If You Love these People [COMPLETED]

OOC Note: This thread continues a story @Kyle and myself have been telling. It's finally gotten to the point where we need a thread. This is it! It'll continue the story from here on out. Please read this post, this post, this post, and this post to get up to date. Thank you!

IC:

Prydansk Í dag Studio
Býkonsviði, Prydania

J Johnas Juhl sipped his coffee, quietly thanking the studio hand who brought him an extra cream.

"We're on in five Mr. Juhl" the director called.

"Right, on it" he muttered. He was, despite his television persona, a rather mild mannered man. He had the same three restaurants he got take out from, he had the same coffee every day, and he tended to spend his free time reading. When the cameras came on though....
He reached for the envelope on his desk. It was unmarked, as always.
"Thorbjörn Höjsleth" he muttered.
"Emigrant NA Deputy...critical of Prydanian troop deployment...yadda yadda...Nygaard hardlining yadda yadda...common man approach....huh they want a few shots at Magnus' bow. Must be angling for an early election. Ok, got it." He stuffed the paper back into the envelope and tossed it in a trash bin hidden from the cameras.

"Two minutes Mr. Juhl."

"Right" he replied, leaning his head back as he relaxed, rolling his neck to loosen up.

"I could have stayed in Cerdagne. Stayed in documentary work. At least that's dignified" he muttered under his breath. The director counted down and suddenly Prydansk Í dag (Prydania Today) was live.

"J Johnas Juhl here! And, dear citizens, make no mistake about it, we are being challenged. Challenged to defend our way of life. Our very being. Our very sovereignty as a people. We had to fight for fifteen years to get it back, and now that we do? The same new world order that props up the PGU, that props up the banks in Callise, the same evil force that forced the Syndicalists on this country, are back. They're smarter now, you better believe it. Used to be they came with bullets and tanks, but no. Now they're insidious. Worming their way through our so-called allies."

"Our government, in an act of solidarity with our Andrennian brothers, sent troops into Ducrijeka to pacify that rogue terrorist state. And you know what the inhuman scum looking to control the world did? They sent a dog after us, for daring to exercise our sovereignty. That's right. And it was one of our own, just to make sure the bite stung. Thorbjörn Höjsleth fled to Saintonge in 2006 to flee Syndicalism, but somewhere along the way he got co-opted by the cabal of world manipulators, and now he's doing their bidding. He became a Deputy to the Saintonian National Assembly- very likely with a series of well-placed connections in the shadowy halls of power- and has DEMANDED, yes, DEMANDED that Saintoge stop all foreign aid to Prydania because he doesn't like this war. Well Mr. Höjsleth, the Kingdom of Prydania does not abide by a Saintonian. We do not bend to demands of moralizers from afar. We didn't fight in the muck and the mud for fifteen years to lose that FREEDOM!"

"And meanwhile what about our leaders? Magnus Brandt, our tired and ineffective Prime Minister, is heeing and hawing over such a clear attack on our rights as a nation. As a people! At least Tenna Nygaard has some sense, I'll tell you all that much. But I promise you all as God as my witness, we will monitor this. Anything, we'll keep you up to date. Aren't beholden to Saintonian money like the RÚV or papers. Come to us. We'll keep you up to date."

"Up next a message from our paid supporters. Please folks, I beg ya. Listen to what they have to say. Every penny helps keep the lights on here" he finished. It came out so effortlessly for such a boldfaced lie. PÍ was actually better funded than the RÚV. Oh well. Juhl sipped more coffee as he unwound from that tirade. He was on again soon. He had to be amped up again.

Place de l’Assemblée
Saintes
2145 h

The Place de l’Assemblée was nearly deserted that evening. The few remaining people were mostly parliamentary staffers, who had probably worked overtime, walking their way westwards towards the Assemblée metro station along Rue des Nébrodes, at the western end of the Place de l’Assemblée.

“Why those hearings have to go well into the night, I don’t know,” Baudouin-Tjeerd Blanckaert said to his companions as they walked across the Place de l’Assemblée, towards their offices at the Immeuble Carondelet at the north end of the square. “I mean, look, nobody’s here at the Place de l’Assemblée.”

Despite being adjacent to the National Assembly building and the parliamentary offices, the Place de l’Assemblée was a cobblestoned open space that the public can freely access. To the south was the National Assembly building, which fronted the grand Boulevard de Saintonge. The back (northern) entrances of the National Assembly building faced the Place de l’Assemblée. At the northern end of the square, across the Rue des Margerides, were three similar-looking Spycker-style buildings housing the offices of the deputies of the National Assembly. Four more similar buildings with similar purposes flanked the eastern and western ends of the square, fronting the Rue des Ravennes and the Rue des Nébrodes.

During daytime, the Place de l’Assemblée should be bustling with people (although understandably, protestors and soapbox people were forbidden from the square). From lobbyists to ordinary people, it was a place where Santonian citizens could get a glimpse of democracy at work. It was a symbol of the open, free, transparent, and responsive democracy that the Kingdom of Saintonge was known for. The fact that parliamentary deputies had to trek across the square to go from the National Assembly building to their offices provided visibility and accessibility: ordinary people could talk and interact freely to their members of parliament (MP)… provided their MPs oblige. Many MPs hated it, some MPs loved it.

Over the decades, the National Assembly considered proposals to have underground passageways connecting the National Assembly building with the seven office buildings. The suggestion was first raised when Santonian Prime Minister Zeus-Achille de Saint-Maxent was assassinated by a disgruntled immigrant at the Place de l’Assemblée in 1876. The topic was introduced at almost every parliamentary session since the 1930s; but the idea was discarded due to the cost, the need to tear up the historic Place de l’Assemblée, the romantic assertion that the square was a symbol of Santonian democracy, the fact that Line H of the Saintes subway system runs under the Place de l’Assemblée, among other reasons.

Thus, some deputies chose to go back to their offices in the evening, when the square empties out, or have their staffers go back and forth for their needs. But the four deputies who were on the square that evening were doing so not out of choice, but because one of the parliamentary committee hearings lasted way too long.

“It is unfortunate that the committee has several airheads who want to pontificate on the topic for too long,” observed Brice-Kentigern Ardisson. “Like, you-know-who.”

Joris-Charles Haesebroeck sighed. “Man, that hearing makes me want to drink. You guys up for a round of beer?”

It was understandable that Joris wanted beer, unlike most Santonians who preferred wine. Southern Saintonge was a place where beer was competitive with wine when it came to alcohol preferences. And Joris-Charles Haesebroeck was a southerner from the department of the Margerides, which also partially explained why his offices were in the Carondelet Building along the Rue des Margerides. The other three deputies with him, Brice-Kentigern Ardisson of Saintes, Baudouin-Tjeerd Blanckaert of the Inde, and Thorbjörn Höjsleth of Saintes, also have their offices at the Carondelet Building. The Airvault, Carondelet, and Charbonneau Buildings were not that popular with MPs because these were furthest from the National Assembly Building. Hence it was the junior or the younger deputies that were assigned offices in those three buildings. Qualifying for these offices were these twentysomething young men, serving their first terms as deputies, having been first elected in 2019.

With them having this committee appointment, nearby offices, and other things in common, the four deputies became friends. That didn’t mean their alcohol preferences would be the same.

“I’m up for beer, but only if it’s Artois beer,” said Tjeerd. Tjeerd represented the Artois half of the department of the Inde, also in the south.

“Bah, beer,” Kentigern commented dismissively. “It’s just glorified piss.”
“Hey, steady now,” Tjeerd interjected. “You’re not insulting Artois beer.”
“We all know good Santonians drink wine,” Kentigern declared, ribbing his southerner friends.
“And we all know you liked the glorified piss that I made you drink,” Joris reminded Kentigern. “Remember you also descended from glorified piss.”

The three laughed. Brice-Kentigern Ardisson’s great-grandfather was actually a brewer from the department of Basses-Brômes, also in the south, hence his not-so-Santonian sounding surname.

“But I’ve been Santonised and only drink wine,” Kentigern said, continuing the banter. “Like Thorbjörn over here.”

The three looked over to their companion, who was walking with them silently. The Prydanian-born Thorbjörn seemed to be lost in his thoughts. “Er… what is it about?”

Kentigern elbowed Thorbjörn. “You like wine?”
“Yes.”
“We’ll have a drink later,” Kentigern told Thorbjörn, who was a deputy from an adjacent constituency. “You down for it?”
“Okay.”

Joris went over to Thorbjörn and put an arm over his shoulder. Only a few people could do that. Thorbjörn, being Prydanian, was a tall guy. Joris was a bit taller. “That’s some deep thinking, bro,” Joris commented. “Is that because of the speech two weeks ago?”

Thorbjörn frowned. “Sort of…. yes.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Tjeerd advised Thorbjörn. “We all signed it, so we also take responsibility.”

“Uncle Fred told us it’s no biggie,” Joris assured Thorbjörn. Joris was referring to fellow deputy Frédéric Gossuin of the department of Bouche-du-Rhâne, who was mentoring his new fellow southerner deputies in the National Assembly. “This is not Syndicalist Prydania or Social Commonwealth Prydania. This is Saintonge. We have ideas, we have principles, we speak up, we defend it – without threat of repression.”

“Mademoiselle Tréhet also doesn’t think it’s an issue,” Kentigern mentioned. “Or rather, soon-to-be Madame de Pontleroy.”

Thorbjörn tried to smile. “It’s not them I’m concerned about. It’s my people.”
“Your constituents?” Kentigern remarked. “I heard they strongly approved. The Prydanian organisations approved too.”

