A Weapon of Choice

[Razielle Alastor]

The figurative dust, no doubt gold dust in the case of the Hapans, had settled. For more than a year now the Hapan Royal Court had recovered from the loss of Ishara Alastor and had become acquainted with her successor, Chume'la Razielle, wife of Tristan, who tragically had been lost in the wilds of Onderon and was suspected deceased. Chume Ta' Elaine had fled Consortium justice along with the fugitive, Aaron Belargic. Before her passing Ishara had declared Elaine a traitor to her station, removing her from the line of succession, making the then infant Beatrix next in line to the throne of Hapes. So many changes. The Regent had not had the time to allow these people to come to know her as she had done on Onderon with Queen Adraudia's people. The time for such niceties had passed though, she would not consort with any of them, unless in an official capacity. The had to see her as Ereneda. Unquestioned. Unchallenged. To get a bead on the Royal Court was proving difficult however. Though she had elevated Lira to a noble position, these Hapan's could sense she had not been born to the title. They looked down on her, even resented her due to close connection to their young chume. In this matter Lira could not help her. She needed someone else..

The day was progressing into afternoon when a flash of blue and gold uniform approached her, a hand pressed to the woman's chest and she bent at the waist. "Chume'la, your appointment has arrived. Shall I bring her to you?"

Razielle looked up slowly from the datapad in her lap. She had been rereading the specifics of the visitor she was recieving today. Aemilia Ish'myrrn, Captain Aemilia Ish'myrrn... Not only a representative of the nobility, but also one of the most highly decorated officers in the Consortium. Her record spoke for itself. She had enough awards and commendations to shame entire squadrons of her peers. Razielle had to wonder where that extra measure came from. What made her a creature of such deadly precision. What talents were hidden beneath that pretty exterior, and more importantly could she be trusted?

It was time to find out.

"Yes, at once. We will receive her here." Here being the Royal Library. Not far away Beatrix was at a table, propped up on a few cushions so she could reach the table and read along properly with her tutor. History today.

[Aemilia Ish'myrrn]

The Captain peered at her reflection in the gilded mirror, slender fingers smoothing out the sleek blue velvet (http://www.polyvore.com/cgi/set?id=47841718) of her gown. Nervous was something the decorated military woman never was...except when called upon for an audience with the Chume'la and the Chume.

There was no reason for them to want to see her in a private audience, she mused, or at least, not one Aemi could think of. It had been nearly two years since Ishara's private war against House Myrrn had begun, and a year since it had ended with her death. She was the only one left. Mother, Father, four sisters, and three brothers, her own consort, and even her infant daughters.

While Hapan court maneuverings and politics often took the lives of those too stupid to play the game properly, the all-out destruction of a House was a rare gambit. She found herself wondering again what her parents and siblings could have done to earn such wrath.

If only she'd been home when it had all happened...but dwelling on that much pain wouldn't bring them back to her, so she stopped that train of thought swiftly.

Aemi had found herself in this last year, liking the Queen Regent and the darling little Chume Beatrix. They were about as far from Ishara in personality and bearing as it was possible to be. Tristan, though she'd always thought him a bit of an idiot, had actually done something right for once. And it was hard to not see her own girls each and every time she looked at the little Chume. They would have been the same age had they not been slaughtered like the innocent lambs they were...

A discreet cough intruded on her reverie, and Aemi somehow found the grace to offer Lady Terranova a smile and polite tilt of her head. One last check of her upswept blonde curls, and she turned to follow the Lady inside. Her slippers were soft and nearly soundless beneath the whisper of her trailing velvet gown as she sought to make her stride more delicate and graceful, as opposed to stiff and militarily efficient.

Fingers rose to touch the Hapan blue diamond at her throat, the House jewel that every woman who led as Lady had worn since its inception. As Lira announced her, Aemi took the proscribed eight steps into the Royal Library, stopping at the edge of the fringed carpet. Lavender eyes rose to meet the little Chume's first, her slender figure dropping into a deep curtsy, before rising and turning to offer the same to the Chume'la - this time holding it until she was bid to rise.

"Your Highness honors me with this audience..." Aemi said with a soft, deferential tone.

[Razielle Alastor]

"Honor follows you, Captain Ish'myrrn.", Razielle noted, exiting the datapad documents on the very same person before her now. She looked up and, with an airy gesture of her jeweled fingers, bade the lady to rise.

"That will be all." Chume'la Razielle did not take her eyes from the lady before her, but at once the guardswoman and Lady Terranova both exited the library, leaving just the three noble ladies and the tutor behind.

House Myrrn. Razielle could research Ishara's personal records to her hearts content, but there was nothing to indicate what had started the enmity against this line. Probably the old hag had seen something inauspicious in her morning tea-leaves. It had been swift, the Queen Mother's will be done and now this one remained alone. All her joys taken from her. Razielle might even have suspected this was the cause for her flawless military record, but no... it had been precision itself before the judgement of Ishara fell on House Myrrn.

