El!
El has been with the site for nearly two years now and has continued to prove her value. Currently, she is heading up our site event, Battle for Liberterram, on top of keeping up with her own personal plots.
CHARACTER
SPOTLIGHT
Peggy Carter!
Lux's posts are all wonderful to read. She has done a wonderful job of grasping the new universe and incorporating Peggy into it.
CHARACTER
SPOTLIGHT
Peter Parker!
It's good to see Spidey back on the site. Watching him deal with the universe shift in his own snarky way has been nothing short of entertaining.
THREAD
SPOTLIGHT
Eight O'Clock on the Dot!
El and Lux are making magic in this thread. Straight up fireworks, and the way they've played with drawing out the reveal is top class.
Though Namor had a variety of Atlantean ambassadors that severed as diplomatic emissaries to the surfacer countries, there were some matters that they did not handle. While they were kept alert of major developments within the realm, Atlantis was truly vast and minor changes were constant. Keeping them apprised of everything would be a job in and of itself, so there were matters that required his direct consultation as Atlantis' foremost diplomat. One of the chief matters that required his direct involvement were the forays into his domain. Surface nation's sovereign waters only extended so far, and international waters were only so down to a certain depth.
Hearing of such a request through an ambassador to England, Namor made the necessary arrangements to speak with one Margaret Carter, whose name was not unknown to him. The woman had acquired a reputation for having a canny mind, strong will and a knack for persuasion. His advisors offered him countless more details that were not already available to him, but overall her standing was said to be favorable in the political world. Something that amounted to precious little to Namor, who found most surfacer politicians to be loathsome and corrupt little things that no better served their countrymen than a parasite served its host.
Unlike most foreign dignitaries of any note, Namor did not send security ahead of time to comb the premises and make sure that the building was up to specification. Instead of broadcasting his location with paranoia or announcing his arrival with an entourage or some sort of heraldic human customs he flew to the city and slowed before his velocity could prove threat to the local architecture. Once he neared the embassy he slowed further until he seemed to simply drift toward the ground. All but touched down on the pavement outside, the hybrid hovered over the ground, toes dangling as he levitated inside the embassy.
"Your Majesty," the receptionist bowed her head in proper greeting. It was the one thing he rather admired about the English. Though he was not their king they still addressed him as one, something the other nations were loathe to do. "If you'll follow me, I'll bring you to Ambassador Carter." The receptionist came around the desk with a click of her heels on the marbled floor. With a few twists and turns he was shown into what seemed to be a drawing room. It was lavishly decorated but tastefully so and seemed to have a comfortable atmosphere.
Moving to the ambassador, Namor offered her a nod of acknowledgement.
"Your Excellency. It is a pleasure to meet you," he extended his hand. Atlantean custom in this situation was different, but as he was meeting her on her soil it seemed only fair to offer a handshake. "I was told that you were contacting me on behalf of a scientific expedition?"
To the Embassy of Latveria, I am writing to inquire the status of...
Peggy had written about half a page of her letter before she realised something looked wrong. Bullocks; she'd done it again. With her pen, she drew a straight line over the year and, above it, neatly scribbled '2016' to correct it.
She scrutinised the letter. It looked terrible; it would do her better to start over. Again. So she withdrew a fresh sheet of letterhead from a stacked metal shelf on her desk. She copied down the address, and, gritting her teeth in determination, carefully wrote down the correct date--
"Blast!" She'd written down the wrong year. Again. She didn't understand why this was such a problem. It was normal to be off by a year, especially when it was still January, but it was nearly December, and the number of years by which she was off was nearly sixty, before she was even born... right?
She did the subtraction in her head. It didn't seem right, so she checked her calculation--twice. 1985 seemed staggeringly recent, for some reason, although simple arithmetic proved that it had to be her year of birth. Her mind, however, was refusing to accept such a fact, and it was giving her a migraine. She groaned inwardly, rubbing her temples with her knuckles. It wasn't the first migraine she'd had since her recovery; they tended to surface at times like these. Fortunately, they passed quickly, especially if she had a glass of whiskey in her hand. Peggy didn't have one now, but that unopened bottle of Phoenix Irish whiskey in her cabinet was looking awfully tempting...