Thorbjörn wagged his head. “No, the people back in Prydania.”
“Is it the hate mail?” Tjeerd’s eyes widened. “Don’t let it get to you. I mean, I get hate mail too, but my staff knows to throw them straight into the trash bin if it doesn’t contain constructive criticism.”

“That, and more,” Thorbjörn said sadly. Despite being known for having delivered the feisty speech two weeks ago at the floor of the National Assembly, Thorbjörn was actually a friendly and pleasant young man. He might have been too affected by the backlash for his speech.

“Don’t tell me you read your mail,” Joris joked. “Ain’t nobody got time for that!”
“My staff screens them,” Thorbjörn said. “They told me I was receiving a lot of hate mail from Prydania… in both Prydanian and broken Santonian. Signhildur told me it looks like there was a concerted effort by a group or groups to flood me with hate mail. Even the grammatical and spelling errors in the Santonian-language letters were the same.”

“They’re probably faking it, as if it came from different people,” Kentigern commented.

“It was so bad that the IT service of the National Assembly started screening incoming e-mail from Prydania,” Thorbjörn added.

“That’s good, yes?” Joris said. “So let’s just drink all that hate mail away.”

“Not only that…” Thorbjörn was not yet finished telling the story. “I was being excoriated in the Alþingi and media outlets condemned me.”
“In Prydania?” Tjeerd asked.
Thorbjörn nodded.

“Welcome to public service!” Tjeerd said with a faux cheer. “You can’t please everybody, Thorbjörn. Somebody’s not going to like something you did.”
“I guess I wasn’t ready for this,” Thorbjörn sighed. “I’m just the suppléant, you know.”

Joris squeezed Thorbjörn’s shoulder. “Bro, don’t take it too personally. Idiots start to launch personal attacks when they have no more arguments. It’s an admission that they lost the debate.”

“And don’t tell me that ‘media outlet’ is ‘Prydania Today’,” Kentigern said. “We all know it’s fake news.” Kentigern softened his voice so that only the four of them could hear it. “Just between the four of us: Madame Tempier told one of my committees that her ministry is looking at banning or removing access to Prydania Today.” Brice-Kentigern Ardisson also sat in the Parliamentary Committee on Communication, unlike the other three. “Which would be an unprecedented step, but she said that Prydania Today is included in the list of websites determined by the ministry to spread disinformation, destabilisation, and promoting anti-Constitutional activities.”

“Now that you’ve brought it up,” Tjeerd said, “Minister Bardoux de Rosencoat actually mentioned Prydania Today in another committee meeting three months ago. He was saying that the AII* found that one of the obstacles to integration was that some of the Prydanian refugees were bringing their own partisan divides into Saintonge… and that Prydania Today was one of those outlets that propagate and perpetuate the divide.” Baudouin-Tjeerd Blanckaert sat at the Parliamentary Committee on Justice, which oversees the AII.

“Prydania Today is trash,” Joris concluded. “You shouldn’t listen to it.”
“It’s not just Prydania Today. Even RÚV had some people talking against me,” Thorbjörn said sadly.

“Like I said, people gotta have their opinion,” Tjeerd said. “Don’t mind them. What’s important is that you know you are right and you stood up for what you think is right.”

“Yeah, don’t mind all those negative vibes,” Joris agreed. “You know what? We really need to drink.” He took his arm off Thorbjörn’s shoulder and made a drinking gesture. “How ‘bout Taverne de Saint-Arnoult? They also serve wine.”

“I second that idea,” Kentigern said.
“I’ll have someone drive for us,” Tjeerd offered. “It’s a bit of a walk from Jardin des Saints station.” Tjeerd turned to Thorbjörn. “You coming?”

Thorbjörn nodded.

“Great. Let’s just meet at the lobby at 8:45?”
“Sure.”

At that moment, a woman in her late twenties or early thirties approached the group. “Excusez-moi,” she said in her accented Santonian. The four men turned their attention to her. She was a well-dressed, demure-looking, petite, blonde-haired woman, wearing jeans, a red shirt, and a black hoodie to keep out the cold of the Saintes night.

The woman fixed her attention on Thorbjörn. “Are you Mr Thorbjörn Höjsleth?” she asked.
The friendly Thorbjörn smiled at her. “Yes, I am Thorbjörn Höjsleth.”
The woman smiled excitedly. “Oh, it’s so cool to meet you!” She gushed. “I would’ve taken a selfie if it was daytime. The lighting here is horrible – too dark.”

“Nice to meet you too, madame…?” Thorbjörn ended his statement in an interrogatory tone.
“Brynhildur,” she replied. “I’m also from Prydania. Can I have a moment with you?”
“Sure,” Thorbjörn answered. He then turned to his three other companions. “Tjeerd, Joris, Kentigern – I’ll catch up with you later. At the lobby, right?”

“Yep,” Joris said. “We’ll wait for you there.”

Tjeerd, Joris, and Kentigern walked towards the Rue des Margerides and left Thorbjörn in the middle of the Place de l’Assemblée. Thorbjörn and Brynhildur switched to talking in Prydanian.

“… it was an amazing speech, Thorbjörn,” Brynhildur told him in Prydanian as she looked over her shoulder to see that the other Santonians were out of earshot. “Very good.” Her tone quickly turned menacing. “I have a response for you.”

Barely had Thorbjörn seen the glint of the knife when Brynhildur plunged it into his chest. “þú svikari!“ She drawled contemptuously in Prydanian as she pulled the knife out of Thorbjörn‘s chest. Thorbjorn took a step backwards and raised his arms to avoid the next stab as he cried for help. Brynhildur managed to stab the knife into Thorbjörn‘s abdomen as she continued to mumble Prydanian obscenities and profanities like a crazed madwoman.

Thorbjörn tried to fight off his attacker with his arms, but Brynhildur parried off his jabs by ramming the blade deeper into his abdomen and pushing him away. Thorbjörn fell on his back, the knife still embedded in him. Brynhildur lunged to retrieve the knife, but Thorbjörn tried to kick her. Brynhildur retreated a step back, before jumping over Thorbjörn, with her feet landing on his stomach. “Helvíti þér!” Brynhildur screamed as she neutralised Thorbjörn’s flailing arms by grabbing and holding them. Thorbjörn turned on his left side to get her off him. Brynhildur slipped on the bloody cobblestones and she fell on her buttocks. Unfazed, Brynhildur stood up, shoved Thorbjörn’s arms out the way, and then kicked his face: “Þetta er það, sem þú átt skilið!”

Brynhildur seemed to have forgotten about the knife and proceeded to kick the bloodied Thorbjörn everywhere – in the face, in the chest, in the abdomen. Thorbjörn Höjsleth’s attempts to defend himself became weaker and weaker as his consciousness slipped away…

---

* AII: Agence d’immigration et d’intégration - Saintonge’s government agency overseeing immigration, integration, and refugee welfare.

Place de l’Assemblée
Saintes
2200 h

“Guys, did you hear that?” Joris asked Kentigern and Tjeerd. They stopped their banter temporarily to listen. There were cries for help, coming from behind.

The three men turned around and saw Brynhildur standing up after falling down. They then saw Brynhildur kicking Thorbjörn in the face. “Merde,” Kentigern mumbled. He started running towards his friend, shouting at Brynhildur: “Hé toi ! Qu'est-ce que tu as fait !?”

Tjeerd and Joris followed Kentigern, dashing towards Brynhildur and Thorbjörn, running the two-hundred-meter distance between the sidewalk of the Rue des Margerides and the centre of the Place de l’Assemblée. Brynhildur saw the men running towards her. There were also the guards at the National Assembly building, darting towards her from the opposite direction, after being alerted to the commotion. She gave a few more parting kicks to Thorbjörn’s head and stomach before sprinting away, towards the direction of Rue des Nébrodes.

As the three men neared the spot where Thorbjörn lay, the bloody scene became clearer. "Mon Dieu!" Kentigern exclaimed. "She tried to kill Thorbjörn!"

“Kentigern, stay here. I’ll go after her,” Tjeerd told his companions, and gave chase after the woman. Joris followed Tjeerd as Kentigern went to Thorbjörn’s succour.

Kentigern knelt beside Thorbjörn, whose battered face was bloodied and nearly unrecognizable. There was a huge stab wound on his chest. A large kitchen knife was sticking out of his stomach. “Thorbjörn!” Kentigern shouted, trying to wake up the unconscious Thorbjörn. Kentigern quickly took out his mobile phone and dialled the Santonian emergency number. The newly-arrived guards attempted to give first aid to Thorbjörn.

Meanwhile, Joris and Tjeerd were running after the woman to the Rue des Nébrodes. As Brynhildur neared the edge of the Place de l’Assemblée, Joris yelled at the three people walking down the sidewalk of Rue des Nébrodes. “C'est une meurtrière ! Tueuse ! Assassine !” The two women avoided her; but the man in the football shirt ran up the sidewalk to intercept her.

Brynhildur managed to evade the man and she crossed the Rue des Nébrodes without looking at the oncoming traffic. A passing cyclist, alerted by Joris’ yells, intentionally collided with her, sending her down to the asphalt.

“C'est une assassine !”

By the time Brynhildur was able to stand up, the cyclist had already got off her bike and the man in the football shirt caught up with her. Brynhildur was starting to run again when the man in the football shirt grabbed the hood of her hoodie, sending her back down to the pavement: “You can’t go anywhere!” Brynhildur turned around and tried to bite the man’s hand, but the cyclist got hold of Brynhildur's hair and pulled it as if pulling a dog’s leash. Brynhildur was grabbing and scratching the arms of the people that tried to restrain her when Joris and Tjeerd arrived to reinforce them.

