No Need For A Core?-361: Dealing with Diplomacy

No Need For A Core?-361: Dealing with Diplomacy

The next morning, Deidre walked with Mordecai to the edge of Svetlana's territory, where Baron Demidov awaited with a few other people, presumably related to diplomatic functions, such as the one carrying a portable secretary table for transcribing notes as they spoke.
There was a table with chairs on each side of the clearly demarcated border, along with some screens to provide an outline of 'walls' as neither side particularly wanted to travel into the other's territory at the moment. There was a protocol of bows and greetings to be met in a formal environment like this, and creating a more formal environment was the purpose of the screens.
For the most part, she simply followed Mordecai's lead here. She was not as familiar with such things, and she had little interest in the details beyond what Svetlana and Azeria had already been working on. Her presence was a formality, and for the purposes of this meeting, Deidre was Svetlana, even if she didn't entirely think of herself that way.
After the initial formalities, Mordecai said, "I'd like to begin by offering my apologies. The final stages of Svetlana's freedom were rather chaotic, and I have no doubt that this frightened many of your soldiers and caused unease in more senior members of your military and government. However, we feel that it was necessary for both general safety, which includes the consumption of her excess of mana, and as a way of ensuring Svetlana's personal sense of security and agency. Also, given the harm that she has previously suffered by the agents of an organization that worked on behalf of the Trionean Empire, we believe that it is generous on our part to consider any gains made or damages inflicted by Svetlana during this process to simply be a part of just compensation. If the Trionean Empire disagrees, then we can begin with comparing all of the harms and damages she has suffered over her very long life against the Trionean Legal Code. I should note that the written version of such damages comprises a fairly large tome, before referencing the relevant laws."
"I see." The baron's expression and tone were neutral, but Deidre thought that she sensed an undercurrent of mixed emotions from him, including a hint of amusement. "For me personally, this is a not insignificant loss of land, and at the moment, I am not willing to concede the point, though I am willing to discuss it. As for the rest, as you pointed out, that is not mine to have the final say over — I am acting as diplomat in part simply out of convenience for the throne, given that these are my lands."
Deidre smiled slightly at that. "Also, they no doubt wish to reduce exposure to myself or Mordecai." She was. after all, a supposed 'demon'. Which was one of the many things she was working on, and another advantage of being part of the Azeria court.
Demon-like powers had never been part of her true nature; they had been imbued into her body by external power. Technically, Svetlana's power, but for this, the root source of external force and enslavement was far more important.
Now, she had accepted inclusion into a fae court as a lady of that court. While not so dramatic as being royalty, there had been some effects. The colors she had chosen for her wings — ice blue with edges of purple, gold, and red — were now the default colors for her wings, and her hair followed the same pattern, with the three colors of the Azeria cores appearing along the fringe of her hair. However, for now, she was actively keeping her hair blond. There was no reason to discuss the color changes here.
These changes meant it should be much easier for Deidre to evolve and change her powers away from the pseudo-demonic abilities that had been forced upon her. She still expected it to take years as she had to do the work herself; Svetlana couldn't edit Deidre's base pattern at this point.
"I can not speak upon such matters, but I can pass on my recommendation that, leaving aside the issue of my lands, the rest of your offer is accepted." Now the baron allowed himself a small, thin smile. "And if your offer is not accepted, then I shall be very glad that it will not be my purse that will be paying for the legal costs."
It sounded to Deidre that Mordecai's prediction had proven correct. An empire as large as Trionea necessarily had a certain amount of corruption; it was a necessary part of allowing minor nobility enough power and freedom to feel satisfied rather than chaffing at restrictions, while also leaving the empire itself with the tools to bring such nobles to heel if needed.
However, corruption, much like any other parasite, needed a healthy enough system to feed it. Through Azeria's allies, this matter could be made very, very public. If they pushed to make this a court matter, Trionea would have to do so lest they be seen publicly ignoring their own code of law. What happened in the shadows was one thing; what happened in the open was another. All it would take is a single instance of blatantly ignoring their own laws in such a public matter to inspire others to such public displays of wanton corruption. A crack like that could bring down a millennium-old empire in less than a century.
