While this is an M rated story, I thought I should warn you that there is a character in this chapter who is a compulsive swearer. I think it is consistent with how they were portrayed in the series, but YMMV.
Lisa Lavender was doing her best to ignore her agent's calls. She understood his desire to maximise his 10% cut of her earnings from sponsorship deals and personal appearances but failed to appreciate that her journalistic credibility in the long term increased her earning potential.
Bitterly she also acknowledged that she had only become attractive as a client was because of her role as a presenter of intellectually negligible programmes. He was still angry that she had not agreed to present "Seriously Dancing with the Moonshards" on Vale prime time TV. Even he acknowledged that the fee offered by the SDC and the Atlas government for her to attend the ball was five times higher than it would have been if she had not been the only journalist on the front line at Kulsa. Everyone else had been confined to the town hall or the LGDF headquarters.
She had expected to be on her way to Atlas already, but a few days ago she had been offered a trip to Kurohari with the promise of an exclusive interview with Raven Branwen at the end. This was an offer she could not refuse. The opportunity to see how the city whose fall had prompted the refugee crisis and the Grimm attack on Kulsa was faring under the rule of the Branwen tribe was not one she could pass up. She had made it clear that she would honestly report on what she saw and any restrictions on her access to people or buildings. She had taken with a huge pinch of salt the reply that was the reason they had asked her.
She and her team had travelled close to the new unofficial border where a small team of bandits had met them. They had been blindfolded and taken into an armoured car. Two hours later they had arrived in Kurohari and had the blindfolds removed. She had been impressed by the speed as the roads in the unimportant parts of Mistral were notoriously badly maintained.
The two guides for their tour had been a spectacularly foul-mouthed young woman called Vernal Branwen and an extremely polite well-dressed Puma Faunus who introduced himself as Don Ochre. It was clear which one was there for security reasons and who was the PR man. It was also clear who was in charge. Vernal made it clear that she was not actually a direct relative of Raven, it was simply showed that she was a member of the tribe. "Mind you, I am a fracking cousin of some description." She also showed some pride in relating that when a member of the tribe messed up Raven would blame it on inbreeding.
For a town which had just been captured by a bandit tribe Kurohari looked disappointingly normal. There were no burning buildings and while there were a few windows which looked like recent installations, it did not appear that there had been significant looting. There was not even a curfew, there were no bodies in the streets and the power and water supply were working. The shops were moderately well stocked. What did take her by surprise was that there was a larger percentage of Faunus on the streets than she was used to and a large number of the local officials she was introduced to were well spoken Faunus or humans with very thick Mistral accents in their late forties and early fifties.
Vernal had put it undiplomatically but with the tones of someone who believed in the message. "It's always the fracking same, the Faunus and the clever human trash are the ones who actually do the work and know how to run things. Once they realise that we aren't going to kill them or steal their jewellery, they just go back to work."
Don said, "This part of Mistral unfortunately never attracted the best human administrators for any length of time."
Vernal explained "Idiot sons of the wealthy who had to be put somewhere where they could not embarrass the family, plodders who came from families with just enough power to get them a job in the sticks. Anyone who had any fracking ambition or was any use got out after three years max."
Don intervened, "Unfortunately there were rather more ambitious ones than useful ones. Curiously, the plodders and the lazy but semi-intelligent wasters did less harm than the ambitious ones. They both tended to appoint people below them who meant that they never had to worry about making decisions."
"Which meant they appointed Faunus or humans with no family connections and the wrong accent. No need to worry about your fracking inferiors replacing you even if they could actually organise an orgy in a brothel."
Between them they had conveyed that the policy of the Branwen tribe was to delegate as much as possible to the locals who had stayed put and to trust them to run things properly. As Vernal put it, "They don't piss in their own drinking water."
Early on she and her team had decided that the two minders were putting on a bit of an act and were higher powered than they had first appeared.
The one thing which fitted in with a reign of terror was that the police force wore mostly transparent masks in the shape of a Raven or perhaps a Nevermore. The bits which were not transparent were Grimm white.
Lisa had asked her minders why bother wearing a mask which did not hide your face.
"It is a symbol of authority which identifies them as officers of the law without them ceasing to be identifiable as citizens." said the Faunus.
"Also reminds the bad guys that those of us with the real masks can be called on to kick their asses."
"It still seems a little scary to me."
