Yang and Weiss had just arrived at the exclusive restaurant where they had agreed to meet Brede Campion. Weiss had explained that high end Atlas restaurants divided into two categories. In one sort the important thing was to be seen in the restaurant and noted and the other type was for discreet meetings. This was the former with mirrors and in particular a mezzanine floor which was designed to ensure the people eating on it could be seen by virtually everyone else in the restaurant.
The food was apparently first rate, but Yang had been warned that this was a restaurant for people who were weight and figure conscious and ate out every day. She had therefore had her normal full Vale breakfast.
Weiss and Brede had pencilled this meeting in weeks ago. Brede was in the process of making his family regret insulting his teammate and her family. Apparently when an Atlas aristocrat gets the bit between his teeth in taking revenge, he does it thoroughly.
Brede's father, brothers and mother despised the Schnee family as nouveau riche upstarts who also happened to be richer than them. They also sneered at Weiss's singing and referred to her as an entertainer, Brede publicly flirting with Weiss was designed to upset them all.
Jacques Schnee returned the dislike of the Campion family, but Weiss explained that currently he was content for Weiss to be seen with Brede. Brede was after all a fellow student of hers at Beacon, was rumoured to get on badly with his own parents. He therefore decided that brede and Weiss meeting was guaranteed to annoy the Campion family as a whole.
Therefore, on Weiss assuring him that she was not in a relationship with Brede and that he was not dallying with her affections he had not objected to the meeting. Besides which Weiss was timetabled for a lot of social occasions this week which in general raised the SDC profile. Last night for example had seen them meeting up with Coco and Velvet and the press had been out in full.
Coco was of course an icon in her own right and had been for years. What was a more recent development was Velvet being the anointed princess of the geeks after her bullets had played their part in the victory at Kulsa and her photographs in Salutations. She was also the daughter of one of Atlas's leading scientists and Atlas was playing all the cards it had in trying to show that it had changed its ways in relation to Faunus.
After the events at Kulsa, Weiss had not been certain that Brede would want to go ahead with the revenge and the booking at the restaurant had been left flexible. This morning Brede and her had talked. Weiss had told Yang that he would like to have lunch with Weiss alone for the benefit of the cameras but would be bringing a friend along to keep Yang company. It had been made clear that Brede was paying for Yang's lunch.
She spotted Brede standing at the restaurant bar. He was dressed in a white linen suit which he had rounded off with a cravat and monocle. The man could just about bring the combination off without looking overly affected. He was accompanied by a man in a military uniform. The man was about six foot tall and looked in prime physical condition. He looked vaguely familiar but as Yang did not know any Atlas officers she dismissed the thought. Perhaps he was a relative of Brede's.
From Weiss's reaction she clearly knew the man, but it was not until the man stood up and took his military cap off to acknowledge the arrival of ladies that Yang realised who Brede had brought along. It was his teammate from Beacon, Leslie Corkran. Yang stated aloud what she thought, "Won't you get arrested for impersonating an officer?"
"My dear Yang, when I was not an officer I was charged with that offence on fifteen separate occasions and acquitted every time. I am however entitled t' wear the uniform of a captain in the Atlas military and indeed have been ordered t' while I am in Atlas this trip. My current duty is t' look decorative while my duties last term mainly consisted of protecting Brede and Weiss from undefined and indeed imaginary threats in the grounds of Beacon. Your mileage may vary on whether I do enough to earn my princely salary"
Yang stared at him, "You aren't joking are you?"
Weiss said, "No he is not. Sorry, Yang but I promised Winter not to tell anyone else last term."
The four of them chatted for a time until the maître d' approached Brede and Weiss and escorted them to the most visible table in the restaurant. Yang assumed that it was the most prestigious. A more junior member of the waiting staff escorted her and Leslie to a table next to the doors to the kitchen. She saw an amused smile cross Leslie's lips.
"A friend of mine from my salad days in Vacuo recommends the tasting menu. One actually feels fed at the end of it and it ensures that Brede pays for his pleasures. No need to pour the water or unfurl the napkins yet. I suspect that we will not be long at this table."
Yang stared at the Faunus. She had always got on with him but had been careful of him. She sensed that he was someone who would not back down from a challenge. He also permanently seemed to be having a private joke with himself.
He and his teammate Lydia made a dangerous fighting combination in doubles competition. Curiously, Lydia provided the brute force while he provided the finesse and technique. They had first distinguished themselves by delaying finishing the initiation process by going back after grabbing their relic and double teaming any Grimm they could find for twenty minutes. His favoured weapon was a crossbow and his secondary weapon was a pistol.