"It is this honor which has singled you out to us."

[Aemilia Ish'myrrn]

Her movement came more precise and efficient than graceful as she rose, obeying with great alacrity as she had always been trained to do. She inclined her head to the proper angle as the Chume'la had remained seated at her desk.

This...honor...

Aemilia wracked her mind, her expression suitably neutral as she struggled to form a coherent thought. Was there something in her record she didn't know about? Her service had been flawless...the model Marine, the example held up to be followed, commendations, awards, citations...

But was it too perfect? Perhaps it was. But it was the only way Aemi knew how to be. She couldn't explain her luck, her startling reflexes, near-perfect aim...and that niggling sense at the back of her mind that alerted her to danger with seconds to spare. Time enough to react and look as if she'd turned in the nick of time.

Whispers had followed her through the ranks, but left her mostly untouched. After all, she was an officer of the Royal Space Marines and first-born of a noble house.

"I live to serve, Your Highness...what would you have of me?" she asked, her steady voice soft and deferential.

[Razielle Alastor]

"I would have you sit!", she smiled in invitation, gesturing to the seat across from her own.

Speaking in hushed tones, for the obvious sake of not disrupting the educational activities going on nearby but also for privacy, Razielle continued as the Captain moved around her. "I will cut right to the heart of the matter, Captain. There is no need to waste your time or my own. I am aware of the norms of Hapan culture, all the vying for supremacy, and near continual threat of assassination by displeased parties. I am also aware that being foreign-born there are some that would seek to eliminate my influence over my own daughter."

Her eyes stole over to Beatrix with the genuine concern of a mother for her child. "I cannot allow this. I need to keep this sovereignty in line for her, and to do that I need to be aware of threats, even perhaps before they are conceived. I need to know who my enemies are. I believe you have had some experience firsthand with the duplicitous nature of this concern, which is why I come to you first."

Someone who knew what it was like to have your peers turn on you for the sake of promoting their own name. Someone who knew the players on the board, and how they would make their moves.. Captain Ish'myrrn was the perfect candidate for this.

[Aemilia Ish'myrrn]

The Captain did as she was bade to do, accepting the proffered seat with a smile and a delicate motion that might have passed for a curtsy. Slender hands folded together in her lap after adjusting the long sash of silver discs, letting it drape over her crossed legs.

As the Chume'la spoke, Aemi arched a delicate blonde brow as the first real expression crossed her features. There was no courtly artifice in the stab of pain that marred her lilac gaze, nor a polite mask to cover the anger and self-loathing that quickly followed. She followed Razielle's glance to little Beatrix, bright eyes glancing between mother and daughter, before settling on the darling little Chume.

They lingered there, perhaps longer than they should have, watching as the little one attended to her lesson with bright-eyed wonder. Anaria and Kirelle would have looked much the same, she wagered, but Aemi would never truly know.

A delicate lace-edged handkerchief, all white save for the intricate A and K embroidered into the soft fabric, slid quietly from her sleeve. Aemi barely looked at it, using it instead as something to focus herself with as she tried in vain to collect her scattered wits and thoughts.

Her voice, too, emerged in a whisper when at last she persuaded it to function, lilac eyes turning to the Chume'la. Honesty, pure and unadulterated was the order of the moment. "My Lady, do not doubt for a moment that there are those in this Court who would seek to eliminate you both to wipe the slate clean. There are many without any sense of honor, and a startling number of them would think nothing of murdering a child to further their own ends. It is, after all, what stole the life of my little angels...and I cannot bear to see it happen to another, in any form."

[Razielle Alastor]

The very real possibility that Beatrix could be harmed here was always foremost in her thoughts, never more so than now. After seeing the still fresh sorrow that lived in Captain Ish'Myrrn's eyes as she spoke of her own slain children, Razielle's resolve to keep her daughter safe at all costs was only stronger. No one was going to harm her child. Their child..

Pain was palpable in the space around them. Despite her status as the Regent of the Consortium, she would have offered comfort to the childless mother, but she could not. There was no comfort for such a loss. What she could offer was vengeance.

"We need you, Captain. She needs you.", Razielle nodded over to the little chume.

"We need for you to be the exquisite Lady of House Myrrn. We wish you to smile and flatter and play the game, placing yourself in the path of.. those without honor. You will catch them at their intrigues and together, we will deal with them."

[The Vilissar Twins]

It was at that moment the other invitee to this little get together decided to make an entrance. She hadn't waited to be announced to enter, much to the annoyance of the guardswoman who looked quite flustered before the Ambassador gave her one last sickly-sweet smile and closed the door in her face. Anadi wasn't here to play nice... well... except with foreign delegates... but it was a fact that those around the Palace were becoming slowly familiar with. It wasn't that she was cruel, more that the young woman simply refused to let her status as a foreigner be used as leverage against her within the Hapan court. Sure it ruffled a few feathers, but it also earned respect from those that were less petty.

