Prologue: Part One
…
The world had changed, and it seemed as though no one in his social circle seemed to recognize that other than the Kaiser.
While the world was fundamentally changed by the arrival of the quarians, it was Europe above all else that saw the most dramatic of the shifts. The power balance of Europe, once held firmly in the combined grasp of France and the United Kingdom had been pried from their hands and shifted totally in favor of Germany. Not that the European power balance meant anything now these days. All the parties had been devastated by the wars, and the only party that had gained something was the new arrivals now building colony settlements in the middle of the North African deserts.
The United Kingdom, blasted to hell from the German aerial bombardment campaigns, bled dry into near financial bankruptcy to pay for a second global conflict in two decades, and the flower of yet another generation of young men was psychologically devastated. They were right to be devastated too, had it not been for the arrival of the quarians and their intercession into the Second World War, the western allies with Soviet blood would have fuelled the inevitable victory over National Socialist Germany. Anyone with any sense could see it.
So for the British to have assured victory so coldly snatched away and instead forced to sue for peace from a submissive position, it had totally psychologically broken the nation. Churchill was set to win yet another term with vague promises to resist the growing German hegemony over mainland Europe. So the island continued their resistance after the war ended.
They screamed on the BBC radio waves about the British people and their Commonwealth remaining defiant, making demands that presupposed they were as relevant as they were decades ago. They were a great power being eclipsed by the United States, which was propping them up out of some sort of obligation. They funded partisan groups in occupied Europe, even as the Wehrmacht continued to end their occupations the moment treaties were signed with governments-in-exile. It was all so delusional, and doing so was further isolating themselves from the governments they were trying to protect. The Low Countries were all up in arms that the British were heightening tensions in an already tense return to normalcy with their barely subtle underground activities.
France was on the other end of the spectrum psychologically most amazingly. They had, since 1940, learned to cope with the German domination. A natural blood enemy of German states since 1870, the Wehrmacht, along with the German provisional government had decided the only way that they would leave France was if France was smashed into pieces and divided between her neighbours. It took weeks for the French Delegation, along with the Quarians and the Kaiser to talk the disputing parties down to a simple division of France into two states: North and South, with Nouvelle-Aquitaine and Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes and below composing of Southern France and above that line designated as Northern France.
While the division seemed permanent to outsiders who derided it, the quarians – in secret - managed to convince the Wehrmacht and Reichstag that French unification should be permissible once relations between the states improved significantly. The point of the division was to humble at least one of the great Mainland European powers so that it would force actions other than military interventions to solve problems.
The French division into two was a mercy considering if Germany lost the war, everyone knew the German state would have been eradicated off the face of the earth. It was said as much by the American delegation in a violent rage after listening to the terms the quarians offered up.
There would be one exception to French unification however. The province of Brittany, home to the Breton people declared independence, something the Wehrmacht backed as a show of support for their own dedication of volunteers to the Eastern Front. It was a sticking point in relations with France, but if the Northern French government was upset about it, they would not voice it.
With the guarantee of Independence from the German government and the quarians establishing the state as their first diplomatic outreach outside of the warring parties, the Breton people as a whole had gained a homeland after centuries.
As for Germany, the new so-called Kaiserreich was like a majestic eagle, which had drove off all of her foes but had her wings broken to do so.
The country was physically broken by the Anglo-American systematic aerial bombardment and psychologically broken by the vicious Civil War the rebels had to wage in order to drive the national socialists out of their rat holes. Germany was not some triumphant master state that could lord its victory over French and English peoples. This was a victory by decision made by a race infinitely more technologically superior to them. Peace came on quarian terms, not German. No matter how benevolent they seemed, if Germany wanted to reap the benefits of their collaboration with the quarians, they had to remain yes-men to the new arrivals. Yes, the quarians allowed Germany a long leash to operate with, but a leash was a leash.
With the slow easing of European tensions, the Wehrmacht had taken steps in ending the occupation of Western Europe. It was not for charitable reasons. They did not like the drain on manpower, nor the expenditure of occupation duty . The Heer remained in the two French states naturally, but the Channel Island garrisons, the Low Countries and Scandinavia was being released from their bondage. Czechoslovakia was in the midst of negotiations which were going smooth. The Sudetenland was off the table, but the rest of the state was tentatively agreed to succeed from Germany.
Austria predictably took a plebiscite, and eighty percent of the population decided to stay in the German super state. There were conditions of course; they wanted more representation in the Reichstag and acknowledgment of a unique Austrian culture. Some of the more brave Austrians attempted an Austro-German dual state, but was shot down the moment it was suggested with a friendly upsurge of Heer troops situated in the new German province under the pretense of National Socialist hunting, which naturally curtailed Austrian ambitions for a second Hapsburg styled state.
The situation in the Balkans was going from bad to worse by the week. It was a hotbed of turbulence and shifting borders between the powers vying for control of the region. Washing their hands of the mess as soon as they could, the Wehrmacht withdrew from the region by September of 1943, leaving behind a mess for the defiant Italians to deal with. The region had devolved into civil war and total uprising against the Italians. It looked as though Josip Broz Tito was unifying the region by destroying all the power players. What he stood for exactly remained a mystery. Some thought of him as Stalinist, others as a national communist. Whatever he was, he would be one of the more annoying figures in the next few years.