The subtle clearing of her receptionist's throat brought the ambassador back to the present, and she turned her gaze towards the door. A mental image of the day's schedule flashed in her mind, and she remembered, rather than recognised, the man currently approaching her. She stood up and made her way around her desk to meet him. She was aware of the customary Atlantean greeting, had made sure to study up on their ancient customs prior to the emperor's arrival, but he'd beaten her to the punch, so to speak, by extending his hand to her for a traditional land-dweller's handshake.
"Your Majesty," she replied briskly, taking his hand and shaking it firmly. "Thank you for taking the time to meet me personally." Throughout her career, Peggy had noticed that other ambassadors often complimented or joked with political leaders in order to establish a stronger rapport. Peggy opted to do neither; it was more important to demonstrate competence than sociability.
"Do feel free to take a seat," she added, gesturing to a spacious seating area to the left of her desk. "I'll do my best to keep this as brief as possible." She reached over her desk to retrieve a folder before settling into a Georgian-style, leather wing chair. Opening the folder, she took out a booklet of non-negligible thickness, held together with binder clips. "This here is the proposal submitted by one of our country's research institutions," Peggy explained, as she flipped to the executive summary. "The team is comprised of the world's leading experts in geophysics and oceanography. They've proposed an expedition to analyse the mechanisms behind the movement of oceanic plates. The plates of interest are on the outskirts of the Capitol, and their expedition is planned for a minimum of six months, with possible plans of extension."
It was then Peggy looked up from the document and gazed steadily at the Atlantean to gauge his response. Having always held an interest for the sciences, despite not being particularly gifted towards the subject herself, she genuinely supported the proposed research. She added, "I've read their proposal, and I believe the research has great merit and potential, with benefits that pertain not only to Old England, but to your land as well."
"Make no mention of it. Atlantean custom requires I tend to these matters myself." He did not say which customs or bother explaining that it was a policy he himself had made given the progress his nation had made with topside diplomacy during the years of his reign. Though he'd made some headway in exposing surfacers to his culture in the forms of documentaries or filmed plays, Atlantis largely benefitted from the secrecy of their realm. Not knowing his populated areas or military bases provided him with numerous advantages that he would prefer keeping advantageous. "And I must profess curiosity." Both on the expedition and Miss Carter, whose reputation was intriguing.
Sitting down in the seat where she motioned, Namor melded into the chair and yet somehow retained an air of regality through his relaxed posture and typical scant attire. The scaled emerald and gold trunks amounted to little more than a speedo, yet he seemed perfectly relaxed with his bare skin against the upholstery. That she pledged to keep this brief did not warrant much of a response from the Atlantean one way or the other, instead he seemed to be studying her with a scholarly interest. Or the interest of a shark in a seal. At times it was difficult to discern between the two.
Namor listened to her summary with the same inscrutable but polite expression and easy mannerisms. For a long moment afterward he considered his options like a chess player. While foreign dignitaries had sometimes been granted the privilege to a trip to the Capital, it was a rare occasion. And those trips could be better obfuscated as to disguise exact locations. He was certain that the surfacers had already puzzled out the location of the Capital with a small margin of error, so the harm would not be as significant as it otherwise could be. Moreover, there was the benefit to consider, and understanding the tectonic plates would give them a better understanding of the Earthshaker's domain, anyway.
After he dragged his fingertips over the contents of a few pages of the proposal and skimmed them to some apparent degree of satisfaction, the King turned back to the ambassador and gave a subtle nod. "I think I'll allow the expedition, provided that I am given an understanding of and approval of their surveillance equipment." He didn't think that he needed to fully spell out his concerns. Even though she was not in the business of espionage, she knew how governments tended to operate. Even with allied or neutral parties most every government wanted as much information as it could get. It was simply and unfortunately advantageous.
"There will, of course, also be Atlantean units that will be remotely monitoring the research vessels at all times."
Peggy had always been a rather sharp girl, and so it was no surprise that her Atlantean guest's royal garbs--or, rather, lack thereof--had not escaped her excellent observation skills. And while her professionalism did not allow her gaze to lower below his chin, as she turned around to take her own seat, her curiosity permitted her to take an... exploratory glance at the reflection of her glass cabinet doors. It wasn't every day an underwater monarch entered her office, and as far as otherworldly beings went, he had certainly made it sparklingly clear that he was a fine specimen of his kind--and of any kind, really.
(Oh, she might be an ambassador, but she wasn't blind.)