Joris sat on the woman’s legs as Tjeerd grabbed both of her arms. The cyclist was tying Brynhildur's arms behind her back using a bicycle lock. It was a citizen arrest.

“Why did you kill Thorbjörn?!” Joris demanded as he used his belt to tie together Brynhildur’s legs.

The woman they were trying to restrain did not look like the one who greeted them pleasantly a few minutes earlier. Her blonde hair was in disarray; her face was contorted in a maniacal expression of triumph, satisfaction, indignation, and bloodthirst. Her clothes were thoroughly stained with blood.

“Thorbjörn Höjsleth is a traitor to the Prydanian nation!” Brynhildur bellowed, with spittle coming out of her mouth. “He deserves to die! I killed him!”

The cyclist and the man in the football shirt were shocked at her admission.

“Nygaard was right! Juhl was right!” Brynhildur screamed. “Höjsleth is a dog, a lapdog of the world manipulators! Nygaard is a heroine!”

“You are one unhinged woman,” the man in the football shirt commented wryly. “You believe all these conspiracy theories so much... for you to kill someone?”

“I have no regrets,” Brynhildur snarled. “I am doing this in the service of Prydania!”
“In the service of Prydania…” The man in the football shirt repeated her words in a mocking tone, and then shouted: “þú heimska kona!” He raised his hand to slap Brynhildur in the face, but Tjeerd managed to block the blow with his arm.

“Easy, dude,” Tjeerd advised the man. “You don’t want to be charged too.”

The man in the football shirt pointed indignantly at her. “You’re giving us Prydanians a bad name! Shame on you, tík! Who’s the dog now?” He spat on her. “You skækja! You should rot in hell!”

Brynhildur looked up at the man in the football shirt. He was wearing was a red 2017 Prydanian football shirt, the one worn by the dream team that nearly won that year’s World Cup.

“You are Prydanian?” Brynhildur sneered. “You’re not a real Prydanian if you support the world manipulators. What are you doing here in Saintonge?”

The man gave out a huff. “Listen, I was an Agrarian Party voter. I fled because the Syndicalists came after farmers and people who were active in the Agrarian Party,” he told her angrily. “Your ‘heroine’ Nygaard? F*ck her. She can rot in hell. Like you. I’ll return the question to you: what are you doing here in Saintonge?”

Brynhildur wasn’t able to answer the question as the police cars arrived, with their lights flashing and sirens wailing.

As the police officers emerged from their vehicles, the man in the football shirt pointed an accusatory finger at Brynhildur. “She’s the killer. Please lock her up.”

The police officers started to manhandle her into the back of the police van.

One of the police officers tipped his hat towards the men. “Thank you monsieurs,” the police officer told them. “May I invite you to the station to get your statements as to what happened?”

L'Indépendant > Mercanti > Top Stories


by Mélanie Bacrot, Finnbjörn Mosgaard, and Patrick de Guyoncourt in Saintes
SAINTES – the Kingdom of Saintonge was shocked by an act of political violence yesterday, a rarity in the country where politics are usually civil and nonviolent.


National Assembly deputy stabbed
National Assembly deputy Mr Thorbjörn Höjsleth (N, 12^th Saintes) was stabbed twice and mauled at around 8:00 PM yesterday at the Place de l’Assemblée in Saintes. According to police and eyewitness accounts, Mr Höjsleth was returning to his office at Carondelet Building after attending a committee hearing at the National Assembly Building. A Prydanian woman accosted Mr Höjsleth in the middle of the Place de l’Assemblée. Once the area was clear, she stabbed him twice in the chest and abdomen with a large kitchen knife, and proceeded to kick him as he lay on the ground.

The guards at the National Assembly Building and Mr Höjsleth’s fellow parliamentary deputies caught her in the act. Deputy Brice-Kentigern Ardisson (N, 11^th Saintes) called emergency services, while deputies Baudouin-Tjeerd Blanckaert (N, 3^rd Inde) and Joris-Charles Haesebroeck (N, 1^st Margerides) chased the perpetrator.

Mr Blanckaert and Mr Haesebroeck, aided by people who were identified as Anne-Céline Vidalin, a passing cyclist, and Jósteinn Grindvík, a bystander, were able to place the perpetrator under citizen arrest at the Rue des Nébrodes.

Prydanian perpetrator
Police identified the perpetrator as Brynhildur Hraunberg, 28, currently unemployed and a widow. The Immigration and Integration Agency (Agence d’immigration et d’intégration, AII) confirmed earlier today that Ms Hraunberg is a registered temporary resident in Saintonge, and is still holding Prydanian citizenship.

The AII’s records show that Ms Hraunberg was a recent immigrant into Saintonge, having arrived in 2018 as part of the family reunification program for Prydanian refugees. Ms Hraunberg’s parents fled to Saintonge in 2016 as the Prydanian Civil War neared its end. Ms Hraunberg was left in Prydania with her husband, who died in the Battle for Beaconsviði in 2017.

Politically-motivated attack
The Royal Santonian Police and the Criminal Prosecution Service are currently treating the attack as being politically motivated. Mr Höjsleth made headlines two weeks ago by criticising the participation of the Kingdom of Prydania in the Second Dučrijekan war. While the Santonian public and the Prydanians in Saintonge supported Mr Höjsleth, segments of the Prydanian public reacted negatively. Ms Tenna Nygaard, the opposition leader in the Prydanian legislature, criticised Mr Höjsleth, as did some Prydanian news outlets.

Eyewitnesses stated that Ms Hraunberg declared that she tried to kill Mr Höjsleth “in the service of Prydania.” She also said that “Nygaard was right!” and “Juhl was right!” - referring to Ms Tenna Nygaard and J Johnas Juhl, the anchor at the controversial ‘news’ outlet Prydania Today.

According to Louise-Emmeline Mollet, procureur* for the case, Ms Hraunberg was espousing ideas and speech that were similar to that expressed by Ms Nygaard and Prydania Today. Prydania Today also denounced Mr Höjsleth in its program last week. According to eyewitnesses, Ms Hraunberg said that Thorbjörn Höjsleth is “a traitor to the Prydanian nation,” “a lapdog of the world manipulators,” and “deserved to die.” In a press conference earlier this afternoon, Ms Mollet confirmed that Ms Hraunberg manifested the same sentiments during interrogation.

Saintonge shocked
Santonian Prime Minister Anne-Douceline Courseaux (N, 21^st Saine-et-Loine) expressed her “profound shock and concern” that such an act of political violence would occur in Saintonge. Ms Courseaux added that “Healthy debate is what is needed in a free and fair democracy. Not violence, not misinformation, not hatred, not divisiveness.”

“I am saddened as to what happened to Thorbjörn. Violence must not be allowed to creep into politics. Violence should not be used to silence, stifle, or suppress critical voices,” said National Assembly President Sophie-Anne Laliberté (N, 1^st Basses-Brômes) at the start of the parliamentary session earlier this morning. Ms Laliberté also responded to concerns about the security of parliamentary deputies, saying that “the National Assembly will ask the City of Saintes to temporarily close off the Place de l’Assemblée to the public while we consider additional measures to ensure the safety of our members and the public.”

Leader of the Opposition Paul-Lenthéric Baumann (L, 2^nd Lauter) agreed, stating that “while Saintonge prides itself with its open and accessible democracy, we must not allow insidious and violent forces from outside to erode it.” The caucus leader of the Radical Party in the National Assembly, deputy Jean-Étienne Genêt (R, 23^rd Saintes), was even more blunt: “This is a spillover of violence from Prydania. We must not let this happen again.”

That noon, the National Assembly unanimously passed a cross-party resolution, authored by Marc-Diethelm Gundéram (N, 2^nd Sûre), Timothée Ortonnes III (L, 25^th Saintes), Roméo de Villemessant (R, 8^th Sarine), and Kimo-Philippe de Sabarthès (V, 16^th Saintes), condemning the stabbing of Mr Höjsleth and political violence.

Meanwhile, Saintes Mayor Marie-Angélique Koenig-Thoumyre lamented the stabbing of Mr Höjsleth and said that “People must unite, and not divide, to achieve the common goals. We should not listen to those who sow the seeds of hatred and discord.” Ms Koenig-Thoumyre also asked people to pray for Mr Höjsleth’s recovery.

Prydanian organisations react
Vigtýr Fjallmann, president of the Société prydanienne / Samfélag Prydansk (Prydanian Society), the largest civil society group for Santonians of Prydanian descent, aired his outrage at the act. Posting in both Prydanian and Santonian, Mr Fjallmann said on Facegram that “Prydanians everywhere, whether in Saintonge, in Prydania, or everywhere else, should condemn this barbaric act that has no place in civilised society. We’ve had enough of killings over political differences. It plunged our country through decades of repression and outright war. This cycle of violence must stop.”

“Brynhildur Hraunberg does not represent Prydanians in Saintonge, or Prydanians as a people,” said Björnar Fylkesnes, head of the Fraternité des Prydaniens en Saintonge/Bræðralag Prydanna í Santonlands (Brotherhood of Prydanians in Saintonge).

In both Twitcher and Facegram, the Santonian-language hashtag #JeSuisThorbjörn and the Prydanian-language hashtag #ÉgErThorbjörn trended today, with most of the messages condemning the stabbing.

Social media organisations move
Earlier this afternoon, Prydania Today was banned on all platforms connected to Facegram. Matthias-Turstin Scheppers, one of Facegram's founders, stated in his Facegram account that “we cannot allow our platform to be used to spew disinformation, hatred, and violence.”