It was the quarian Admiralty Board convinced the Wehrmacht to a withdrawal from Greece in December of 1943 and predictably the Greeks rose up and kicked the Italians out within four months. It was quite a spectacle, and at the end of it Greek envoys were lining up to meet the quarians for assistance in turning Rome into cindering ruins. It was a request the quarians had to deny, (as tempting as the request probably was) Instead, the quarians saw to instead providing the Greeks with food and prefabricated shelters while the country attempted to get back on their feet as well as an assurance of their independence from then on, keeping Turkey from any aspirations to retake Greek lands.
Poland was a question that was ongoing and with a clouded future. It remained the only state in Europe still under complete Wehrmacht occupation, primarily so that their lines of supplies into the Soviet Union remained unbroken. However, with the capture of Leningrad as well as all the major ports along the western Russian coasts, the need for overland transportation was shrinking and the excuse worked less and less as the Polish people grew more restless, especially as they watched the Wehrmacht liberate Ukraine, Belarus and established a Russian federalist government in Moscow, splitting Russia into two states and renewing the civil war between the Soviet and Russian states.
The question of the fate of the Polish people was broken down into three options. Total annexation, a choice preferred by the militarists, who firmly believed the Polish state itself was an abomination carved out of the German and Austro-Hungarian Empire after the end of the first war. The state had been a thorn in Germany's side long before Hitler arrived, participating in a series of border wars in 1919 with Germany when Germany was at its lowest point.
There was no doubt that Poland was very loud about their independence in the interwar years, especially with Germany and the Soviet Union as neighbours, it was sort of like a toy dog yapping at two men armed with sledgehammers. Annoying perhaps, but to just drop their hammers on it was cruel. Those that pointed to the collapse and partition of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth centuries prior was wrong to begin with and that Poland deserved its existence due to this.
The second choice was to follow the example of Austria and turn Poland into a state within Germany with a distinct culture and representation within the government. While Louis could reluctantly settle for this, it left a bad taste in his mouth. Poles would remain submissive to the whims of the German government in Berlin, but the occupation would be reduced significantly and there was talk of quarians being open to making technology deals with the Poles, making them the first ethnic group outside of the Germans to get access to technology centuries ahead of their own. Tempting as it was, he hoped that whatever remained of the Polish leadership would not sell their freedom for trinkets. Not like Germany had done. There was no choice for Germany as Poland would have.
The choice that the Kaiser liked was option three: a total liberation of Poland. The Poles suffered tremendously under the Hitlerite regime, and the Wehrmacht's occupation was not much better. The mass killings had ceased but the martial law had not and Poles were still dying every day to jump German servicemen. The idea of simply erasing their national identity or forcing Germanic status on a distinct people was just plain… barbaric. The sooner the liberation happened; the sooner there would be an easing of tensions between the two states still technically at war.
The Polish government-in-exile did not sign any ceasefire treaties as the western Allies did. In their eyes, they had nothing to lose, when in fact they still had plenty left to lose and the moment that the supply rail lines were no longer vital to the campaign in the east, there would be no stopping the Wehrmacht simply breaking the Polish people once and for all; and while quarians could stop it, it was unlikely they would. The quarians held the technological advantages, but they needed manpower in the future, and if the Wehrmacht was too manhandled by quarian interference, what would stop them from simply no honoring the deal to aid against the geth, or worse, turn the weapon technologies they gained from the quarians against the quarians themselves? There were some battles the quarians could stop, and some they could not and Poland was one they could not interfere in with a direct hand.
Complicated as the Polish question was, the Jewish question was a nightmare to even think about. The dark implications against the institutions now in control of the German state were plain as day.
The mass summary executions of the National Socialist members was quick and lauded at first until the survivors of the camps came out and started testifying to the horrifying, unspeakable events which occurred. Suddenly it became clear why the Wehrmacht didn't wait for trials. To them, it was a matter of damage control. They could not stop the flow of emotionally broken survivors detailing the camps, but they could engage in killing the guilty parties, then torch the tremendously massive archives of papers that the Allegmeine-SS and Reich Main Security Office had left behind, demolish the camps and turn the mass graves into funeral pyres. All these actions they did without a thought spared,
While these actions were decried by the world, the picture of the extermination of European Jewry (or as the Jews poignantly named, the Shoah, or Holocaust) was out there. These actions taken by the Wehrmacht were not just meant to hide the records of the German state's original sin, but to hide their own complacency in the extermination programs as well.
The heads of the Wehrmacht branches – most notably the Luftwaffe and Heer - could not allow the records of their own actions in support of the Einsatzgruppen and general assistance offered to the SS in the east especially as well as the extensive use of slave labour. The world would never believe any story, the Wehrmacht knew they could never cover it up, but what they could do was kick up enough dirt into the air leave the situation grey and ambiguous, and to top it off blame it all on the SS.
There was an overriding desire to do something for the Jews now migrating by the thousands out of Europe and into the Palestinian Mandate, captured by Rommel after his successful venture over the Suez and placed under direct control of the quarians. The Jewish leadership organizing the new state of Israel refused any attempt he made to communicate with them. They preferred dealing with the quarians, who was delicately attempting to build two nations for the Jewish arrivals and the Palestinian locals. They would prove an apt mediator; after all they were not embroiled in the religious tensions brought up by the three Abrahamic faiths.
In all, the situation was a mess.
Pushing the thoughts that plagued him day in, day out aside as far as he could, Kaiser Louis Ferdinand glanced behind him and directed his attention towards his entourage. There was Ambassador Jal'Venn vas Faleena, a rather curious fellow from the Cruiser Faleena. He was in awestruck of the Palace. He likely did not seem to notice the sea of angry Anglo-Saxons glaring or gawking at him. He had been named the quarian representative to the United Kingdom and the Dominion. Thus far he was invited to Australia, Canada and New Zealand, but this was his first trip to their mother country. It was too bad for him that he was not invited to serve as that.
