point. I do not think I have heard of plans for the assassination of Alexandra by the Boagan secret service, anyways.” Mathias joked, to break some of the tension.

Konrad snorted and smiled in response.

“If that would be the case, how quickly can our bombers retaliate?” He joked in return, looking round at a military attaché who was seated in a row of seats behind the club seating, as if he meant it.

“Joking aside, there is some work to be done. Not only will we need to rekindle our relationship with Gozo, it will also be of the utmost importance to speak the possible successors to the throne and of the new government. We will need to make sure they are reliable partners in our defense of liberal democracy as well as in terms of trade. We need to get through their heads that in order to defend the royal family, they will need to accommodate the wishes of the people and seek their opinion in foreign policy. If the country descends into chaos after the death of Gozo, we will have a massive problem on our hands on our northern border. We would be well served with a state that has a functioning democratic government, be it moderate left and right or center, with a healthy and charismatic king as a figurehead. Hence I would also be interested in speaking to heirs such as Erramun as well as political leaders, in your presence.” Fassbinder said, talking through the strategy for the meetings of the following days.

“It’s funny, isn’t it.” Konrad spoke, staring in the distance.

“What?”

“Here we are, the royal capitalist fat cat and the populist interventionist, going to a neighbouring country to preach moderation and receptiveness for leftist ideals, in order for our country to buy less tanks.”

Fassbinder’s laugh thundered through the plane as the wheels touched down in Baratza.

“It’s what we call pragmatism, Konrad. And we tend to be good at it.”

by **Questers** » Sat May 14, 2016 7:15 am

It was dark, and quiet. The cleaners had gone home, and the long, unlit stretches of the office could have been prime ground for ghosts, if you believed in such things. Jessica didn't: she didn't believe in God, the King, or Capitalism, all of which were more scary things to think about, so there was no reason she should believe in ghosts; but quite naturally, every time she stayed late she ended up walking all too quickly down those long dark corridors.

She fuddled a little with the window—it finally pushed open—and she caught some of the clear and crisp air of Jesselton at night. Was the air getting better? She thought so. She had been told so, anyway. And if the Communist Party tells you something, it's probably true.

In Jessica's World, anyway.

She leaned out and looked at the city. Parts of it were alive, bright yellow lights marking wonky roads, and yet other parts were almost clear in darkness. It was hard to make out any of the city she knew from here. It had all changed so much. Change was good, wasn't it? She lit a cigarette, looked at the stars, and thought about her brother. Socialism had made his dream come true. From the air force to the space agency, to g-force training simulators and matt-white spacesuits and huge rockets and media cameras. Soon he would be up there, amongst the stars. Soon.

And her? She remembered the day they discussed her options. They were in a cafe, on Bond Street. No; Rickall Street. Yes, it was Rickall Street. She was about to go to university, and she didn't know what to do. She had got a place at University College of South Hallia. The finest university in the country! And she had an offer from two of the most prestigious courses: education, and state administration. Her parents were brimming with pride. Her father was so proud she thought the pride might have spilled out of him at some point, coagulating on the floor in whatever colour those type of feelings are.

A lass from the valleys! And at UCSH! And in education, no less!

It had been assumed, by her parents, that she'd be a teacher. But her brother had had other ideas. "Education is all well and good, but in state administration you'll be influential. You will be able to change things. You will be able to put your ideals in to actual practice, not just helping other people adopt variants on them."

She had chosen state administration. Her parents were disappointed, but what did they know? Her mother was a homemaker and her father was a mechanic. It was her brother, Mark, who had been the Pioneer, the Secretary of the Cardiganshire Young Communists, promoted ahead of his years in Combined Cadets, run consecutive fundraisers for the comrades in the developing world, who had scored the highest marks in their school. Mark had gone into aeronautical engineering, the Fleet Air Arm, been promoted twice, sent to the Outer Space Exploration Commission, become a cosmonaut-in-waiting.

She had been promised. The Communists had made a promise. A solemn oath. Girls and boys will have the same opportunities. Yet here she was, a mid-tier bureaucrat, taking orders for men, to do things for men. And influence? She'd never taken a decision in her life. The Communist Party was the closest thing she had to God. Had it let her down?

There was a thud, and she jumped, dropping her cigarette out of the window. Behind her, a man walked into the room. "Oh, I'm sorry," he said. "I didn't know anyone else was here."

She straightened up. "Sorry, Comrade Chief Secretary. I just had some work to do. Should I go home?"

"No, it's quite alright." He smiled and sat at his desk. "If you want to smoke, I have an ashtray. In fact—you're Townsend, yes?"

"Yes. J. Townsend."

"Yes, of course. Come and sit." He sat at his desk, the command centre of the room. "Let's have a drink."