Twitcher soon followed suit, with the official @Twitcher account asking the Twitcherati to refrain from linking any Prydania Today material. Video-sharing website Viédeo also reportedly took down all Prydania Today videos, although no official statement was released by the company.

The online payments system PaySafe also reportedly stopped all transactions for donations and reimbursements for Prydania Today and its affiliates. The company also did not issue an official statement, but PaySafe founder and COO Adam-Isambard Brulatour de Géffosses stated on his personal Facegram account that “we must not condone and facilitate violent acts.”

Search giant Chercher also reportedly delisted many Prydania Today webpages and put cautionary warnings on links to the remaining pages; this applied initially to Santonian- and Prydanian-language websites and searches. Chercher’s CEO Paul-Albéric Gantheret said in a statement that Chercher is “looking and tweaking at its algorithms to flag inappropriate content.” Mr Gantheret also hinted that he and Mr Scheppers were working at sending a proposal to the Ministry of Communications regarding regulation of such content.

Rarity
Targeted political violence is rare in Saintonge, hence the widespread shock and condemnation caused by the stabbing of Mr Höjsleth. The last recorded instance of targeted political violence in Saintonge was in 1994, when Mayor Jean-Marie LaPlume of Annepont-sur-Saine (Saine-et-Loine) masterminded the assassination of a rival mayoralty candidate, disguising it as a burglary. The attempt failed, the burglars-cum-killers were arrested, and pointed to LaPlume as the mastermind. LaPlume was convicted and jailed in 1995.

The last successful political assassination in Saintonge was all the way back in 1937: Joseph-Édouard Hébert, president of the department of Hautes-Brômes, was shot and killed by a hunter who was unhappy at new regulations on hunting licenses.

It can also be noted that the location of the stabbing, the Place de l’Assemblée, had already been the scene of two other acts of political violence in its 160 years of existence. In 1876, Santonian Prime Minister Zeus-Achille de Saint-Maxent was assassinated by a rejected immigrant at the Place de l’Assemblée. In 1929, parliamentary deputies François-Henri Cussy de Marsenne and Antoine-Archambault Auriol had a fistfight at the Place de l’Assemblée after a heated debate inside the National Assembly building.

If Mr Höjsleth succumbs to his injuries, this would also mark the first instance of a successful political assassination of a member of Parliament in more than a century. The last time a member of Parliament was assassinated for political reasons was in 1899, when a bomb killed Santonian Prime Minister Matthieu-Nathanaël Lafourcade and maimed Deputy Prime Minister Thibault-Brieuc Kerdoncuff.

Mr Höjsleth in critical condition
Mr Höjsleth is currently admitted in the intensive care unit at the Hôpital Général de Saintes. He was reported to be in critical condition. Mr Höjsleth’s family, through his older sister Gudrún Höjsleth-Eriksröd, asked the Santonian public for privacy during this sensitive time. Regular updates on Mr Höjsleth’s condition will be coursed through the hospital.

translated by Kyle MacTaggart-de Flesselles

---

*Procureur = a lawyer who functions similar to a prosecutor. See some details here about criminal investigation in Saintonge.

Haraldvígi
Býkonsviði, Prydania
Session of the Realm's Alþingi

"Thank you Mr. Speaker" Magnus Brandt stated as he took the floor. The Alþingi had a certain on edge feel to it, considering what had happened in Saintonge. Tenna Nygaard eyed the Prime Minister intently. She was expecting some sort of attack. What form, however, was up in the air.

"Assembled Þingmanni*, Lords both temporal and spiritual" the Prime Minister began, addressing the thirty peer seats as well as the one-hundred and eighty-four elected seats.
"Just two nights ago in Saintonge, a nation which has been nothing but a friend to this nation and its people, tragedy struck. Tragedy, I am ashamed to say, of our own making. It is, frankly, time for many of us to be held to account."

Sören Högh, the Conservative Party leader, leaned back in his chair, watching Tenna Nygaard as the Prime Minister built up to an attack. He was a centrist himself, and had come from the Stórborg* faction of the party. "Liberal conservatism" it was called elsewhere. He had, after gaining the Conservative leadership, allowed Tenna to continue on as Bandalag leader. He'd been regretting that lately. The reports out of Saintonge furthered that feeling. As tragic as the attempt on Thorbjörn Höjsleth's life was, though? It could be what he needed to force Nygaard out. And so he studied her as much as he could as Magnus Brandt continued his speech.

"Freedom of speech" Brandt continued, "is something every Prydanian ought to value. We should cling to it, and appreciate it, after thirty-three years of dictatorship. Yet events over the past two weeks in Saintonge have forced us to examine that freedom of speech brings with it responsibility. Some members of this Alþingi, I am sad to say, don't understand that. To them, freedom of speech is easily discarded yet held up as a shield depending on their whims. This most precious of personal liberties" Brandt said as he stared directly at Nygaard, "cannot be wielded so recklessly."

"Thorbjörn Höjsleth, I wish to say, is a good man. What he said in the Santonian National Assembly caused much debate in this country. It forced us to grapple with many assumed truths. Myself included! I stood in this chamber and advocated for troops to be sent to Ducrijeka. I had to grapple with Mr. Höjsleth's criticism, both as a Prydanian and as the Prime Minister of this country. Yet I accepted that this was his right to take this government to task, and I accepted that this is a job with its fair share of criticism."
That line elicited a soft chuckle, to relieve some of the room's tension.

"Yet it was the Opposition leader's actions that have forced us to self-reflect on the nature of free speech in a tolerant society" the Prime Minister continued, readjusting his tone.
"Mr. Speaker, this Opposition is led by a leader who wailed both in this chamber and to the press, looking to silence Mr. Höjsleth. And only raised the right to free speech when it came time to hold her accountable for her actions. Freedom of speech, it seems, is conditional for the leader of the Bandalag."
This set the chamber into a low ruckus, but the Prime Minister continued on, raising his voice. Magnus was rarely one to yell, but he had a way of making his voice both booming and calm.

"And we see the results of that carelessness. A crazed woman exclaiming support for Ms. Nygaard's statements, stabbed not just a Prydanian refugee, but a member of an ally's Parliament. She exclaimed support for a media outlet- for I will not denigrate actual news by associating it with this channel- that has regularly supported Ms. Nygaard's electoral ambitions and cast her political opponents- many within her own electoral alliance- as subhuman. Which has peddled conspiracy theories, shown tacit support for the Messianic League terrorists that attempted an insurrection, and which has insulted the survivors of the Keris InAura Club massacre by referring to them as 'crisis actors.' Ms. Nygaard's behaviour, Mr. Speaker, has lead to the attempted political assassination of a member of an allied Parliament, and was made possible by an atmosphere cultivated by a media outlet that has made common cause with her divisive form of politics."

Magnus had a jovial personality, but he scanned the room like a stern headmaster.
"I am therefore here to do two things. I will first use this platform to wish Thorbjörn Höjsleth a fast and complication-free recovery. And to restate that the Kingdom of Prydania in no way condones political violence of any kind."
The chamber was full of the affirmative sounds of the Þingmanni and lords, even those from Nygaard's faction.

"Secondly, Mr. Speaker, I am ordering the Ríkilögreglu* and Ministry of Justice to conduct a thorough investigation of Prydansk Í dag*, to ascertain to what extent the sensational stories it peddles are harmful to the function of a free, open, and tolerant society."
This statement was met with far less approval. Free Democratic and Peoples' Party deputies showed their approval as the Bandalag delegation was full of confused murmurs and defiant objections. Brandt, however, didn't care as he took his seat.

"The Alþingi recognizes the leader of His Majesty's Loyal Opposition!" Hafr Gade, the Speaker, bellowed.

Tenna Nygaard made her way up to the floor, smirking as the ruckus.
"Þingmanni, Lords, let me also express my sorrow at the news of the attempt on Thorbjörn Höjsleth's life" the Free Democratic and Peoples' Party caucuses booed, prompting Gade to assert order over his own party.

"But to suggest that I or Prydansk Í dag is responsible for a lone wolf, a single deranged girl, is insane. And I will not allow the Prime Minister's blatant attack on the free press of this country go unchallenged!"
There was more ruckus.

"This is nothing but censorship, censorship because the Prime Minister knows that Prydansk Í dag exists outside of his control! That's all this is!"
She received an applause from a portion of the Agrarian Party representatives, as the Conservatives looked on wearily. Sören Högh sighed. He'd need to wait for the latest round of internal polling before making a move.

Magnus Brandt, however, remained stoic as he sat there, determined on his course of action.

---

Haraldvígi's halls
Býkonsviði, Prydania

Tenna Nygaard had a certain self-assured smile. She'd addressed the press after leaving the Alþingi chamber and had managed to put on quite the accusatory show. She needed to meet with the Bandalag shadow cabinet, however, to plan on how best to hold up Magnus' announced investigation.

"Otta" she said, addressing her secretary as she entered her office, "I need you to get Sören on the phone and...oh."

Two men in the dark blue uniform of the Knights of the Storm rose to their feet as she entered the office.
"They've been waiting for the past thirty minutes, Ma'am" Otta Gull replied nervously.

"Ms. Nygaard" the first man said with a respectful nod.
"I'm here on behalf of His Majesty."

"His Majesty?" Tenna replied, a bit shocked.
"I..um...of course. Can I ask as to what?" her self-confidence had melted to nervousness in light of a summons from the King.

"I'm afraid not Ms. Nygaard. We were just tasked to bring you to Absalonhöll."