She agreed with his choice of the tasting menu and noted that there was an accompanying selection of wines. Just then a distinguished looking older gentleman appeared at the table. "Ah, Captain Corkran, Miss Xiao-Long. I would like to congratulate you both on your actions in defending civilians from the White Fang in Vale. May I and my guest join you."
"Yang, may I introduce you to Ambassador Parsifal Campion of the Atlas Foreign Office. He is Brede's uncle. Brede and I am staying with him this week. It would be an honour to have you sit with us, sir."
Yang noticed that the two nearest waiting staff seemed somewhat perplexed and one of them was signalling desperately to the Maître' d. The other decided to act himself and approached the older man, and said, "Perhaps your guests could join your table, Ambassador."
The maître' d arrive da moment later and apologised to her and Leslie for some unspecified error. In any event a few minutes later, she and Leslie themselves in a private room with a view overlooking Weiss and Brede and the recipients of a complimentary bottle of champagne. The ambassador's guest turned out to be Planchet who was Team LLAC's valet and bodyguard.
Yang asked, "Are you really an ambassador?"
"Ambassador to Vacuo for the last three or more years."
Yang said, "OK, what just happened?"
"Mr Corkran is a Faunus who is inexplicably a junior officer and is not recognisable from recent Vytal festivals. You are a young lady of unknown family and profession. You were assumed to be chaperones who had not been invited to share the table of your well-known hosts. Poor relatives or family friends who had been invited along in case the other member of the elite decided to snub the other by being a no show. You were therefore given the table considered to be the least desirable in the restaurant. I pointed out to them that you both were important in your own right, and they were making a mistake which could reflect badly on them."
"Couldn't Leslie have just told them that he and I were joining your party?"
"Of course, but it would not have been as much fun. It is my favourite restaurant in Atlas, but they are disturbingly insular and complacent. Besides which, this way we have ended up in a private room where we can have a confidential discussion without having been seen to have ordered one."
Corkran drawled, "Ambassador Campion spends little time in Atlas. His superiors prefer to keep him out of the kingdom. A good deal of his career has been spent in Mistral. Between the two of us we can offer a unique if decidedly unofficial view of Mistral."
The ambassador, who now Yang had considered it, did look like an older and less respectable version of Brede said, "My nephew tells me that you are looking for some insights about a relative of yours. I was in Mistral during the one concerted effort by the Mistral military and government to deal with the Branwen tribe problem. I have also met her on one memorable occasion and a few less remarkable tines."
Corkran nodded and said "I can confirm that before I joined Beacon I have spent time in the areas of Mistral under the control of the Branwen tribe. There are limits on what I can say and much of the work I have been involved with is classified. However, I have discussed the situation in Mistral with colleagues, strangers, enemies, and friends and have my own insights on the situation there."
At that moment, the first course of the tasting menu arrived. Each of them was presented with a plate containing two small arancini. One was described as a black truffle arancini, and the other was a ham hock and pea flavoured one. Yang picked up the first one and put it in her mouth. She found herself taken by surprise by the texture and the complexity of the flavours. She said, "Wow, is it all going to be this good?"
Parsifal Campion laughed, "Objectively mostly yes. However, the quality stops being such a surprise after a bit."
Leslie said, "I will go first. I am going to describe my immediate impressions and what struck me about that area of Mistral."
"I arrived in Mistral knowing that 20% of it was run by a criminal organisation which worked closely with the White Fang. I was anticipating a malfunctioning infrastructure, food shortages and a bunch of atrocity tales. I did not find that to be the case. It actually works reasonably well and is a lot more robust than the set-up in Vacuo."
Yang looked surprised, "Are you saying that the bandits are good at government?"
"They employ people who are. Whatever happened originally, when the Branwen tribe expands now they take over existing infrastructure and promote the Faunus who actually did most of the work. They do not kill the humans, but they leave of their own accord because they know that their Faunus subordinates will be promoted over them or to a position of equality."
There was a pause and he laughed "It actually is quite a simple formula. They encourage the existing human elite to leave. There are less members of the Branwen tribe then there were rich humans, and nothing goes back to Mistral. The tribute paid to the Branwen tribe is initially at least lower than the tax rate and they are actually better at Grimm control than the previous rulers were. There is still a glass ceiling for Faunus, but it is so much higher than it was previously that very few people grumble that hard."
He paused, "That works on a local level, but they have actually set up an effective regional coordination system by co-opting the White Fang."
"You have got to be kidding me."
"Take it from me that I know more about the White Fang than you do. Perversely the vast majority of the White Fang are useless fighters. They are intellectuals who are frustrated at not being given the opportunity to use their abilities. Look you remember Junior's. The lot who attacked downstairs were third raters who never stood a chance even though most of us were unarmed. The one's upstairs were actually competent but had bad luck, Fox spotted them coming, Coco reached the top of the stairs before they could get out of the corridor and then they got burnt by Oobleck, shot again with semblance enhanced bullets by Coco, pummelled by Nora and thrown through a wall by Goodwitch."