Now when the Comrade Chief Secretary to the Regent of the Commonwealth asks you for a drink, you don't refuse. Even if it's late at night, and you're a pretty little piece with quite long red hair, and nobody else is there. There are rules! And most of them are unspoken. So she sat down and he took out some gin and poured two glasses, and set an ashtray down.

"How do you like working at the Office?"

"It's great," she said, not drinking the gin. "It's good to be so close to the centre of - don't say power, you idiot - power. Damnit."

"Quite. Well, look here. We've been looking at your record lately, you see. There are some irregularities."

Her feet began to shake. "Comrade Chief Secretary, I-"

"No, it's alright. You see, I was having a chat with the Regent yesterday, and he wants to expand his personal team. He asked me for out of the box thinkers. So... to put it bluntly, I put your name forward."

Jessica opened her mouth a few times and closed it a few times. Then she quickly drained her drink. The Chief Secretary kept his stare on her. "Sorry," she said. "I." She closed her eyes. She had to say it—unspoken rules—but what if he took it seriously? "Surely there are more qualified persons."

"Yes, actually, there are." He said, perhaps watching her heart sink a little. "Many more who are much more qualified." And a little more. "But that isn't the point. Every meeting we have you are always the first to suggest something, and none of the chaps agree with you, and yet you defend it to the hilt. You get outvoted, and next meeting you'll put forwards something equally disagreeable, and so on and so forth. To be honest, it is very irritating. But the Regent asked for people who behave in precisely that manner. Perhaps he has a more nuanced view of the civil service than his predecessors. I don't know. You needn't worry about the interview process. It's a formality. It will be conducted after you've taken your new office."

"I need a few days to-"

"No, you don't. It has been taken care of. Tomorrow you report to the Department for Strategy Head Office. You will have a room there and a team. Your job will be to advise the Regent on any decision he wants to make. How you use your researchers is up to you. But he will be looking for clarity—and vision. My advice: work on the former. The first thing he'll want to know about is this whole Boaga thing, so be ready for that."

"Thank you, Comrade Chief Secretary. I don't know what to say."

"Don't say anything. Miss Townsend, you are a member of the Communist Party, are you not? Member 13,351,355, if I am not wrong."

"Yes, Comrade Chief Secretary."

"Very well. You may go home. But remember: however long the Communists last, when they fall, the civil service will be here. The civil service was made on the Eighth day, after all. So while you're over at the DfS, don't forget where you came from. And for God's sake, woman, get some perspective."

Jessica was too happy to take the comment the proper way. "Yes, Comrade Chief Secretary!"

by **Boaga** » Sun May 15, 2016 11:09 am

“Family Endeavors”
Baratza Palace
Baratza, Boaga

Prime Minister Řehoř Krejci of Prekonate was an enigma to King Gozo, who suspected that the former was a man of great talent and ability, thought not entirely trustworthy. Only a fool would trust the Prekovis outright. All the same, Prekonate was a nation he was very happy to break bread with, because in terms of geopolitics, they had similar enemies. And as they say, the enemy of my enemy is my friend.

That was why Gozo dispatched his eldest child Izeba to Prekonate after the global financial crisis, in order to put some feelers out with the Prekovis and show them that Boaga was willing to break bread with them. Now that tree is bearing fruit, given the fact that the Prime Minister himself is coming. Though of course, certain precautions had to be taken to ensure their security.

Imperial guardsmen had secured the route between Baratza International and the Palace to ensure safe passage to and from, for it could certainly be said that the Prekovi were more popular amongst the highborn circles then they were amongst the low. Prekovi women were renowned for their quaint charms and subtle magnetism, so naturally he sent an appropriate woman of rank to receive them.

It wasn’t easy to convince Ines to greet and provide escort to the Prekovis. “But father, why would you send me to fulfill such a task?” she pleaded. “Send mother, or Eneko. The Gods know how fond they are of the Prekovis.”

“Which is exactly why I want you to receive them,” Gozo recalled laughing. “If I sent your mother or Eneko, they’d spend the whole time scheming and trying to derail my dying efforts. You on the other hand are not so easily swayed…you can see what they may have planned…you are not so easily coaxed by false platitudes. Of all my children, Ines, you are the one most like my mother. You’d make a good Jumièger in that fashion…polite and courteous, yet firm and possessing of a lady’s resolve.”

After that it wasn’t as hard to convince her to go. If Ines was anything it was someone who was eager to please her father, who adored him the most out of all his children. Indeed, his intention was to keep the ones he trusted the least the closest to him…those being his wife Urraka, his sister Katalina and his son Eneko. Erramun had already departed the country for Questers at Gozo’s insistence. Ironically, it may be safer for him there then it would be here…

In spite of his poor condition, the king made every preparation to receive esteemed foreign dignitaries properly. He dressed in finer robes then he had in some time, of blue and gold and white. He reclined upon a large couch in the stateroom beside the fire, taking slow, labored breaths as he squinted at some paperwork held in his chubby hands. He held them at a certain angle so that the crackling firelight could better illuminate the pages before him.

