The noble lord looked down at the werewolves from her throne feeling slightly miffed. Hopefully they would assume it was because of the invasion and not because she most likely wasn't going to get to kill these two for what they allowed to happen to their people. Or perhaps they might respect her desire for violence – her werewolves seemed to, elegant or not.
Allowing those with power, but so irresponsible in using it, around the werewolves? The werewolves were her responsibility now, she could not allow them to live in fear of these two. Or worse, if an incident occurred, it might destroy their ability to feel safe here. She would attend to other business while she considered the matter of the Fifth Elder and Kentas.
(Let them sweat, knowing their life or eternal sleep rested in the hands of a Lord who did not care for them. Let them suffer that uncertainty as their people had suffered. Not that her hands were uncaring – unlike Maduke, she was a competent Lord, and a competent Lord did their job.)
"Kertia," she said, after the last of her clan leaders made it into the throne room.
"Casualty reports are still coming in, but the humans estimate that thousands died in the tsunami, Lord."
Narrowing her eyes, Raskreia tapped a finger on the arm of her throne. A pity that she would be forced to delay sending Zarga Siriana and Urokai Agvain – and Roctis Kravei as well, when the werewolves had revealed he was part of that organization of traitors – to follow the loyal clan leaders into eternal sleep until she had gained more control over her temper.
Or.
Seira had dealt with the problem of a battle near humans by making the humans less fragile. Frankenstein's books hinted that there were ways to accomplish that without a contract – he was older than many of her clan leaders before he even met him. If the humans didn't die so easily, then she would be able to fight in the human world without worrying about them.
They did have a lot of dying humans on Lukedonia – Seira hadn't made contracts with all of them, just the ones too sick to run. Humans should handle human affairs – if only they had the strength, they could come along with her and deal with the human members of the Union.
Raskreia was maybe just a little worried. Look what happened when she killed those who betrayed the werewolves for power: she had one more clan to worry about. There were billions of humans, and if they were anything like Frankenstein, she was very, very grateful her ancestors had enforced their law that no one was to rule humans but humans. She had enough to worry about with just the nobles, she thought, regarding Karias.
Once she had a formula for letting humans survive a decent amount of time, perhaps she could send it to them as a formal apology for the lapse in her self-control. It wouldn't hurt for the humans to be constantly reminded that they had this gift because of not only her intelligence (and therefore fitness to be Lord), but the sheer power of her wrath.
As for the new island itself, her parent taught her that new volcanic islands were covered in life in the blink of an eye. It shouldn't take long for the island she'd made in the trench near Lukedonia to be presentable, and then she could give it to the werewolves, so they had their own home island again and didn't need to feel that they were intruders or had no choice but to stay in others' territory because they had none of their own.
She was certain that many of them would choose to stay with Gejutel and the Ru Clan, but what mattered was choice, for the werewolves to be acting in accordance with their own wills instead of feeling that their wills did not matter when they had no alternatives.
This would have to wait until the island was attractive, of course (although Raskreia herself quite appreciated the stark black and red of cooling lava). Otherwise they might feel they were unwanted, for her to hint that they should take themselves off Lukedonia, exiled to some barren rock. Perhaps Rajak could be ordered to find flowers (scented ones, for werewolves) and such to help make the island attractive to a people who had standards of beauty focused less on elegance. Perhaps the humans would have some advice for him on what made for a beautiful volcanic island.
"Mergas."
"Yes, Lord?" Ludis said, coming to attention.
"The petition from the werewolves you presented to me is granted. Whenever I am outside the castle's shielding, I will allow four of your Knights to accompany me to handle annoyances. At least two of them must be able to conjure shields." She wouldn't need to tell Ludis to drill them in conjuring shields quickly, so they would be able to suppress the energy she radiated even a little to reduce the damage until she regained control if she lost her temper again.
"According to Sir Gejutel, some werewolves can turn their power into shields, Lord."
She nodded: good. That way, the werewolves could feel they served a purpose even though Raskreia didn't need protection. In fact, most of the world's population needed protection from her.
Was that why her father almost never left the castle?
That would be unacceptable, when she had an island to survey and plan for. She would have to put some thought into how best to make sure she didn't lose her temper again. Preventing the traitors and the human organization from doing as they pleased because the Landegre were no longer traveling out there to stop them would be a start.
Standing on the peak of the mountain, Sirik gripped Rael's arm. "So all this time when you left Lukedonia on missions without telling me anything…"
"Not all of them," Rael said, realizing after he spoke that his fellow knight wouldn't insult him by implying he was a child who wouldn't be sent on real missions. Not when Rael was part of the Lord's honor guard along with Sirik. "My brother did entrust this to me, because I spent a lot of time training your family, so I was in a position to gather intelligence on what you might appreciate."