"Ok but does that make the intellectuals any good."
"They have something to prove to themselves and the world.
/-/
Salem was in the Grimmlands preparing for a meeting of the inner circle. Unusually she had required them to be in attendance rather than use the seers. She had decided she wanted to have the maximum opportunity for intimidating and observing them while taking stock of the current state of the master plan. Experience had taught her that when she saw her collaborators in person she could better understand when they were hiding things from her.
She was still having problems taking them seriously and was now trying to remember what she had told each of them about the master plan. None of the recent recruits had signed on for ending the world. In the past she suspected that her supporters had decided that it was not going to happen and so had gone along with the rhetoric. For the first time in thousands of years she had a plan which seemed to have a remote chance of working,
Beforehand she had alternated between periods of amusing herself by taking control of one of the continents until she got bored and then spending time tearing down anything which Ozma had built up.
She suspected that Ozma had got a lot cleverer in the last few thousand years. He had originally been a brave but dim man who did not go into for analysis. Certainly, she had been the brains of the couple. She supposed that they must have been in love back then. Two hundred years ago she had actually had a crisis of focus. Ozma had been reincarnated hundreds of times and while each time the person whose mind he was sharing would be taken over by Ozma, she wondered whether each time it happened a little bit of Ozma also vanished. While the man might remember being Ozma, was he actually still in reality recognisably the same person? Fair enough, living so long had changed her, but she still thought she was recognisably the same person as she had been. Was Ozpin really the same man as Ozma? Luckily, she had been able to decide that even if he was not, it did not matter.
She was lucky in retrospect that the last silver eyed huntress had taken out her last most competent sidekick who had known about the grand plan and the significance of the relics. Only Tyrian was left from that time, and he the others tended to ignore his rantings because he was clearly barking. It helped to have followers who were not aware or did not believe that her goal was to end the world, but it did require her to dissemble more than she wanted to.
Certainly, she had to be careful with Rainart who was competent but was working with her on the basis that she was the lesser of two evils. He worked best with Lionheart, but she worried that Lionheart's stupidity or Tyrian's ravings would one day make the man engage brain. After all, Rainart only really had an argument with Ozpin rather than with the Kingdoms. Still pointing out to Lionheart that Ozma's (or for their purposes Ozpin's) policy of non-intervention had led to the problems in Mistral had allowed them to recruit a spy in the highest councils of the enemy.
Watts was driven by the desire to humiliate Atlas and the scientific community in general. At least he had more enemies in common with her and had decided that she took the same joy in humiliating her enemies as he did. While respecting Tyrian's capacity for destruction, he tended to ignore anything Tyrian said which did not relate to mayhem. Watts had also been recruited by Rainart who had eventually persuaded her that the man was almost as brilliant as he said he was. He had worked on a prototype of Atlas's maiden power transference system and had been invaluable in developing Cinder's Grimm arm.
She had no illusions about Cinder's loyalty. If she was starting again she would choose someone with less ambition. Actually, someone like the Emerald girl would have been better. She had not decided when she would kill Cinder. Perhaps after she had claimed possession of two of the relics and Rainart had found her a suitable candidate to go after the next two. Actually, imprisonment might be a better option. She did not know whether the maidens worked like Ozma and had access to the memories of their predecessors.
Possibly she could rely on the summer maiden staying hidden for long enough for even Cinder to accept that the 30-year-old thing was a real limitation. Perhaps the current Winter maiden would also survive a few more years. Not even Cinder really relished the challenge of going through the whole of the Atlas military to kill an old lady who looked like everyone's favourite granny. Besides which Cinder was looking forward to going after Winter Schnee who Lionheart had assured them was Ironwood's preferred candidate.
Salem was slightly annoyed with herself. She had not involved herself with detail of the planning as much as she should have done. She had not expected the Grimm arm to have worked as well as it had and in retrospect should have sent Tyrian in support of Cinder and her acolytes when they hijacked the maiden. He could have dealt with the intervention from the hunter.
She also should not have allowed Tyrian to improvise in Mistral. It had not really served any purpose and he had been hurt both physically and psychologically.
She also had only just started reading the W the Unknown stuff. She had no illusions about the stupidity of the masses, but the main conspiracy theories did give her the impression that her servants had all got drunk one night together and vented about their own personal enemies. She worried that Ozma would engage brain and work out enough to identify her minions.
