The North PacificBoard

Suddenly, a cry rang out, but not from our ship. Then, a loud bang as a ship collided with another. I got up to inspect with the other crew. Some thought that the helmsmen had turned into each other. As he got out, we heard alarms ringing. But,
only one was coming from the direction of a Hardonian crusier.

As the other ships' crew reported to the armories, we knew that something had happened. Something bad. Suddenly, our ship lurched and started to turn. It was going east, back to Hardonius, but it slowly glided around. It activated its stealth drive, moving slower but silently. We watched as sailors and soldiers clashed. The The Sanada Clan and Tanabon troops shot and killed even the surrendering sailors.

For the room itself, it was as long as a football field. Most likely used for more grand occasions. Long wooden tables had been pushed off to the walls and covered in sheets to preserve from too much dusting. Tall windows occupied the walls and one grand window marked the end of the hall. Speaking of the end of the hall, there was a large throne that sat there, protruding most of the view of the back window. It had circular marble steps that walked up towards it and marble armrests that were carved into snakeheads at their ends. The top of the white throne was crowned with spikes that stuck out to point in every direction, like a thornbush or really pale porcupine. Random jewels also sprinkled its edges, but it was rather undermined compared to the rest of the masterpiece. And, off to the side of the Queen’s throne was a lesser throne for either the princess or chancellor, Vintress could not tell.

She took in a deep sigh and stopped gawking at the thrones, and refocused on walking to the center of the great hall, to where the roundhouse table had been established. She noticed the Chancellor was perched atop a fancier chair or whom she assumed to be the Jenovachi chancellor. Off to her right was the Sawteeth people who had arrived several hours earlier. Among the faction, she did not know many, for the exception of Mina Ironhorse, the Sawtooth Empress. She sat two people right of Vintress and was guarded by fifteen different guards, some of which appeared Avuronian. Besides that, the only other person she had any relation to was Blare, but with Scarlet’s strict instruction to not interact with him she attempted no such fate. She had dwindling respect for her cousin, but Scarlet always had ways of figuring things out and knowing that the Empress of the Sawteeth was here, it was not the right time to try and talk to Blare. It did not help that he was told to neighbor Vintress by sitting on her left.

He peeked over at her and delivered a sneaky smile, but slid right into spot and played along with the eerie quietness. The room was entirely silent separate from the shuffling of feet from people who were still moving into the hall. For example, the rest of the Avuronians, including diplomats, peacekeepers, and citizens filed into their spots all left of Blare. However, even more, Jenovachi guards flowed into the room, Vintress did a headcount for nearly one hundred twenty, all of them occupying a portion of the wall, guns readied to fire should any of the immigrants try and harm the Chancellor, but even he looked mused from the over-protection.

Finally, when the last of the guards walked to their spaces, the room was enveloped in silence. The loudest sound was the sunlight beating on the surface of the chandeliers which dangled from the ceiling. The sizzling of metal was more entertainment than whatever this meeting would behold, Vintess was sure of it. Even some of the guards seemed more focused on the reflection of light than watching the diplomats. Another minute passed before anyone spoke.

Then breaking the silence, was the man in the fancy chair. He was decorated in a clean-cut gray tuxedo, complete with a black tie, and silver watch and necklace. His fingers were braced in all sorts of rings and jewelry, tinted to look obsidian. More mysteriously, was the dark side cape which dipped from his left shoulder over his left arm and leg. It was supposed to impose luxury and importance, but to Vintress it just delayed the time it took to grab your weapon. As for the Chancellor himself, he was a fine-looking man, very pale. His chocolate-colored hair was of little mess and his facial hair all too much the same. His eyes were a bleak gray and faraway like he was in another world. Besides that, the only other thing of major notice was the tattoos along his neck.

He gave a chilling smile before he talked, the grin was morphed to represent hospitality as if it took years to harness his charisma to contort as his emotions to confuse his prey-it worried Vintress that the Chancellor thought her his prey.

He folded his hands onto the table, covering a sheet of paper, and spoke with a loud voice, “and I thought I was going to be the lazy one! What a somber group this morning, jeez.” Small laughter twinkled in between the air. Vintress could care less, she was more competent with listening to his voice. It was soft, smooth and at the same time, cold and calculated. Each word was pronounced on the beat and it eased Vintress’ nerves.

“So what of this meeting,” asked another Avuronian diplomat, “I understand you all need oil…”

“Jumping right into it I see,” the Chancellor laughed, “I think it is better that we familiarize ourselves prior to the discussion, should we not… Reynold?” the diplomat was slightly taken aback by the Chancellor’s knowledge of his name, though the trick was little to not impressive. “My name is Fey Izuna.”

“Mina Ironhorse,” Mina said.

“Blare, and only Blare,” Blare nodded toward everyone in the circle.

Everyone looked into Vintress’s direction, pending for her name, “My name is Vintress,” she said finally.

“Grand,” shouted Chancellor, clasping his hands together, “well done, now to the meeting,” he smiled at the diplomat that had brought up the oil dilemma, “as my Avuronian friend stated, Jenovah is poor on the black gold. Estimates put our limit in one year’s time, that's why you’re here,” he gestured accordingly to all the bigheads at the table.

