When I said no OC's, I lied. I did so on purpose because I am on the naughty list, and to be able to write it in this A/N because it sounds cool.

faisyah865: Thanks an awful lot. Everyone will get a bit godly as this story goes on, to somewhat different degrees, which will give me an excuse to spend half a (Cambria 11, A4) page to describe their clothes in teeny tiny detail. As to cuteness… ditto. ['can something have 5+ interwoven plotlines involving death, politics and gray morality at the same time be fluffy and cute? Oh, the attractiveness of fanservice…' mumbled the author to themselves]

The characters in this chapter won't appear much at all, but they are important in the plot. You'll undoubtedly find out that they are heavily inspired by many fictional and real people. This is supposed to be short, crazy and different, hope you enjoy

Chapter 14, where the full title is 'Anachronism Stew Perfumed with Delicately Sliced Fresh Herbs'... enough said.

CW: racism, [title is a trope name, OC, heavy anachronisms, weirdness]

"Could you pass me the salt, Chancellor?"

The Queen sat on her throne, in the highest room of her Tower of Albion, her nacre-white hand casually twirling with her impeccably curled bob, so dark crimson it looked almost black. Her black micro-diamond-studded eyelashes blinked slowly, revealing the intense scarlet tint of her brand new glasstring holographic contact lenses. Her emerald earrings softly dangled on both sides of her heart-shaped face, matching the tiny crown that sat atop her voluminous dark locks. With a slight flick of her wrist, she expanded the multiple of imbricated pieces of the golden clockwork claws that prolonged her left hand, waving them in the empty air in front of her to dispatch three-dimensional holograms that only she could see. All the Chancellor could observe, on the ebony dozen-body-length-long table that was between them, was the mute black swan of Camfordshire stuffed with a pheasant stuffed with a goose stuffed with a chicken, its wings splayed out and its beak holding a blood red apple, the sizzling, still jumping frogs of Northern Cornucopia deep-fried in gold nanoparticles, the perfectly aligned cupcakes sprinkled with Southeastern Extremesian cocoa over which blue iridescent morpho butterflies fluttered, the forest of assorted Prussoroman greens that grew by the second on a dimly glimmering constellite lagoon, the roasted wyvern's head gurgling out maple syrup atop the hundred-and-one layers of the cream cake, each representing a prefecture of the Empire and, last but not least, the most delicious stew he had ever plunged his pure silver spork into, perfumed with delicately sliced fresh herbs from the Queen's personal kitchen garden. Granted, that was not too little, but nowhere over the massive lunch table could he spot a single grain of salt. He saw the Queen impatiently wiping off the blood dripping from her fangs, waiting for her orders to be executed. After all, she was her Royal Majesty the Queen of Cornucopia, Serenissima Empress of the Colonies of Extremesia, High Consul of the Territories of Elephantine and Most Graceful Protector of the Realm of Kangaria. She hardly expected to wait for anything.

She subtly shifted on her seat, the myriad of identical folds of her exquisite lace collerette rustling against the finely sculpted ivory throne, such that the Chancellor could barely see where the collerette stopped and the chair started. As she moved, the constellite-powered rockets at the four feet of the throne adjusted their orientation to maintain sovereign and chair in levitating equilibrium. With dainty elegance, she picked up her own spork and contemplated her sculptural image in the gold's reflective surface.

"Mirror, mirror, tell me… should I?" she whispered with the slightest hint of bemusement.

On the incurved reflection of the piece of cutlery, she could see her automaton majordome approaching, black top hat tilted on large brown walrus head.

"Should I have his head off?"

The robot stood desperately silent and motionless, its mechanical eyes staring blankly back at her, until she gave up with a refined pout of her blood-red lips.

"Fine, send the ravens."

The majordome mechanically moved backwards, as a murder of crows dove down from the tower's high ceiling, carrying vials of salt grains of more shapes, sizes and colours than one could possibly enumerate. Pensively she chose a turquoise crystalline powder from the Mountains of Silk and sprinkled it atop her incandescent hot chocolate. Plucking a feather off the closest bird, she scribbled a few words – using the prune gravy as ink – onto her table handkerchief. She tied the message to the bird's leg and sent it off to the Chancellor.

"You seem very silent."

Of course the message was unsigned, as any member of the Royal Family of Cornucopia; its author was given no name upon birth, only titles. Uncomfortably, the Chancellor cleared his throat.

"You Majesty, the pleasures of your presence and your table are of the most exquisite. I requested an audience to discuss the pressing matters of the situation in Eastern Extremesia."