Anyway, she would interrogate Cinder about the Beacon operation. If nothing else knocking down Ozma's pet projects always was fun even it did not achieve anything important in the long term. She would also be talking to Rainart about the Mistral situation and in particular whether he had had any luck in locating the Spring Maiden. Besides which the situation in Mistral seemed very confused and she wanted his judgement on whether this was just a steppingstone towards total collapse or whether a new equilibrium was being reached.
Her other concern was the new silver eyed girl. She seemed rather more powerful than the other ones. One had put paid to Tock, but she presumed the crocodile Faunus had succeeded in taking her out. The other had had the audacity to come after her and had killed two of her more talented servants before Tyrian had broken her aura.
/-/
The older Campion said to Yang, "I would like to tell you a story. Thirteen years ago, a group of important people in Mistral and the Atlas multi-kingdoms decided that something had to be dome about the Branwen tribe. From being a bit of a joke, they had become a major irritation. Five years before they hah been a tribe on the edge of extinction. There were about two thousand of them with only eight hundred being combatants. The rest were too young, too old, too wounded, or not psychologically suited to fighting. Anyway, someone has to dig the latrines and bring up the children."
The man sipped his wine and said, "Look, the early days after she arrived was not something which mattered to Atlas. The next three years is something which we heard about at second hand and no one suspected that there was actually an underlying plan. What she first did was take out the leadership of the neighbouring and competing bandit tribes. Initially she suckered punch the tribe who were trying to wipe the Branwen tribe out. She then specialised in tracking the raiding parties of the other tribes, watched them getting drunk after a successful looting and then would launch an attack taking out the main fighters. Originally no one much cared outside the tribes in question. However, the local leaders then realised that the Branwen tribe was now about ten thousand strong as instead of enslaving or massacring the woman, young adults and children of the defeated tribes they were assimilating them. Her lieutenants became sub-chiefs and married the woman who had been widowed and adopted the children."
Yang said, "Surely the defeated tribes would have waited for an opportunity to kill her and her lieutenants."
"The story I heard was that there would be one or two attempts in each tribe. The woman permanently had her aura on and had a cadre of dedicated followers whom you had to get through first. In addition, her vengeance was unforgiving. She wiped out half of one tribe as a warning to the rest."
Corkran said, "Strategy never changed. She gets rid of those in charge and replaces them with loyalists. She treats those who actually do the work better than they feared and better than they were previously.
"Anyway, the first time I heard about them was just after she Branwen tribe taken control of their first sub-province and the neighbouring regional governors were nervous that they would be next. They only became part of my job when the multi-kingdoms got involved. The SDC had sold a few mines and had reduced investment in the other within one hundred miles of the Branwen tribe to a minimum while the other multi-kingdoms had felt the value of their investments go down and could no longer obtain insurance against bandit raids."
"Your job?"
"I was then the cultural attaché in the Atlas embassy in Mistral city. I was a member of one of the oldest and most self-important families in Atlas who had mining interests, I was a qualified hunter, and I knew every one of my age who was potentially important in Mistral. The multi-kingdoms wanted the help of the Atlas government in dealing with a local problem."
Yang asked, "What type of help?" The man looked intelligent, but it was not immediately obvious what help a cultural attaché could provide to dealing with a bandit.
"Always remember that many people believe that the interests of the multi kingdoms and the interests of Atlas are the same, The embassy was expected to help Identify who was likely to be up for the job and competent in the Mistral military, advise on who would need to be squared in the Mistral government to allow the expedition to go ahead and keeping the amount of the cost which the multi-kingdoms would be expected to fund to an acceptable level."
Corkran chipped in, "Can't imagine anyone was overjoyed to be asked t' scheme the overthrow of a group of bandits."
"No. The ambassador decided that keeping the costs down meant that the embassy could not be seen as taking too close an interest, no one senior to me felt that any good could come of being involved- no credit for success and a huge black mark in the event of failure."
Yang could tell where this was going and said, "So it was dumped on you?"
"Give the girl a coconut. Actually. not totally stupid as there was a similar problem for the Mistralians. No senior officer wanted to be in charge of a small police action and anyone with any sense who looked at the problem saw that there was scope for it going wrong."
Corkran said, "Which way did they jump on military action or assassination?"
"They ran them in tandem. I made it quite clear that I wanted Atlas and me personally to know as little about the latter as possible. It is not a clever idea for embassies to get involved in killing nationals of the host nation as a matter of course. In retrospect, perhaps knowing just enough to say do not be bloody stupid would have been better. The first attempt on her life was a spectacular failure. There were non-combatant casualties, she was unharmed, and it put her on notice that her opponents were out to get her. One at least of the assassins survived long enough to name names and body parts of the culprits were delivered to the homes of the provincial governors and local multi-kingdom managers. In addition, she raided and destroyed the most valuable mine in West Mistral belonging to Atlas Gold,"
Yang again felt the curious sense that the men speaking to her respected her mother. "I bet that did not make them back down."