Surprisingly to Louis, the quarians did not push the issue. They seemed bemused by the behaviour, but they did not force a diplomat on the British at the end of a gun. There was more important work to be done inside the Mandate to be too concerned with diplomatic apathy from a waning world power. So, in the meantime Jal'Veen worked at a post in the Mandate, answering any calls they might have had.
So with this sort of sleight being given to the quarian guests in his forethought, the Kaiser brought the Ambassador along as his personal guest. The British government might have gotten away with the offense with the quarians, but they would be able to with him. He would hack a trail through Anglo stubbornness so that the more tactful quarians could start making more successful inroads on their own.
Beside the Ambassador was the gaunt, stern faced Hauptmann Alfred Waibel of the Gardes du Corps – the royal guards of the Kaiser. He was staring at the nearest King's Guard, either with envy or disgust, it was hard to tell. Once upon a time, the Kaiser's personal guard too were adorned in fabulous white cuirassier dress uniforms, with special red tunics for officers. Now they were wearing, uniformly drab grey that had once belonged to the disbanded Waffen-SS.
Louis hated the uniforms they used. Loathed the idea of his protection detail to have these ties, but there was simply nothing he could do. Even six years into the forced peace with the Western Allies, Germany was still in extreme austerity brought on by a near universal boycott of trade with Germany, as well as the continued campaign in Soviet controlled Russia.
The Soviets was madness bottled in a country set in retreat. Peace offered had been sent every year, and every year the Soviets moved their government further east and sent the letters back unopened. It was… refreshingly noble. The war ended in a series of backroom deals that forced countries on the precipice of winning into a peace against their best interests. The Soviets refusal to make peace cost them millions of souls, but it screamed to the world that they could not be subdued like the West. They had the sympathies of the rest of the world, and suddenly America's 11th largest port was in Nome, Alaska, where America continued to arm, feed and clothe the communists.
If America hated communism, it spoke volumes to the malice the emerging financial superpower felt towards Germany and the quarians.
Well, noble as it was, that would change soon. The quarians would see to it. Their frustration with the continuous war was quickly leading to a final conclusion. The military apparatus of the Mandate were debating of stepping up combat deployment with high attitude bombing campaigns and orbital bombardments to support ground offensives.
Louis redirected his thoughts and found himself looking at a ghost flanking him a few steps behind. Of all the drab and unenthusiastic faces that followed him, the only one of his entourage who put fear into him was Admiral Wilhelm Canaris. Chief of the Abwehr, the intelligence officer was quite bothered to be diverted to Buckingham for this impromptu meeting with King George. Out of all of them, only he came bearing a gift for their host.
This attitude was not new. He was quite miserable working for the previous government. So miserable in fact he made the lives of the Allies quite easy but not doing his job at all. With Hitler and the rest of the party utterly eradicated, he could finally go back to making an effort with state security.
Behind them was the former Admiral Hanala'Jarva. She was now well situated into her role as the Private Secretary and personal confidant to the Kaiser. As he ascended to the throne he found himself looking for personal staff, and while all the positions were filled with Prussians by the meddling Council, he had managed to score a personal victory in convincing the young quarian woman into a dual role. He had enjoyed her council during the Civil War and listened to his fears and wistful aspirations for Germany that followed the nightmare that was the third iteration. In turn, he found himself quite taken by just how intelligent and mindful she was, but more over how well she had come to understand human nature.
Quarians were very diplomatic in all of their dealings, but there was something very… inhuman about them. That, of course, was not to say that they were cruel. They were just literally inhuman and alien to him.
Dealing with the variety of diplomats sent by the Admiralty Board left him a little put off. There was something eerie about them, the lack of figured, the opposite leg curvature. That some of them chose to wear environmental suits, even when they did not have to, the others that did not attempted human fashions to please him, but just looked out of place. They imitated, they could not emulate nor adapt fully just yet to their new home.
They were not always in the moment, making casual, friendly conversation nearly impossible. This was apparently a hangover of their generations of exile. They were engrained to care only for what bettered future generations, which meant they were singularly focused on plotting out how best to advance the small sect of humanity they gained an influence over. Some of them even spoke with glee for the destruction that laid waste over Germany, thinking only of how rubble for the modernization of Germany was easier to clear away then to demolish, rarely ever thinking just what the cost in terms of human lives and history of that convenience was.
Louis sighed; he was sure this slavish focus on planning would fade in time. Once the first generation of Earth born quarians arrived, they would no longer be strangers in a strange land. The quarians born on earth know earth as their home instead of a burden. That sort of cross species connection would be something which his grandchildren could look forward to.
Of course, not all quarians had quite the insight that Hanala'Jarva had gained from her time on Earth thus far. She had help in the form of the brutish and brooding Oberst Joachim Hoch. It took Hanala's stern looks shot back to his direction to keep him part of the group. He had absolutely no interest in being in England, let alone walking through the gates of Buckingham. Whether it was contempt of the country or the contempt for his Kaiser, Louis could not say for certain
Hoch, a former Waffen-SS officer and ex diehard Hitler loyalist had not spoken a single word to the Kaiser since February 1945. The man wanted to end his military service entirely. He was done with the wars he fought, the sneaking around he had to do. He went to his Kaiser to extract a small repayment of debt. He obliged and Hoch was a free man. In his opinion Louis got the better deal. It led to Hanala accepting the position as Private Secretary and she had been an invaluable asset ever since.
