alicornutopia | holy place

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holy place

My alternates tend to take over the world. Advice available. Rates negotiable.

Shell Bell puts up her sign and nibbles her most recent charity meal. Not potatoes! It is not potatoes. Or fish or clams. It is rice and curry and a fruity yogurt drink. That nice person told Bar she could use his tab for four meals, and this is meal number two.

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"I have the divine power to share immunities with a touch. When I touch someone, I collect copies of all the immunities they possess, and they gain all the immunities I have already collected. It's a very useful ability to have."

"That sounds harmless, but we have no way to guarantee your sincerity or check your track record with other nations on your original planet."

"That's true," he says. "Ultimately the only sources of information you have about me are my word, and observation of my empire from the outside, since you have so far declined to send a delegation of your own."

"We're considering it, but we've been practicing isolationism for the better part of a century and are not prepared to adjust instantly."

"A long time from the mortal perspective," he acknowledges. "Do you object to hosting an embassy, then?"

"Perhaps you could put something up at the edge of your domain," suggests Coin. "Being underground we are somewhat constrained in space suitable for unexpected purposes."

"Would anyone visit it?"

"Assuming you continue to respect our borders and assume a minimally threatening posture it's certainly possible."

"I fully intend to continue respecting your borders," he says. "How threatening you find me while I go about my business inside my own empire is not under my control; I have learned that through extensive experience."

"There are more and less threatening ways to go about your business. So far you've been projecting a public face such that our plan A to keep you from encroaching on District Thirteen was to send a polite intern to the surface to ask nicely, but if you maintain or expand the Capitol's capacity to make war, disrespect our security precautions in any way, or otherwise indicate that the continued sovreignity of your neighbors is not a priority for you, you will begin to seem threatening."

"I find the Capitol's methods for making war both distasteful and unnecessary," he says. "On my home planet I maintain a military whose main practical purpose is disaster relief and escorting diplomats, because no one has tried to invade my empire in many centuries; I anticipate something similar here, but I will not even need them to escort diplomats since I am acting as my own ambassador and require no escort."

"Noted."

"The continued sovereignty of my neighbours is a high priority," he adds. "It is my sincere hope that I never again encounter a country so disastrously run that I feel compelled to conquer it for its people's sake; until I heard of Panem, I thought that I never would."

"By all accounts the people of Panem are mostly pleased with this development. District Thirteen, however, has been operating separately since the initial rebellion, and our people are provided for without child sacrifice or vast social stratification of the sort I assume you objected to in Panem. We are not in the market for a regime change and appreciate your understanding of that fact."

"I did object to the child sacrifice. And the mass starvation. Needless suffering offends me. It is good to hear that you don't have that sort of problem."

"Do note, however, that I don't consider you entitled to conduct inspections to check up on our adherence to external standards, and if you tried it would make it clear that you'd be treating us as a colony-in-waiting rather than a real peer."

Edited 2015-08-15 03:29 (UTC)

"I have no intention of conducting inspections," he says.

He refrains from pointing out that the easiest way for him to conduct such an inspection would be to extend his domain over her district and have a look.

"Then it seems we may understand each other."

"Yes."

"Is there anything else you wanted to discuss?"

"Not at the moment."

"Then Tulip will show you out."

Tulip swallows and gets up from the chair she's been perched in this whole time.

Kirovalin follows Tulip.

Tulip leads him back all the way up to the surface and over to where his biome begins.

And off he goes into his biome. The edge is, by this time, very clearly marked by a tangled hedge of berry bushes with occasional gaps.

Edited 2015-08-15 04:34 (UTC)

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alicornucopia - 2015-08-15 16:05 (UTC) - Expand

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