"No. It was not intended to. It made them angry and reckless. A colonel from one of the leading families in northwest Mistral was appointed to lead the expeditionary force. He was not entirely stupid."
Yang saw both Planchet and Corkran wince. Obviously, the phrase was even more damming than she thought it had been. There was then a pause for eating. A cold vegetable soup arrived accompanied by delicate warm bread which melted in the mouth. For the next few minutes, they all enjoyed the food and refilled their glasses.
The ambassador continued. "On advice from me and my colleague the military attaché, a captain and a lieutenant we knew socially were appointed to his staff. The two appeared to me to be able and imaginative. They certainly knew enough to realise that the Branwen tribe would not fight a conventional war. They also knew that no one would be ready to listen to them properly until things had gone horribly wrong."
He sipped his wine and said, "First plan was do it on the cheap with a mixture of regular army. Rival tribes and the mercenaries working for the multi-kingdoms. They focused on taking over the towns and villages which had been seized by the Branwen tribe. The first step was to take over the regional capital and return it to Mistral rule. They hoped to catch the Branwen leadership napping and kill or capture them in the first half hour."
Yang said, "I gather that it did not work as planned."
"Correct, the Branwen leadership was no where to be found. Six hours after they had landed the fuel tanks at the airport exploded taking out two thirds of the bullheads which had been allocated to the expedition. Two days later there was rioting in the streets and the day after that the army was in full scale retreat down the road they had flown over. The Branwen tribe which had not been in evidence during the landing seemed to know exactly when a detachment had become separated from the convoy and raided them mercilessly."
Corkran said, "Why the riots?"
"The colonel had brought with him an alleged counter-insurgency expert. Unfortunately, in Mistral counter insurgency had traditionally meant targeting uppity Faunus and the books still dated back to the Faunus wars. One of his first acts in arriving in the town was to ban the wearing of hats, require civilians to wear sandals and tight trousers or shorts."
Yang exclaimed, "What the frack?"
Corkran answered, "It is designed t' stop Faunus passing themselves off as human. The idea is that ears, hooves, and tails cannot be concealed. Surprisingly, the rules were rarely enforced against humans known to the local police as being humans and female Faunus were often told to take their skirts or trousers off because they broke the law."
Yang shook her head. Every so often her Faunus friends would say things which just shocked her at how nasty humans could be to people who were slightly different and the extent to which the Faunus accepted this as normal. She noted Planchet also looked a little shocked at the edge of steel in the Lynx Faunus's voice.
Clearly Corkran thought he may have gone in a little hard and laughed, "Yang, did you ever see that film "The full Oum"?"
"Yes, it was great fun. All about unemployed men in Mantle becoming strippers when their factory closed down,"
"It broke box office records in Mistral and Mantle amongst cinemas in Faunus districts because of the final song, "You can leave your hat on."
Parsifal laughed, "Of course, it takes true Mistralian genius to make a stripper song become a symbol of protest."
Yang had allowed herself to become distracted and asked, "Leslie, how do people react when you take off your army cap."
He laughed, "Maybe watch me at the ball."
Planchet said, "Let's be honest, sir. The accent is what really upsets people. They can adjust to the ears alone and after all Specialist Amin is well liked."
Yang then said, "Sir, I can get that Mistralians can be insensitive. What does this have to do with my egg donor?"
"Early on she linked her strategy to treating Faunus decently. Basically, when the Branwen tribe takes over a new town or village the Faunus responsible for keeping essential services going stay put because she has a reputation for treating them better than her predecessors."
"My egg donor's a murderous criminal Faunus rights activist?"
Corkran said, "She is a product of Beacon. Frack me, even Cardin and Sky buy in t' the formula that against the Grimm humans and Faunus should be united. She had eight years of treating Faunus as equal to humans before going back t' Mistral."
Parsifal said, "My dear Miss Xiao-Long, I do not know whether her treatment of Faunus is instinctive or learned, whether it is based on pragmatism or belief. For most Faunus under her rule, it does not matter. They have opportunities and responsibilities under her which they did not have previously."
The next course then arrived. It was a duck breast with a mixture of lavender, pomegranates and parsnips accompanying it. There were another few minutes of contented chomping and expressions of satisfaction.