And of course, he thought about who he sent to receive the Grand Duke and Foreign Minister of Van Luxemburg…or more like, who decided she was going to go no matter what I said…

Some things in life worked out better for some people than others. For Princess Alexandra of Boaga, they didn’t turn out the way that she’d have liked, but that wasn’t to say that they didn’t end up alright either. I faired better than Seina anyway, she lamented the thought of her younger sister. I suppose it’s true that only the good die young.

Alexandra wasn’t good…at least not in the sense that Seina was. She was older now, forty-four to be precise, though her still had those large, haunting coffee eyes that made her mother the famous beauty of her day. Like her mother too she had luscious, dark brown hair that fell in soft ringlets about her pale shoulders. She had crow’s feet under her eyes now and this bone or that one ached in her legs, but for the most part she thought that like her mother, she aged well.

It was ironic to think about Seina as she rode in the limousine sent to retrieve the Van Luxemburgers from the airport. Seina was never the ambitious one, never wanting or deigning interest in advancing her position. It sort of fell into Seina’s lap by way of Questers, and Seina was led to the proverbial slaughter like an innocent lamb to the sacrificial alter. And we all know how that turned out.

In contrast, Alexandra was ambitious, wanting very much to be the great lady of some foreign realm the way Seina seemed destined to be. Alexandra thought that was her destiny too, especially after she met a young, strapping Prince by the name of Konrad, from nearby Van Luxemburg. It seemed an ideal match, and a safe one at that (certainly safer then the uneasy Questers). The young Alexandra, full of her womanly wiles and curvaceous figure, seemed to many to be simply irresistible to the likes of a young prince destined for a Grand Dukedom.

…And in the end, it failed. Alexandra never married the dashing young prince, who went on to marry another Princess named Alexandra (ironically), who gave him no children. Alexandra had always been jealous of Seina…the way the nation fawned over her, the way her parents adored her, the way her name was immortalized after her untimely demise. It isn’t fair, Alexandra opined. I was as beautiful as Seina…I was as proper and ladylike and as gentle, yet she had everything and I have nothing.

That wasn’t entirely true, of course. Alexandra did marry, but when she did it was to some local lord that felt like a consolation prize, though he was wealthy enough. She gave him a few children that would one day make the rounds in the noble circles, though none of them shall rule a country or even be relevant. In the end it made her feel as though she wasn’t good enough to achieve the same heights as Seina, and ended up having to settle for far less than she thought she deserved.

Which was why Alexandra was en route to the airport now, to receive ghosts of her past. She had been visiting her dying brother Gozo enough times to become familiar with his agenda, and who was coming to visit. When she heard the Grand Duke was coming, she had to receive him. She wasn’t going to take no for an answer, either, and laughed as she recalled the conversation with her brother.

“I wish to receive and give escort to the Grand Duke and his party,” Alexandra recalled insisting. “Don’t deny me this.”

“Oh, but that is wholly my intention,” he gawked at her. “What makes you think he even wants to see you, hmm? He didn’t want you then, he’s not going to want you now. If anything it’s going to make things more complicated then I intend.”

“…He didn’t want to deal with all the drama surrounding Seina’s death,” she tried to explain. “There was an aura surrounding our family that turned him away. I wanted to be with him, I wanted to be Grand Duchess someday…he felt discouraged and went his own way. I’d like to think we ended it on good terms despite the fact that I didn’t want it to end at all.”

Gozo snorted in frustration with her, bullheaded as she had always been. “I said no, Alexandra…I’ll find someone else…someone who isn’t emotionally invested.”

“Damn it Gozo, there is no one else! What you need right now are people you can trust…you can trust me, you always could. Admit it…you’d trust Seina, wouldn’t you? Trust me the way you would have trusted her. I have a rapport with the Grand Duke that you will need if shit hits the fan, which it very well could. I’m not stupid, brother…I see the way Urraka and Katalina scheme behind your back. I see the way Eneko looks whenever someone brings up those protestors who are at wit’s end with the way Boaga is presently. Just because I never became Grand Duchess doesn’t mean I cannot help deliver Van Luxemburg to your cause. I’m going…and you can try to stop me. Though I wonder what Konrad would think if you detained me in order to prevent me from greeting him as an old friend. That wouldn’t look good now wouldn’t?”

“…I suppose not…”

And there she was, well on her way. Eventually Alexandra arrived at the airport, the limo driving around to the private tarmac at the rear. Not content to stay inside, she stepped out into the early spring air. She was wearing a shoulderless, frilly white gown that flapped in the strong ocean breeze, causing her eyes to squint against the gust. Her hair flapping behind her, she could smell the sea mixed with pine and other greenish scents of the woods not far away. Her face was a mixture of apprehension and disgruntlement.