“We know you want our oil, name your price, but it better be good,” spoke Sawtooth Armed Forces, Czerno Blackheart, he shuffled in his chair, “Anin has supplies that run deep, but our exchange is pricey per se.”

“I can confirm that,” Blare said in the direction of Czerno, “Our queen, Queen Scarlet said she is willing to triple exports for your nation… at a cost.”

Vintress reiterated, “she told me something along the lines of a one hundred billion dollar plan.”

The table fell silent, the only sound was the sizzle of copper chandeliers in the razor spears of sunlight.

The sizzling echoed off the walls, cackling at the diplomats who wallowed below.

Then Izuna started to laugh. It was a bitter laugh, that scratched a message to everyone at the table. Izuna was going to take advantage of the inflated deal and make them all pawns of his greater plan.

“‘One hundred billion’ you say?” Izuna asked, his tone falling between hysterical and manipulative.

“Nothing more, nothing less,” Blare instated, passing a look by Vintress, “One hundred billion for quadruple the exportation, that should give you some five additional years…”

“Five years is not enough to shift our entire energy sector, cities like Stralle will starve,” Izuna replied, “you of all people should know what it is like, general.”

Blare bit his tongue and refrained from shouting. Luckily, Mina interrupted just in time, “what my Avuronian colleagues are trying to say is that exports will increase fourfold and Anin will forgive future debt in this trade dilemma.”

“Hmm,” Izuna pretended to ponder the idea, but his mind was already made up. “Eighty billion,” he stated, then turned to Blare, “nothing more, nothing less.”

“You plan to steal from us,” muttered Czerno, his eyes shot daggers in Izuna’s direction, “we will not allow this.”

“‘Stealing’?” the Chancellor grumbled, “it would merely be a small lowering of the price-”

“Twenty billion dollars is not a ‘mere lowering,’” Blare barked, pounding his fist on the table, “we will have none of it you ignorant twot.”

The closest guards stepped toward the center table. Again, the room was corrupted by silence. Izuna began to play with his fingers, dully consulting his conscience. Vintress stared at him blankly, then at Blare, and back to Izuna. The men appeared locked in an ideological war, neither of them winning.

“Very well,” the Chancellor finally came to amends, “eighty-eight billion.”

“Not enough,” one voice said jokingly.

“I agree that your payment stops too low,” Czerno said.

“Indeed it does,” snapped Mina. Blare, too, nodded. It had seemed the three had formed an alliance against Izuna, which could be exposed by their connecting of eyes and glances.

“Then what the hell do you all want?” Izuna shouted.

“One hundred billion,” Vintress said, all eyes turned to her, it appeared her time to head the conservation. “And for the fun of it, because you are so demanding Izzie-”

“Izuna,” he interrupted.

“Sorry,” Vintress apologized, “Izuna. Anyway, Izuna, if you are so unaccepting to negotiate, what is stopping us from joining the Fusean’s blockade of your coastline? Say you are a heavily corrupted and weakened nation, we could simply storm you by amphibious invasion then sprout a revolution. One year’s worth of oil is not enough to stabilize a house than cannot stand, so what do you say, a hundred billion or sweet and swift uprising?”

The others smiled, completed by Vintress’s speech, even she was quite stunned; however, it did not impress everyone and the Chancellor looked to struggle to maintain interest altogether, seemingly relaxed. “What an interesting proposal Vintress,” Izuna snaked, “so you threaten war over black gold?”

“Intervention on behalf of your people, it’s more of a liberation.”

“No, it definitely seems like it is more of a war,” Izuna corrected sarcastically. “Anyone else wants to wave nukes at my face, it looks like our business will have to conclude otherwise-”

“Ninety billion,” muttered Blare, everyone turned to face him--the Chancellor’s mouth curled into a sinister smile.

“Could you repeat that?” Izuna asked.

“I said, ninety billion dollars,” Blare reaffirmed angrily.

“Blare…” Vintress turned to look at him, they locked eyes for a split second. His expression said everything she had to know. He only wanted to get this mission over with, he knew that others were endangered if Scarlet did not get her way.

“It looks like we are back to negotiating, thank you for being so reasonable,” Izuna nodded in Blare’s general direction. “Any objections?”

Several hands shot up, including Mina.

“Of course,” Izuna mumbled under his breath, “What do you propose Mina?”

“Ninety-three,” she replied, cooly.

“Ninety-three?” Izuna scratched his head, “Interesting.”

“On behalf of Czerno and me, we too support the proposal of ninety-three billion,” Vintress stated assertively, “It is a fair price for the… economy.”

An Avuronian diplomat, stood, “All of our present citizenry and diplomats vote in favor of the plan for a price of ninety-three billion dollars.”