Parsifal eventually continued, "I said the colonel was not altogether stupid and I was not being entirely rude. He started listening to the captain and lieutenant we had foisted on him and to the criminal associates of the families with a traditional interest in the Northwest. He even asked us to provide input from Atlas on counterinsurgency. Unfortunately, the lessons from Mantle and Atlas were of limited use. We are good at dealing with resistance in cities and forcing the dissidents into the outdoor waste is sufficient to kill them quickly. In Mistral people can live off the land."
Yang said, "Same is true in Vale. I assume the Mistralians looked for input there."
Parsifal laughed, "They did or rather asked the Atlesians to enquire. The vale government referred the question to Beacon and two days later Qrow Branwen and Dr Bartholomew Oobleck arrived. They met with the captain, the lieutenant, the military attaché, and me. Dr Oobleck tried to be helpful but in general his advice was not practical."
Yang guffawed. The ambassador said, "Oh no, it was sensible. It was just that winning hearts and minds in the cities, villages and towns should have been tried before going for if you have them by the balls, their hearts and minds will follow. It was helpful in dealing with the other tribes and the multi-kingdoms. Both doubled down on their commitment to the cause,"
Yang then said, "And Uncle Qrow?"
Parsifal laughed and said, "His advice boiled down to do not frack with the Raven and why not try asking her what she wants to live peacefully. Sensible in retrospect, but at the time very unhelpful."
"Anyway, the next plan was to go in with overwhelming force and use the multi-kingdom mercenaries to garrison areas of little self-evident military importance. Also, there was a concentration on human intelligence 9and I sue the word because the mistral military had incinerated the bridges with the Faunus) to try and identify where the Branwen Tribe was hiding."
He sipped his wine. "The Mistralians realised that Atlas was a little squeamish about atrocities. They therefore did not discuss in advance with us their plans to fire dust jungles and forests where the Branwen tribes and their allies were suspected to be hiding."
Another pause. "There was an undeclared civil war going on. Nothing was published in the Mistralian press and no publicity was given to the casualty figures. For two weeks, the war was conducted by bullheads flying high over Mistral and dropping dust bombs. It was weird watching the tactic being repeated at Kulsa by Claire Arc and the LGDF forces in a better more targeted way. Our friendly captain was horrified at the waste of dust being used to destroy forests with little to no casualties amongst the enemy and a surprisingly substantial number of casualties among the alleged allies. Meanwhile the amount of cash and dust which the atlas multi-kingdoms were expected to provide exceeded all forecasts."
He sipped his wine again, "The military attaché resigned his post and left for the private sector and to my disgust I was named as his pro-tem successor until the emergency was over. The evening after his resignation took effect he explained why he had resigned. Mistral had called in their equivalent of the Ace-ops who traditionally had bene used to cull Faunus with dangerous semblances. Their role was to take out Raven Branwen as the Mistralians had determined that without her the Branwen tribe was nothing but a bunch of thugs."
Corkran said, "Were they wrong?"
"Probably not. However, they had not thought through the consequences. If you come at the queen, you best not miss. My understanding is that they knew she was the toughest target that they had ever tried to take out but thought that five to one was a great leveller. Besides which although Team STRQ had blitzed their two Vytal Festival tournaments no one had seen them flat out. Miss xiao-long, without Amber Arc giving her a real fight on two occasions, people would not know how good your friend's sister really is. I like to think that the team with my nephew and this miscreant helped ensure that your sister and Team Juniper do not have things all your own way."
"Oh yes. They do not do it every time and none of them have the skill of Pyrrha, the brute force of Nora or Ruby's speed, but the fact that you never know when they have a cunning plan which is going to take you out in ten seconds means you do not take risks with them."
Corkran smiled and raised his glass and toasted her.
The next course then arrived. It was slices of veal shanks braised with vegetables. White wine and chicken broth accompanies by saffron rice with bay leaves and cinnamon.
Yang said afterwards, "Please sir, can I have some more."
"Another five courses to go still. On the other hand, I am now weighting the tip to cover the bottle of champagne."
Another pause as the plates were taken way and a new bottle of wine brought to the table, Parsifal said, "The colonel had learnt not to spread news of his plans too widely. Unfortunately, not letting the right hand know that the left hand was up to something ended up as a disaster. The captain had planned to have several mobile units ready to converge and take out smaller concentrations of Branwen tribe members. He said his scheme was to get there the fastest with the moistest."
Another pause and a positive gulp of wine. "We had been informed that she was about to celebrate her thirtieth birthday with the most trusted members of the Branwen tribe. Our captain thought that this was a suitable time to take out the subtribes. The Mistral special ops assassination squad thought this was the time to go for her. It turned out she had leaked the information herself. I do not know how she did it but in three hours she had taken out the assassination squad and instead of the Mistral forces uniting against a smaller force each of the teams were confronted by overwhelming force and massacred in turn."
