[Lauchenoiria]

Josephine Alvarez felt sick to her stomach. So, the Xiomerans were building a military base not far from the Lauchenoirian border, mere weeks after threatening Lauchenoiria. It did not take a genius to see the potentially disastrous connection. She’d sat in the crisis meeting feeling like the words of the military generals and advisors and other politicians were being said through a wall of water, distorted. She’d obviously acted normal, and responded normally, because nobody seemed concerned, but she barely remembered what she’d said.

She got out her phone after the meeting, when she locked herself in a toilet cubicle to get away from the other people for five minutes.

Josephine Alvarez
What. The. Hell???

Jennifer Hale
Hey, don’t blame me! I voted against it!

Josephine Alvarez
The military base or helping Calhualyana with her plans to invade Lauchenoiria??

Jennifer Hale
Jennifer is typing…

And then nothing. She never sent her reply. Alvarez stared at her phone in disbelief. Not even a denial? Did that mean her fears were correct? There was a fringe party who wanted to move the capital of Lauchenoiria to Carville in the south. At this point in time, that didn’t seem like the worst idea in the world.

“God help us…” Josephine whispered, clasping her hands in prayer for the first time in many years.

*

“Hey!” Jennifer Hale said as someone grabbed her phone and flung it across the Council Chamber before she could finish her message.

“This is important business!” snapped Letitia Greenwood. “It is not the time for you to flirt with your foreign wife.”

“I wasn’t…” Jennifer began, then stopped. Actually, if Letitia had realised what she was talking about, it would be worse than if she thought Jennifer was solely distracted.

“Moving swiftly onwards,” Councillor Chiu said, eyeing the pair, “we need to figure out how to respond to the Eirian situation.”

“Just do the usual ‘we are deeply disappointed that Eiria has decided it is necessary to take this action, however should they change their mind in the future we would be happy to consider reopening our mutual embassies’; make it seem like they’re the unreasonable ones, etc, etc,” said Councillor Pierre. “I’d much rather talk about the situation with my daughter and your great-granddaughter, Lia.”

“That is not on the agenda for today. Does anyone…”

“Actually, Pierre’s right,” Rosemary interrupted, folding her arms. “I don’t think…”

“WE WILL STICK TO THE AGENDA!” Chiu said, slamming her hands on the table and standing up with more speed than one would expect from an eighty-one-year-old.

“Fine, then let us talk about how stupid we are to let Xiomera establish a military base here!” Rosemary shouted, standing up as well, arms folded. “Because I see right here on the agenda, ‘Xiomeran military base’. You do realise we’ll never get rid of them? And everyone’s more pissed off with us than ever. If we’d only asked some of the other nations beforehand we could have improved relations and then we wouldn’t need to worry about defence so much!”

“Are you so naïve,” Councillor Nirmala Patel laughed, “as to believe the democracies speak truth when they say they would have improved relations with us were this not to have happened? Why, then, do they only say this now? If wishes were horses, then beggars would ride. You speak of dreams that nobody would have dreamed had the issue not been forced. No, they will never accept us. We will hear a lot more of this. I urge all of you – do not be taken in by their sweet lies.”