The werewolf looked down the mountain, seeing the ground covered in blossoming trees. "It's beautiful. All of this, for us?"
"The Lord made it, of course she wouldn't let it go to waste." A lot of noise for no purpose would be inelegant. "Well?"
"Oh!" Sirik remembered that Rael had asked Sirik to give him the werewolf's opinion on something before spiriting him away from the island. "It's beautiful," he said again. "There's no way the others won't appreciate all the work you did."
Rael considered saying he'd just fetched some plants and they did the rest of it themselves, but he didn't mind the werewolf looking down at him with starry eyes. "Humans put colorful paper and ribbons on gifts," he said, meaning it was only to be expected. Flowering plants were the practical thing when the gift was an island, even if it was perhaps a tenth the size of Lukedonia.
"Nobles and werewolves don't," Sirik reminded him, then looked out at the island again. "Maybe we should, now that we can get our hands on paper and make ribbons…"
"So they'll like it?" Rael asked, because that was why he'd brought Sirik here before the island was presented to the werewolves on the twentieth anniversary of their coming to Lukedonia.
Sirik swallowed, met Rael's eyes and nodded. A blush colored his cheeks, under the furred markings that had started to grow in soon after he started training with Ludis' knights.
Well. Getting Sirik's opinion as a werewolf of the island's presentation was half the reason Rael had brought him here, just the two of them alone on a flowering island. Sir Karias was Sir Karias, but he did have some good advice on how to conduct a romance.
Wind in the trees, sound of the waves, slightly high-pitched roaring in the distance along with the humming or crackling of aura attacks and the soft booms of rapid blows and people hitting the ground. Recess at Gejutel's school was very noisy, because the clan leader knew that werewolves needed plenty of training if they were going to sit still during lessons, but it wasn't bad, that noise. The noise of happy children Rael had helped protect filled him with pride.
The smile on Sirik's face was even cuter when he realized that Rael was listening to something and paid attention to the background noise. That deeper roar had to be Mr. Kentas correcting some child's form.
Werewolves didn't consider relationships proper until the age of five hundred at least, but that was alright. Rael only had a few decades to go and he was so busy, with even the Lord relying on him now, and it wasn't as though he didn't spend plenty of time with Sirik already, between duty and training.
The werewolf family was more or less a clan, and a clan should have a soul weapon. That way, they could make their own petitions to the Lord – Ludis had dug up that the reason only clan leaders could enter the throne room was that only Awakened nobles could survive being in a room with walls that would reflect back so much of the power if the Lord became enraged. Yes, the Lord did make time to visit them and hear what they wished to tell her, but that kind of informality compared to the nobles wasn't elegant, and the werewolves shouldn't have to put up with being inelegant anymore.
Rajak knew Rael would always be loyal to the Kertia Clan, but Rael was going to have to join Sirik's family and bring Grandia with him. His brother agreed that it was the proper course of action.
"Things have changed while I was asleep," Master said.
"Yes," Frankenstein agreed, smiling with relief. "Humans are immortal now." And couples were having fewer children, because the amount of land to inherit wasn't infinite. It made education very important, because young people had to compete with people with sixty years of experience for jobs. The advance in technology recently made it easier for the young: they didn't have anything to unlearn about how to do things. A school like Ye Ran could command any price – many couples taught frugality by the Great Depression had started saving up for their first child in the nineteen fifties, after the world had a few decades of scarcity of both jobs and resources to motivate parents to give their children better childhoods than they had.
It galled him a little that a noble was able to succeed where he (a human) failed, but at least the work got done and Raskreia was clearly inspired by the books he'd left behind, so when the truth was revealed he could still point out that it would have been impossible without human effort and merit.
Staring at the wreckage-strewn crater that was all that remained of Master's manor after Rozaria's battle with Edian, Frankenstein made a choked-off noise that was not a whimper, not in front of a noble.
Master quickly began to pat him on the shoulder.
"Cadis Etrama di Raizel."
The noble turned to look at her.
"I am Werewolf Lord as well as Noble Lord. You defeated me soundly in our spar just now."
She saw alarm in his eyes as he realized what she meant. "I decline," he said quickly.
She narrowed her eyes at this defiance, but she simply said, "The Werewolves deserve better than another Lord who refuses the responsibility of being Werewolf Lord," so her guards could relax. Of course they knew she wouldn't let Raizel have them – as the humans put it, he couldn't lead his way out of a wet paper bag, if he could even find his way out – but the Sanctuary was almost in ruins. And, more importantly, she still was no match for Raizel. Challenging him again to ensure the safety of the werewolves might send her to eternal sleep, and then who would look after her people?