There was something noble about the decision he made. He wanted to retire and leave behind his youthful follies and ever increasing violence he witnessed and dealt out. Instead of a life as a professional soldier, he decided to settle into a new role as an adoptive father to Hanala's niece, whose parents had been killed in the opening hours of the Civil War. There was still yet to be legislated mixed species marriages and adoptions in Germany and the Mandate, but according to Hanala in their personal conversations, Hoch was not going to let a piece of paper stop him from raising that child.
All of that tranquility which he had tried built ended on the afternoon of the 17th of February 1945. He could recall the date from memory thanks to the rage of protest issued by Hanala. There was a full patrol of Feldgendarmerie men who showed up on his doorstep and politely informed him that was to be drafted back into service.
The order had come down from Erich von Manstein and Heinz Gudarian, who needed all the experienced field officers they could muster for the renewed drive into the Soviet Union, so the rest of the Council authorized their request. Joachim, along with thousands of other men found themselves back in the Heer. This draft consisted of men who were placed on medical leave, disabled with missing limbs- easy fix for quarian prosthetic sciences - or in typical Wehrmacht moral ambiguity, jailed for their service in the Waffen-SS.
Hanala'Jarva did what any dutiful wife… partner... whatever it was that they were… did and called Louis to intercede on Hoch's behalf, but there was literally nothing the Kaiser could do and she knew it all too well. The Wehrmacht did not suffer the interference of the crown in any form. So, Hoch got a choice between service or stripped of his benefits, sentenced as a National Socialist supporter and considering just how much information he had on the activities of the plot, the deals made with men like Kaltenbrunner, Mueller, Speer and others, it would be likely he would not have made it to trial before someone suicided him.
So three years into his renewed service and here he was, brooding and miserable on a mission of diplomacy. It was a disaster waiting to happen of the quarian woman who loved him did not intercede.
Diplomacy… that was what this trip was. It was in direct opposite of national policy on the relations with the European neighbours. The German government had no desire for a normalization of relations. Between the reconstruction efforts following the war and the Germanic Civil War, the civil unrest caused by a full decade of rationing and the fact that they represented people who were embittered by the air campaign the Allies had engaged in.
While the government was not in favor of this diplomatic expedition, the Wehrmacht as well as the Quarian Mandate… encouraged the trip to Great Britain. The quarians, in particular, kept pushing the German government to create their own ties into the heart of West Europe to make them less likely to cause any more problems than the Spanish-Italian led Fascist Union and the Soviets were already making. It was felt by all parties that after a long, hard conflict and a bitterly forced peace, there needed to be a hand in friendship extended from their new quarian neighbours.
The problem was, however, that the United States and the United Kingdom, and to a lesser extent Northern France went into diplomatic isolation. For years they did not recognize the new German State, neither did they recognize the Quarian Mandate. They did not re-open embassies, in Germany, nor invite Germany to re-open. All communication between the powers was done through military channels. In fact the United States did not even bother to sign onto the 1947 Bern Peace Accords, which officially ended the war between France, UK, the Commonwealth, the Province of Poland and Germany and forced them to recognize the legitimacy of the renewed Kaiserreich.
Now Germany and the United States were in a strange non-violent war for years now and it looked like it was not going to let up, even after FDR's death. The United States, stripped of their atomic development privileges, could not challenge Germany and the quarians militarily, so instead directed their attention to becoming the engine that drove the world economy. Through economics they insured their survival. Any war that devastated the United States would devastate the fragile world economic engine. With that in mind, the quarians did not push the United States into anything that they were not ready to accept and German policy to the economic superpower was to pretend as though they were invisible.
So, this gentle manipulation which he was engaging in was not so much out fear of the United States, North France and the United Kingdom – If they wanted to, the quarians could wipe out everyone – they didn't do it because when they did return to the rest of the galaxy, they would have to explain why they had to exterminate a technologically inferior people, in order to save another group of people that tried to exterminated an entire people, so that they could both go out and exterminate a young race that exterminated most of their race…
Louis shook his head. There was far too much extermination on his mind.
He glanced to his wife, the Empress Consort Kira, who looked at the palace with obvious distain. She was French by birth, Russian and German by blood. She was a bitter expatriate, expelled from her home during the Russian Revolution. It was a perfect storm of snobbishness, cold analysis and – with enough drinks in her – she had a temperament that that matched some of the more colourful members of the former Third Reich. Still, he could not help but adore her for it. Once one managed to crack through that icy heart, they found themselves the object of her unconditional affections. The trouble was breaking through all the barriers she erected. She was a woman who had lost so much in her early life, that she spent the rest of her life compartmentalizing so she was never hurt again.
Noticing that both her condition and the flowing grey dress she insisted on wearing was making traversing a hazard, Louis took his wife's arm and together the two moved through the front gates to greet the reception they had.
The party that greeted them was two men; two bureaucratic types, mustached and wearing gravely mistrustful looks on their faces as they watched a Kaiser step into the grounds of Buckingham for the first time since the death of Edward VII. With both opposing parties locked in place, Louis exhaled and gestured behind him. He did not have to look. Silently he felt his advisor Hanala'Jarva stepped up to his left and leaned up to him.
"The older one is George Villiers, 6th Earl of Clarendon, Royal Chamberlain, the other Sir Alan Lascelles, who is Private Secretary to George," she whispered to him.