The young woman smiled a wicked looking grin and had opened the bag she was carrying and put on a mask of her own.
"That's not a scary mask, this is a scary mask." Lisa saw the point. The young woman carried herself in a way which suggested that violence was an option and the white mask confirmed it
Vernal then said, "Don, show her yours."
The Faunus sighed and had put on his own solid White Fang mask. "For the avoidance of doubt, I am not much use in a fight. My speciality is advertising and nudge theory. I'm good at undermining opponent's morale."
They were taken to the old administrators' mansion which was rather ornate. The Faunus said, "He will not thank me for saying this, but the last incumbent was one of the better ones. Actually, made things worse as he held out for longer than most and more people had time to decide to flee. Also a few more than normal thought it likely that we would make things worse. We had got used to people having an open mind about us."
Lisa blinked at the phraseology, but let it pass.
The place seemed fully occupied and Lisa asked who was there. Vernal replied, "The clever buggers who make certain that the right people from the old system are left in charge when we leave them to it. Everyone feels happier if they know who is running things day to day. Also, the dustmen"
The Faunus explained, "We have found that the transitional team are invaluable in choosing who of the previous regime are best suited to run the department and those who are best suited to making certain the power stays on."
"And the dustmen?"
"Geologists looking for mineral and other deposits. Also farming experts who identify opportunities for irrigation, sheep, and new crops."
Vernal perhaps realising that she had said too much said, "Raven tells me that the clever buggers took a few goes to get their fracking act together. She says it's just as well we only conquer one town at a time so we could get our shit smelling of roses."
That night in the hotel bar she and her team wondered what Raven Branwen was up to. She had to assume that the choice of minders was deliberate and was designed to send a message. They were being shown the captured town operating as though nothing had happened recently. It was clear that the Branwen Tribe had planned the takeover of the town in detail with a view to keeping it running in the normal way. Her minders had gone out of their way to show her that the co-operation between the White Fang and the Branwen tribe was greater than anyone had expected or believed.
She had distracted herself the first night by thinking about she could broadcast the views of Vernal on prime-time TV. Bleeping was one solution, although risked suggesting that the speech was obscener than it actually was. One possibility was to ask the young woman to record a slightly bowdlerised version of some of her remarks over the original soundtrack. This had been mooted after breakfast the following morning and the young woman had been amused. The lip readers could both be outraged and report to the fundamental accuracy of how her views were reported.
She had enjoyed the debate with her director and with Don as to whether clever bastards was more or less offensive than clever buggers and whether clever clogs was too mealy mouthed even though it got the sense of what Vernal had meant. In the end, the network would decide, but she had recommended keeping the original.
The following day had been visiting more places and been driven around in an attempt to persuade them that they were not being shown a few selected areas designed to lull them into a sense of normality. Her cameraman had spotted one thing of interest. The coffee shops clearly had the décor of the multi-kingdom chains, but the names had changed.
Yesterday afternoon they were taken to have an audience with Raven Branwen. She had had slight warning of what to expect and had told her team to get rid of their giggles in advance. She had heard colleagues describe General Ironwood doing his man of the people act and the less said about the senior Winchester and his black shorted followers the better.
It was just as well she had prepared herself and her team as having the most successful bandit queen in three hundred years having her base in a field a mile outside of the town was rather over the top. There were about fifty tents within a set of wooden walls. Vernal had insisted on showing them the latrines while Don had waxed lyrical about the importance of sanitation experts for warfare over the centuries.
She eventually said, "Fine, I understand that you are demonstrating to me that this not just been staged for my benefit. But still why bother?"
Vernal said, "Raven is determined not to lose touch with what made the tribe what it is today. She also wants to avoid being stuck in a palace all day and becoming a stuck-up bitch. She has no problem with being a realistic bitch. Showing you this is for real saves some time."
Don said, "While local government is carried on in the towns and villages, central authority is exercised wherever the chief is staying." At that point Vernal checked the time and said, "I have to frack off now, see you after the speech."
It had not just been Lisa and her team who had been invited to attend the event. There were a sizeable number of civilians from Kurohari including most of those she had been introduced in the government buildings. They were gathered together in front of a small podium and wooden folding chairs had been provided.
Don had leant in and said, "I would suggest you start filming now. While we were honest about not warning to censor your coverage, we do want you to include a few lines from our leader's speech in the raw coverage which your network will send to the governments and the academies. In particular Professor Ozpin and General Ironwood will need to see it."