"I have seen your General's report, Chancellor. The savage tribes of the Huacan area have joined forces. Corona & Sons hired some mercenaries to raid the Company of the Southern Isles at the Weselton Exposition."

"Your Majesty, a course of action should be immediately taken."

"Chancellor, your men of the Chamber want me to revoke the monopoly I gave the Southern Isles Company on the trade of weapons and transportation, as a form of appeasement to Corona & Sons. Those carrion-eaters of your kind are playing meagre political chess for a scrap of gold Jerome Corona and his likes will give them. Those men who believe themselves representatives of the brave people of Cornucopia hardly fool me when they pretend to support the cause of the Empire."

"Your Majesty, I – "

"I do not believe in fanning the flames until they start burning down my skirts. I will not revoke the monopoly, for only more chaos will follow. On the contrary, we might want to let the coals burn until they entirely consume themselves and grow our roses on the ashes."

"What are your orders, Your Majesty?"

"Marshmallow, my broadsword."

So she was going to have his head. She was going to take her revenge for the salt. He knew that he should have thought of calling the birds for the condiments. The Queen of Cornucopia was beautiful and merciless. She may cut off any head she desired to. All that with the most delectable hit of a sigh lifting the ample ivory-pale cleavage displayed by the low-cut crimson lace of her black lion-pelt dress. Cold sweat beaded his hands as he saw the immense constellite-powered ice golem peer through the door, holding the gigantic weapon that looked no larger than a toothpick between its hand-like appendices. With surprising strength for her slender stature, the Queen seized the broadsword with both hands and brandished it straight in front of her.

"Archduke of Spades, Chancellor of the White and Black Chambers, I, Queen of Cornucopia, hereby name you Viceroy of my Empire of Eastern Extremesia."

From across the colossal table, the man bowed in respect and amazement. He was only the second Viceroy in the history of Eastern Extremesia, the first one having been beheaded half a century ago by the current Queen's grandmother, affectionately nicknamed the Queen of Hearts by her loving people. Well, seeing the wrath she had just demonstrated against him, he could hardly complain about the outcome so far.

"Rise, Viceroy. The Black and the White Chambers have no say in this, tell me your own plans and they shall be executed."

"Your Majesty, I cannot…"

The Queen irritably played with her crystal fan, contemplating the moving displays on its surface that doubled as a tactile screen, its fine cables geometrically running beneath the glimmering surface. The Chancellor swallowed before going straight to the point.

"I would send the General himself, Your Majesty. He is highly experienced with the military situation there, and much more than enough equipped technically. He will act as a neutral third party and force the Drifters into submission. That demonstration of the power of the Crown should be enough to obtained renewed vows of allegiance from all sides of the armed conflict at the Exposition."

"Excellent," the Queen commented impassibly, using her fan's integrated microcamera to examine her elaborate red rose manicure at submillimeter precision, her sword ominously resting against the side of her levitating throne. "This is why the power is better between the hands of one man with one plan than a crowd of colourless vultures. I knew I could trust you to take drastic measures to solve all problems at once."

"What of the natives, Your Majesty? After their defeat, what shall be done with them?"

"You are the Viceroy, you shall tell me."

"They are ignorant, primitive, fanatics of false gods and of human sacrifice, but they are men, and as such they can learn. Those savages should be educated by our laws, raised in the belief of the gentle Man in the Sky. Until we civilise them, no durable balance can be achieved. There are too many of them for us to be able to deal with otherwise."

"You are one of those optimists who think that people can be changed," she noted with a touch of melancholy. "What makes you believe so? One of your author friends scribbling on their desks never even stepping outside their door? Or those Spaniard warlords who converted Northern Extremesia with storm and blood to the religion of their mysterious Man in the Moon?"

"It has been done, Your Majesty. It has been done on a small tribe, by a lone young man, but nevertheless it has, and the General is the best one to know this. He is the exact right man for the situation."

"Then send the General aboard the Nightmare as soon as you can. Grant him the right to use the Onyx if needed. If all the Companies, the mercenaries and the savages tremble in fear before it, we will avoid the financial costs of bloodshed on the other side of the ocean."

"The Onyx, Your Majesty? Is it… er, I mean… of course, your Majesty."

The Queen smiled quite fondly, briefly revealing her sharp white fangs in the process. As ruler of Cornucopia, she was also the highest Priestess of the Man in the Sky, and a fervent believer that he had made her Cornucopians his chosen people, giving them an Empire where others had scraps of forest and sand. To her mind, the natives and colonists would never be equals, and only fear would keep the natives in order, not education or belief. To the Queen, what the Man in the Sky had made crooked could not be straightened, and the savages would always be savages at heart.