"And we must insist" the other Knight replied, "that you are not under arrest. We are merely here to summon and escort you to Absalonhöll on His Majesty's request."

"Yes, right, well..." Tenna thought about asking for some time, but it was a summon from the King. She knew she couldn't just ask for an extra hour or so. So she thought about the press. She wanted to avoid being seen like that, escorted by the royal guard.
"My position attracts a lot of unwanted media attention. Is it possible we could use an alternate route? Perhaps in half an hour or so? Just to avoid being slowed by by the press."

"I'm sorry Ms" the first Knight answered, "our orders are to collect you immediately. We will be taking you via the most direct route."

"Fjandinn*" Tenna thought as she took a deep breath before smiling.
"Lead the way" she said pleasantly enough.

---

Absalonhöll
Býkonsviði, Prydania

Tenna had bared it. She had. She had smiled confidently as the press snapped pictures of her being escorted to the Royal palace by the Knights of the Storm. She could rest easy though. The room she was in was quite nice. The walls were wood-lined, a tapestry depicting a hunter meeting a stag with the Messianic Cross between its antlers hung on the opposite wall, a depiction of the conversion of the Loðbrók dynasty to Messianism.

"Ms. Nygaard" Elo Daugaard, the Royal Steward, announced, somewhat startling Tenna.
"His Majesty will see you now."

Tenna stood up, and smiled.
"Thank you" she said with a nod, only for Elo to give her nothing in return aside from opening the door. He was a veteran of the war. One of the soldiers tasked with Tobias' safety at that. He didn't much care for political "fuckery" as he called it.

"Your Majesty" Tenna said as she saw Tobias standing by his desk, bowing as was custom. Tobias just nodded with a soft smile and sat, pointing to one of the chairs opposite his desk.
"Please, take a seat” the King remarked as he sat.

"Your Majesty" Tenna began as she sat, "I'm not entirely sure why you've summoned me, but I can guess it has to do with that Thorbjörn Höjsleth business. If I may, I just wanted to..."

"Do you think you're responsible for that woman stabbing him?" Tobias asked, cutting her off.

"Um, Your Majesty...I...no" Tenna asserted after being caught off guard.
"She's unwell, obviously. I only meant to criticize Mr. Höjsleth in a political sense. I never meant for someone to attack him."

"Reports indicate that the assailant praised you and J Johnas Juhl."

"With all due respect, Your Majesty, I just had this debate in the Alþingi. I don't condone what that woman did, but I am hardly to blame if she, in her madness, thought she was acting in my name. Magnus wouldn't be to blame if some crazy person called out his name while killing someone."

Tobias raised an eyebrow. The idea that Magnus Brandt of all people would inspire crazed extremism was almost funny enough to laugh at.
"No one's ever tried to kill in Magnus Brandt's name" he replied.

"But they have in yours, Your Majesty" Tenna replied. She froze. She had just said it, not even thinking it through. Usually she was better at this, more calculated in what she said. But this just slipped out.

"People killed in my name in a war" Tobias replied. He had the sudden urge to throw her out, but the anger had melted away almost as soon as it had appeared.
"It's best if you don't draw comparisons to that" he added coldly.

"I apologize, Your Majesty."
Still, Tobias had moved on.

"That war, by the way, you were in Kanada, yes?"

"That's right Your Majesty. I got out early."

"I didn't" the King replied. A heavy silence fell over the room.
"I didn't leave Prydania until the war was over. I spent all of it here. I starved and fought with everyone."

"Your Majesty I don't..."

"I starved and fought so we could have a better country. I didn't fight for this!"
He pushed a Polykor tablet across the desk. It showed a beaten and bloodied Thorbjörn Höjsleth, a picture obtained by the Prydanian embassy in Saintes. Tenna looked away, obviously disturbed by the picture. Tobias was as well, quickly closing it. Still, he had a point to make.

"I met him, he's a nice guy" Tobias replied.
"I don't like it when nice people get hurt."

"He criticized our government's..."

"Did he deserve to nearly get killed over that?" Tobias asked firmly.

Tenna breathed deep. The King was hard to get a handle on. He was only twenty-five, but he'd been through the war. Been through the war and was cheered through the streets of Býkonsviði when it was over. Part of her wanted to lay into him as a young brat, but she couldn't. He was the King. And not only that, he'd been through some of the worst parts of Prydanian history first hand.
"Of course he didn't, Your Majesty" was all she could bring herself to say.

"And yet he did. Partially because of what you said."

"I said..."

"You are the leader of the Opposition. His Majesty's Loyal Opposition. My opposition. You're not the Prime Minister, but you still speak for me."

Tenna's jaw clenched. She so badly wanted to say something, but what it was exactly wasn't coming to mind.

"You speak for me, and you will conduct yourself accordingly! We didn't suffer through fifteen years of hell to become a country that does this sort of thing. I'm sick of it. I'm sick of the bloodshed! I'm sick of the violence, I'm sick of this sort of thing defining our country. Our people. Do you understand?"

Tenna was fuming but tried to remain calm, eventually going "yes! Yes, Your Majesty!" when Tobias asked the question again.

"Fight Magnus over the investigation if you feel you have to" Tobias grumbled.
"But conduct yourself in a respectable manner. No more of this Hellstrand bullshit. If this is the best William Aubyn's party gets, then they should just quit. They deserve better. I deserve better. The country deserves better." the King sank back in his chair.
"Have a lovely rest of the day Ms. Nygaard."

Tenna stood, nerves wrecked. She bowed slightly.
"Your Majesty" she said clearly before taking her leave.

Tobias sighed.
"Thorbjörn also deserved better" he muttered to himself.

---

*Þingmanni- an elected representative in the Alþingi, Prydania's legislator
*Stórborg- metropolitan, in this case representing the metropolitan faction of the Conservative Party, their centrist faction
*Ríkilögreglu- Realm’s Police, Prydania’s national police force
*Prydansk Í dag- Prydania Today, a "news" channel that deals in "alternate facts"
*fjandinn- fuck

Prydansk Í dag Studio
Býkonsviði, Prydania

"No, I don't care, Juhl doesn't say anyone to anything....fuck I mean anything to anyone. Understand?" Heikir Mýrmann barked into his phone. The Prydania Today studio had been thrown into chaos by the Prime Minister's announcement. And Heikir was jumping between issuing instructions to the staff, his advisor Jakob Bjarg, and a team of lawyers.

"Yes...uh-huh..." he said, switching over to a line with one of his attorneys.
"Anti-Constitutional activities...yeah...uh-huh...got it. Look. Lífþrasir I'll call you back. Yes. Jakob's back. Yeah. Talk to you later."

Jakob Bjarg sat took a seat and handed Heikir a file.
"That's all we have, on the Skandan thing."

"Copies or the real deal?"

"Copies" Jakob clarified.
"We're not deleting anything yet. It'll raise too many other questions if they find gaps in the books this big."

Heikir skimmed through the documents.
"We're covered it looks like. Nothing here but shell companies. The police won't be able to navigate through this without Skandan approval and that's just not going to happen."

"You sure?" Jakob asked wearily.

"Oh yeah" Heikir replied.
"If nothing else our guy will grease enough palms to slow down the process. Speaking of which..."
He picked up his phone and dialed his secretary.
"Myrkvi any luck on getting a hold of our guy in Skanda? No? Keep trying."

"Sorry" he added, returning his attention to Jakob.
"Our Skandan investor's gone quiet since the Prime Minister made his announcement."

"Well that's worrying" Jakob said, leaning a bit to one side in his chair. He wasn't an obese fellow, but he was big. Tended to have to adjust his weight a bit.

"No, it's not. If that son of a bitch tries anything? Well I've got enough to make nice with the police. He's a far bigger fish than we are."

"Well as long as we're all on the same page then..." Jakob mused.

"I fucking knew that Messianic League bullshit was going to bite us" Heikir grumbled.
"If we'd just kept quiet on that then..."

"You don't think some crazy lady yelling Juhl's name as she stabbed a guy we called a pawn of global elite had anything to do with this?" Jakob asked.

"I'm telling ya" Heikir grunted.
"This is because of the Messianic League support. They've been lookin' to shut us down since then, and this is just the excuse. Fucking hell..you had to come to me with that idea."

"The statistics seemed favourable. Co-opt the Messianic Leaguers who were uncomfortable with the uprising for Nygaard."

"Yeah yeah" Heikir grumbled.
"Myrkvi" he barked into his phone.
"Skanda? No? Fuck!" he yelled before getting up from his desk and storming to the door leading to his secretary's office.
"WHAT DO YOU NEED TO DO TO GET KURT VENTUR ON THE PHONE?"

Býkonsviði- Thorbjörn Höjsleth's impassioned speech against Prydanian military deployment overseas and calls for Saintonge to avoid funding said deployments caused a stir in Prydania. His attempted assassination by a crazed Prydanian refugee has caused shock. Perhaps the most shocking event has been the political fallout around Bandalag and Agrarian Party leader Tenna Nygaard.
Ísgeir Aðaldal represents Kiojaleit, Mr. Höjsleth's home town, and the other surrounding municipalities in the Alþingi. He was elected in 2018 and has sat as an Agrarian Party member of the Bandalag. He recently changed his party affiliation to sit as an independent in light of Ms. Nygaard's inflammatory statements that are believed to of at least partially motivated Mr. Höjsleth's attacker.