As soon as Louis nodded, Hanala melted from his side, presumably returning to her Hoch's side considering the small growling words she whispered furiously towards the antagonistic behavior he held over this whole affair. He eyed Kira, whose expression was that of staring at a couple of bugs had not changed.
Sharing a one sided smile with Kira for a moment, Louis stepped forward and approached the men, Kira a step behind him. Although neither of them looking particularly pleased to see the German and Quarian contingent, the elder of the two stepped forward and reluctantly bowed his head out of due respect.
"Your Majesty, Your Grace," Villiers welcomed the two royals with lip service paid to deference. "Welcome to Buckingham Palace; if you could please follow me? His majesty, the King of Great Britain and Northern Ireland as well as head of the Commonwealth wishes for a private audience with you in his study."
There was an obvious squeeze on his arm, a warning from the Empress Consort, or perhaps suggesting for him to antagonize them for trying to exaggerate their King's empire. Whatever it was his wife wanted Louis ignored it for the sake of everyone.
"Please, no more 'Your Majesty'," Louis informed the two men as he gestured the group behind him to follow them. "I try to avoid it when possible in my household. Furthermore, I wish to make a personal apology to you, Sir Lascelles as well as the household for this… impromptu meeting. I know that I caught you on not the best footing."
The two men, whose entire careers… lives… were probably based around subservience to the nobility class looked at him like he was more of an alien than the two quarians in his party. This was not a reaction from the staff members serving on the Windsor family either; he was at a standoff about formalities in his household with the royalists who tried to treat him like the reincarnation of the earlier Kaiser's who demanded the formality and separation.
Ironically, the skeptical militarists, who wanted nothing better than to turn Germany into a dictatorship under Wehrmacht control liked that he showed some humility. Approachability was key to the relationship between the Wehrmacht and the throne. It was a weird juggling game, and thinking about it made him less eager to return to the Germany so quickly.
As the group entered the Grand Hall, a sea of servants awaited them. Judging from the expression on the two Englishmen, this was not organized by them. The answer came quickly, because standing there on the grand staircase was a young woman, whose very presence brought both Lascelles and Villiers to full stop.
The woman remained motionless, merely watching the approaching group with an appraising eye cast over all below her. She was dressed plainly in a simple off colour white knee length skirt and a cardigan. Her hands were pursed together. It was in Louis' opinion that she was very nervous, but she was not about to admit such a thing and battled the inclination to shy away. What she was willing to express was her obvious frustrations with members of her father's staff.
She did not look anything like an heir apparent to the King, but to Louis, it was perfect. Louis found himself surprised that he took an immediate shine to Princess Elizabeth. Perhaps there was an upside to this trip after all.
Further up the staircase was a man, his arms behind his back. He looked like he was sucking on a lemon when his eyes locked onto Louis. If the woman was Elizabeth then no doubt this was Phillip Mountbatten, the poor sod of a Prince, to be turned into a consort. Next to him must have been Princess Margaret, who stood there with far greater enthusiasm than Phillip and was watching the delegation behind the Kaiser far more curiously than the Kaiser. Young, full of life, Margaret was a contrast to the conservative nature which the Windsor family aired.
Noticeably missing from the group was Queen Elizabeth. Either she was with her husband, or she decided not to grace the Kaiser with her presence. More than likely it was the latter. She loathed anything German. Several of her beloved brothers dying at the hands of Germans in the last war probably had something to do with it.
With another moment of deliberation, Princess Elizabeth stepped down the stairs and silently approached the group. Her eyes were narrowed on Villiers and Lascelles in an expression of disapproval. Both men bowed their heads out of respect to the heir apparent. They both looked up to see Elizabeth's barely concealed annoyance was not curtailed by the deference which they showed her.
The Princess locked herself in place a few meters from the German and quarian delegation. She did not acknowledge the Germans and quarians; her gaze remained firmly fixated upon the two Englishmen.
"When I heard that we were receiving guests I took it upon myself to organize something with a little more substance," Elizabeth spoke to her Father's men with a stern undercurrent to her formal tone. "I shall… assume… that the informality of the greeting to the Kaiser of the German Reich was done only because of the short notice we had on both he and the Empress Consort's arrival, and not because of the nature of our government's adversarial relationship with their counterparts in Berlin."
As he watched the pallid Englishmen lose what little colour which they already had, the Kaiser could barely conceal his growing fondness. She was good. Oh, she was better than he had ever anticipated. All the reports he received from Canaris that she was some little housewife who would be a mouthpiece to her husband was quickly being washed away. This Princess was someone whom Louis could see himself working with in the near future.
"Yes your majesty…" Chamberlain spoke in a soft deference. "We felt… discretion was best maintained…"
She did not answer their excuse. With the two men thoroughly chastised, Elizabeth directed her attention to Louis, and strangely, she curtsied to him without any sort of hesitation. It was not a small one, done so out of expectation. It was deep, submissive, as a subject would to a royal.
It caught Louis and Kira off guard. Phillip as well, who looked as though his wife had lost her mind. Although there was an obvious separation in status, this was still not something a Princess belonging to a nation which almost fundamentally opposing his would do. If the warmongers in Downing Street saw it, they would have thought Elizabeth would revert the Windsor family name back to Saxe-Coburg-Gotha.
Offering her a smile, Louis reached out and took the Princess' hand, giving her knuckles a small kiss. He would not forget her diplomacy so quickly. If today worked out, it would be a gesture he would return once she was named Queen. As Louis let go of her hand and stepped back, Elizabeth gestured to her husband, who stepped forward.
