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Alistair Drosselmeyer

Alistair chuckled and smiled at the man even as the angel tried to explain. " your barrier works by preventing any without ethan blood from entering ethe." his smile fell.

as he spoke he looked grimmed, a bit of anger was in his voice. " a whole year.... a whole year i waited and no one. not even the queen of ethe came to talk to Agni about this... Susumu i belive your name was?" he turned and face the man for a second. " your desire to defend her, brings sadness and pain to me. tell Suumu, tell Agni here. what has happened to the animals, to the insects. tell her what has happened to those without ethan blood."

tho the question was towards Susumu it was clear he was talking to booth of them. his voice like steel. his eyes lit with a fire. this was a man who would not budge, he had come for answers. and he would get them. " and can you tell me why it took the empires second son to come here and ask this question?" his final question was fully to Susumu. his voice cracking, his eyes watering. he seemed to become humble in that question. as if Susumu right now represented all of ethe.

"I see" The goddess said as she walked toward a large obsidian chair and sat down, sweeping her long red fire like dress under her as she sat, her arms placed gracefully on the arm rests as she crossed one leg over the other. Sitting upon the obsidian chair, the commanding aura that came from her as she sat in a place amongst things that were thousands of years old. She seemed to belong here. Unlike in Etherland or Titania or Kaishin where the buildings and lands and people made her stick out and radiate with a strange ancient otherworldliness, the place she now occupied made her existence less singular Ethen blood means blood of my blood, everything that breaths within the barrier is a child of my children, a grandchild, great grandchild, cousin, aunt, brother or sister of the blood that a thousand children that came from me passed down to you. It is only amongst this blood, this common thing that everyone in Ethe shares that my people are safe" she said to Alistair. She had listened to Susumu and without looking at him she addressed him

"When it comes to Ethe no one is above your queen, not your stewardess, not the lords, not the people." she said "However that the halfbreed son of an outsider is the only Lord, Stewardess or Queen to question my methods says in itself his own concerns for the people of Ethe." she finally looked at Susumu "I am not a destroyer that wants unwaivering loyalty, I am a goddess trying to serve my people and bring them back from a travesty that I could have prevented if I had awakened sooner. You should respect Prince Alistair for his dedication to the people of Ethe, most outsiders would have just let Ethe run itself into the ground, goddess or no goddess, but instead he takes it upon himself to come speak to me and wonder as to weather or not my methods are the right ones She looked back Alistair I am not Queen of Ethe, and I have never been a monarch. Though I will take it, the mark of a tyrant are those who demand unquestioned obedience, of which that I am not."

The goddess then leaned back and threaded her fingers together, she closed her eyes and let out a breath from her nose before she spoke again "However, Prince Alistair. Susumu is more then correct. You do not live here, you did not get displaced by the fire and the ash that killed thousands, and even if you did what loss is it to you? You can just fly back to the castle at the heart of this land and rest in silence while the rest of the people of Ethe have to wonder if they will see their children again" she opened her eyes, she looked cross "A city of one million was reduced, a country of three was reduced to less that two thousand in barely a day and you expect me to not know what I am doing? If I was like your father I would have thrown you into the volcano that took all those lives that day"

Agni looked up at them both and gestured to Susumu "Susumu works close with the nobility, if anyone knows best how Ethe is returning it would be him. Who better then to bring up the pains of the people then one that knows the suffering and tribulations of not just the common but the noble born." she said "Though my methods may seem barbarous and hurtful to others, No complaint has become to rampant that it has become populous opinion." she said before moving her hand back to the obsidian chair "And though Ethe has suffered for a time now, sometimes a few more suffering must occur, besides no one has starved since the animals have passed, and its not like we're a kingdom of dragons either." Agni said calmly "A dragon lives a long time but dies all the same, while a phoenix will always rise from the ashes... just as Ethe will soon become a new Phoenix, reborn from its suffering it has endured this last year."

"Your excellency, that he questions instead of councils with us is of the greatest concern, for it does not instill or betray any kind of faith in our ability to overcome."

Susumu turned and bowed to the goddess, who had taken a perch in a stable and certain throne. Then his eyes turned again to the man. This knight, this general of nearly fourty years, was not amused at the arrogance of insistence. He was an outsider as far as Susumu was concerned. He was ready to explain why.

"Not even a year ago, our leaders gathered to discuss the future of Ethe, knowing of the wall, preparing for its eventual fall, and planning for what we had in the meantime, when livestock first began to fall. That
was when we dried what we could, burned what we could not. Traded dead meat into our borders. We changed our diet to plants. We planned for our people. With our people." Susumu's wise and experienced eyes narrowed. "Where were you?"

The knight was silent for but a moment. He shook his head and continued. "You cannot claim to be able to do what we cannot do for ourselves. You cannot assume you do not play politics when you have connections to the very Empire of Epsilon. You cannot know what we need, or what the people need if you have not spoken with us or worked alongside us. If you wish to protect Ethe, join our efforts and speak with us."

The general's hard stance remained. He would not yield on this matter. "Do not go behind our backs and assume to know best. We know too well the disasters that come our way. As far as I am concerned,
you remain an outsider for as long as you ignore and presume to know any better than us. Do not assume anything. You don't know the half of what the Queen has gone through for the sake of this kingdom."

Alistair Drosselmeyer

alistair sighed shaking his head. he looked at his hand. " I more then most know what she had to go trough." he remembered hat he learned his father did the first time he transformed into a blue whisper. He gripped heart. and continued to answer Susumus questions before he responded to the Angel." i was not invited.. i might have intruded upon this place, but i often find as the second prince i should not intrude in on others. adn where i go i do intrude by my bare existence."

his hand went back to his sides. " that is acceptable.. Agni. but this is something i should tell the others ruling Ethe about before you bring it down. Susumu you view me as an outsider, i view myself as an outsider.Would you mind accompanying me for the rest of the day. it will help you give you a chance to kill me should i betray ethe."

"I do not ask him to speak on behalf of Ethe. I ask him to use his authority as the son of the Emperor to avert a crisis." she said to him "and if it will ease you, I will not take down the barrier until he has shown some trustworthiness and skill in these delicate diplomatic matters" she said to Susumu "and I would gladly speak to the Baroness, when she has time to relay to her to come here to speak with me" she said to him as she raised her eyebrows in surprise when she spotted something behind them.

Agni got up and walked over to the wall where a book laid abandoned, preserved by the dryness of the dormant volcano, worn down by decades of exposure. Agni opened the book and flipped its delicate pages "I will not drop the barrier yet, however will you allow the Drosselmeyer prince to learn about the problems still within Ethe and gain the trust of its nobility and people?" she asked Susumu before muttering under her breath "how language has changed...."

Alistair Drosselmeyer

" the Lady you came here with mentioned a party.. perhaps that might be one of the best ways for me to introduce myself." he strokes his beard as he spoke he was thinking. wondering just what his next few moves should be. " I would normally say you don't have to address me as such. you can just use professor if you feel you cant just use my name. I should also mention i shall now strive to be the envoy of the empire in ethe. "

he vowed lightly to Agni. " i think your choice was prudent. i shall work hard to prevent another genocide. the land wont like that."




(OoC: okay, but he was actually eluding to what shes had to endure as a queen, the destruction of her country, the death of her husband and daughter, the scattering of her people, etc)