"The people of Kiojaleit, Raumsdalr, Holmkelsa, and the surrounding farmlands voted for me, not a party. And as their representative I could not in good consciousness sit as a member of Tenna Nygaard's party or alliance. I will continue to represent my constituents, and I want them to know that I don't condone the actions of someone who attacks one of their own. Tenna Nygaard's rhetoric is harmful, and we shouldn't be afraid to call it out."

The town of Kiojaleit and the peace activist organization Friður ekki Blóð* are planning a vigil in support of Mr. Höjsleth's recovery.

---

*Friður ekki Blóð= Peace not Blood

Keris- Kiojaleit is a sleepy town, where the old city hall dominates the public square and old cobblestone streets still line much of the road, even after modernizing repairs in the wake of the Civil War. To this day one can find produce and local goods sold at the town's market, the means by which many of the small family farms that surround it rely on.
It suffered, like many small towns, during the Syndicalist era. Collectivization devastated the surrounding farming community, which has only recently rebounded.
"It was run like a prison camp" remarked Rúrik Öxndal, referring to the Kiojaleit Community Homestead, the Syndicalist name for the collectivized farmland around the town. Rúrik Öxndal was ten when his family's farm was seized. He was kept on the massive compound built, educated in a Syndicalist-run school for the children of farmers and workers, and never allowed to leave.
"We used to go into town for school, and on the weekends. But not when the farms were taken over" he remarked. Rúrik currently runs his family's old farmstead, contributing to the rise of the local economy.

Rúrik is the same age as Thorbjörn Höjsleth, and their childhoods up to the age of ten were remarkably similar. Rúrik even went to school with the Santonian NA Deputy. Where they differ is how collectivization affected them. Rúrik's family didn't resist, Thorbjörn's did.
"My father thought if he didn't resist, that it wouldn't be so bad. But they sent him off to mine for coal. I haven't seen him since. The government tells me he's on a list of casualties from a mining collapse" Rúrik remarks. His mother, still alive, refuses to comment on the collectivization and her husband's disappearance. Rúrik, now married, looks after her.

The old Höjsleth homestead isn't that far a drive from the Öxndal farm, though the Höjsleth farm was bought by the Ljós family, one of the region's largest agricultural producers. They bought the land from Thorbjörn and his siblings in Saintonge after the land was returned to them by the government following the Syndicalist fall from power.

"I remember reading about Thorbjörn getting into the Santonian National Assembly. I thought that was pretty cool" Rúrik commented.
I asked him if they were close as children.
"Well you know, Kiojaleit is a small town, and so you knew everyone in your grade. I think I spent some time at his parents' a few times, but everyone knew everyone. I just thought it was nice to see that he was ok. I hadn't seen him since he and his siblings got away. Then I saw he was in Saintonge and a NA Deputy and thought 'it's good he's alive and well.'"

Of course Thorbjörn Höjsleth isn't doing so well these days. The victim of an act of politically-motivated violence. Brynhildur Hraunberg, a Prydanian immigrant in Saintonge, brutally stabbed and attacked Mr. Höjsleth for his speech in which he criticized Prydania's troop deployments to aid Andrenne in the Second Ducrijeka War.
Mr. Höjsleth's criticisms and call for clarification to ensure that no Santonian aid money was going to fund the deployment caused a stir in the Prydanian media, from people who agreed with him to people who slammed him for his stance. As it is with most things, the negative opinions were screamed the loudest. Honest, if spirited, debate grew sinister following the brutal attempt on his life. Thorbjörn Höjsleth is now in critical condition and his hometown is a bit taken aback by the news.

"I felt really bad" Rúrik commented. "I didn't agree with what he said, but you don't stab someone for that. We've all seen enough blood because of politics. Thorbjörn left to get away from that. I feel bad that this had to follow him there."

Rúrik Öxndal isn't alone.
Friður ekki Blóð* was founded shortly after the failed Messianic League uprising in western Prydania. Though dispersed with relatively few casualties, it sparked a movement of sorts among Prydanians in their late teens and twenties. People who lived through the worst of the War and were committed to change. Their goal is to advocate for peaceful solutions to the issues facing Prydania today and a rejection of violence. They had issued a statement in support of Mr. Höjsleth's speech in the Santonian National Assembly and have begun to organize a vigil in light of the attempt on his life. The town of Kiojaleit has been more than welcoming.

"Thorbjörn's always going to be a son of Kiojaleit, and I hope he gets well" said municipal councilwoman Óda Hvítfeld.
"This isn't political. Anyone can have a political opinion, but it broke my heart to hear that someone had done that to him over his."

Vigils and political movements aren't Rúrik Öxndal's usual stomping grounds.
"It's been a lot of hard work to rehabilitate the farm. The Santonians helped with that, actually. But it's hard work. And usually you don't find the time to get caught up in much else."
He will be attending the planned vigil though.
"It wasn't right what happened to Thorbjörn. He's from here, and we look after our own. It's the decent thing to do, to go and pray he's well."

The statement "Ég Er Thorbjörn," a rallying cry in support of Mr. Höjsleth that originated in the Prydanian immigrant community in Saintonge, can be found on signs as people prepare. Other signage is likewise encouraging. The vigil is expected to begin at 8 o'clock PM. Local police indicated that they expect the gathering will be peaceful.

---

*Friður ekki Blóð= Peace not Blood

L'Indépendant > Mercanti > Top Stories


by Finnbjörn Mosgaard and Patrick de Guyoncourt in Saintes
SAINTES – in a rare move, the Santonian Ministry of Communications banned access to Prydania Today, after last week’s stabbing of National Assembly deputy Thorbjörn Höjsleth. Mr Höjsleth’s stabbing was deemed to be partially instigated by the controversial media outlet.

Ban
Communications Minister Anne-Gertrude Tempier issued a Ministerial Decree implementing the recommendation of the Internet Integrity Bureau (Bureau pour l’intergrité d’internet, BII), a nonpartisan agency staffed by career civil servants, technically under the purview of the Ministry of Communications. The Ministerial Decree is based on the 2013 Internet Rights Law (Loi des droits en l’internet, LDI), a landmark Santonian law that defines and delineates the rights and responsibilities of Internet users, at least in Saintonge.

The decree banning Prydania Today invoked a rarely-used provision in the law that allows the government, via a ministerial decree, to remove access to a website, internet resource, or internet material that is deemed hate speech, malicious disinformation, or grossly anti-constitutional. Unlike ordinary bans for other speech, such as libellous speech, a court decision is not needed before the ban is put in place; however, the ban for hate speech, malicious disinformation, or grossly anti-constitutional material may be subsequently challenged in courts.

Given Saintonge’s strong tradition of free speech, this provision was rarely invoked. Takedown notices are sent by the BII to offending parties, and most comply or are resolved at the level of the BII, precluding the need for a ministerial decree. The last and only time a ministerial decree was needed was in 2018, when the controversial porn star and blogger Esther-Margaux Ouzon described how she would bring “death by bullets, hunger, or venereal diseases” on National Party supporters. When the BII issued a takedown notice on Ms Ouzon for possible violation of the LDI, she resisted. The Communications Minister at that time, Giselle Pillet-Dumilâtre (Liberal), then had to issue a ministerial decree banning her offending material. Ms Ouzon challenged the ban in courts. It was then established that Internet speech should be held to the same standard as ordinary speech.

However, the LDI has a lot more bite. Unlike in many other countries, where the internet regulators rely on the internet service providers (ISPs) to execute such bans, the LDI also empowers Saintonge to force platforms to remove the offending material. Should the platforms not heed the takedown notices, the entire platform will be banned in Saintonge as well. The platform shall also be judicially liable as an accomplice of the originator of the hate speech, malicious disinformation, or grossly anti-constitutional material.

Santonian platforms move
The ministerial decree was largely symbolic, however, as most Santonian internet platforms had already banned Prydania Today. Facegram was the first to ban material and links to Prydania Today and its affiliates, followed by microblogging website Twitcher and video-sharing website Viédeo. Search giant Chercher delisted many Prydania Today webpages and put cautionary warnings on links to the remaining pages.

Cross-platform voice over IP (VoIP) and instant messaging (IM) software Beeper soon banned Prydania Today; a few days later, the gaming VoIP platform ReCord disabled all links to Prydania Today after some users moved from Beeper to ReCord. Even video game digital distribution service Vapor banned Prydania Today in its chatboxes. Donations for Prydania Today were choked when the online payments system PaySafe stopped all transactions for Prydania Today and its affiliates.

The spontaneous and voluntary move by the Santonian companies already ensured a big impact on the accessibility of Prydania Today in Saintonge. The ministerial decree simply makes the effect complete.

Impact abroad
The move by the Santonian companies already affected the accessibility of Prydania Today even in Prydania itself. Santonian platforms that banned Prydania Today have big penetration in Prydania. According to a recent survey, 52% of Prydanian internet users are on Facegram; 64% are on Twitcher; and 68% are on Viédeo. This will most likely affect the reach of Prydania Today. The Santonian government's move also compels other platforms to follow or they will lose access to Saintonge.

Letter of the Seven
The ministerial decree also followed on the heels of the Letter of the Seven, an open letter published in l’Indépendant last week. The letter was penned and signed by seven titans in the Santonian tech industry. The seven authors were Adam-Isambard Brulatour de Géffosses, founder and chief operating officer of PaySafe; Thibault-Arthur Claeys and Matthias-Turstin Scheppers, founders of Facegram; Brice-Raphaël Clévenot, one of the founders of Viédeo; Paul-Albéric Gantheret, chief executive officer of the search engine giant chercher; Luc-Jared Malveaux, vice president for external communications of Twitcher; and Finn Kjerstein, one of the creators of Beeper.