"I would like to present my husband, Philip, Duke of Edinburgh," she introduced, glancing fondly to the man by her side.
Unlike his wife, Phillip did not deign to offer the same sort of submission to rank which Elizabeth had generously giving. Instead the former Prince stepped past his wife and offered a hand out to Louis. He did not seem to notice Hauptmann Waibel stiffen up at the apparent lack of decorum shown.
"A Hohenzollern in the house of Windsor, this is certainly new," Phillip wryly remarked as soon as Louis took his hand. "It must be hard to be here as less as a conqueror and more of an onlooker… a tourist, really."
There was no time for a response to the jab from Louis. Before he could even formulate something, he felt his arm scooped up and found his wife latched to it, her expression hard as she stared up at the 'Peasant Prince'… her words, not his.
"I could say the same thing for a Battenberg… I mean a Mountbatten," Kira simpered, her voice barely concealing the total malice she possessed for the fellow expatriate.
Knowing his wife well enough to know she was only a moment or two away of mentioning his national socialist marrying sisters and kick-starting another world war, Louis squeezed her arm.
"I would like to present the Empress Consort Kira," Louis introduced his wife to the Princess and the Duke. He did his utmost to keep his composure.
Just as Elizabeth had done for Louis, the Princess curtseyed unnecessarily for Kira, who unlike Louis, was not about to be modest. She nodded. Next to her, Mountbatten gave the slightest of bows, the smirk still spread on his face. Louis had to wonder if the look was intentional, or that was just his resting expression.
Kira did not even bother to acknowledge Phillip any further than she already had. Her attentions were diverted to the Princess, who was surprised when Kira took both sides of her shoulders and pressed her lips against each of Elizabeth's cheeks.
Before Kira could pull back to address the Princess, a highly indignant cough erupted nearby.
"Your Royal Highness," Lascelles interrupted the scene, looking like he was close to losing his composure at the sight of the Princess and the Kaiser in so friendly terms. "I was asked by His Majesty, the King to invite you to join both the Kaiser and himself in this meeting, at your own leisure of course."
Louis released Elizabeth's hand and glanced to Lascelles.
"Perhaps she could take me to the study," Louis suggested, turning his attention back to Elizabeth. "I do not wish to be too obtrusive to house protocol, but I should like to speak to you, if it is not too much of an imposition upon you, of course."
It certainly was an imposition upon both Villiers and Lascelles, but with the heir to the throne already miffed by them, neither man were prepared to voice their displeasure.
"I have no objections to this," Elizabeth agreed, her eyes meeting Phillip's for a moment, silently ushering him away from the Kaiser and the Princess. "I shall take the Kaiser to see him."
She did not need to issue any orders to tend to the Kaiser's companions. She appeared to have the basics of her role down well thus far. Louis looked at his own weary entourage and with a small squeeze on Kira's arm; he stepped forward and joined the Princess.
…
…
There was a silence between the two of them as he followed a step behind the Princess. It was not a tense silent. The silence was more along the lines of a silence between strangers than animosity between foes. Both of them likely had plenty of things to say, but neither of them knew when to start.
Louis remained silent as he took in his surroundings. Although the entrance was a splendidly adorned section of the Palace, as the Princess led him deeper and deeper into the home, the house became much more depressingly stale looking. The war was still heavy on the minds of the Windsor household, the stories he heard about the splendor of the palace from his Grandfather were long past into history.
For now he hoped the meeting would be productive. He would love to return to this palace once the home returned to the state it once was.
"You know, both I and Phillip had expected a larger contingent of Hohenzollern to travel with you," Elizabeth spoke first; her hands together as she glanced back to the Kaiser behind her.
There was a trace of suspicion in her tone. She might have been willing to be diplomatic, but if the tables had been turned and Germany was on the losing side of the conflict, she would never have given him the time of day. Louis could not blame her. The bad blood was thick between the families.
"My sisters Alexandrine and Cecilie will join us in London tonight," Louis informed her. "Alexandrine does not care for the quarian's high speed aerial transportation, so she and Cecilie are on a ferry from Brittany."
Elizabeth permitted a smile to cross over her lips.
"I would be happy to meet them. I am sure we can organize a reception for tomorrow when they are ready," she offered as she turned away. "If Daddy agrees to such a thing… then I shall do my part in reigning in Phillip. You have my apologies for his loose interpretation of decorum."
Behind her, the Kaiser could not help but chuckle slightly at the sparring downstairs.
"There is nothing your husband can say that rivals what is said to my face back home," he confessed to her. "We are grateful for your hospitality; and I am glad to have this audience with you for however long I have it. I also wanted to offer you my heartfelt congratulations on the safe birth of your first born."
The Princess paused for a moment, as if a little surprised by the words.
"Thank you, sir," she said, sort of distant sounding, distracted even. "I noticed that your lovely wife is expecting. I wish her the best."
Louis smiled and nodded, remaining silent as the pair of them passed by two curtseying housekeepers. They were, Of course, curtsying to their Princess; neither of them likely knew who he was.
"I would not dare tell the future Queen her duties to family, but I will suggest that you cherish every moment of your motherhood until you take on the throne, because such a thing grows harder as state affairs take precedence" he spoke as soon as they were alone once more. "My Grandfather had no time to be a father. He was too busy making a fool of himself to notice that his sons were turning exactly into him, with all the same character flaws which he possessed. Parental actions and inactions will irreparably alter the destinies of children."
The pace which Elizabeth carried the two of them at slowed down considerably. She did not face him, but something about his statement of fact seemed to break through whatever defenses she had enacted.