Oh Boaga, how I do love thee, but how ill-fated you truly are. I can smell insurrection in the air as strong as the sea itself…it is coming like a freight train off in the distance. Mismanagement, misrule and corruption have taken their toll on this lovely country, and soon I fear the end is nigh, especially with that brat Eneko upon the throne. Alas, if I am to share in the fate of my sister, let me do it the way she did…knowing that I took the time to be with the only man I truly ever loved.

A few tears streamed down her pale cheeks, wiped away brusquely by the back of her hand. Whether the tears were for Boaga or Konrad, she couldn’t be sure…

Ines covered her mouth with the back of her hand as she yawned. “Oh my, excuse me,” she said gently in the presence of her father’s guardsmen. They were numerous, as Gozo wasn’t like to let his youngest child go anywhere without them shadowing her. There were times when she was tempted to try to run away from them, though she knew she wouldn’t ever be able to get fair. Not in my shoes or in my dresses!

It was said that Ines looked her grandmother, Aurélie of Jumièges, in both body and in spirit, and to a lesser extent Seina. She was chipper and naïve, with a good heart and a clever wit about her. She wondered what the Prekovis she was being sent to receive would think of her…if they would treat her with respect or like she was some stupid little girl. They way mother treats me!

Most of all though, Ines wanted to do her part to help prevent revolution, for unlike Izeba (who was naturally withdrawn the way father was) or Eneko (who had contempt for the smallfolk), Ines and Erramun were involved in Boagan youth culture. Together or separate they made appearances at universities and town hall meetings to discuss the issues with their peers. Erramun was better at that then she was though, for she often got overwhelmed and intimidated.

The people were tired especially of Manuel Mardo’s Conservative Government and its anti-progressive policies, which included isolationism, tax burdens on the poor, lack of access to modern amenities and services and a lack of modern social and political rights. To the people, Prime Minister Mardo stood in the way of progress, and the King was like the flamingo that buried its head in the sand. Well, at least I think it’s a flamingo…

Gulping in her nervousness and trying to avoid chewing on her fingernails, Ines grew increasingly anxious the closer they got to the airport. All the same she braced herself, and took deep breaths to avoid unnerving herself. Why should I be so worried? she thought. What’s the worst they will do? They don’t want to alienate my family so they won’t be mean to me. Though, she was sure that her father thought the same thing in regards to Seina after the Questarian Revolution…

When her limo arrived, Ines climbed out onto the private tarmac, her willowy figure heaving in deep breaths. Her hair blew back long and straight behind her head with the wind, while her modest long sleeved dark blue dress and knee-high white stockings kept her warm. The Prekovis, she understood, would be there soon, and it wouldn’t serve to appear disheveled to them.

At the very least, they’re probably going to be more friendly then some of the protestors that called me names and threw cabbage at me during those town hall meetings… sometimes thinking about that made Ines cry, but at the end of the day, that was life. Not everybody is going to be nice, and when they’re not, what can we do but at least try to appear as though it doesn’t effect us…even though it does.

Erramun was probably the first Boagan to be excited about travelling to Questers since Seina when she went there for the last time. Say what you will about Questers, but at least they have a keen eye for the importance of land use development and urban planning. An area that earned him the admonition of his family in Baratza might actually be appreciated in Jesselton, of all places.

As a boy Erramun conceded the fact that he was likely never to become king. Eneko was the golden prince, always healthy and handsome and strong, ready for the world with his swagger and gumption. Erramun on the other hand was sickly and bookish in his youth, and even now he was short-legged and stocky with a thickly build, plain face, broad nose, and square jaw complimented by muddy colored eyes and hair. Just like father. Erramun lived in his older brother’s shadow, but rather then let that consume him, he relished it, leaving him free to go his own way.

Since he figured he’d never be king, he took to practical studies, entering into the Land Use Planning program at the University of Baratza. That, combined with some work he did with the Baratza-based Maredoratic Environmental Organization of the Maredoratic League, made him feel strongly about how important city planning and land use development was to Boaga’s future. Too many people were afraid of how modernization would affect Boaga’s natural and rural areas, but he felt as though there was a formula that could preserve and respect those while bringing Boaga into the 21st Century.

Will they respect that in Questers? Erramun thought as he looked out the window of his father’s private jet. Or will they scoff at me for being a royal…the nephew of the same one they killed all those years ago? Erramun understood communism, at least…the concept of it Erramun didn’t find totally without merits. He didn’t necessarily believe that people should hoard control over the means of production, only to then keep most of the wealth to themselves while everyone else that actually worked for it saw very little in return.

Indeed, Erramun favored a societal model in which the worst off in society weren’t exactly in a terrible predicament. I want to see a country where if you work hard and are a law-abiding citizen, you can provide a quality life for yourself and your family. People liked to pretend that Boaga was that sort of country, but it wasn’t…opportunities for advancement were few and far between, and the rural folk lived in poverty while the city folk dealt with greedy, selfish employers a bureaucracy in the pockets of corrupt, wealthy exploiters of the system.