"I feel that I should note here that I have a very long list of grievances, and the impeccable memory of a core. While most people involved are long dead, there are a fair number of people who are not. Those cases would be pressed individually." Deidre's smile was cold as she gestured behind her, in the direction of the crystalline world tree. "Oh, and I am now truth-bound."
"Which brings us to the next topic," Mordecai said. "After we returned with Svetlana's avatar and she was able to reconcile her thoughts and memories properly, Svetlana surprised Us with an offer to swear an oath of fealty as a member of our court, and to then become a subsidiary core to Azeria. After some consideration, We accepted her oath, though the side effects were beyond our expectations. The tree growing from the center of Svetlana's territory is not a separate crystal tree. That is Krystraeliv, and this event has caused both her awakening and the awakening of her dryad, Mavialeko."
Mordecai waited a moment for the baron and his party to start grasping the implications of that statement before he added, "Oh, and she had the approximate appearance and personality of a precocious ten-year-old child. This does not limit her power in any way, but it does potentially limit her self-control and restraint. I would strongly recommend to any delvers or visitors that they do not provoke her, especially as I believe that Krystraeliv will do almost anything that Mavialeko asks without even questioning it."
Which was an absolutely terrifying thought — the full might and power of a world tree and its dryad at the beck and call of a ten-year-old's fury. Deidre and Svetlana's experiences with children were extremely limited, but they still understood that young people have relatively little emotional regulation.
Mavialeko did at least seem to be a sweet-natured child, based on a single afternoon's interactions with a newly born mind, but Kazue was a fine example of how that can make things worse once a nice person's wrath was fully invoked.
Baron Demidov appeared to have that same understanding of how dangerous a child with power could be, given how he had paled slightly. "That is certainly advice I will pass on, but I would request that you clarify the exact internal political and related ramifications of the first part of your statement. I believe I understand the situation, but it would be best to have it officially recorded."
"First, I swore an oath of fealty, making the crowns of Azeria my rulers and liege lords," Deidre said.
"Which means Our magic then recognized her territory as an extension of Our realm, as all that is hers is now ours, by proxy."
Deidre nodded. "This created a connection through the fey realm, putting us into contact enough for me to then submit as a subsidiary core. It would normally not be possible for a nexus with nineteen zones to submit to one with only thirteen zones, but I have been defeated by them twice; once when forced to invade them, and once when they defeated my forces and freed me."
"And that," Mordecai said, "was when Krystraeliv surprised us by managing to grow into her territory through the fey realm, connecting our territories even more tightly. While we may not be physically connected on this side of reality, we are connected on the Other Side, making us one contiguous political entity when using complete enough maps."
That last bit was an important capstone in setting the argument that all nations should recognize Svetlana as part of Azeria, though it also gave away that Azeria could support Svetlana logistically with little trouble. However, Krystraeliv could make that even easier and faster. Either they understood enough about world trees to already understand that, or there was still a surprise in store, if needed.
Emmanuel considered this for a few moments. "Then you are saying that we are entering into direct diplomatic negotiations with Azeria, with Svetlana's territory as Azeria's border with Trionea?"
"That is correct."
Deidre nodded, then added, "I expect all the general rules that Azeria has previously published to apply to anyone delving my territory, including treating unmasked pixies as non-combatants. All pixies interested in combat will be wearing appropriate war masks."
Rules about the pixies were surprisingly important to emphasize — Azeria pixies had already started wandering blithely into her territory and didn't seem to be capable of recognizing that they were in an area that was different in any significant way.
"Oh, and I will be forming dual paths as well, though with slightly different rules. It will be low-combat and high-combat, with fighting being a potential outcome if one fails to correctly complete a non-combat challenge. I am also benefiting from Kazue's boon regarding the ability to prevent accidental deaths, but that is as part of Azeria; a person can not be saved by that boon both in my territory and in theirs."
It turned out that being their subsidiary core meant benefiting from almost all of Azeria boon's, such as all inhabitants being sapient, though that benefit did not seem to flow the other way. Or at least, not completely. Azeria could take advantage of Svetlana's trickster-style boons by investing a small amount of extra mana into specific inhabitants, while there was no cost to Svetlana to have all her inhabitants be smarter.
One type of boon that did not transfer were the ones that supported multiple paths — Svetlana had to pick the dual path boon herself. A triple path seemed like far more trouble than it was worth for her.
