Should France e'er attempt, by fraud or by guile,

Her forces to land on Erin's green isle,

We'll show that they n'er can make free soldiers, slaves,

They shall only possess our green fields for their graves;

Our country's applauses our triumphs will crown,

Whilst with their French brothers the croppies lie down.

Down, down, croppies lie down.

L.É. Béal Feirste – better known as Belfast to her allies on the continent – represented much: the new future that all navies were working toward, the unified nature of her country, and that country overall. It was a demanding position and a humbling one. She knew she only came to be due to the hard work of thousands of people, perhaps even millions if you counted the taxes paid for her construction.

And yet she walked into the party with just her captain by her side. Germany wouldn't accept great swarms of Irish farmers in the middle of their sophisticated shipgirl party, so Belfast had to represent them as best she could. To the shipgirls especially, she was Ireland. The politicians might talk among themselves, but in their own private world, it was Belfast alone. She was working towards a cube as swiftly as she could, but they had to grovel a bit first. Even if Ireland had paid out the nose for their cube, Germany could have kept it. Thanks were necessary.

Belfast looked around the room, searching for her donor. It only felt right to speak to her first. There was a great moving mass of red, black, and white, German flags forming and being torn to ribbons as the party-goers moved about. From what she had heard, she was looking for black and blue… there! Oh, the horns were also hard to miss, a beacon she could follow through the mob.

She exchanged pleasantries whenever it was appropriate. "My pleasure, my honor, charmed…" It wasn't feeling like as much of a pleasure after the fifteenth repetition, but she was Ireland's honor and her charm, so she couldn't stop and complain about it.

After extricating herself from a few conversations, she finally reached her target: Prinzregent Luitpold, the dark, brooding battleship who didn't care for the same niceties Belfast was compelled to follow like gospel. Funny. They were both at the same party and they both wore similarly wasteful, complex dresses – Belfast's was a rich emerald, Luitpold's was a dark blue, and both were so complex that Belfast dreaded the idea of so much as holding a glass of wine – but they took different approaches. Maybe that was the privilege of a battleship.

"Good evening, Lady Luitpold." Belfast stopped and curtsied.

"Evening," Luitpold said. "You're…?"

"Irish Ship Belfast. I owe you a debt of gratitude."

"Anyone could have donated a cube," Luitpold said. "Wasn't anything more than timing."

"Anyone could have, but you did," Belfast responded.

"I don't see a meaningful difference between cubes, but I suppose you're welcome to think what you like."

"Perhaps I just needed an excuse to introduce myself."

Luitpold scoffed. "If you're looking to suck someone off, find Kaiser."

Belfast blinked. She supposed it wasn't completely useless information, although it was delivered…

"You wouldn't want to impress either me or Kaiser, honestly. Friedrich, Seydlitz… they give a damn and people actually respect them."

"Thank you." Belfast dipped her head.

"Have fun." Despite her deadpan tone, Belfast had a feeling that she meant it, in the sense that she was telling Belfast to enjoy herself instead of playing politics. Maybe she would, but first, there was a certain towering figure…

It seemed as if every shipgirl in Mitteleuropa had arrived… it was an impressive assembly, and Belfast knew it wasn't even all of them: the fleet in Ostasia waxed by the day as they trained for confrontation with Japan and the other cruisers who protected the far-flung colonies couldn't be here. Tegetthoff's maneuvers on the dance floor were impossible to miss, so it was certain the Austrians were here…

Belfast was aware she had certain obligations during this party. She was to impress the Germans, to show them how their investment in Ireland had borne fruit, but there was no reason to ignore the others. They were more than a German client: they could act freely and make treaties as they pleased. Well, that's what they liked to think. A visit to the Blarney Stone had won Belfast the gift of the gab, and she was more than a German suck-up.

(Thankfully, she had German language skills to pair with the gab, so she could actually communicate it to the people she was trying to impress.)