…We’ll see how it goes, Erramun sighed lightly as he looked out the window down upon the distant land below. He was eager to arrive in Jesselton, if only because then he would find out how things would go for him on his historic visit to a country that purportedly hated his own country and his family especially. Or so it is oft said…

by **Jungastia** » Sun May 15, 2016 1:53 pm

The two royal families did maintain regular communication, least not for Izeba's sake. One of the King's flight planes was always on hand incase her father took for the worse.

Agostinho was well aware of the pressure on his wife, she, like many of her countrymen, felt a stronger bond than most to their family. Their Daughter, Maria, hadn't yet met her grandfather, indeed only Erramun had met her. Izeba disliked the atmosphere of the palace in Baratza, she felt disdain for her mother and her presumptuous brother. Her relationship with her father was strong. The regularly wrote letters, and telephoned, thought her father's growing illness had slowed them such.

It was mid afternoon in the family's retreat in São Jorge. Izeba had been in town, and the car she was driving sped up the drive to the house. Pulling up she jumped out of the car, and hared up the steps to the door.

"Good afternoon, ma'am" her secretary had met her at the door, a frantic bilingual text but twenty minutes ago made sure he was waiting. Andre knew, every time she got stressed he would get a mix up of the two languages. Luckily his fluency in both made sure she had someone to talk to. "I assume what you heard from the palace in Baratza was not great"

She panted, stopped, and took a deep breath. "Not great at all. Mother and my charming older brother are treating father with total disdain, Erramun is going to Questers, and half the worlds leaders are inbound to home. No doubt some wanting to manipulate these tensions. Why can my family not simply just function. Andre, you are lucky, things here are stable!"

The King, returning from having been called back to the capital, sat in the third carriage of a high speed train blasting through the mountains. His guard João, his secretary, and the prime minister, sat around the table. A bemused pair of Ruccolan tourists looked on, surprised to see such figures sat on a regular train. The discussions on the couple of hour trip, as always varied. They, like others had received a note from Gozo, and were stuck as to how best deal with it.

"Izeba will most likely want to go back, the question is whether I go with her, and indeed if we take you with us Mr. de Carvalho The issue was a nightmare to deal with, personally and publicly. Just let Izeba go, and it looks like there's no care, send a huge delegation, and it looks like jumping on the bandwagon, He and those at the table knew this.

"Sir, If I may, might it be sensible for you and Her Majesty to take, the Crown Princess, as a family visit? If Mr. de Carvalho is needed then you can send for him." Amelie, the King's secretary chipped in.

"Excellent, It looks good I think, and we can bring over more people if needed."

Izeba sat in the drawing room, staring out into the garden, the day was still crisp, the warmer springtime air still working its way northwards. She pondered the conversation she had had earlier. The texts from her sister, and Erramun. They were worried. And now she was.

The afternoon was dragging on, and the crunch of gravel under wheels broke her from her near trance like state of contemplation. He's home she thought.

"I need to go home, Father is worse, and Mother and my dearest older brother is sticking his oar in where it isn't needed. Will you be able to come with me, I will need you, I think" There was a sadness in her eyes, she was a fiery person, her emotional streak manifested itself in many ways, today if was sadness.

"I will join you, we can take Maria, and the plane is ready when you are. The Prime Minister is on hand if there is some kind of diplomatic issue, but for all intents and purposes we are going as a family, I had Amelie ring the palace to let them know of our plans. If I'm needed I'll fly back."

by **Mont Jumieges** » Wed May 18, 2016 11:18 am

Palace of Baratza,
Baratza,
Kingdom of Boaga

As a result of Princess Margaux’s death and subsequent civil disruptions in the Grand Principality of Jumieges on 24 January, Hereditary Prince Olivier and his family were relocated from their home in Pioche to the secondary royal residence in Le Havre-de-Grâce. However the situation continued to deteriorate, and after the declaration of Martial Law on 29 January, Olivier and his wife Genovefa were forced to flee the country for Boaga. Olivier’s younger sister Princess Marie Delphine and her husband Grandseigneur Benoît soon followed suit.

Prince Olivier, his wife Duchess Genovefa, and their two children Prince Raphaël and Princess Valentina considered the Buaduas close allies and cherished family members. However, Princess Marie Delphine’s passively expressed suspicion towards the Buadua family – owing to the common belief among Jumieges aristocrats that King Erramun V merely married Aurélie for political reasons.

Receiving temporary solace in the Palace of Baratza, where they were treated as esteemed guests, behind the scenes, the du Fresnes were planning on their next move. The gravely ill King Gozo III only added tension to their presence, despite his insistence that they stay as long as they wish.

It was a bleak, dreary night in the northern capital and Prince Olivier was comfortable sitting on a settee in front of a warm fire alongside his wife, sister and brother-in-law. The room formed part of the du Fresne's living quarters and was free of Boagan-speaking servants or members of the House of Buadua who were tending to the King.

