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“I’ll say nothing else,” Karel paced himself back to be slightly ahead of you, “besides that the seats on many a tank would benefit from more padding.”
Enough talk about your ass, as you rubbed your hip, feeling it through your skirt to see if it had grown. “Whatever. What’s wrong with her, that y’ don’t like her? Not up to your standards for looks?”
Karel laughed softly, and slightly, “No, I have her picture right here, actually. She’s lovely, and her family is the high house of Von Blum. Logically, I have nothing to complain about, being matched with her.”
You had to admit that she had you smoked as far as being pretty went, but that field was lost ever since you took that knife across the face. How she looked, though…this <span class="mu-i">wasn’t</span> Maddalyn Von Blum? She looked so exactly the same that it creeped you out a little.
“The Von Blums <span class="mu-i">are</span> pretty powerful,” you didn’t have to remind, but it was a point impossible to ignore. High houses had their own <span class="mu-i">armies</span>, their own industry. “So’s your house. Both territorial lords.” How the Archduchy split up its lands. Each territory was ruled by a different high house family. “So what’s the catch with…what’s her name.”
“Mathilda Von Blum,” Karel said, “Power is what her family and mine see, yes. Our lands are adjacent, and a solid alliance between us would benefit us all, and smooth over any lingering rivalries from eras before. Territories may never combine under the Archduke’s reign, of course, but my brother is the prince of Van Halm, anyways. Many would say that there is no catch, that the wealth and power is enough. Would it be enough for you?”
>Without power, you can’t have anything. The beast will make you its booty if you have no blade. That’s just the way the world works. Best get used to it.
>You knew what it was like to have nothing. To be devastatingly destitute. It didn’t take much wealth to tolerate a lot, for plenty of people. It had been enough for your sister, after all.
>Call yourself uncharacteristically romantic, but did either of those things matter if there was an irreconcilable difference? Something no force could overpower, and no luxury could assuage?
>Other? (Any vote will be converted to appropriately rougher dialect)