Peggy arched a singular eyebrow when the emperor confessed that he was not here entirely out of duty, but also out to curiosity. It wasn't the first time someone had found her 'interesting'; as far as ambassadors went, Peggy wasn't exactly a conventional one. Her colleagues preferred to discuss and debate until an agreement was reached, and while Peggy was never lacking for words, she found talking terribly inefficient. She'd never done anything illegal, of course, but there were other means one could use to convince people, and Peggy was somehow quite good at it.
"Can I offer you something to drink--tea, perhaps?" said Peggy, pushing away her failed letters to clear a space on her desk. "Or wine. It's not Atlantean, unfortunately--the peres fruit isn't indigenous to this side of the ocean--but we've a few selections here that might be to your taste."
Namor's polite expression changed little throughout her explanation, even as he breezed through the proposal Peggy had handed him. He wore his smile like mosaic glass--it was pleasant, handsome, yet deceptively opaque. Peggy could not read his thoughts and she did not try to, and simply waited until he was ready to speak.
He was allowing the expedition, and for all her confidence, Peggy was a bit surprised that he'd agreed so quickly. His request was not unreasonable, and she had expected that he would want to be thorough with regards to the people and equipment that were entering his domain. He had his own interests and the interests of his people to consider, after all.
"I expect that won't be a problem," she agreed, before adding smoothly, "being a scientific expedition." Information regarding a more military- or industrial-minded expedition, on the other hand, could not and would not be so easily shared. Fortunately, the research described in the proposal was strictly academic, and did not have the complication of dealing with proprietary information.
Peggy's smile faded just a tad when Namor added that he would send his own people to monitor the research team. She didn't like his word choice: 'units'. It sounded very military. "And what units would those be, Your Highness?" she asked, her expression as cordial and unreadable as his.
Namor either didn't notice or didn't broadcast his notice of the ambassador's eyes sweeping over his figure. Perhaps he was used to it and simply didn't notice, or perhaps he was proper enough that he wouldn't respond to it while they were in matters of diplomacy. But she was making quite the impression with that. Offering food and drink was standard hospitality but the mention of the fruit, which was rather obscure knowledge earned a more genuine, though brief lived smile. One that showed dimples that were not so readily seen by most.
If he wasn't hopelessly in love with his wife he imagined that he might have taken a real fancy to her. She was certainly his type.
"Just as well you don't have any. I would insist that you drink with me and Atlantean wine is rather more alcoholic. And while getting inebriated might be good for personal diplomacy I find it is rarely so helpful on matters of State," he smirked, his tone was kept crisp and deadpan to serve as a perfect counter to the familiarity of his words. "Tea would be lovely, thank you. Any variety of black." He pre-emptively answered what was likely going to be the follow-up to his beverage choice.
The monarch nodded, pleased that she accepted his counters regarding approval of their equipment. While he didn't truly believe that this was going to be an espionage mission, he still could not dismiss it as one outright. Her compliance suggested that his instincts were right, and he appreciated that they were not so on-edge as to take offense to a relatively basic precaution.
"Military. It's a procedure for surfacer vessels. Aside from the potential risk your vessel could pose to us--which I don't believe is the case--there are environmental factors to be considered. There are some beasts in the depths that resist even my control, and some of my own are fervent in their opposition to the surface. I cannot rely upon them to control themselves." There were factions within his own kingdom that had opposed him from the moment of his birth. He couldn't just assume that was no longer going to be the case, particularly now that he'd acquired Lemuria and was making increased alliances with the surface world.
Peggy caught a glimpse of Namor's smile, and took it to mean that he wasn't finding this meeting absolutely reviling, which was promising. As a diplomat, one always strove to be at least a few steps above absolutely reviling, which seemed at first like an underwhelming ambition, except it was more than what she could say about some of her colleagues.
"To be fair, I'm more of a whiskey girl myself," said Peggy, countering his smirk with a coy smile of her own, "but I wouldn't object if you brought a bottle of Atlantean wine, the next time you find yourself back on Old English soil." When Namor agreed to tea, Peggy pressed a button on her phone to call her assistant, and asked her to bring them a refreshing English afternoon blend, loose leaf, of course, and perhaps some to snack on.
The assistant entered a few moments later, carrying a tea set as well as a plate of what appeared to be poppy seed scones, with strawberry jam and clotted cream on the side. It wasn't until the assistant set the tray and scones down on the table that Peggy realised that she was famished. She had forgotten to take her lunch again.