Princess Marie Delphine: What in the merciful saviour’s name do we, as a family, expect to achieve here? Tell us precisely what the objective is, and please, spare me of the blessed theatrics!

Prince Olivier: Dear sister, I fear the untimely loss of our nation has already materialised. The worst nightmares of our great grandfather have befallen our luckless family. It is obvious, is it not, that the Grand Principality is no longer robust? Are you unprepared to acknowledge that we are in a hornet’s nest?

Princess Marie Delphine: Good heavens, my brother! Be it a hornet’s nest or a rabbit’s warren, I am aware! The situation is not one of my ignorance – how could it be so? But to state that this is the end of our lineage’s reign over the Grand Principality – I say balderdash! My concerns lay entirely with our family, people, and country! Our country is where we ought to be, amongst our own people. We do not belong here, and that is the reality. Submit to this reality!

Prince Olivier: Jumieges is unstable, and most certainly not where we should be! Our cousins have been unimaginably good-natured, allowing the uncomfortable mass of us to seek sanctuary here. I wholeheartedly believe that they have shown us immense generosity, which is to be commended, not shunned.

This objective that you demand I provide you is non-existent, I’m afraid. For the time being, I suggest we remain in Baratza where the safety of our children is guaranteed. Can I not summon reason from within you?

Princess Marie Delphine: [Sighs heavily] Unfortunately, we are faced with no other options. The more I ponder upon our predicament, the more pain ravages my heart’s core. I recall our mother’s face – oh, how she was beautiful! I can envisage her saying to us, sternly, “The past is the past, follow the path you were divinely destined to.” Such quarrelling advances us nowhere – I apologise, my brother.

Prince Olivier: You have nothing to be apologetic for; we are all admittedly under intense pressurisation. Mother was proud of you, dear sister, lest you forget. But you must let go of this hostility towards our own family!

Princess Marie Delphine: I bear no ill will towards my cousins, and I appreciate so very much all that they are doing for us. I just cannot help but feel distaste towards the first son of His Majesty. A right dishonourable brat!

Grandseigneur Benoît: Indeed, he is deserving of either the back of his father’s hand or the full force of a willow rod! I caught his royal haughtiness giving us the evil eye at dinner this evening. The situation cannot be helped by the fact we are incapable of speaking their tongue – a truly baffling and freakish patois!

[Duchess Genovefa, remaining well-mannered, gave out a subtle grimace of disapproval]

Prince Olivier: Enough of this! I wonder what the Boagans think of our Jumiegeois – perhaps a poor man’s French! Now, I propose we all retire to our bedrooms for the remaining duration of the night. Goodnight to you both.

[Prince Olivier grabbed his beguiling wife’s dainty hands and walked out]

Grandseigneur Benoît: [Whispers to his wife as the door closes] I say, we may very well be the last sane Jumiegers in this Godforsaken nation. First thing in the morning, we ought to call our sweet Desirée and book flights to Respumare. These Boagans cannot and will not be trusted, to hell with your brother!

[Princess Marie Delphine nods, and with that, they both arise and head to bed]

by **Sondstead** » Wed May 18, 2016 11:38 pm

4 Mej 2016

Continental security and stability concerns relating to Boagan succession

KWÄLIFISERÄT HÄMLIH

SÄMENFEKJINGJH

Boagan King Gozo III has been in poor health for the past several years and has largely withdrawn from public duties. Privately members of the royal household acknowledge The King is very close to death; given the significance of the monarchy in the Boagan system and culture royal succession is effectively a change of government. In addition Prime Minister Mardo's Conservatives are unlikely to secure a fifth electoral mandate in elections later this year due to flagging approval ratings for his government and general popular discontent. This makes 2016 a critical juncture for the country.

The heir apparent, Crown Prince Eneko, is well known to harbor reactionary sympathies and be receptive to Prekovi influences, in contrast to Gozo's moderate course; he is closer to his mother, Queen Urraka, and even some sources close to the government and royal household consider him to be a dangerous ideologue. Gozo himself is seen to favor his daughters and his younger son, Erramun. It is also unknown how Eneko would act if faced with cohabitation with a centre-left Prime Minister, but given his political views and evidently impetuous character it can be assumed he is likely to make rash decisions.

Prekovi influence represents a clear threat to the interests and security of the realm. Although Boaga is a minor player in Alisnan affairs, Eneko's Prekovi ties nevertheless have troubling implications for continental security. Having failed to maintain significant influence in Pollona and to prop up the Vyzant Republic in Karaman, Prekonate will likely make a strenuous effort to court a Boagan alliance, potentially to the point of domestic interference such as eliminating figures unsympathetic to Crown Prince. A Prekovi delegation will arrive in Baratza on 7 May according to sources in Ostrava.