The moment she turned to face Razielle and her guest, however, the haughty act was dropped to a far more gracious mood and dropped to a slight curtsy. It was the proper thing to do, after all.

"I hope I'm not interrupting anything. I came as soon as I was able, Chume'la." Such a ridiculous word, Anadi mused, holding back the small sneer and giggle that was let out freely somewhere on Onderon.

[Aemilia Ish'myrrn]

Revenge.

How many times in this past year had she hoped for it? Prayed for it, to whichever deity she thought might listen? Aemilia had been powerless until that very moment.

But no longer.

The Queen Regent had given her a new purpose. A new child to protect and watch over. She was renewed, in that moment. Her features changed in that moment, as did her posture. Gone was the delicate court creature and the grieving mother. In her place sat the decorated Captain of the Royal Space Marines, possessed of a spine of durasteel. Though it had cracks and been bent as far as it could go with the loss of her loved ones, it had not broken.

Aemi tucked the handkerchief away in her sleeve once more, a predatory smile curling her lips. "As you wish, your Highness." she said softly, her glance softening only as it was cast briefly to Beatrix. From her left hand, she removed an intricately patterned blue and gold floral filigree ring and leaned forward to place it carefully on the Chume'la's desk.

She took a deep, steady breath before speaking once more, voicing the ancient words of fealty that hadn't been used in gods only knew how long on Hapes. "With my Mother's ring, and upon my House, you have my loyalty and my allegiance. I am become your will."

A delicate brow arched as she resumed a more graceful position with the opening of the door. Aemilia knew the Ambassadress on sight, and rose to offer a graceful curtsy by way of greeting. She remained silent, however, until the Chume'la greeted her first.

[Razielle Alastor]

Picking up the ring upon which Captain Ish'myrrn had just so exquisitely made her oath, Razielle examined the design closely, admiring it.. If they were going to follow the old ways that had lost favor, it would be within her rights to hold the ring in trust of this vow. Razielle had enough jewelry. Captain Ish'myrrn, had a lack of connection to her family. There was nothing to contemplate. The vow would be kept. She held the ring out for Aemilia, to picked from her waiting palm. As the captain touched the ring, the chume'la's hands closed around hers, meeting her eyes in proper acceptance of the oath.

She released the captains hand, and the ring as the door opened to admit one of the two identical Vilissar twins. Razielle arched a brow slightly at her entry but otherwise did nothing but perhaps have the slightest inclination of a smirk. "Do come in, Anadi.", she said sitting back and folding her hands in her lap.

"Captain Ish'myrrn, may I formally present Ambassadress Anadi Vilissar, of the Hapes-Onderon Coalition.", she introduced them and bid them both sit. Beatrix looked up from her lesson and smiled at Anadi, recognizing her.

As Anadi was already aware of the sort of thing Razielle had in mind, she did not reiterate what had already been discussed. "Ladies, it is our wish for us to devise a plan. If there are people you would have to aid you further in this task, we will arrange for it. We will have them found and examples made."

[The Vilissar Twins]

Her attention was taken away from Razielle and the Captain only for a moment... just long enough to wiggle a few fingers at the young Chume. Anadi should have expected the little one, but given the nature of the meeting had expected the girl to be absent. Shame. She would have nicked a cookie or two from the kitchens on her way if she had known. Not that either of the twins had a particular fondness for most children. But then... most children weren't Beatrix.

Already knowing what was coming, Anadi listened intently regardless, feeling a twinge of emptiness at her side when the mention of arrangements being made to bring in aid if they wished it. It passed as the familiar consciousness entwined with her own, bringing comfort and reminding them that they were never truly alone.

"Sounds delightful." Although her tone was as if they were speaking of organizing some sort of tournament or ball... her eyes flickered with a viciousness she had been been forced to keep at bay for far too long.

The Ambassadress turned to Captain Ish'myrrn as she reigned in the internal fire once more. "I'm afraid I'm not yet quite familiar with all those within the Court to a point where I would trust my judgement on where to begin our search."

She paused and glanced towards the Chume and her tutor once more, lowering her voice so as not to let words carry too far. "Though I feel that starting as close to the heart of the Royal Family and spiraling slowly outward would make the biggest impression. Seeking out would-be traitors on the fringes would only cause those closer to feel pressured to strike. Cut off the heat of the serpent, however..." She paused only to let the metaphor sink in.

"Do you have any inkling as to where we should start looking? I'm sure I could persuade a few people to start acting as our eyes and ears on them until we feel more certain that we should act. Of course... unless you have other ideas?"

The Vilissars were not known to be great tacticians. But point them in the right direction and it wouldn't take long to get the necessary results... by whatever means suited them, typically. But their Master had never complained about the results.