The Austrians were kind enough, although she only managed to track down two of the four battleships that were supposedly on the premises. They had been scattered on the winds, and Belfast heard that the missing ones had vanished for some sort of backroom conversation. Curious. Otherwise, she tried to make a good impression on the various men of Mitteleuropa. No offense intended towards the Ukrainians, but it seemed like making a good impression on the men from Scandinavia or the Baltic Duchy would help Ireland more than good relations with Ukraine.

As riveting as these conversations were, at some point the staring stopped satisfying her ego and started annoying her. The way some of the men acted, you'd think they had never met a lady before – unfortunately, she couldn't exactly go correcting the manners of a foreign admiral, now could she? Well, she thought she overheard one of the Germans doing just that, but Belfast wasn't German.

When the conversations grew tiring, she made for a remote corner of the room and took a drink for herself. A dark, frothy stout… it didn't compare that favorably to a Guinness, but perhaps that was just her Irish bias speaking. (Or perhaps it was just her tendency towards sobriety rearing its head. She had no time at all to be drunk.) The flavor of the drink aside, it was improved by company when someone sat down next to her.

She also had a drink, although it was paler, unlike her stout. Belfast couldn't say what the drink was, but it was in a terribly expensive-looking crystal glass that was itself held by a woman probably worth millions. She was a bit shorter than Belfast, even with heels, but her hair had volume to rival Belfast's own, long and tremendously curly. It was a relatively normal black instead of silver or pink – it contrasted well against a series of feathers worn on a clip – but the orange eyes gave her that unusual look most shipgirls had.

"Sláinte," Belfast said, lifting her glass. She was fairly sure none other than her knew Irish, but some things were universal.

"Proost," her companion answered, taking a sip of her drink.

Hmm… that didn't quite sound like the loud German toasts she had heard earlier. However, instead of wondering if it was perhaps some thick accent, she just introduced herself: "Good evening. I'm afraid we haven't been introduced… I am Irish Ship Belfast."

The woman's eyes flicked to Belfast's armlet – a solid orange cockade, for the Ulstermen – before introducing herself: "Her Majesty's Ship De Zeven Provinciёn. You may call me Zeven, if you like."

Well, that made a certain amount of sense, didn't it? The dark burnt orange dress, the seven gems in her necklace, the miniature tricolor formed by the feathers in her hair.

"Pleased to meet you, Zeven."

"Charmed. Is this your first party?"

"Yes." Well, her first with other shipgirls in numbers. She had a few parties in Ireland, one of which even had her German tutor involved. But this was… the Mitteleuropan shipgirl community, if such a thing truly existed.

"I do hope it's not proving too much of a disappointment." Seeing the look on Belfast's face, she laughed. "Come on. I saw the look you were giving your stout. What did it do to offend you?"

"It's not Guinness."

"Fair. air enough," Zeven said. "They don't make them like they do at home, but I expected something. Serving us swill like this – it's beyond the pale."

"Was that intentional?"

"This beer? I hope not." After a moment, she seemed to realize what Belfast's question actually meant. "No, it wasn't. Huh. I suppose you've the ear for that sort of thing."

(That sort of thing being Irish history. There was no English pale separating free and occupied Ireland anymore, but just because the English were off the isle didn't mean they wouldn't want to come back. That was why she was here, after all.)

"Well, if this is a lacking party, I would rather like to see a proper one."

"The best were a few years after the war, once rationing wore off." Zeven smiled fondly. "Back in the boom… spices and chocolate and coffee. Oh, the coffee…."

"Now this just seems a cruelty," Belfast remarked. "Perhaps you'll tell me I missed the manna from heaven too?"

"A bad party makes the good ones better by contrast. My first was horrific."

"And that was…?"

"Tsk tsk, Belfast. Never ask a lady her age." Years, at least, long enough to remember the hungry years immediately after the war, but not so old as to have been born during the war. She owed the same debt Belfast did, she just benefited from Germany's interest in a strong force in the East Indies. Ireland got her chance at a cube with the rise of the Union of Britain.