Furthermore, if he feels assured of Prekovi backing the Crown Prince is likely to be bolder in putting his foreign affairs agenda into action. While logistically Boaga faces significant difficulties in acting in Central Alisna, as King Eneko is virtually guaranteed to act against the new Styrian regime in some fashion, particularly given the presence and influence of Gozo's elder sister Katalina, formerly the Queen Consort of Styria, at the Boagan court.

Any suggestion that, if popular discontent sharply increases due to Eneko's hardline position a revolutionary republican regime could arise as happened in Styria, can be effectively ruled out. Boagan society remains largely conservative and traditionalist and the institution of the monarchy is respected enough by the general populace that even if Eneko proves to be an inept King it will not be overly damaging to the country's fundamental institutions.

Therefore the West Alisnan Desk recommends the following measures;

An increase in HUMINT presence in Boaga, particularly cultivating contacts close to the Crown Prince, Erramun, and other members of the Royal Family if possible. EIT HUMINT in West Alisna in general is presently insufficient.

Allocation of SIGINT resources towards intercepting Ostrava's communications with their delegation and embassy in Boaga.

by **Questers** » Sat Aug 27, 2016 9:36 pm

0125, Central Jesselton

Outside it was cold enough that you could see the air come out of people’s mouths when they breathed and spoke and it was crisp enough that you could almost taste how cold it was. Jessica looked at the line in front of her and she heard Sockdale snort. ‘This is a long wait,’ she said.

‘I’m not waiting,’ he said and started off, and walked down the line without looking at any of the people in it. She picked up after him, and could feel Neilsen walking behind her.

She turned around. ‘I have never skipped a queue in my life. Not once.’

Neilsen had his hands in his pockets and the hood on his coat up. He was smoking a cigarette from the corner of his mouth. ‘We always skip here.’

‘You should take your hood down. You look like a drug dealer.’

He flashed red and pulled the hood down. Jessica turned away and smiled. It took quite a person to be able to get into the line for Citrus. It took quite another to skip the line for Citrus and walk straight in. She thought about what the people in the line thought about her. You shouldn’t think about what people think about you, she said to herself, and having had two gins, said it to Neilsen too.

‘Yes, but it’s not ever easy.’

Sockdale was right. Neilsen was only good at writing. His speaking wasn’t good. That was what her French teacher had said about her, too. Had she really only had two gins? No. She had forgotten the sherry. You really have to fit in at this department, she thought.

They got to the door, and Sockdale didn’t even need his identification. The bouncer smiled and made some pleasantries and let all three of them in. Outside the line began to grow.

As soon as they walked inside, the music took over. How on earth was it so quiet outside? Perhaps Citrus was really an atomic bomb bunker, she thought. She stood quite still. I am really inside. I am actually here, inside the chosen nightclub of the elite. Me, a little girl from the valleys.

And it looks nothing like I imagined, she said to herself. She had thought there would be exotic dancing, bordering on the degenerate. A mountain of cocaine in the corner. Strippers bathing in champagne. It was not at all like that. Neilsen tapped her on the arm and said something she couldn’t hear, and she followed him.

How many floors did this place have? They had already walked up three flights of stairs and past four different rooms. Somehow the music had dimmed. Another bouncer and another nod and they were inside a much quieter room. The décor was older. There was a picture of the King above the bar and there were wooden tables with bench-seats and waiters. Oh, my God. There were waiters.

‘The King picture is ironical,’ Neilsen said. Sockdale had disappeared. They sat down. Neilsen sat with his legs tightly together, squeezing his hands around a glass of water. He took up as little space as possible. She shifted a little towards him and watched him shift away.

She laughed and leaned over. ‘Is he always so brusque?’

‘The King? I don’t know. I have not met him. I once have read a report which said that his personality—’

She remembered something Sockdale had told her: at no point should you ever allow Neilsen to begin a sentence with “I once have read a report.” Cut him off immediately. She put her hand on his arm. ‘No, Sockdale.’

He drew his arm away. ‘Oh, well. Sometimes he likes to be sociable with people.’

‘Don’t you?’

‘No. I don’t think my mother counts. Oh, I mean, yes, I suppose she does. She is a person.’ Jessica giggled. Neilsen looked at her. ‘Sorry Townsend, I don’t follow.’

‘It doesn’t matter. You should call me Jessica, by the way.’

‘Okay. Sorry. My mind is in another place. I am thinking all the time about this Boaga thing.’

‘You don’t agree with the meeting?’

‘No, it isn’t this. Well. As a Section Chief, like you, I can protest. Maybe they will listen. I don’t think so, so there’s no point protesting. I feel if we interfere we will only make them like us less and that our chances of success will fall.’

‘Mhm. So why go on with it?’

Neilsen raised an eyebrow. ‘This is my duty. TB says that he wants Erramun to come and that Erramun will become the next King and he will like us and that will be good. And naturally Sockdale is thinking about their natural resources and export market. But this is the Department for Strategy. When do we not think about resources and markets?’ He put his chin in his hands.