In the end the request was superfluous. The surrounding circumstances made it a no brainer. The arrogant looking woman strode out of the tent wearing her mask and was surrounded by twenty women wearing the same type of mask.
She gave a short speech which majored on carrots and sticks. Basically, the Branwen tribe was here to stay, those people gathered before her would be left to run things day to day unless they showed that they were lazy or useless, she would be back on a regular basis, there would be an office of the governor, but it would be smaller than under the previous regime. What did surprise her was that there was that it was made clear that Faunus and humans would be treated equally. It was laced with a message that both were inferior to the Branwen tribe, but the message was clear.
There was one part of the speech where she made it clear that resistance would not be tolerated, and that the Branwen Tribe would protect the citizens from the Grimm.
Either the woman employed Remnant's best meteorologists or her minions including a combination of semblances which no one in their right mind wanted to test. The weather changed from a cloudless sky to a dark and stormy one with lightning striking at a close but safe distance from the spectators.
Following the ceremony, the bodyguard removed their masks. These included Vernal who indicated in her own inimitable manner that they were being granted an audience. She, Vernal, Don, the other bodyguards and Lisa's team joined Raven in the tent.
Three minutes later Raven Branwen had waved her sword in the air, created a portal, and ordered everyone to follow her. They emerged in another tent and being introduced to Raven's aunt Edith.
At least this explained why Raven Branwen had evaded and quickly defeated any force said against her. Clearly the woman had a useful semblance: it did not matter that it was useless for the Vytal festival. It was extremely useful for war and avoiding assassination attempts.
It also meant that whatever happened she had an exclusive on her hands. The women had revealed that she could move hundreds of miles in a minute and bring fighters with her. She also must have a purpose behind revealing so much about the powers she and her team had.
Oddly enough it had been Don who had used the disguised expletive to sum up the position. "One of the things I have learnt over the last three years is that you do not frack with the Raven. That is the road to nevermore."
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Weiss had returned from the brunch at Coco's to find her mother stressing out. While the ball was mostly coming together well, there were still some niggling details. Willow had also had time to think about the Remnant Enquirer photographs and the sense that they had in part been published to detract from the message the ball was meant to convey.
Mother had insisted that Weiss tell her about why she had cried at Junior's after seeing the dead White Fang attacker. Mother had caught that her father had shut Whitley up because of the look from Weiss and wanted to know what that was all about.
Weiss had not been able to avoid telling her about the branded initials on the dead Faunus's right eye. Mother clearly had been desperately trying to pretend to herself that the rumours were untrue or exaggerated.
Anyway, they had spent ten minutes hugging each other. Weiss had done her best to convince her mother of the analysis she had got from Corkran. The man had called on her to help with Russel and Cardin and the price she had negotiated for her co-operation was for him to tell her what he knew about the branding.
The man had leaned back and drawled, "My dear Weiss, my own call is that your father suspected that the rumours were true and avoided taking any action which meant that he would actually know that they were true. He had for a few years gone out of his way t' say that he trusted his managers to deal with local conditions and t' allow them some leeway. He definitely did not know how many Faunus had been branded, mainly because Raddock did not know. The rumours are that Raddock arranged for his old friend Crimson t' die because he had hidden from Raddock how many Faunus he had maimed and tortured."
Weiss had stared at the man who had shrugged and said, "I believe that Raddock told your father that some security officers had been overzealous in their strike breaking activities after some of their friends were severely injured. I am virtually certain that your father would not have authorised the use of the SDC initials on any branding iron used on workers. Makes plausible deniability rather difficult, don't you know."
Her mother accepted this line of reasoning as well but was still angry at Jacques for allowing his executives so much leeway. Weiss did wonder how such a junior officer knew so much about the SDC and spoke so confidently about Raddock's knowledge.
Mother then dried her tears and changed the subject. "I still do not know whether Lisa Lavender will be attending the ball. Her agent keeps promising me that she intends to be there, but she has only been sending him scroll messages for two days. She is a place called Kuroyuri in Mistral working on a story. Forget, I said that. Her agent asked me to keep it quiet for another twenty-four hours."
Weiss was startled, "Are you certain that her agent said Kuroyuri and not Kurohari?"
