2022-03-17: Confines of Concern
- Log: Confines of Concern
- Cast: Cornelia li Britannia, Euphemia li Britannia
- Where: G-1 Base ver. li Britannia, Nagoya, Area 11
- OOC - IC Date: U.C. 0096.03.17
- Summary: Worried for her sister after several reckless events that have put her in danger, Cornelia li Britannia chooses to express her worry the way she knows best: via reprimands. But Euphemia has wishes of her own.
<Pose Tracker> Cornelia li Britannia has posed.
There's no distraction quite like diligence in duty.
Time seems to slip away faster, when engulfed in matters of state. Some of it is its own sort of thrill, of course; but much of it encompasses the tedium of the day to day. The process of quelling insurgency is not always one steeped in blood and iron, nor does much of it even take place in the region of concern. There are supply routes to sniff out. Bureaucratic corruption to hound after. Even simply quelling crime rate in an increasingly restless populace.
It's been longer than Cornelia li Britannia would care to admit that she has found herself embroiled in a traditional theater of war.
And even longer, really, that she has had opportunity to speak to her sister.
It's been a small handful of weeks since the Celestial Being attack, but for the most part, Cornelia's duties have kept her away from Area 11 in those intervening days. Busy. Always busy. But for things that are important -- time must be made. Time will be made.
And that's why General Andreas Darlton comes knocking on Euphemia li Britannia some days earlier with a simple message: the Viceroy wished to speak with her. Soon.
Andreas, at least, is kind enough to let his expression warn Euphemia this might not be the most pleasant of conversations. It all but reads:
'Prepare yourself.'
---
The reason for this facial forewarning might swiftly become apparent at learning that the setting of this meeting is to be at the Knightmare Frame hangar of the li Britannian G-1 Base, emptied out entirely save for Cornelia herself.
The reason why might also become exponentially more apparent when one gets a good look at what Cornelia is standing in front of:
The proud, polished form of the Lancelot Club.
For now, though, she waits, steel-faced save for the faintest frown that indicates to the keenest of Cornelia observers that she's been stewing over something.
<Pose Tracker> Euphemia li Britannia has posed.
The Sub-Viceroy's office is a very... static place -- even moreso if you believe Euphemia's claim that there's an alarm on her window now. It's made her only less happy with her position -- and don't mistake it: she's quite unhappy. Just because the Princess does the work of the office she's been given doesn't mean she enjoys it even a bit.
She knows how these conversations are likely to go, in their broad strokes. It's never that she's felt as though Cornelia doesn't love her, of course; no, quite the opposite. Cornelia, as far as Euphemia's concerned, is a whole-hearted person who's never done anything by halves in her life -- including her duties.
A *visit* from Cornelia is fun. A *meeting* with Cornelia almost never fails to make Euphemia feel small -- infantilized, even. When General Darlton arrives to let Euphemia know that Cornelia wishes to speak with her:
It becomes painfully obvious that what's coming is the latter.
---
Euphemia arrives about two minutes early -- she knows that to be later would risk the perception of actual lateness, and probably make whatever's coming worse. She glances up, and:
Ah.
"Viceroy," comes her address -- simple, direct, formal. She loathes it. It reminds her yet again of exactly what she can expect here, and she doesn't like it.
The Princess offers no proactive defense of any of the things she's done; right or wrong, she has the reasonable expectation that anything she says that isn't the answer to a direct question -- or spinning out therefrom, at least -- will simply be discarded.
<Pose Tracker> Cornelia li Britannia has posed.
Viceroy.
"Sub-Viceroy."
Her voice is crisp. Clipped. The natural way the princess projects makes that formal title echo faintly in the largely-vacated hangar bay. The violet-haired Viceroy's attention remains affixed on the Lancelot Club, her back to Euphemia.
Cornelia doesn't relish this; speaking to Euphemia like this, under these circumstances, that ideally never would have occurred to begin with. Far from it. But it sets the tone. It sets a framework. An idea.
That this is a matter of duty.
And that, she can more easily compartmentalize.
Cornelia is silent for a few seconds, after this. The stillness is only disrupted when she half-turns on her heel, enough to cast an unreadable violet stare over her shoulder at her sister.
There's a tension underlying her words that most who hadn't grown up with her wouldn't recognize when she asks, simply:
"So. How did it feel?"
Left open-ended, and waiting for its answer.
<Pose Tracker> Euphemia li Britannia has posed.
Euphemia doesn't... *really* believe Cornelia's going to listen to the full answer to this question. It'd show so much disrespect, however, not to give it to her. So she takes a breath, closes her eyes for just a moment, and puts her thoughts in order.
