A Battle Unseen

[Doc]

Cliff Offices, Kaliburg
3:55pm

"Please show the Marquess in," said the Empress to her secretary. The door buzzed and the former Gaduri Viceroy turned Special Envoy of Her Imperial Majesty to the government of Nadiya entered. She entered and performed her bow, after which the Empress welcomed her to take a seat, as she herself rose to go prepare her tea. As she warmed the water in the induction boiler, Lady Marisol Paz Alvarez-Navarro waited. The Empress soon brought the tea pot to the table, and added the infusers to the cups, and then added loose tea, letting them steep for just a few moments, before taking the infusers out and adding a gram of opium to both cups. Silently the two women sipped the tincture, before the Empress spoke.

"Your report Madame?"

"Well, it is difficult to tell, Your Imperial Majesty," said Lady Alvarez.

"Oh--we thought the length of time you had spent speaking with them would yield something a little more definite," said the Empress.

"Yeah, much of the time was spent waiting, until I just stopped waiting, and the team simply returned home," said the Marquess, placing her spoon next to her saucer. A cloud seemed to pass the Empress' face. "They expressed their desire to restore relations, we made no further plans. Ultimately they seemed to forget that they were still supposed to be meeting with me. Perhaps something else caught their attention? I have no other way to account for it. All of a sudden, they just stopped showing up."

"Hmm," said the Empress. "Was there an issue with translation?"

"I don't think so," said Lady Alvarez. "We both spoke Luthorian well enough."

"Did you mention our concerns about the safety of our diplomats?" asked the Empress.

"We did mention that, Your Imperial Majesty, but I think they thought I was making a comment on their democracy and the quality of their police force," said Lady Alvarez. "They informed me that they have the lowest crime rate in Keris for some reason."

"Hmmm, that isn't what we meant at all," said the Empress. "We were concerned that their security forces were a little too zealous in their work and did not respect normal diplomatic protocols, given their willingness to imprison their own monarch. Did they give you no assurances on those points?"

"Well, at first I thought so, but they merely assured me that they host other consulates in Zarvospol," said Lady Alvarez. "I honestly didn't feel like they wanted to talk about the one issue I raised repeatedly, but instead they told me that they are willing to forgive the 'unorthodox statements' we have made about Nadiya and that they only wished you recognize Nadiya as the sole legitimate government of the isles."

"Who else would we recognize? Is there some other claimant to those, or some successor state that we don't know about those?" asked the Empress, rhetorically. "But what about extraterritoriality for our diplomats and immunity from capricious prosecution?"

Lady Marisol Paz took another sip. "Your Imperial Majesty, I think that was the magic word. I began proposing initial terms for the establishment of our Consulate, and mentioned those two points, and that was when they went silent. I even explicitly tried to regain their attention and got nothing for months."

The Empress took her final sip of tea, and sat back. "Perhaps Kalistan is not a priority," she said.

"I got that distinct impression, Madame. We may be, but our counterparts certainly did not seem to think so. So I eventually cancelled further meetings, without coming to any final agreement on anything other than a mutual desire to eventually recognize one another... I think. I did discover that there are close to 9000 Nadiyans living in Kalistan, though. Who they are, why they are here, or what they are doing while they are here was not identified."

"Yes, that statistic is unimportant," said the Empress. "We wish to apologize to you, Lady Alvarez, for wasting your time."

"Thank you for saying that, Your Imperial Majesty, but it wasn't a complete waste of time," said Lady Alvarez. "We did at least demonstrate that you are willing to make the effort, even if others are not, and I did leave a written message for the Nadiyans, that if we ever become a priority for their nation, they can feel free to visit us here in Kaliburg."

"Yeah, we suppose at least it wasn't a set back," said the Empress. "Perhaps we will write the effort down as a tentative first step. We have let it be known that we are interested. But we have not lost anything that we had before. Status quo it remains, and the next move will be the Nadiyans."

"Madame, I wouldn't lose any sleep over the matter," said Lady Alvarez. "Even if we have excellent relations with Nadiya, there is very little that they have that our nation wants, and I suppose vice versa. I think the Nadiyans would like recognition and legitimization by more external nations: that may be the only thing we have that they want actually, but it really doesn't even have to be Kalistan. It could literally be anyone. That's the impression I got from the meeting at least."

"Well, Nadiya is technically our allies now through the Altea Accords," said the Empress. "We are beginning to wonder if that wouldn't have served us better as bilateral, rather than multi-lateral agreements. Disappointment after disappointment."

"Madame, if I may, I think the meeting was a wash, in general. Neither overly negative, nor particularly positive. on a scale of all possible outcomes, from Minus 100 to Plus 100, I'd give this set of talks about a positive 4. It really was more strange than anything else. To be expected from the Nadiyans."

The Empress gave the Marquess a wry bittersweet smile. "Then we guess it is a win for us then." She looked at Marisol Paz' tea cup. "Would you like a refill, Lady Alvarez?"

"If it pleases Her Imperial Majesty," she said. "Also, would you be willing to bring over one of those blueberry scones?" The Empress smiled and collected the Marquess' cup.