Despite all of the years she'd spent engaging in illegal activities, Elle still felt vulnerable walking to meetings. She found herself looking behind her every few paces, taking odd turns and doubling back on her path to make sure that no one was following her.

Kingston had chosen their meeting place; it was a busy restaurant, loud enough to obscure any traces of their conversation from passers-by. She suspected that he secretly liked the food there, even though Elle herself found it bland and odd-tasting. Smiling to herself, she pulled open the heavy wooden door and shrugged off her coat, glancing around to try and find their table.

He's stood me up, she realized. Of course he had; for all of his brilliance and passion, Kingston could never be trusted to attend meetings. Instead she took a seat at the back of the restaurant, where there was a young woman alone at one of the booths, absentmindedly stirring her tea with a spoon.

"Hi hon," Mui said, "I assume no one else's showed up yet."

"Kingston was supposed to be here," Elle huffed.

Mui waved her hand dismissively. "It's fine; you can just fill him in later on. I'd like to get down to business right away, even if that business is on the dull side."

Elle laughed. "Who knew we'd need this much money?"

"Running a revolution isn't as romantic as you thought it'd be, hm? All those finances and logistics. How many people do you have behind you again?"

"Most of the people in the Northern provinces; definitely some in Denbeigh and Calgary as well. There are quite a few people who want to divide Hansport in two, so we've got both separatists and those who want to stay in Illéa on our side there."

Mui nodded approvingly and stirred her tea a bit more vigorously. "They don't make tea properly here. The water's not hot enough." She still hadn't taken a single sip.

"Do you want me to order another one -"

"It's okay. We don't want to attract any undue attention, not while we're talking about these things."

That made sense - spies and undercover officers were everywhere, usually hoping to catch enough pieces of conversation to send someone to jail, sometimes for months of even years. Elle noticed that Mui was looking over the people in the restaurant, assessing them with well-practiced ease. She wondered if she'd ever manage to do that.

"And what about the aftermath?" Mui asked, startling Elle out of her thoughts. "Let's say I convince my people to send over supplies. You and your little coalition of Northern provinces win your revolution. What do you want then?"

Elle and Kingston hadn't really thought that far; they'd been unsure if they could even muster up enough support in the first place. But she couldn't tell Mui that, not when she was so close to getting New Asian support for their cause.

"We don't really care about who sits on the throne. You can arrange that."

"That's interesting," Mui said. "And let's say that we want one of King Everaerd's distant relatives...have you heard of his cousin? Cyrene, I think."

"No, I haven't."

"She's the duchess of somewhere in France, if I remember correctly; but that doesn't matter. She's a fairly lovely woman, I've heard, but quite committed to keeping Illéa in one piece. What do you think will happen when we topple the regime and begin a new one?"

Of course it had come to this; just when Elle thought that she could finally align her group's interests with a new ally, another irreconcilable difference had to drive them apart. It was frustrating how their goals always seemed to be within reach, just to be blown away by circumstance and unfortunate differences in opinion.

She took a deep breath to steady herself before speaking. "We don't care about that right now. If the people of Illéa can't come together because of our differences, how can we ever bring about change?"

Mui seemed a bit more interested now, abandoning the fruitless task of stirring her tea to focus fully on Elle. "That's a convincing argument, I'll give you that. I'll consider it." She looked past Elle's shoulder to a couple several tables in front of them. "And there goes our time together. Don't look, but there are two people behind you that might not like what we're talking about."

"Spies?"

"Mm. Not sure about that, but they've been looking at us an awful lot for a couple on a date." She shook her head at that. "Well then! I'll see you later," she said, somewhat louder than before, throwing her arms around Elle in a too-enthusiastic hug before slinging her bag over her shoulder and slipping out through the front door.

Elle stayed a few moments longer before she left as well, leaving nothing behind but a still-steaming mug full of swirling tea leaves.

The night is still young, but the seemingly inevitable darkness of oppression and defeat closes in on all sides. Perhaps, then, it is better to endure until daybreak - but what is the cost of waiting?

Hey everyone!

This is just a short chapter that'll introduce us to some of the more disruptive or rebellious forces within the country. Elle here is a little low on confidence, but she's one of the leaders of a group that wants to separate from Illéa, and Mui represents New Asian interests in the country.

Just a few notes about character submissions:

I've been getting a lot of royalty submissions! This is great, but I believe that I have enough already, so at the moment I will not be accepting any more. (I'll be updating the rules to reflect this). I really need more Selected before I can properly begin to introduce them! I promise that although they might not have as much of an interesting position like a royal would, I will give all of them interesting storylines. However, if you are dead set on submitting a non-Selected character, you can use this chapter as a basis for more rebel characters, seeing as we've been introduced to some of the groups that might destabilize the country. Please PM me before you submit your form. I know I've been a bit slow getting through the submissions and PMs, but I'll try my best to keep up with you guys!

Thanks for reading!
- Brenn