The letter exhorted the Santonian government to become more proactive in dealing with hate speech, malicious disinformation, and grossly anti-constitutional material. “The internet was not built to misinform, miseducate, or mislead,” the letter said. “Speech on the internet must be regulated in the same way as ordinary speech. The façade of anonymity and the dazzle of the screen must not be allowed to unleash people’s worst instincts without regard for consequences. People must be reminded that with their rights come responsibilities; and it is the same online as it is offline. Governments must ensure that netizens’ rights are protected and that people act responsibly.”

translated by Kyle MacTaggart-de Flesselles

Ríkilögreglu Headquarters
Býkonsviði, Prydania
2118 h

Lt. Davíð Vestergaard was a Bandalag voter. Well, a Conservative voter. The 39 year old had served in the FNU during the Civil War, and he'd seen William Aubyn lead them to victory. He'd proudly cast his ballot for the Bandalag in 2018, and experienced nothing short of shock when Magnus Brandt's Free Democrats barely eeked out a victory. That was what they all fought for though, freedom. His political opinions didn't move much when Tenna Nygaard took over as Bandalag leader, though he was shocked when Sören Högh didn't take it upon succeeding Aubyn as Conservative Party leader.

This shit though...he found himself more and more alienated. Was this what he fought for? What he watched friends die for? A poor imitation of a bad Vallish idea? Nygaard trying to pretend to be Hellstrand was like a Prydanian doing a Vallish lobster role, but replacing the chives with peanuts; a bad idea in the first place, but it's somehow even worse. No, this couldn't be the state of Prydanian democracy.

None of that mattered, strictly speaking. He had a job to do. It had fallen to the Ministry of Justice and the Ríkilögreglu* to investigate Prydania Today. Heikir Mýrmann- what a piece of work. He always looked angry. And Jakob Bjarg always looked like a dishevelled drunk. Both were red in the face as a matter of course but they both looked like they were going to pop as his agents cleaned out their offices of records.

"Need more coffee?" Wealþow Hvammdal asked as she brought the pot into the office where Davíð sat behind stacks of files.

"Yes please" Davíð replied, giving his partner a weary smile.
"I'm going crossed-eyed going through all of this. The Ministry boys are looking over the content down the hall, but these financials...Mýrmann's got his own money in there, a few deep pockets from the refugee community in Highton but these Skandan corporations make no sense. Skanda? Who the hell wants to fund a far right media outlet in Skanda of all places?"

"I wish I knew" Wealþow replied, sitting down.
"But I just got the results back from our initial searches. Most of these companies only exist in the very technical sense. Most don't even have websites. Phone numbers that go straight to voicemail."

"Fronts then."

"Yeah."

"That can't be a good look for Mr. Mýrmann."

"I already ran the info up to the Ministry, but we're not going to be able to do much unless Skanda decides to cooperate."

"Fuck" Davíð muttered as he sipped his fresh cup of coffee.

---

Öryggi og Sérstaktupplýsingaöflun Headquarters
Eskilborg, Prydania
2125 h

The Öryggi og Sérstaktupplýsingaöflun* building was mostly empty, but Max Hveiti was staying late as he often did. His eyes straining behind his glasses as they scanned the variety of screens he had at his disposal.

"Heading home Chief" Ada Sælu, his chief of staff said as she stuck her head into his office.

"Have a good one" Max replied, stretching in his chair.
"Leave the lights on in the other room will you? So I don't trip over the garbage can again?"

"Sure thing Chief" Ada chuckled, closing the door behind her. Max sipped some water before he returned to the data readouts he was going over. And then he saw it. A read blinking icon.

"Looks like someone's got a hit" he mumbled. The red icon on his screen referred to what he called "the Cross-reference." The modern ÖSU was born from shadow ops carried out during the Civil War. The Syndicalist intelligence assets they seized at the end were incomplete. So Max had a system rigged up. If any other government agency pinged certain data points that were incomplete on his end? Well he'd know about it.
"Let's see what we've got here" he added as he clicked the icon. His eyes went wide behind his glasses. He needed to double check what he was seeing. The Ríkilögreglu was running searches for the same data points he'd found in Syndicalist archives- shell companies used to funnel money and weapons to the Syndicalist regime. The company names were different but the phone numbers and physical addresses in Skanda...those were identical.

Max grabbed his phone, dialing up the Minister of Justice.
"Peter, Max Hveiti. ÖSU. We need to talk. What? Who cares what time it is, this is important. Well if you and the family have just finished dinner then I'm not interrupting anything am I? We need to talk about a Ríkilögreglu investigation. Run by a Vestergaard and Hvammdal. What? Prydania Today eh? chuckle Well things just got a lot more interesting."

---

*Ríkilögreglu= Realm's Police, the national police force of the Kingdom of Prydania
*Öryggi og Sérstaktupplýsingaöflun= Security and Special Intelligence, the national intelligence service of the Kingdom of Prydania

Býkonsviði- Tenna Nygaard continues to have to fight off political attacks following her harsh criticism of Prydanian-born Saintonge National Assembly Deputy Thorbjörn Höjsleth, criticism that was amplified when an assailant professing support for Ms. Nygaard stabbed and critically wounded Mr. Höjsleth in Saintes. Since then Ms. Nygaard was on the receiving end of a chastising by Prime Minister Magnus Brandt in the Alþingi, has had the pro-Nygaard media outlet Prydania Today put under investigation in Prydania and banned in Saintonge, and became the first Prydanian Alþingi caucus leader since the restoration of democracy to lose a Þingmanni to defection. Agrarian Þingmanni Ísgeir Aðaldal, who represents Mr. Höjsleth's home town of Kiojaleit, now sits as an independent. He cited that he could no longer support Nygaard given the role her rhetoric appears to have played in the attempt on Mr. Höjsleth's life. Ms. Nygaard was also summoned by His Majesty to Absalonhöll. What was discussed wasn't disclosed but rumours abound that it was related to the incendiary effect of her leadership of the official opposition thus far.

Ms. Nygaard began hitting back. She referred to Mr. Aðaldal as a "traitor." She later clarified that she meant to the Bandalag Alþingi caucus, but it couldn't shake the controversy given that she had questioned Mr. Höjsleth's professed love for his home country back when Mr. Höjsleth first criticized Prydanian troop deployments to Ducrijeka. Many have noted that questioning the patriotism of those who don't fall in line with her politics has become a trend for Ms. Nygaard, with Mr. Höjsleth and Mr. Aðaldal becoming two high profile cases in recent weeks.
Ms. Nygaard also referred to Mr. Aðaldal as "irrelevant" and promised to return a "patriotic and loyal" Agrarian Þingmanni to Kiojaleit and the surrounding towns and farmlands who would, in her words, "help fight off the politically correct mob." How she plans to do this when the town of Kiojaleit seems to be supportive of Mr. Höjsleth and supportive of their Þingmanni choosing to break with her remains to be seen. Mr. Aðaldal refused to comment on the insults, insisting he wished to get back to the business of representing the interests of his constituents in the Alþingi.

The latest shot across Ms. Nygaard's bow, however, may be too big to brush off. William Aubyn is not just a former Bandalag leader himself, nor is he merely Prydania's ambassador to the Principality of Sil Dorsett. He is a hero of the struggle against Syndicalist tyranny. His narrow defeat to Magnus Brandt's Free Democrats in 2018 shocked the nation, but his farewell address in the Alþingi before stepping down as Conservative Party and Bandalag leader received bipartisan applause, including a touching embrace between himself and his political rivals.
Mr. Aubyn has, since his appointment to Norvalle, kept a low profile. His most noteworthy public appearance was attending the wedding between His Majesty and Empress Alycia of Norsos. He has spoken up, however, on the political bloc he used to lead.

"I have watched the events of the past few weeks with anger and disappointment" Mr. Aubyn stated in a written address published in the newspaper Fréttatíminn.

"I led the fight against Syndicalism for fifteen years, and stood against the Social Commonwealth regime for a decade before that. I have, be it as a Þingmanni, FNU leader, Bandalag leader, or Prime Minister, done all I could to unite Prydanians against injustices and tyranny. It saddens me that the Bandalag I once led- and still cherish as a political force- has lacked mature leadership since my resignation. Tenna Nygaard doesn't attempt to unify Prydanians behind our politics, she looks to set them against each other. Be it Prydanians of differing political stripes, or Prydanians at home or living in immigrant communities abroad, Tenna Nygaard tries to set us against each other for her own gains. I regret that this has not only befallen my political alliance, but my country. The Bandalag deserves better, and so do the people Ms. Nygaard and her loyalists demonize and belittle. I wish Thorbjörn Höjsleth a speedy recovery, and I call on all Prydanians to exercise their hard-won rights to make their voices heard loudly and peacefully."

Ms. Nygaard did not hold back.
"William Aubyn couldn't even win an election that was handed to him on a silver platter. He couldn't stop the Syndicalists in 2002. He was an excellent leader during the Civil War, but Stig Eiderwig probably did most of the hard work. William Aubyn's pretty much a failure when it comes to peacetime politics though."

Conservative Party leader Sören Högh, who serves as Ms. Nygaard's deputy in the Alþingi, was far more accepting of Mr. Aubyn's remarks.
"I read what William wrote, and I think that maybe we're getting to a point where we can be a bit more outspoken about the direction of our political bloc" Mr. Högh remarked.

Field Marshal Stig Eiderwig-Loðbrók, Thane of Eiderwig, released a short statement.
"William Aubyn is my good friend and comrade. His leadership was essential to our victory in the Civil War. Ms. Nygaard's comments are lacking in a factual basis."