"We were told afterwards and do not know whether it was disinformation or not that the assassination squad took out some close friends of hers. Anyway, she responded by paying personal visits to her enemies. A nondescript office building in Mistral burnt to the ground and only a select few of us knew that it was the headquarters of the Mistral secret service. Interestingly, within forty-eight hours all of the competent and sane members of the families who controlled northwest Mistral died."
Another gulp. "I received a visit in the middle of the night. I hope that none of you are ever woken up by having a lady in a mask holding a loaded dust sword at your throat with a crystal of fire dust in the chamber. I was told that as far as she was concerned I could live as my replacement would be even stupider. Her message for Atlas was that leave me and the Branwen tribe alone and I will leave you alone. She made a more specific threat in relation to my family."
"Did you believe her?"
"I certainly was not going to call her a liar then. My own call was that she meant it, but she had underestimated how much she had undermined the system. By killing off the threats in the north-western families and the local multi kingdom bosses she created a power vacuum in Northwest Mistral which resulted in her needing to keep expanding to fill it."
Corkran said, "Perversely the fact that she trusted the Faunus and promoted them worsened their treatment elsewhere in Mistral."
"She played the cards dealt her as well as she could. Certainly, after those forty-eight hours no one in Mistral, to use Qrow's phrase, wanted to frack with the Raven. No one knew how she had done it, but she had taken out the highest level of her enemies in less than two days. After that no one in Mistral City really wanted to take her on unless there was no alternative. In addition, no one effective was left with a reason to pursue a vendetta."
Just then a pasta dish arrived which was venison ragu on pappardelle with a green salad.
Yang savoured the dish and then asked, "What exactly did she say motivated her?"
"My tribe is my family. I will do all that is necessary to protect them. If you do not get in my way I will leave you alone."
Corkran nodded, "Yang, you and Russel are friends. What's the first thing you think of when describing him to people."
"The hair, of course. But he is more than that."
"Of course, but if he walks into a bar in Vacuo, even if he is wearing the tux, everyone there knows he is a fully recognised member of the tribe who is recognised as a first-rate fighter. Anyway, whatever may have been true eighteen years ago, the Branwen tribe is not recognisably the same tribe as it was then while the Mohawks still are."
The ambassador nodded, "Yes, but the Mohawks have changed."
"They are still recognisably the same. The matriarchs rule the tribe in the desert, the young and middle-aged men and the unmarried women earn money in the outside world t' pay for food, medicine, and education. The mothers and older men defend the tribe against the Grimm."
"They no longer only work for the SDC and more leave the tribe."
"They are still larger than they were twenty years ago."
The ambassador raised his hand in surrender. "Fine, I agree that the Branwen tribe as a whole is unrecognisable even though she still reflects the traditional values. I also agree that I cannot see how it will survive her death. Still, she is in her early forties still and apparently healthy."
Yang said, "You say that the tribe is unrecognisable, but that she is. In what way?"
Corkran and the ambassador looked at each other and the older man nodded at the young man who then answered the question. "She lives in a tent and does not have a mansion. There is no capital – the government is carried on from where she is situated for the time being. She spends six months or so spending half her time close to the most recent conquest t' oversee the transition but does not sleep in the town or city. She is recognisably still leading the tribal life. The senior members of the tribe have all commandeered a town house or mansion from the Mistralian humans who have fled the territory. However, they are scared that she will turn up one day and accuse them or treachery. In addition, the new generation is predominantly coming from the tribes which she assimilated early on. They admire her but do not really identify with the Branwen tribe"
The ambassador said, "I agree it cannot last. She has replaced the old rulers with her tribe., but the unwritten rule is not thou shalt not be found out, but thou shall not extract the urine. The Branwen tribe takes less off the top than the previous Mistralian rulers and there are fewer of them skimming."
"You say it can't last?"
"In the end all elites get used to being pampered and indulged. I have just accepted a free bottle of champagne for saving our hosts from making a faux pas. If you or Corkran had not been here I would not have noticed it. She conspicuously lives the lifestyle of a woman who is keeping fit and does not need the trappings of wealth. Her tribe is more naturally feast or famine in their outlook. Once she is gone, I cannot imagine that her successor will be so abstemious."
Again, a new course appeared. This was a small dish of sliced potatoes with layers of cheese, onions, bacon cooked in a garlic, cream, and herb sauce. The ambassador looked out of the smoked glass as they finished the course. "Brede and Weiss are eating more quickly than we are. Corkran, could you and Planchet let them know that we will be another hour and that perhaps they may wish to wait in the bar with Miss Adel and Miss Scarlatina who are also lunching here."