Then she answers. "... It was terrifying. The Club isn't actually designed for what it was carrying, which only made it worse. The pilot seat is a little big for me, too... the safety belts weren't enough to keep me in place without a pilot's suit on." This is the simple, direct answer to the question, and probably enough for Cornelia -- and Euphy has a feeling she knows what's coming if she leaves it there.
So, naturally, she keeps going. "But it felt good to see the rest of my detail at my back. They wouldn't have acted if I hadn't done anything." If you find yourself in a hole, Euphemia reasons:
Keep digging. Maybe you'll hit something interesting.
"If you want me to avoid taking the field," she says, tone a little firmer -- not quite angry, but certainly not concealing the sentiment beneath it, "give me the authority to issue orders that won't be overruled by anyone but you." It slips out before she fully considers what she's asking. The way her retreat order during Celestial Being's attack got mutated right under her by her own command staff still stings, though, and it makes *not* saying it essentially impossible.
<Pose Tracker> Cornelia li Britannia has posed.
Euphemia doesn't -really- believe Cornelia is going to listen to the full answer to her question.
'... It was terrifying.'
"Exactly."
And rightly so, because Euphemia has only freshly admitted all the varying difficulties with the Lancelot Club when the elder li Britannia is making a sharp turn to face her fully, fully ready and willing to pounce upon the offered opening to pivot into her actual point.
Or she was--
"You are--"
'But...'
--when the beginning of what is surely to be a firm reprimand is cut off by Euphemia's continuation.
There's something in the tone of the younger princess' voice that draws Cornelia towards a pause. That actually makes those violet eyes -blink- in a shutter of mild surprise that would have never shown in most any other context. And then, they narrow, as her lips pull tight.
"You are saying you want overriding command in military matters," she rephrases, slowly. There is a tension in Cornelia's voice that normally isn't there, as well -- not the typical sharp steel she brandishes at belligerent Britannian rank-and-file. Something else draws that tone taut that really has no place in an official, formal meeting. She knows where this demand is coming from, and yet--
"How have you demonstrated you are ready for that level of authority? The incursion in Nouvelle Tokyo was not our jurisdiction, nor our problem! You should not have expended Britannian resources in trying to solve a situation that was not of our making! You should not have risked--"
Your life--
"--the lives of your soldiers for it! You overstepped, in every way!"
Her voice echoes through the hangar like a thunderclap, now. She pauses in the wake of it, drawing a single breath.
"And am I to now believe that you will not do so again?"
<Pose Tracker> Euphemia li Britannia has posed.
... that's about what Euphemia expected, when she realized she'd actually asked it.
"If that's what it takes not to be ignored, yes," Euphemia affirms, at the clarifying mirror of her words. She braces, and --
-- it comes, just as she expected. Her heart knows it's coming before her head does. She considers, for just a moment, what exactly she could say back. Options do occur to her, of course. She knows her sister well; there's a moment where she entertains the possibility of raising her concerns about how Cornelia does business. Pointing out that simply gutting B-list rebel groups only makes the Black Knights more attractive.
... It'd make their time together too depressing. This is already the limit of how heavy it can be for her... and as upset as she is, she doesn't want to drag Cornelia down. "... You're right, of course," she concedes, in the end. "I overstepped. I apologize."
What she doesn't say, of course, is that if things remain the way they are, she'll simply continue to overstep and apologize. In the end, if she has no real authority -- if she cannot countermand her own bridge staff -- all she has is herself, and using herself as a shield isn't a particularly foreign thought.
"I'll consider taking a knight," she adds -- by way of concession, perhaps. Perhaps that would actually be the better option, even. It'd be nice to have someone she can rely on to listen to her.
<Pose Tracker> Cornelia li Britannia has posed.
They would be good points. Cornelia has a sharp mind for war, but the stage of this particular conflict with the Black Knights is only passingly like any real battlefield. It's a context for which Euphemia might be better suited.
But whether Cornelia would listen, especially right now--?
Ultimately, it is a question whose answer only exists as a fleeting possibility. As her sister apologizes, Cornelia forward-stepping stance eases back, fractionally. She watches Euphemia in quiet, her reprimand stalled by that conciliation of words. She looks, for a moment, as if teetering in rare uncertainty over whether to continue, or whether to...
Sigh.
"Very well." The breath pushes past violet lips as Cornelia eases back entirely, once-fiery - once-worried - gaze squeezing shut. Euphemia's compromise seems to mollify her older sister in that moment; the rest of that tension eases past those shoulders, and her poise relaxes -- as much as Cornelia's poise can ever be considered 'relaxed.'