Of course, there was a price to benefiting from Azeria's boons. She was effectively paying a tithe in mana. Some of the mana flow was simply to balance their total invested mana, which should enable Azeria to grow faster until they were larger than Svetlana, who would not be able to grow until then. However, she had also watched a small portion of the mana generated by each of her current guests being siphoned off before the rest of the mana flow was balanced. She fully expected that part to remain unchanged.
Mordecai and Emmanuel had begun the negotiation process. Some of this was abbreviated as Azeria's treaty with Kuiccihan meant that some aspects of a political relationship were regulated by Kuiccihan's treaty with Trionea, but there were a few things not already covered.
Deidre tuned out for most of this and meditated instead. She kept her eyes open, but her focus was inward as she worked on shaping her powers. There was so much to be done. It also kept her mind focused and away from other distractions.
Like her need to visit Satsuki again.
Being the vixen's lover had been part of healing and comfort before, but not a strong drive beyond that. Deidre had not anticipated that becoming the subsidiary core of a nexus with fey royalty, with two of them being a kitsune and a disciple of the goddess of passions, might influence her innate drive.
It was also something that she was going to need to have control over. The Azeria cores had accepted Satsuki as their consort, and Deidre could not expect to take up too much of Satsuki's time.
Ideally, she should find another lover, but frankly, she still had far too many issues to consider too casual of a relationship. She needed to trust someone a lot first, and there seemed to be little opportunity to find someone else that she would be comfortable with.
Naturally, Satsuki had her own ideas about how to help Deidre, and one of those involved Satsuki's ability to shape-shift, including into masculine forms. At least, for certain values of masculine. Satsuki seemed to prefer being a very pretty man if she was going to be male for a few hours.
And that was one of those distracting thoughts she was supposed to be avoiding. Back to meditating.
Most of her power reconstruction was superficial, changing how different effects manifested. She wanted more whimsical-seeming abilities rather than terrifying effects. Some changes went deeper, such as changing an ability that attacked a person with nightmarish visions into an ability that befuddled and distracted them with more pleasant dreams and illusions.
Others simply had to be purged, such as one that inflicted debilitating pain.
These abilities might not be tied to her personality or rooted deeply in her spirit, but they were still a part of her, and it hurt to excise or alter them like this. It was only possible because each ability had been individually imbued into her, rather than being a cohesive set of developed abilities, and it still weakened her to cut away parts of her spirit like this.
For someone like Moriko, it would be impossible to remove an ability this way. If, for some reason, Moriko wanted to rid herself of a specific ability, she would have to deliberately ignore it and never use it for years, if not decades, to let it slowly wither away.
The continuity of Moriko's abilities would also make them more difficult to seal away, the way that Mordecai had sealed Deidre's abilities. For Moriko, there were always places between specifically identified powers that connected those powers, and those paths could be used to develop new abilities that would not be entirely confined by seals targeting the related abilities.
Eventually, the diplomatic negotiations were completed, and Deidre verified Svetlana's agreement to the parts directly affecting her. This wasn't the final word in the matter, as the baron did not have the authority to commit the empire to a treaty, but the version they had come up with could be sent to others who could review that draft and either approve it or edit it, which would open up another round of negotiation.
Deidre had no intention of sitting at the negotiating table again. She'd done her part, but one of the advantages of being subject to Azeria was that it was Azeria's job to take care of these things most of the time.
As everyone began preparing to depart, Mordecai added one more thing. "Baron," he said with a slight smile, "I feel I should note that this makes your territory a borderland. While this will not affect your title directly, it may affect the titles above you, and corresponding adjustments. With a little luck, you may be elevated to viscount. Whether that luck would be good or bad, I leave to your judgement."
Based on the Baron's expression, Deidre suspected that the man was not quite certain how he felt about that possibility, and his discomfiture was something she found amusing.
Now, to go take care of her other needs. Satsuki had teased Deidre with the promise of showing her what a slightly villainous and very pretty man with long hair could be like. Deidre wouldn't have thought that she would find any sort of villainous seeming male to be appealing, but having Satsuki play the role via her shape-changing somehow felt like something very different from the experiences she'd previously had, and more like something out of the books of 'Raimi Darlington'.

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361: Dealing with Diplomacy