A band was playing some song she couldn't recognize. Belfast supposed they were all dancing to the German tune in some capacity. They drank German beer, bought in a German market, and lived due to German cubes. One of those things was a positive, at least.

"Perhaps we'll be fortunate enough to see better parties someday."

"And until then… we will maintain?" Je maintiendrai… she was terribly Dutch, but Belfast supposed she couldn't go throwing stones about loving your country. If only she could reasonably slip Erin go bragh into the conversation.

"It's a workable plan," Belfast said before standing up. "Would you like to me to fetch something for you?"

"Let's try wine," Zeven suggested. "But make sure it's not that German pi-" She cleared her throat and stopped talking.

Turning around, Belfast could see the cause of Zeven's sudden self-censorship. For what little it worth, she wasn't polluting the ears of a little cherub like Bayern. (Although was she that much of an innocent girl after years with sailors? Belfast didn't know.) Unfortunately, someone like Bayern might have been willing to brush off disparaging comments regarding German beverages…

Despite a passing similarity to Sachsen – white hair and green eyes – Rheinland was not like her in attitude. Or build. She was a lover of fine, well-built German products. She was a fine, well-built German product if you caught Belfast's drift. Robust, perhaps.

"Funny. You've got seven provinces and not one of them can produce a decent pilsner–"

Huh. With Rheinland's arrival, they completed a tricolor. Belfast's green dress, Zeven's orange, and Rheinland's white they had an Irish tricolor, just without the peace the white was supposed to represent.

Belfast would be gallant and refrain from participating in the beer debate. It wouldn't be good for Ireland if Rheinland soured to Belfast, although a hypothetical fit of pique such as that would be motivated by the self-evident superiority of a Guinness over continental brews.

De Zeven Provincien Description: Cruiser-size warship with 11-inch guns, losing speed and range for armor and firepower. One of several Dutch ships floating around, starts in Indonesia at Kaiserreich game start. Renamed to Surabaya/Soerabaja in game, but I like her being named after the Netherlands. Makes her a better face. Speaking of, I'm imagining her with William the Third style curls. Huge volume, black as described, etc. Also takes some notes from the Dutch Maiden, the symbol of the Batavian Republic. Instead of wearing the tricolor feathers on a big metal helmet, they're clipped into hair from moment of spawning/birth. Perhaps the clip is shaped like a lion's head, linking to the lion in the arms of House Oranje-Nassau and relating to the Leo Belgicus motif.

I imagine her spawning in the exact outfit she wears to the party: a dress in dark orange. Very classic and puffy, making her slow and cumbersome in a way that seems fitting for a coastal defense ship. I imagine her build as fairly normal, but whatever she has the dress does a good job of hiding. High neckline with the main object of interest being a necklace. 7 gems, either big fat diamonds that look like they had been cut in nearby Antwerp or a series of less valuable gems each representing a province more symbolically. Motifs in the dress proper are a bit vague, I'm thinking maybe interleaved rings? I'm not sure if 7 11-inch rings (gun diameter) would be enough to circle the entire circumference of the dress. If not, then just spam the 7 arrows in the lion's paws in the Oranje-Nassau arms. Maybe even put those arrows in large 11 inch circles spotted across the dress, idk.

As for personality, I imagine her as sort of like the Dutch state. Filled with ambition, hard worker, might take over England if given the chance. In seriousness, I see her as a nationalist who mourns the state of her country and wishes for it to throw off the German yoke. An imperialist, in as much as the empire keeps good things and funding for paintings headed her way. By that measure, perhaps a patron of art. Perhaps an interest in still-life paintings that indicates a deeper fear of change and political upheaval in her home country.

Thirty-nine chapters (by AO3 reckoning) is something. That's like a long season of TV, practically. Maybe if I get around to it next chapter will be a bit more memey, or I'll dig up some of the photoshops I did on the discord.

And yes maybe Zeven should be renamed by now but I like calling her Seven Provinces because it ties her to the country so strongly.