"The man corrected himself just that bit too quickly when I queried the name and sounded slightly panicked. Anyway, while I know I have heard the name before, I cannot place it."
Mother then laughed, "He seems rather upset by the fact that his client is more interested in being a journalist than a celebrity. I almost suggested that he should go for a joint therapy session with your ex-agent."
Weiss thought quickly about the implications. In either case, it meant that the woman was in bandit country. Kurohari was the latest town to fall to the Branwen tribe while Kuroyuri had been second only to Mountain Glenn as being the largest town overrun by Grimm in the last twenty years. Other towns had of course been abandoned but being overrun was different. Weiss assumed that she must be seeking an interview with Raven Branwen.
Still mother had finished mocking the agent, and had diverted Weiss's attention by saying, "Your teammates are flying up here today. Ironwood has asked that me, you, and Yang greet them at the airport together with Specialist Amin. Ruby Rose is being accompanied by her father and Professor Goodwitch. They are also bringing with them Cardin Winchester boy and the Mohawk Russel from Team Cardinal. Blake is being accompanied by her mother and another of your teachers called Doctor Oobleck."
/-/
Fennec Albain was networking and plotting ahead of the White Fang Council meeting. Corsac had stayed in Menagerie and was keeping a close eye on the negotiations between Beacon and Ghira Belladonna in relation to establishing a combat school in Menagerie. From the view of avoiding upsetting the locals, Ozpin had chosen his ambassadors wisely. Dr Oobleck and Professor Peach were difficult to cast as playing the human saviour role. Both were clearly academics if by all reports potentially lethal ones. He and Corsac had decided to reduce their exposure to Dr Oobleck. He had the irritating knack of both being sympathetic and asking awkward and difficult questions. The reality was that certainty was impossible as to whether the cause would be best served by one tactic or another.
Anyway, Fennec saw no real reason to object in principle to Beacon helping Menagerie deal with its Grimm problem. Atlas or Mistral might be a different matter, but once it had been made clear that the intention was for the school to be predominantly staffed by teachers from Menagerie with advisory input from the less objectionable of the Beacon teachers (basically anyone but Port or Goodwitch) then the brothers had decided not to make an issue of it. The big fight would be four years' time when the hope was that an Academy of sorts could be formed.
Fennec had his aide and bodyguard Trifa with him. She could be relied on to talk to the other aides and pass on the gossip to him. Her spider talents always attracted curiosity, and, unlike most Faunus, her animal (strictly arachnoid) features did have some practical applications. Certainly, she was the fastest on the draw and if things became heated she could be decisive. His other bodyguard Ilia was currently networking with her friends and acquaintances. He kept her more in the dark than Trifa. She was useful because she still had contacts with the Belladonna wing, but he knew that she was ambivalent about Adam Taurus.
Today's meeting was crucial. This was where his skill set came in handy. Everyone knew that Sienna was in trouble. His role was to soften the tone of the hardliners so as to reassure the moderates that there would be no post Sienna purge while persuading those who were on the fence that Adam Taurus had no need to prove himself in Vale before taking over.
It helped in his behind the scenes work that most people believed that he and his brother meant it when they said that they were not suited to lead the White Fang but were happy to settle for being the intellectual powerhouse and backroom advisors. Kali Belladonna referred to them as greasy eminences. Once they had worked out what she meant, they had decided to be flattered rather than insulted and indeed found it useful as people put them in a pigeonhole which was not entirely accurate.
He was trying to work out whether Sienna had a long-term plan for survival. The woman must know her time was almost up. In the last six months the White Fang operation in Vale and Mantle had effectively been destroyed and the suspicions were that either the local organisation or worse the White Fang Council itself had been infiltrated by Atlas intelligence. They had also lost in rather murky circumstances some of their better operational planners who had been sent to Atlas when the council had become alarmed that the local leadership were delusional.
Their operations in Mistral had reduced. Obviously sending Adam to Vale was always going to have had an effect as had the loss of the Atlas secondees. One reason Adam had gone to Vale was that the multi-kingdoms had moved many of their operations back to Atlas or relocated to Vale so there were fewer targets in Mistral which fell within the criteria Sienna had set. The fact remained that the economic war had been moderately successful in disrupting the Mistral economy without bringing the Mistral government to the table.