She couldn't institute a democracy when campaigning would be noisy and nobles would dislike anyone who did it. At least the werewolves were willing to elect a school board, a village council and their training ground managers. They and the humans adopted into the Loyard Clan were also willing to use the currency she'd created, so at least Lukedonia had a functioning economy even if it was an uphill battle to get nobles to participate in any exchange of goods and services that would get them talking to each other, working together and resolving problems and differences of opinion.
"And no nobles can hold positions of responsibility without first graduating from school," she told him. "Whatever your duties as noblesse are, by my authority fulfilling them will have to wait until you have graduated."
He nodded.
What. That was too easy.
"My master attends a school I created in the human world," Frankenstein said with another bow.
He had to be doing that just to rile her up – they both knew that Frankenstein wasn't that respectful unless there was a barb in it somewhere. "Send the curriculum to Sir Gejutel: he will judge whether or not it is acceptable."
Frankenstein almost choked. "Gejutel, judging what I teach my Master…" Wisps of dark energy rose from him.
"Frankenstein. The full moon will set soon."
"…Yes, Master."
They came to the Lord's sanctuary on a full moon.
"That Lord said that he left a message for me here," Raizel explained.
She nodded, giving him permission to reach out with his powers.
She'd begun to think that her father's dislike of the idea of her liking males was one of his jokes, or one of the things he did just because humans sometimes did them and he liked the idea for some reason, but he was so insistent…
Then again, he was quite certain that Muzaka wasn't a problem she needed to concern herself with, and look how that turned out. Planning optimal futures for two species was very concerning.
Rai thinks that a year (the kids are seniors, I believe) is nothing, so it's not worth fighting over. Unfortunately for him, events will move fast when he's not allowed to execute people… He'll have to skip a lot of fights and have additional clan leaders there to inspect his education (and help out when the household is attacked).
Raskreia's formula gave youth and increased ability to heal damage or not take it in the first place. It didn't buff strength. I'll leave it to your imagination what immunity to disease and bullets did for oppressed people's ability to tell colonial powers ruling by force to eff off. The majority of the population (Raskreia didn't just give it to governments when governments were terrified of the Union) not needing food, water or shelter also did a number on economic means of control, or 'your life (hours, poor health from overwork) or your life (I don't give you money and you die).'
I go with the idea that nobles find 'needs' where you might have to do something against your will because otherwise you die absolutely squicky because to their species having to do something against your will is an ultimate violation/fate worse than death. So the fact that humanity having fewer needs meant there were a lot fewer ways to force us into things was absolutely intentional on Raskreia's part. People being able to say 'yeah I think not' to taking jobs without decent pay or treatment, etc. Or just pack up and leave toxic environments w/o worrying about where the next meal was coming from.
The economy Raskreia's trying to institute isn't quite a post-scarcity one (you can only have so many people on the training grounds before they start getting in each others' ways, and there's also wanting other people to do/make things for you). Nobles are much more willing to be producers than consumers, the problem is that if money flows in but not out, that wrecks your economy. Once things have settled down enough for more disruptive social engineering than just getting the werewolf and human enclaves stable, I could see Raskreia starting like a $1 tax just to make nobles participate in the economy at all.
I could see nobles deciding that money is a lot less annoying to get than gratitude, provided you have something to do with it so it doesn't keep taking up space. If there's a tax, at least you can give the extra to someone so they can pay their tax with it instead of needing to disrupt their life.
The Ru Clan and the Werewolves had enough cultural disconnect over what is and is not an imposition and who is doing who a favor that it was causing some people discomfort to think they were being unfair to the other group. Money ended up appealing as a way to keep score/have some measurement to check to be sure things were balancing out fairly.
The werewolf need for things – there's furniture on Lukedonia, how often do you think the person who made that gets to make new pieces that get used – plus the werewolves having something to hand over/give back so they don't feel like they're just taking stuff (when the nobles are 'take it, please, I have no space for it') would lead to a lot more craftwork taking place on Lukedonia, and werewolves wanting to learn crafts having people to apprentice to… Humans wanting individual designs after Union uniformity would create a larger market for werewolves doing experimental things with fiber crafts… More things would be 'what's an acceptable amount to tip' than set prices? Although set prices might be a polite thing to do so people don't have to guess.
Now I'm imagining a future werewolf with Grandia, which at that point would be what, 2/3 Rael? 'How dare you speak to my adopted child.'