Then, all eyes stooped onto Blare, his face contorted with a sour kick, but he faded away to looking into Mina’s, then Czerno’s, and finally Vintress’ eyes. Reaching a conclusion, he smiled and relaxed back into his hard wooden chair, speaking directly into the face of the Chancellor, Izuna. “Let's wrap this up already, I vote yes to ninety-three,” Blare concluded, firmly.

Everyone collectively shared a sigh of relief, except the Chancellor. Izuna picked at his fingers and donned a smile, it was tattooed upon his face and never shook. He reached below the circular table and grasped a hold of a bottle of champagne. He twisted it open and poured himself a glass, “To our relationship and diplomacy, to the ninety-three, and our future,” he toasted.

“To the ninety-three,” everyone exclaimed in unison, “and our future!”

'What was it, the 100th or more time that she layed on her bed, looking at that ceiling? It seemed never ending, every single minute that she spent like that...'

"No more."

It was a dark night in Königsberg. The city was quiet, but bright. Tiara wandered through it, alone, feeling the cold air of the coastal city hit her face was not a pretty feeling, but she'd bear it. She was underway to the Königsberg Central Station, to take a train to the far-away city of Brandenburg, where she would settle down again. Life in the Imperial Palace, though nice, was too damaging to her own self emotionally to ever be worth it. She knew that she was acting fragile, she knew that people would never understand her reasoning for escaping with a mere backpack and her ID, but she was still going to run away. Königsberg, a city she once loved, was now the last thing she wanted to see. Her walking pace seemed to accelerate every time that a small breeze of cold air passed, though that, to Tiara, was of no importance. She had to get away.

Ten minutes later, she found herself entering the station, and on the line for the last train of the day to Brandenburg. She got a free pass, as she was one of the Kaiserrins of the Rynese Empire, and they were excempt of travel fees such as the ones imposed on the Königsberg-Brandenburg line. Eventually, she entered the passenger car, and sat down alongside the window. It didn't take too long before the train departed, silently at first, before picking up speed. All passenger trains had a maximum speed of 130 kilometers per hour inside of large cities, though it didn't take long before the train could speed up above 270km/h, as she boarded the train on the station closest to the city's end, per se. She grabbed her backpack, opened it, and grabbed a pair of headphones that she bought, as well as a music playing device that could use them. It was time to sleep the way to Brandenburg, so, as there were many small towns on the way there, she hoped that she would get there around 6 in the morning, some 4 and a half hours later. She picked the calmest song out of the ones she had on her device, "Midnight Drive - Instrumental", and not even 10 minutes later, she was fast asleep. The small bumps that the train made as it continued it's fast way down the railroad were of no bother, as the train was designed to supress them as much as possible. She slept well, even people entered and exited the train on the several stops before hers.

At 6:09 in the morning of the 29th of January, Tiara was woken up by one of the crew members, as she had reached the last stop of her journey - Brandenburg Central Station. Located two blocks from the Spee River, it was about as close to the very center of the city as one could locate it. From there, she would need to walk just about 7 blocks to the Brandenburg Palace, where all the political advisors of the Rynese Empire lived, and where she would begin to live too. It was her best bet to stay in power, yet run away from that place that caused her this feeling of emptyness. She was a bit tired, even if she had just slept, but she thought a bit of music would get her going again. "The Mechanix", by SULFUR-7, was her song of choice. A fast, thrashy song about cars and auto repairs. It was SULFUR-7's counterpart to Battery's "The Four Horsemen", which was the next song on her playlist. Eventually, she got off the train, and was now underway to the Brandenburg Palace. Brandenburg, unlike Königsberg, had a very 'flat' city centre. There weren't a lot of skyscrapers or high-rises in the city centre, but there were a lot of parks, museums, and other important builds around that made the city a very good touristic spot, even if it was located on the very middle of the country.

The road infrastructure at Brandenburg was very carefully planned out. Every road flowed perfectly onto the other, so there weren't a lot of street lights to stop the constant flow of cars, except on intersections where people could cross the street. Tiara headed down La Plata Avenue, the very central avenue of Brandenburg, and continued down it for several blocks. The Palace, a tall, classical-style construction, could be seen in the near distance. She wasn't too far away from her new home, so she decided to take a small detour to where the Spee River and the Aperture River merged. It was a nice scenic spot where one could see very far into the cities' far away skyline. After all, Brandenburg was the most populated city of the Rynese Empire. She sat down on a nearby bench, and just watched as the rivers' waves collided with one another, forming one large wave movement down the rest of what was the Plata River.

She was calm. The metal was gone, and she just carefully listened as the waves clashed against one another. The sounds of the cars, people walking by, and the constant chatter and sounds of the city did not bother her, for she was now living.

Without that empty feeling,
Without doubting herself.

It was then, when she said probably one of her most famous lines...

"To Live, one must kill parts of themselves to 'fit in'. However, i do not believe in such pale deaths. To Live, one must Die, but to Die, one must have already lived something that drew them away from fitting in. An endless cycle of living and dying, that i will not follow through with." - She didn't realize it, but when she spoke, everyone around her just payed attention. Her soft, thin voice was able to be heard even if she spoke really lightly, in such a way that it was almost as if she was speaking under her breath.