‘I’m not thinking about resources and markets now.’

‘Really? Well what on earth are you thinking about then?’ Neilsen thinned his eyes.

‘That man over there is nice looking. Where is Sockdale? Should I drink more? Why did I wear wool tights? These kind of things. Don’t you think about these type of things too? Don’t answer that.’

Neilsen frowned. ‘I don’t follow.’

‘Christ, you’re a fucking machine.’

‘That’s mean.’ Neilsen put his drink down. ‘I don’t think you had to say that.’

‘I’m just joking with you,’ she said. ‘You are a nice machine.’

She could see Neilsen’s brain parsing the description and trying to find an analogy. Out of nowhere, Sockdale sprang up on them, and sat down with half a bottle of gin. ‘Sorry. Damn thing had Pitcher’s name on it. You know Pitcher, don’t you Neilsen?’ Neilsen didn’t say anything. He was still thinking. Sockdale turned to Jessica, pouring three drinks. ‘What’s up with him today?’

‘Thinking about work. Speaking about work, when do we finalise the schedule?’

‘Tomorrow.’

‘Yes, but when?’

‘Oh, the morning. Have you read it?’

‘I don’t agree with the premise,’ she said, looking at Neilsen through one eye. He was still thinking about the machine thing. ‘We’re going to make ourselves look worse. Even if Erramun becomes King—that’s an if, you know—they’re still quite reactionary.’

Sockdale shrugged and drained his gin. ‘Whateverrrr you say. All the intelligence says that they’re going to get a left-centre government soon. We’re going to be selling them radiators by the new year. Isn’t that right, Neilsen? We’ll be selling them so many radiators. The People’s Boagan Radiator Republic. This is true Strategy.’

Neilsen didn’t reply, so Jessica stepped in. ‘But that report about the Prekovi Prime Minister? What’s his name?’

‘Oh, Krejci? Yes, we know about his little trip. Who cares. They won’t be able to influence the government. We will just let nature take its course. The important thing is to throw them some concessions now. That’s what the apology and the handover and the come have dinner with me crap is all about. Anyway, why worry about it? It’s out of our hands now.’

‘Yes. I suppose it is.’

They talked about some other things until Sockdale had to go to the bathroom. Neilsen, who had been quiet all this time, turned to her. ‘A radiator.’

‘What?’

‘A radiator. That’s a nice machine. It has only a positive purpose to be there—it keeps people warm, it is useful. And it can turned on to do this, and turned off when it isn’t needed.’

‘Oh, Neilsen. What are you on about?’ He went quiet. Jessica finished her drink. ‘What’s your name, anyway?’

‘Neilsen. I—‘

‘Your given name.’

‘Oh. Erik.’

‘Erik. Hmm. You haven’t finished your drink, Erik.’

‘So I haven’t.’ Neilsen finished the whole thing in one go. Well, he was still a Questarian, even if he was Danske, Jessica thought.

0856, Department for Strategy

The lift doors closed to within an inch, and then swung open again.

‘Lucky I saw you,’ Sockdale said. Jessica stepped into the lift.

‘Yes, thanks.’

‘Sleep okay?’ Sockdale pressed for the eleventh floor.

‘It was alright. Hey—where’s Erik?’

‘Who?’ Sockdale scrunched up his eyebrows.

‘Erik. Neilsen.’

‘Oh, Neilsen. He’s late, I think. He can never turn up on time when he’s been drinking. That man can not handle a hangover.’

‘Don’t they mind?’

‘No. He normally stays here until ten or eleven at night, so they don’t care if he’s half an hour late.’

The lift pinged. ‘Thirty minutes until we see the final schedule. You ready?’

‘I can’t wait,’ Jessica said. ‘Wait, is TB going to be here?’

‘Yes. Ha. I hope Neilsen didn’t forget.’

They walked into the office lounge, where a tea machine and a refrigerator sat in a corner with an ugly sofa and that type of plant you always see in offices. There was Neilsen, fetal upon the sofa, with his coat covering him, a full ashtray and half a hundred papers lying about. He slept quietly and did not snore.

Sockdale rubbed his hand down his face. ‘What the fuck.’ Then: ‘We have to wake him up.’

‘Make some tea first.’ Jessica went to the corner and turned the radiator up. ‘It’s freezing in here.’

‘Even in DFS they turn the gas and electric off at night. I don’t know how he got in. The back stairs maybe. Who the hell steals a key to get into their office to actually do work?’ Sockdale turned on the machine.

‘The type of people who build Communism, I think.’ She pushed Neilsen on the shoulder a bit. ‘Erik. Wake up. We have work to do. Boaga’s not going to turn red without us.’

Till Kingdom Come [Closed: Maredoratica]

Till Kingdom Come [Closed: Maredoratica]

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