The two men took their dismissal easily. Planchet gave no signal that he recognised it for what it was while Leslie simply winked at her and hummed a tune which she recognised as "Keep your hand on your ha'penny."
The dapper older man looked at her. "That young man has no respect. Still twenty years ago he would have been correct and if you did not remind me so much of your relative, I might have tested the waters. My honest view is that she did feel some obligation to her tribe and came back to Mistral to look after them. Our young friend is right when he hints that to save the tribe she has destroyed everything which made it what it was. Oddly, she has replaced it by something which is more distinctive and in her own image."
"Is she an evil woman?"
"Not the word I would choose. She has a temper and has learnt that occasional bouts of disproportionate retribution discourage people from messing with you. She has that in common with our mutual friend."
He sipped his wine again. "By the way, the answer to the question you are trying so hard not to ask is no. If I were, I would have recognised him and encouraged him to pursue a safer career. I certainly would not have left him and his mother in a desert in Vacuo."
Yang blushed. She said, "You can't blame me for wondering."
"I don't. Still his father must be one of my near-contemporaries and I'm dammed if I can work out whom it could be."
He then said, "One effect of being older is that one is more tolerant of people dealing with things in the moment not appreciating that unintended consequences are inevitable. I find it hard to blame her for not realising the consequences of her actions twelve years ago."
He looked out of the window and said, "By the way, is my nephew in love with the Faunus girl on his team?"
Yang unfortunately had been sipping her wine and swallowed it the wrong way. "No idea. Your nephew is not the most demonstrative of men and is a gentleman at all times."
"Pity. It would really upset my brother to have a Faunus as a relative."
/-/
Nora was snuggling with her beau before taking a flight to Atlas. They had been invited to the Ball by Winter Schnee and would be staying at the Atlas academy. It was odd for both of them having been short of money for most of their lives suddenly having people wanting to throw cash at them and they were not prepared to take it for granted. Pyrrha had sent her people to look after their interests, but until the money was in their accounts and they had reserved the tax, both of them were reluctant to spend it or get into debt.
They were staying at a hotel in Kulsa funded by the Arc family. For some reason Amber Arc and her parents felt that they owed it to the two of them to look after them. Amber Arc in particular had seemed to feel guilty about having given Nora the time of her life.
Nora could not understand it. Why should she feel annoyed with someone who had allowed her to conquer her fears and to force Ren to recognise that they were in reality together/together. Perhaps it was understandable that Amber did not appreciate what it had meant for her and Ren to finish off the Nuckelvee which Ruby had petrified, but the fact was that she had had no nightmares for the last ten days and she and Ren were enjoying being with each other.
Anyway, they were going to Atlas for the first time and Amber Arc was travelling with them. It appeared that Atlas was paying for the flight, and it would be the first and probably only time she and Ren would fly first class.
Both she and Pyrrha had agreed on the first day after the battle of Kulsa that it was best for the moment to spend time with their partner getting used to having moved the relationship on a stage before reuniting as a team. Both were relieved that the other was not offended by this and shared the desire. There was time enough in Atlas to affirm to the world that they were a united team.
A chapter where the back story took over. The last time I did this I ended up with a pre-series story set in Vacuo with Winter, Marrow, and the White Fang.
Maderfole- many thanks for the feedback. On the situation at Beacon my own call is that it is deliberately separated from Vale other than by walking or airship. While I had not thought it through there are constraints on how trains can cope with inclines and having lifts/elevators travelling hundreds or thousands of feet through rock may have been seen as prohibitively expensive.
Some of the other questions you raise will be dealt with later. They certainly encourage me to think more deeply about the world building aspects. Clearly the effect of Raven upon her tribe is central to this chapter although it should be borne in mind that this is being seen through the eyes of an aristocratic Atlas liberal and a wild card Faunus from Vacuo.
The third- and fourth-years absence from college I have attributed in my own mind towards the education being more in the field and so the dorms are occupied less often. I will give some thought to the knock-on consequences. Instinctively I would doubt that they would incur money on premises they only occupy for one week in four, but if there are more Coco's and Weiss's who would regard an apartment as an investment then why not
I certainly agree that Weiss and Yang is an interesting friendship to explore and that they have much in common. Setting up a story where they would be spending time together was something I was glad to find a good excuse for,
In relation to the Faunus press coverage, I see it as being the dilemma which gradual reformers always live with. Do you berate your opponents for tokenism, or do you welcome any sign of change while reserving your right to judge on how it turns out? After all, if the SDC gets no credit for trying to change, why should it even try?
I am enjoying playing around with Em and M and would like to develop them further. They had a lot of charm in the original series and if one engages brain on their backgrounds both of them were rather less sociopathic than they could have been. I certainly do not feel that I have done anything OOC with them so far.