They were also running out of the easier assassination targets who were designated as acceptable. The White Fang had killed or scared into exile the most prominent of the mining executives who had returned to Mistral after the Rising Sun incident had helped prompt the multi-kingdoms to clean up their act in Vacuo. Besides which they had lost their most inventive assassin. The man had had a longer run than expected, but apparently had finally overstretched himself. This meant moving on to the harder targets in Mistral City who had teams of bodyguards and relying on overwhelming firepower rather than finesse. Fennec still remembered his pride and delight when Sienna had announced how they had captured the head of SDC operations in Vacuo
This had left a more selective campaign and a plethora of hoax bomb warnings and infrastructure attacks, although disruptive, did not make the heart race. Sienna had promised a revised action plan for the Mistral operations, but it had yet to materialise.
While objectively he would not blame her for arguing for a further delay while they worked through the consequences of the recent upheaval, he had primed his allies to argue that she was doing nothing and had no idea of what to do now.
The fact remained that Sienna's strategy of increased military activity had not resulted in bring the governments to the table. Indeed, the Belladonna prediction that in the short to medium term it would result in governments cracking down on Faunus rights and increase human distrust of Faunus was turning out to be correct.
Less predictably, it had resulted in the hunter Academies in Beacon and Atlas bypassing the White Fang and talking to the Belladonnas in Menagerie. Irritatingly Atlas was doing so from a position of strength. They had crushed both in their own minds and actually the White Fang military command in Atlas.
Sienna had tried gaining time by pushing through the council a set of terms on which a truce could be declared which she was allowed to negotiate with any government who took them seriously. She had actually plundered the book the brothers had written twenty years ago which they had called "Utopia: Wouldn't it be loverly?" While Fennec could not resist tinkering with some of the details of the plan, frankly it was a wish list which none of the relevant Remnant Kingdoms would agree to or contemplate. On the other hand, it was an expression of intent which had made enough council members accept that Sienna had a real vision. The problem was that she did not have a roadmap for achieving it.
Anyway, his plan was to arrange for a patsy to politely enquire at the council meeting whether any kingdom was open to negotiations. No doubt there would be waffle, but the answer would be no.
Vacuo did not count for these purposes. There was no central government strong enough to bind its people to any terms and, if push came to shove, most Faunus preferred Menagerie. At least it was possible to grow a food surplus there.
Even with recent purge of the real hardliners, there was no way that Mistral would agree to the terms. The most that they would concede was some form of equal but separate. It had not need Dr Oobleck's lecture for him to know that this would mean that Faunus hospitals and schools would be underfunded and the last to be upgraded.
In relation to Atlas the fact remained that very few Faunus lived in Atlas as opposed to Mantle. The economic disparity between up top and down below had steadily grown for fifty years. The best that could be said was that the current leadership were trying to treat the Faunus of Mantle no worse than they treated the poor humans. Besides which they would not be prepared to use a White Fang document as a starting point for negotiations but would impose a settlement which suited them. At least there was a leader there, but not one who would negotiate.
Even in Vale there would be no appetite for discussion. What measures had been introduced recently had resulted in the human first parties having a boost in popularity and Adam's actions had only worsened the situation by marginalising (and indeed sometimes killing) the Faunus leaders who the authorities might choose to talk with. What had taken everyone aback was the popularity of the W the Unknown propaganda. While people paid lip service to equality of opportunity, there was no way the current government could be seen to negotiating with the White Fang before the upcoming elections.
He was certain that they had a majority on the council to go for a change of leadership and he just had to force his fellows to force her out today rather than give her an ultimatum to step down unless her strategy showed real signs of working out in the next three months. It was fifty/fifty as to whether she would go quietly. He suspected that she would not trust Adam Taurus not to denounce her as a traitor and that she might choose to go down fighting. That was why he had chosen Trifa to accompany him. Sienna took a few seconds to flare her aura and Trifa could outdraw her.
Sienna had tried to gain herself time by sending Adam Taurus to Vale. Her bet must have been that that he would need to have achieved something noteworthy there before challenging her for the leadership. This appeared not to be the case.
Even the debacle in the night club had not helped Sienna's cause. While rationally if anyone in the upper leadership was to blame it was Adam, somehow his supporters had made it stick that Sienna's lack of initiative had prompted the rank and file into taking unilateral action. Nonsense, of course, but they were so fixated on Adam worship that they were prepared to forgive him everything. Also, the death of Bruno had oddly helped him. The Bear Faunus had been a thug and had a reputation for treating women badly.