Whatever that she was thinking, Louis hoped she would take something away from his suggestion. An emotionally abused and unloved Crown Prince led Germany to total ruin. This phenomenon was not restricted to Germany. Her son could undue everything she worked for during her regime.
"Well, I am surprised by your… critical examination of the failings of your own family," she murmured lowly, almost loathed to say those words. "I believe few would dare to be so honest."
Louis looked at her curiously. There was a strange envy present in not just her words, but her expression. He could not blame her for it. It was difficult to make such critical self-examinations.
"I had a long time to see the embarrassing failures of the previous generations… a long time with many thousands of kilometres put between myself and their influence," Louis answered "…just as I suspect you must have had with your Uncle and the abdication crisis: time to see what a bad crown was capable of doing."
Elizabeth came to a halt at the mere mention of Edward, David, whatever it was he went by these days. She turned to face him; her expression was devoid of any of the graciousness which she had shown him. In her opinion, he was venturing into grounds left undisturbed. He could empathize with her reaction. She was never meant to be a Queen just as he was not meant to be a Kaiser. Fate, however, had decided otherwise.
Louis knew that he had to press on. He needed to redirect her focus onto a matter which concerned the pair of them far more than the failed reign of Edward VIII. He stepped forward, the height difference between the Princess and the Kaiser became more pronounced, but the Princess remained locked in place. She remained unfazed by the encroaching Prussian. He was hardly imposing, but she did not know that yet.
"You and I… we could be agents of change if we are both strong enough to stand together, even tangentially," Louis pressed on, unblinking in his examination of the young Princess. "I have come here to your home to see your father, of course, but it is you who I feel I will spend the most time of my reign facing."
There it was: the actual reason which he stood in Buckingham Palace on this day. Speaking to the King was a lost cause. Louis knew there was nothing he could say or promise George that would turn the relationship around. George was bred from a young age to hate and fear Germans, and the alliance with the quarians only exponentially increased his antipathy. At the most Louis thought a dialog could be established with George, but the dialog was not necessarily going to be a constructive dialog.
The only chance at building ties was aligning with the 23 year old mother and future regent, staring up at him like he had offended her for stating the obvious. The King would not be a King for much longer, the sooner she accepted that, the faster a relationship could be established between them. He could appreciate why she was not thrilled by the slip of words. Not many were open to discuss the mortality of loved ones.
"We are products of a changing time. The quarians are a shock to a system that threatens to make royalty a quaint notion. It will be up to us to show we have a future," Louis continued, suppressing the urge to apologize for offending her. "We are the last crowns in Europe with tangible power to wield, and we must wield it protecting our peoples from the maddening determination of our politicians and soldiers looking to make gains through sacrificing the people they represent. Our institutions must renew our political capital or we face extinction through irrelevance, and another war becoming inevitable."
There was a slight flare to Elizabeth's nostrils as she regarded both the man in front of her and the words he spoke very carefully.
"Perhaps such a thing is trivial in Berlin, however when I ascend I will be held to a constitution which prohibits me from having the same free hand which you have," Elizabeth replied, her words increasingly more biting as her eyes narrowed. "It has been long established that crown refrains from the affairs of the elected government. The British people and the Commonwealth for that matter will not accept such a break in tradition, and certainly not because a Kaiser suggested it."
"I am suggesting it out of concern for your people far more than my own, and you would do well to heed my warning, madam," Louis immediately retorted.
The implication was clear enough for Elizabeth to grasp. What protest she mustered vanished as she stared at him wearily. Exhaling slowly, the Kaiser softened his expression. He was –perhaps – too tough on her. It was just that these matters were an old story for him this many years into his reign.
"I am not asking you to break your constitution. I am asking to you not be passive in the coming years. Political neutrality is fine when you are in a state of relative peace, but you are not at peace, Princess," he warned the Englishwoman. "Our two states are one bad diplomatic incident away from war, and I can assure you that the wolves in charge of the Wehrmacht want the excuse to destroy England, and with every passing year the quarians are arming them with more and more powerful armaments."
Ignoring all protocol which the Princess was bound to, the Kaiser reached out and took her right hand into his. She stiffened up, clearly unable to comprehend this protocol faux pas.
"I can make you this pledge right here, right now," he promised Elizabeth. "I will fight tirelessly on my end to keep the Wehrmacht at bay, but there is only so much I can do. I cannot influence your government directly. They need someone who can sit down with the political leadership and carefully dissuade them from antagonizing the already deep divide between our two states."
Elizabeth did not acknowledge him, but did appear to be digesting what he was promising her, and what it was he expected in return. He understood it was not an easy request for her to acquiesce to. He wanted her to undue over a decade of learning. Everything she knew since her father took on the role of King, and her as his heir.
"You must understand what you are asking of me…" she murmured, staring at the hand covering hers. "It stands against everything which I was taught ever since I was first told I would be named regent."
Louis nodded gravely.
"The idea of neutrality was thrust upon you by politicians who fear the power of persuasive power your family has on the people," Louis stated, his tone biting. "Perhaps a few centuries ago they were right to fear that influence. But this is not an absolute monarchy and has not been one for some time. The only time you are allowed to say anything is when they need you."
He watched as Elizabeth turned her head away from the Kaiser. Her hands were still in his as she stayed locked in place.
"Was your father politically neutral during the war? Were you?" he questioned her before she could answer the charge, clutching her hand a little tighter. "Your father, the King defended his nation proudly, sacrificing his health to hold back Hitler in Britain's darkest hours. Now with the active war concluded, they expect your family to go back to silence, ignoring politicians when their policies lead them back down the path to war."
