Port Hwanghu, Celestial Empire
The port of Hwanghu was a small cramp City vastly cobbled together by the influx of migrants and settlers who’d arrived in the far flung northern territory. The population had more than doubled in the last three years since it was formally established by Marijani d’Aurelains, mother of the Celestial Emperor and wife of the Emperor of Nemidia. Hugging the deep water port on its spot along the typically swampy Seoyese coastline, it was a place of constant construction and mixing between Deritain and Seoyese culture, for better or for worse. It’s position so far north and on the Andejanes Strait that separated the Western Ocean from the Borean Sea, made it a prime port, as well the best location for an unprecedented meeting between the Paras of Patuania and the Celestial Emperor.
The Celestial Emperor, twenty-two year old Andeja IV, had been only days before across three strait in Nemidia with his mother, stepfather and new baby half brothers. He had made the hope and skip across the strait to Hwanghu to await the arrival of the Patuanian warship, the Avengence which was to carry the Baron and Lady Yoyo, after over a year in Patuanian de facto house arrest back home. And the Paras had made it all the more important by wishing to meet. Tensions had been rising recently between Seoya and Patuania, the two behemoths of the north, and while peace was talked about, both sides were gathering armies. And both sides had started looking to the Celestial Empire to throw its weight behind on or the other. Andeja IV, long prepared for a fight in the north still maintained an army of 30,000 troops on the Andejanes Archipelago, waiting to strike.
It was simply a matter of deciding who was to be the target.
Andeja, dressed in the militant black ceremonial uniform of a celestial commander, gold embroidered down the front, a black cape falling from his shoulders, the sun crown sitting on his head, stood tall and stone faced, like dark god of the cosmos. He hated the outfit. It was more of a costume he felt. He preferred the simple comforts of the Hemakan suit that he had popularized. But then, he was not friends with the Paras, this was not a casual meeting. It was one set on a backdrop of anger, betrayal and revenge. There was no room for Andeja the man. Only Andeja the Sun.
This was all reinforced by the members of Ardales family who had accompanied him. The three Yoyo children, Ava, Celena and Jean, the latter of who stood at the Celestial Emperor’s side in a bespoke suit. He and Kanatus had been lovers, before… well before a great deal had happened. Jean, with his hair shorn short and his eyes harden, was prepared to confront the Paras to holding his parents hostage. This hostility was amplified in the person of the Duchess of Infinity, mother of the Lady Yoyo. Though 96, and seated in a chair and blind, the Duchess cut a fiercesomr figure, having threatened to raise a private army of her own to invade Patuania in order to liberated her daughter. And as the richest woman in the empire, it was well within her means.
Stephen Ardales, a key figure in the bureaucracy of the central government was also there, fading slightly into the background. Lord Jama Ardales, ambassador to Nemidia, had sent his wife, Lady Songe Ardales and lastly rounding out the clan of the second most powerful family in the empire, was the Celestial Emperor’s uncle Lord Avi Ardales. Lord Avi was particularly miffed, as it had been in his own home that Kanatus had Mary Jean, sparking this great disaster all these years later. The Ardales clan were a riot of emotion, twitching between desperate to se their parents and prepared to attack the Paras on sight.