She walks forward, heeled boots chiming across the hangar floor.
And quietly, a gloved hand finds its way towards reaching out to rest on Euphemia's shoulder.
"... Euphy."
That name comes after a long moment, and gone is the fierceness. Gone is the tension. Instead there's just something infinitely softer. Fonder.
Concerned.
"I know you mean well. But this territory will be yours one day. Soon. I wish I could treasure this time with you more, but... when I leave, I just want to know you will be safe here. That you won't..."
Cornelia's sentence trails. She shakes her head.
"... Thank you, Euphy. For humoring me."
<Pose Tracker> Euphemia li Britannia has posed.
The tension slipping out of Cornelia gets it to slip out of Euphemia, too; she feels her shoulders lose their stiffness, her whole body sink just a tiny bit. When Cornelia starts to move toward her, Euphemia takes a half-step forward, too. She can't help but smile as that hand comes to rest on her shoulders; as tense, as frustrating as that moment was...
In the end, Cornelia is still Euphemia's older sister. A lot of tensions melt away under that. She's even inclined to read what Cornelia follows up with in the most positive way she can, in a way that, just a moment ago, she might have been a little too tense to be ready for.
"I know," she concedes. "Your position moves with conflict zones, not... stable situations." That's its own nerve-wracking thing; Area 11 presents one of the rare cases where *both* of them are needed -- where both of them get to be close, if only for a moment. There's a lot she wants to say... but she settles for, "You're welcome, Sister. I hope that by the time that happens, I'm ready for it."
... her stomach growls. It's a little on the loud side.
She rubs at the back of her head, admitting, "... It seems like I always get hungry when things resolve," with a slightly hapless smile.
<Pose Tracker> Cornelia li Britannia has posed.
She wishes in these moments she could better express her worries. Her fears.
But to do so would be weakness, wouldn't it?
And weakness is not for...
"You will be," says Cornelia li Britannia, with nothing less than absolute, unassailable certainty even in her gentle tone.
"You are my sister. You are more than able."
*grrmble*
"..."
In that moment, Cornelia holds there, stock still, for a sliver of statuesque seconds. Vivid eyes flutter in a startled blink at the ominous, gutteral sounds that come from her sister.
The corners of her lips quiver.
"--Hahahahaha!"
And Cornelia li Britannia laughs a rich and delighted laugh, eyes squeezing shut as she presses hands to her stomach. It's -full body-.
"-- the notorious Grumbly Tumbly returns--" she gets out in the middle of her short burst of laughter, a sentence no one else could ever hear and be allowed the mercy of life. She shakes her head; and the princess is still grinning as she straightens once more.
"Come on, then. I think we should slay the beast before you frighten any unsuspecting aides." And here, she'll begin to walk, casting a glance over her shoulder at Euphemia as she goes. It's much warmer, than that one she offered at the beginning of her talk. Because she just can't stay mad at Euphemia.
"... And while we eat, we can go over a new training regimen to get you more accustomed to Knightmare Frame piloting. I'll oversee it personally."
... Even if she knows her sister well enough to know this probably isn't the last time this situation will happen. And if it isn't, well... the least she can do will make sure Euphy is prepared.
<Pose Tracker> Euphemia li Britannia has posed.
Cornelia's laughter prompts Euphemia's in turn. She turns a *bright* pink, and admits, "I -- I just ate light meals to make sure I'd be on time!" The protest doesn't sound believable even to her. She just worked herself all the way up into being hungry before she knew it.
She brings a hand to her face, unable to stop herself from laughing. She keeps pace with Cornelia as they start to walk. The tension totally slides out of her. "All right -- yes, I'd like that," she says, on the topic of... slaying the beast. Cornelia always has a sense of the most direct path out of a problem.
The topic of a new training regimen, though... "I suppose if I'm to be Viceroy, eventually, such things will be even more important." As much as she can't be the Goddess of Victory her sister is, and she knows it... she *will* need the tools to defend herself. Britannia's geopolitical overreach makes some amount of personal defense a genuine need.
"Thank you," she says, a little more warmly, once she lets herself accept that Cornelia is... at least *trying* to honor Euphy's right to make her own decisions, at spots. Part of her wants to request something else -- but she's not actually familiar enough with military operations to know how to ask, and the worries she has about even this upsetting Cornelia gnaw at her a bit.
... but for now, they can just enjoy getting something to eat. She smiles, and scoots a little closer.