En route to Rakga, Nukasta
Princess Marié-Thérèse d’Aurelians looked over her talking points as the jet she was in arched over the planet, dancing along the line between the atmosphere and outer space. This flight pattern, whilst a bit dramatic, shorten the flight time from Derita, from where Marié-Thérèse was coming to Nukasta, were her destination and the first step towards her destiny lay. She was excited to visit the country for this mission. Nukasta was a god send. It was only a pity that it came as it did now, in the form of a civil war.
A civil war, it was Marié-Thérèse’s mission to put an into. At least that was the reason for her visit to the city of Rakga, the base of the Hyvärinen lead Supreme General Committee that control the northern half of Nukasta. She was part of an unofficial diplomatic mission from Derita in order to bring peace back to Nukasta before violence escalated further in the nation and the region. Originally it had been planned to be lead by Marié-Thérèse’s cousin, the Duke of Alençon, Alexandre. The once militaristic pretty boy had gone and had an epiphany or something. Over the last two years he’d swung in the complete opposite direction, becoming a pacifist and trying to become some sort of...ugh...politician.
Marié-Thérèse loved her dear cousin Alexandre, but she disliked his unpredictability. It made it hard for her to make plans. And she liked making plans. She like carefully crafting a sequence of events and carrying that crafted sequence out to its fruition. Alexandre on the other hand was a wild as the wind in a typhoon, flying by the seat of his pants where his heart at that moment lay. He was so pretentious, and horribly oblivious to that side of him in his quest for democracy and peace and blah, blah, blah.
Marié-Thérèse too cared about peace, stability and a better future, but she was a realist unlike her cousin. Alexandre was famous and beloved by the Deritain people, and Marié-Thérèse knew why. She had carefully watched polls. Alexandre consistently challenged or even surpassed their fathers and grandfather in popularity. And whilst Alexandre took gold, Marié-Thérèse held onto silver. But she was playing a long game. There were several things that Marié-Thérèse had that Alexandre didn’t. Ambition was one. Alexandre was listless, rudderless, his heart jumping in random direction, wanting general good but never truly deciding. Marié-Thérèsehad not just once found herself sweeping up the remains of his efforts. The Makonian Refugee Crisis came to mind.
But ambition was not what got her in this plan on this mission as its leader, about to stand in front of the world in a highly calculated risk for peace. It was the other tool that she had perfected and what had been totally lost on Alexandre. She had her grandfather’s ear. The King-Emperor certainly loved all his grandchildren. He didn’t however love them all equally. And Alexandre was deeply disadvantaged in that department. Dear old Grandpère despised Alexandre’s showy and decisive personality. His youth and arrogance and fundamentals brute force naivety simply rubbed Grandpère the wrong way. And the hint of suspicion he held towards Alexandre ever trying to revolt against him only made it worse. The setting sun never looked kindly on the rising one.
This Marié-Thérèse found her way into her grandfather’s heart, flattering, obeying him and basking in his greatness. Appealing to his gentlemanly and antiquated ideas she had humbled herself and won her grandfather to her cause, even if he didn’t know it. One might fear what Marié-Thérèse would do with the single most powerful individual in the galaxy wrapped around her finger. But Marié-Thérèse’s goals were simple. So she had whispered into Grandpère’s ear and won herself a mission. Dear Marié-Thérèse after all asked for so little. He could give her this.
And thus so many plans were set into motion. Marié-Thérèse’s true goals were closer than ever. And if peace was mad along the way, well that was a bonus.