Peggy reached for the teapot, pouring a bit into her cup to test the tea; the colour looked like it'd been steeped long enough, and she could smell the aroma of Ceylon and... something mildly creamy, like vanilla. "Do you take milk and sugar?" she asked as she filled both cups. "I usually like mine with a little milk." As she took hold of the porcelain creamer, a thought came to mind and she chuckled to herself. "My mother used to insist that a proper cup of tea meant that milk was added before the tea, and anything else was considered disgraced hot water," she explained to Namor. "I daresay she's rolling in her grave, now, because I'm about to serve you exactly that. I pray you'll be able to forgive me." Peggy herself had never been able to taste the difference.
She placed Namor's cup in front of him and gestured towards the plate of small cakes before reaching for one herself. She took her time applying the jam and cream, ignoring the urge to cram the bloody thing in her mouth and swallow it whole. Just because she'd stupidly gone ten hours without eating didn't mean that had to advertised to the emperor.
While Peggy could understand the emperor's reasoning for wanting to place an Atlantean presence alongside the expedition, she wasn't thrilled that the presence would be military. If she took Namor's proposition back to the Old English Council, they would no doubt see the Atlantean vessel as a threat and insist on sending a armed vessel of their own as a countermeasure; the situation would spiral downward from there.
She'd have to phrase this very delicately, lest he took her words in the wrong way.
"Your people's knowledge of the lay of the land is certainly valuable and we'd greatly benefit from the expertise, but it seems quite the imposition, to devote an entire vessel and team in order to escort ours." The sentences came out conversationally, effortlessly, despite the care she took to construct them. "What if, instead of a separate team and vessel, perhaps a few of your men joined our surfacer vessel as consultants? Credit would be shared for any results that are found, of course, and it would save resources on both sides."
"Somehow that doesn't surprise me. Women of character seem to prefer hard liquor almost exclusively." His first wife, Betty, had preferred bourbon and scotch. She liked a drink that would "put a little hair on your chest". A turn of phrase he'd always found quite curious. Why would anyone--even a man and especially a woman--want hair on their chest? Trying the bourbon made him realize it was a rather apt phrase from his own perspective. Despite being a weaker drink he found the flavor to be positively loathsome. Something that he would avoid, along with the hair on his chest.
At least Natalia drank vodka. Something that tasted a great deal like rubbing alcohol smelled, but whose flavor was still somehow preferable.
Unfortunately Namor was rather positively predisposed toward hospitality. It was a cornerstone of his religion and society, and when it was not paired with rampant stupidity, deceit and cowardice, he ended up forming at least a favorable-leaning opinion of his host. An opinion that often came in direct conflict with his opinion of their country and its usage of them. It often made conversing with diplomats and politicians rather challenging. At least where keeping things respectably civilized went.
Smirking openly at her response, Namor steepled his fingertips together and deadpanned, "I think my mother would be perplexed by the idea of anyone drinking hot leaf juice." His smirk drifted to a smile as he wondered if she'd even seen leaves in her lifetime. "Here's to disappointing our mothers," he raised his cup in a mock toast and then nursed from his cup then set it aside to partake of the scones. His dressing of them was swift and graceful but with the lazy, natural mannerisms of someone who'd been trained how to move from an early age. It contrasted nicely with how indulgent he was being with the cream and jam.
On eating, Namor was rather less well mannered.
Almost immediately, the King's demeanor began to change. The more casual posture became a little more closed, and the more friendly receptive quality to his expression became more closed and guarded. She was opting for open flattery to try and underplay and balm what she was angling for. Her request was not unreasonable, even if he found the nature of the appeal to be mildly grating. This was something he'd expected from a typical diplomat, something that she was not said to be, and something she'd not led him to believe so far.
How disappointing.
"Whatever men I put on board will have a background with the military. It is a cultural rite-of-passage for Atlanteans to serve. That being said, whatever minds I give you will be as militaristic as they are academic. They will assist the vessel and they will keep it safe from any threat that could create a diplomatic situation. Understand that any discomfort that may be present for your politicians now will be considerably worse if their team and my men wind up being killed by bigoted citizens or worse, a mutate creature that wouldn't leave me any bodies to produce? If such a thing really came to pass do you think that your politicians would believe me?" Namor asked calmly.
He would have a hard time believing himself, and he did not have the tumultuous history with himself that he did with the surface. But it was a possibility, and one that he wanted to be prepared for. Which would involve a military presence inside their vessel if it could not be alongside it.
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