The reality was that Adam had used the Atlas disaster to keep the council in the dark as to what he was up to. After the great train robbery after he first arrived, he seemed to have spent his time purging the Belladonna wing of the movement in Vale and robbing dust shops. Apparently there was a spectacular plan underway, but he was refusing to tell anyone the details. He cited his concerns about the Council having been infiltrated by the Atlas intelligence services to justify this.
Adam had accepted their analysis that in order to preserve unity it was better for him not to be around for the overthrow. Sienna had never fully had the support of the old Belladonna supporters because of having been seen to have led the overthrow of their idols. No doubt this was unfair, but it was one of the lessons of history in politics. She was now seen as too moderate by those who believed that violence was the only way to get the humans to listen to their concerns. The Faunus Wars did seem to teach this as a lesson, and it was a fundamental belief among the White Fang that the military leaders had won the war and the civilians had lost the peace.
Adam could not lead them to the promised land. He was too angry and emotionally wanted payback. Still a couple of years of him would focus the minds of humans on the need to deal with the Faunus issue. Already it was clear that the Atlas government regretted not having negotiated in good faith with the Belladonnas.
Of course, Adam was a risk. There was a chance that he could start a rematch of the Faunus Wars. He might also purge the people they had identified as his potential successors. Although Corsac disagreed, Fennec was already focusing on the difficult problem of removing him when the time was right. He was rather hoping that his pride and anger would result in him challenging Ghira and Winter Schnee. The best result was that he would take out Ghira and actually defeat Winter, but then die of his wounds. There would be no need to go into detail of how these wounds would be inflicted or treated.
He knew that there was a danger of him and his brother being guilty of wishful thinking in deciding that they needed to be central to the next momentous change. Still, they had written the gospel and they knew they could do business with Kali if Ghira was no longer around provided his death could not be blamed on them.
The meeting of the White Fang council was being held in Kuroyuri. He and Trifa had gone to the town hall ostensibly to look at the exhibition which showed how the town had been transformed since the Grimm attack ten or so years ago. It was only polite to their hosts to go there, and it allowed him to meet other council members with a plausible cover story. In particular he was meeting with a waverer who was still disposed to give Sienna six more months.
He supposed that it was quite impressive that a tribe of bandits had arranged for the town to be rebuilt and indeed expanded. The problem for him was that they had relied heavily on Faunus and indeed in the last five years White Fang expertise to do so. It was true that the Branwen tribe had paid them adequately for their assistance, both financially but more in terms of providing a safe base. It just rankled that the only person prepared to allow Faunus to run major projects in Remnant was a renegade huntress leading a small tribe of bandits.
One problem of the relationship with the Branwen tribe was that the White Fang was currently running at a profit before donations. Actually. That was more symbolic of the problem. Not all White Fang members were good at clandestine operations and so it made sense to hire them out to the Branwen tribe. It was just that too many had a sense of job satisfaction from the work they did. It was another reason the coup had to happen now. In bandit country Faunus were joining the White Fang because it was good for their career, and they were overwhelmingly predisposed to support Sienna. The other reason was that he had heard a few whispers that Adam had taken the desertion of Blake Belladonna badly and now she was outed as a Beacon student he feared for the man's sanity. He actually needed the top job to focus himself and avoid being self-pitying.
He moved into the room which was dedicated to the revival of the mining industry. He double took and quickly retreated. The sight of a journalist from Vale being accompanied by Raven Branwen's bodyguard was not one he had been expecting. He and his brother preferred keeping a level of plausible deniability that they were only members of the political wing of the White Fang and not on the army council. It also suggested that Raven Branwen was here which could complicate matters.
He was looking round to find the best exit route when he was tapped on the shoulder by Ilia. She was accompanied by one of Sienna's spin doctors. "Council member, Fennec. This way please."
He was bundled out of one of the staff only doorways to be confronted by three of sienna's loyal guards. The spin doctor, (Don, was it) said, "It is fortuitous that we found you here. The leader would like to have a word in your ear before the main meeting. She does not want to take you entirely by surprise and something has come up which she would like your considered thoughts on."
He looked round and saw that Trifa was being held by another guard and by Ilia.