"But this is not what you have come to discuss, Viceroy," she said, interrupting his thoughts. "I have heard you have a name to suggest for my succession."

"I do, Your Majesty."

The Queen's younger brother, the Crown Prince and Defender Beyond the Wall, was in age to marry, and proposals for his hand were not rare. The Cornucopian law required the sovereign to be a woman. If the Crown Prince married, he would become his wife's consort if she accessed the throne. If he was unmarried by the time a new monarch was needed, he transitioned to become the new Queen. The present ruler had been crowned in such a way after her mother's abdication. The name the Viceroy gave for her succession was crucial to the future of the kingdom and its colonies. He carefully folded the note he had prepared and handed it to a raven that flew over to the throne.

She arched a perfectly shaped dark eyebrow with genuine interest as she read the name.

"She bears no blue blood, even though her father recently bought a noble name and estate. Her family is immensely rich and influential. Oh, and I see why you, amongst everyone, would give me this name. Let the Crown Prince meet her, and see what follows. After all, how can they govern together smoothly should he not love her?"

One of the oldest and most ridiculous traditions of Cornucopia was for the Crown Prince himself to choose his spouse. Both the Queen and the Viceroy followed it with some annoyance, while their people outside the Tower salivated at the idea of true love, wished for lowered taxes after the wedding day and for more bread upon the birth of their first child, returning to their own affairs of their lives on other days. All the Viceroy could do was hope that the Prince fell for his chosen one.

"Well, I'll let my brother hear her name. Many thanks for your service, Viceroy."

Far away from the Tower, from Albion the White, from Cornucopia and from the Old Continent, the Viceroy and his Queen, who believed themselves as puppeteers, ignored that their own pets and automatons kept some secret from them, by ignorance or by choice.

First, the General's trusted source had omitted the fact that her own gingerhead of a daughter was the reason why she was reluctant to open fire on the Weselton Exposition.

Second, the informer herself had no knowledge that said gingerhead had escaped said Exposition with an axe-wielding friend to save a certain crazily genial aviator and his budding love.

Third, most ignored that said budding love, who also happened to be the 'lone young man' who demonstrated the possibility of assimilation, had seen a third of his tribe decimated, in the silence of the rainforest's cover.

Fourth, none of them yet knew that the very cause of the raid over the Exposition and source of all their problems happened to be the Viceroy's own eligible bachelorette's supposed kidnapping and death, and that she happened to be alive and free despite what most might have believed.

Fifth, all yet ignored that said bachelorette had been rescued by a certain baroness, who happened to have vaguely larger plans for all of these improbable misfits.

Oblivious to these petty entangled fates, the man made the note to add the #Viceroy hashtag when he posted his selfie of the day with his clockwork camera ring before leaving the table, with a neatly composed assortment of singing white and red rose pudding slices topped with whipping cream of the Northern Isles of Rosalba, a couple of fluttering hummingbird pie in camel cheese sauce, a handful of gooseberries in bear juice straight from the mountains of Northern Extremesia, a selection of éclairs of the most recently fashionable diamond paste flavour and least but definitely not least, the oh-so-heavenly stew.

Fun fact: You've probably spotted most of the references to female monarchs in fiction, as well as the very loose parallels Queen/Victoria I, Chancellor/Benjamin Disraeli and the very very loose parallels Queen/Elizabeth I, General/Francis Drake. I did NOT have in mind while writing this chapter that Queen Elizabeth I never married or that there is some far-fetched conspiracy theory she may be a man in disguise (or that the British Royal Family are lizard people). This is an AU, so there are unusual laws and traditions, deal with it :)

Author's mistake of the day: I am rather confused as to which one of the three bear heads on an interwoven pattern and the vertical dagger in a circle is DunBroch clan's emblem and by extension, Merida's. For this story, I have stuck to and will stick to the Bear of DunBroch as an emblem.

Announcement: Everything in this story so far was planned to build up to the previous chapter and the following 1-2 chapters. As you may have guessed, this will clearly be the end of the first part of the book. For story-building and personal schedule-related reasons, I cannot guarantee I'll update as often after that, but I'll try to keep a regular posting schedule (as in once a week or so, unless I have a burst of inspiration and free time.) That will also allow me to have time to receive and take account of feedback you have on the first part. So please R&R, F&F, constructively comment, stay awesome xx