He leaned in closer to her. "Your silence, Elizabeth, is consent to their insanity." He breathed to her.
Louis pulled back from his rant and let go of her hand. He could not afford to look any more like a madman to potentially the only ally he had in the palace. She just needed to understand even a fraction of the fear he felt listening to the Wehrmacht council casually discussing contingency plans to turn the British Isles into an uninhabitable atoll of rocks.
Thankfully for him, the Crown Princess did not seem bothered at all by him. If anything, she seemed almost… wistful. She was a woman placed to succeed the king and was unable to have a voiced opinion of her own in any avenue in the public square. She did not get to vote, she did not get to have a bias or a passion. She was to be a figurehead… and figureheads do not get such things.
Not unless they were brave enough to take it.
"Forgive me, Princess," he murmured, mustering contrition into his voice. "There are topics that make me lose my composure. I am not upset with your decisions, just by a system that forces silence on you as public servants prepare to slit the throat of a great country a third time, just to keep their jobs."
Blinking, Elizabeth nodded, appearing very… perturbed. She was nervous looking as she looked around his shoulder to see if anyone was listening. She came from a long line of men and women who had nothing but distaste for their German counterparts. Now here she was talking to one… worse… agreeing with one.
"I do feel the same as you. We must not risk a third terrible war. I would not like to perceive you as an enemy just as my Grandfather did with yours. Nor would I want my son to one day stare down yours as an adversary," Elizabeth admitted. With a small exhale, she added. "I would like to speak to Daddy about what you are suggesting, about using… our influence. For now a correspondence with you at the very least would not hurt."
There was a long silence between the two as the two remain locked in place. Louis remained silent; know full well he must have been asserting some pressure upon the younger woman. He did not wish to act in such a matter, except there was no other choice.
For her part, Elizabeth looked apologetic. She seemed to be under the impression that he had offered her a blank cheque, and the only thing she could commit to was a pen pal relationship.
"I am sorry if this is too little for your vision of cooperation," Elizabeth finally spoke, her eyes averted as a strange note of shame echoed between the Kaiser and future Queen. "I do… admire your resolve; however our circumstances are so very different. It is not such an easy thing to see the wolves in my country as it must be in yours."
The tension building in Louis subsided somewhat. Elizabeth had co-signed at least some of what he wanted to bring to their fledgling relationship. She cracked open the window, it would be up to him to carefully open it further.
Louis startled the woman with a bright smile. To her, it must have been an abnormal reaction from an East Prussian.
"I came here with little hope to make any sort of headway. To receive even a civil word from your father would be an achievement; but having this conversation with you has already exceeded my every expectation," he warmly reassured Elizabeth. "I am sorry if I am too aggressive in this, but it is as I said: this is of extraordinary importance to me; and I am so very grateful that someone in this Palace has even a modicum of trust in me."
The tension eased between the two of them. Elizabeth nodded and extended her hand to the direction they had to travel deeper into the palace. He half listened as she discussed the home. His mind was wandering to the next part of his meeting.
"So, I must ask. What should I expect from your father?" Louis queried the woman out loud.
Elizabeth looked back to him.
"Nothing warm," she answered him, some of humor tinted her words as a sly half smile inched onto her lips. "Daddy was… convinced that one of his German cousins had bombed Buckingham…"
The two of them shared a laugh at the concept.
"Well, I was the only one in the Luftwaffe, so I guess the cousin in question was me," Louis said as he followed her once again. "But I assure you, after the death of my brother in France, I was grounded."
The good rapport building between the Kaiser and the future Queen stifled. Elizabeth, by the look of it had not known about what happened to Wilhelm. How could she. They were only distantly related and between censorship on both sides, it was not exactly common knowledge.
Noticing that she looked ready to offer her condolences, Louis raised up his hand to intercede, and thankfully Elizabeth shut down her attempt to console right away. Willy had died eight years prior now; it was an old wound that had scarred over. He wasn't looking for condolences.
"The government of the day wanted him to be laid to rest as just a soldier, and yet when the word got out it drew such an audience that they could not stop it. Fifty thousand strong, and one of the few times which the National Socialists could not stop such a spontaneous gatherings," he informed her, pride filling his voice. "If there was one good thing that came from Wilhelm's death was how much it seemed to have frightened them. That all their efforts to destroy the people's memories of the monarchy came to nothing the moment one of us died fighting in yet another senseless war, just as their own sons were."
Pausing, Louis emitted a small smile. Next to him, Elizabeth appeared a lot less convinced.
"But you intend on restoring a fully independent government?" she questioned him.
Elizabeth's unspoken concern was obvious. She feared (or rather was indoctrinated with her father's fear) the return of the autocracy which his Grandfather ruled the Kaiserreich of old. He had to admit it that it was tempting on some of his worse days.
Louis nodded in a swift affirmation. Yes, the state his Grandfather reigned over was not great, especially after the turn of the century and the dismissal of Bismarck, leaving the Kaiser the only voice that mattered in the state with no one to temper his most drastic of behaviors. Thankfully, Louis was not the same sort of man.
"I have spent nearly every waking hour fighting to build a government which represents the citizenry; a government which will not govern in fear of the Wehrmacht," he assured her. "I have made headway, but there is much work left to do."
Staring at the Prussian for a moment longer, Elizabeth turned away. Whether she believed him or not was up to debate. For now, meeting the King was their shared concern.