He decided that resistance was inadvisable and in any event if Sienna wanted him dead there were easier ways to go about it. "Of course, Comrade Ochre. I am always pleased to offer the benefit of my advice to the leader.
The man turned to Trifa and said, "My dear lady, perhaps you can wait with Comrade Amitola while the Council Member meets with the leader. Under the circumstances could we offer you a pair of gloves to wear? They are velvet with a steel lining. I can assure you that the Council member will be safe with the leader."
/-/
Yang was at the airport with Weiss, Willow, and Marrow Amin. She had to resist the temptation to stroke his tail. It was beautiful but Blake and Velvet had taught her that to assume that a human could touch the animal features of Faunus without consent was erroneous and would be on a par with a man copping a feel.
Anyway, Ruby would be arriving first. She had agreed to allow Weiss first dibs on hugging Ruby provided she had first dibs on greeting Blake.
She was happy to greet Russel and to inform him that they were going to dance at the ball tomorrow. She was also content to be polite to Cardin and not make any brutality jokes. He was at least not Dove and Lydia had told her that he was much improved from his Combat school days. Leslie had been also very amusing on the desperate efforts Cardin had gone to pretend that nothing bad ever happened during the stay with Great-Aunt Agnes.
Willow was clearly landed with greeting Goodwitch, Kali and Oobleck. Yang amused herself with deciding whether she thought Willow, Kali, or Glynda was the hottest. For herself, it was obviously Kali, but Glynda would appeal to those who liked to be the dominated while Willow was in her own way sophisticated and witty.
Yang was not altogether certain how she felt about Ruby having told her that her egg donor was an attractive woman, and that Yang had inherited the strut. Ok, being reassured that you would still look good in your mid-forties was a message no one at eighteen should have a valid reason to object to. On the other hand, she had problems with being told that other than the hair colour she was clearly her mother's daughter. Dad had once told her that her anger management issues reminded her of the egg donor. In retrospect, she had just thrown a tantrum of spectacular levels and he had been provoked, but still…
She looked around and wondered about the old lady with clearly the most expensive set of glasses ever standing next to Specialist Amin. She had been warned by the dog Faunus that the old lady put the f in feisty and that unless she was prepared to go all the way she did not want to get into a gross out challenge with this granny.
If nothing else, dad's mother had made her realise that there was a sub-set of old ladies who rejoiced in reminding their granddaughters that their generation had not invented horizontal mutual appreciation.
I am rather indulging my belief that Raven Branwen was one of the characters which RT most messed up. Neo took one look at her and headed for the hills, she humiliated Cinder and hid the fact that she had Maiden powers for at least a decade. She also went back in her early twenties and took over her tribe. That even ignores how she was able to persuade the previous maiden to pass on the powers to her before she reached the age of thirty. If simply being the killer of a maiden was enough, team Salem would have won centuries before. Also being told that you cannot hope to win outright makes protecting your tribe or nation for between twenty to fifty years from the inevitable worst a good objective.
I also feel that Sienna Khan was a character who was given better treatment in a promotional short than in the series. She had overthrown the Belladonnas and had made the White Fang a real threat.
Even the Albains had some depths hinted at in the series. The brothers had slightly different views on Adam and there was a sense they believed in the cause. I hope that my version of Fennec comes over as someone who is working at least as hard to deceive himself as to deceive others.
There is a huge Goliath in the room in relation to my version of Raven. The admiration of her followers reflects the fact that they need a strong leader. My version actually at least partly merits that admiration and I have weighted the scales in her favour. The downsides will be explored later in the story, but in fairness her powers and education make her better able to leave a legacy and be more self-aware than most of her ilk in real life. She was after all taught by Dr Oobleck and knows about the Remnant equivalents of Genghis Khan and Alexander the Great. I have also, I believe plausibly given the backstory we are given, accepted that she is placed in a situation where a strong leader is unequivocally better than no leader for her tribe.
I have of course watched too many old films and TV series. I am afraid that I could not resist Vernal doing a Paul Hogan impersonation from Crocodile Dundee.
I suspect that my iteration of Lisa most owe something to one of Coeur al' Aran's. If so then apologies and all due admiration to him. Anyway, this is a woman who wants to the Kate Adie and Martha Gellhorn of her world and has been placed in a situation where she believes it is possible.
This has turned out to be rather a set up chapter and I am going to end up covering in four/five chapters what I hoped I would cover in two.