Presently the Bandalag sits at 89 seats in the Alþingi following Mr. Aðaldal's reclassification as an independent.

Haraldvígi
Býkonsviði, Prydania
Alþingi Committee Hearing Rooms

"I wish to welcome everyone to this Alþingi Committee Hearing on the potentially harmful effects of sensationalist media and news" Þingmanni Ísak Mattanel, the Committee's head, began.
"And thank you to Prydania Today's founder Heikir Mýrmann for joining us."

Heikir nodded with a polite smile. "Joining us." They'd issued an order for him to appear. He'd be in jail if he didn't show up for this.
"I'm happy to be here, I hope we can clear some things up" he said into his microphone.

"As do the rest of us" Ísak replied.
"Mr. Mýrmann, please tell us how you came to found Prydania Today."

"Prydania Toyday" Heikir began, "was founded during the Civil War. I was a refugee in Highton and I saw a need for news on the conflict for the refugee committee that wasn't bogged down in political correctness."

"Could you expand on what you mean by 'political correctness'?"

"Certainly. The government of Highton was very critical of the Syndicalist Republic but refused to take an active role in opposing them outside of sanctions. There was a feeling, one I shared, that the main news outlets in Highton were holding back on reporting certain events in Prydania as they related to the war out of fear of offending the Syndicalist government. So Prydania Today was founded as a means to give the refugee community in Highton an unfiltered look into what was happening."

"How did you ascertain this if the Hightonian media was, as you claimed, hesitant to report on certain major events?"

"We worked to establish contacts within Prydania. Sources of our own."

"Yes" Ísak began, "the Ríkilögreglu reports...if you could all turn to your copies....thank you...yes the police reports indicated a number of these sources. I would like to draw attention to two of them. One Mr. Ástmundur Har and one Mr. Príor Ljós. Do these individuals' names sound familiar?"

Heikir grew nervous, his lawyer whispering to him.
"I'm sorry. It's been many years. I don't believe those names ring any bells."

"I ask" Ísak replied, "because they account for a majority Prydania Today's 'first hand accounts' prior to the company's relocation to Prydania following the end of the War. And I ask because I would like to ascertain if, at the time, you knew they were former members of Stefan Toft's Social Commonwealth Óafmáan enforcers?"

Heikir again nodded as his attorney whispered something in his ear.
"Ah yes, Har and Ljós...sorry, it's been a long time. But yes. Unpleasant fellows, but these were dirty, dark days you have to understand. We had a mission we believed in. We had to do business with people we did not approve of on a personal level. The information they provided for our early journalistic exploits, we believe, stands up regardless of their political associations."

"Mr. Mýrmann" Ísak replied, "this committee has compared their contributions to Prydania Today's early stories to Hightonian news items on the Civil War at the time. Most of their 'contributions' line up with mainstream Hightonian news. The stories in which Mr. Har and Mr. Ljós were sole contributors are mostly false."

"Mr. Mattanel" Heikir said, trying to walk the line between saying Ísak Mattanel's surname normally and emphasizing its Shaddaist roots, "I don't believe you are in a position to make that judgment. As you occupy a position within the government, such a statement is tantamount to assaulting the freedom of the press!"

"You believe it's assaulting the freedom of the press for a government body to point out falsehoods in your media outlet's reporting?"

"I'm saying your position makes you unqualified to make that judgment."

"Mr. Mýrmann, we are quite capable of comparing these questionable 'news' items to the historic record. Ástmundur Har is credited as a source on a story that alleges that Thomas Nielsen and the rest of the Syndicalist Presidium partook in 'an ancient Satanic ceremony on a woodland retreat where they sacrificed offerings to the Devil.' Mr. Mýrmann, no proof of an event like this has ever been found."

"Are you daring to defend the Syndicalist gov..."

"I am not daring to do anything but separate fact from fiction. This story, politics aside, is false by all accounts. As is this one attributed to Príor Ljós, alleging that the Syndicalist government was engaged in child sex trafficking. Mr. Mýrmann, both the provisional government established by His Majesty after the war and this government elected in 2018 have conducted extensive investigations into the crimes of the Syndicalist regime. The crimes are many and varied I can assure you, but no evidence to suggest a child sex slave trafficking scheme has been uncovered."

Heikir leaned over to speak with his lawyer once more.
"We reported" he said, "on what our sources gave us. We wanted to get all the news to the refugee community in Highton, with no regard for censorship."

"Did your rush to get stories to print, especially sensationalist stories, impede your ability to verify stories your sources passed along?"

"The War made everything irregular."

"Alright" Ísak replied, flipping pages in his folder.
"Let's talk about peacetime. J Johnas Juhl, on your news program, referred to the survivors of the InAura club shooting in Keris 'crisis actors' staged by this government as a pretext for infringing on the citizenry's rights to bare arms."

Heikir was almost beet red, but he breathed deep.
"It was a theory put forward. A hypothetical."

"Are you aware that Mr. Juhl's 'hypothetical' resulted in some of your news program's viewers to harass the survivors of that shooting, including a few who threatened some of their lives?"

"We are not responsible for what unhinged people do and I..."

"Mr. Mýrmann, the transcripts of that show are here. In no spot does Mr. Juhl present this 'hypothetical' as a hypothetical at all. He presents it as fact. He willingly presented victims of domestic terrorism as crisis actors, which has caused them great emotional distress on top of the emotional and physical trauma that comes with surviving such an ordeal."

"InAura was a gay club" Heikir replied, causing his lawyer to go wide eyed.

"And?" Ísak asked.

"Our viewership skews rightward. What we sell is news, and a world view."

"Are you admitting, to this committee, that Prydania Today wilfully mislead its viewers in order to reinforce a partisan viewpoint?"

"I'm saying your definition of facts, my definition of facts, and the definition of facts of our viewers is dependent on how they see the world. We provide an alternate world view. Alternative facts."

"'Alternative facts' sounds a lot like 'lies' to me" Ísak replied.

"In your opinion" Heikir replied.
"But I don't see what any of this has to do with why I'm here. I assumed I was here to answer questions about our story on Thorbjörn Höjsleth."

"We are establishing" Ísak replied, "a pattern of behaviour. Your news outlet peddled false stories during the War, mostly getting away with it because distrust and dislike of the Syndicalist regime was already at a fever pitch among Prydanian refugees. You exploited that..."

"How dare you!"

"You did. And you continued to peddle falsehoods once peace had been restored. We have documented the club shooting where false accusations presented as news by your outlet resulted in the harassment of victims of domestic terrorism. And now Thorbjörn Höjsleth, a Deputy in a friendly nation's National Assembly, has been stabbed by another unhinged viewer of your outlet. Repeating some of the false claims your outlet made regarding Mr. Höjsleth."

"Nothing we said about Thorbjörn Höjsleth is false!" Heikir replied.

"Mr. Juhl claimed, on your show, that Mr. Höjsleth achieved his place in the Santonian National Assembly by currying favour with a shadowy cabal of world manipulators, that he had connections with, quote, 'well-placed connections in the shadowy halls of power,' and that these manipulators, these shadowy cabals, are the same that pulled the strings of the Syndicalist Republic. Mr. Mýrmann, can you corroborate any of this?"

"You are misinterpreting what was said."

"Mr. Mýrmann, copies of the show's transcripts are available to everyone on this committee. The show is a matter of public record."

"What Mr. Juhl was doing was merely using colourful language to describe Mr. Höjsleth's rise from refugee to National Assembly deputy. Surely you would agree that such a path requires a degree of help from people in influential positions?" Heikir smirked, quite proud at how he was able to spin that.
Ísak looked to the other committee members and then back to Heikir.

"Mr. Mýrmann, did your staff ever use Verseiken when compiling facts for that story on Mr. Höjsleth?"

"Pardon?"

"Did they ever use Verseiken to run a simple search on Thorbjörn Höjsleth?"

"I'm sure they did...I don't oversee the development of every step of the investigative process..."

"Well we did, Mr. Mýrmann. Thorbjörn Höjsleth's public service, like your show, is a matter of public record. He became a Santonian citizen at the age of eighteen, served in that nation's compulsary military conscription, and went to university. He was a teacher when he agreed to be Paul-Alexis Clédel's suppliment. He only ever ascended to the National Assembly because of Mr. Clédel's escalating health issues."

"I don't see how any of this is relevant."

"It is relevant, Mr. Mýrmann, because I do not see how a fair reading of Thorbjörn Höjsleth's public service indicates connections to a shadowy cabal. This reads like a fairly run of the mill story of a politically active young man engaged with his party's local chapter. The claims on your program were unfair to him, but unfairness in the media not necessarily why we're here. We're here because your claims resulted in Mr. Höjsleth's near-assasination by a Prydanian citizen in Saintonge, repeating many of the claims your show made. Do you feel responsible?"

"It was tragic what happened" Heikir replied.
"But no, neithr I or my organization are responsible. For you to insist we are would kill freedom of speech in this country."

Ísak Mattanel rubbed his temple, and the hearing continued. Most of the other Free Democratic commitee members took turns grilling Heikir Mýrmann for various dubious stories and claims Prydania Today had made. Even the Bandalag committee members had to tread lightly. Their loyalty to Tenna Nygaard tempered by the national polling that showed a bottoming out of Bandalag support.

"Can't anyone get a hold of Kurt Ventur?" Heikir asked as the hearing concluded.

"Nope" Lífþrasir Reykfell, his attorney, replied.
"We're still trying."

"Put feelers out to the vultures. We may have to cut a deal."

Aasland's
Býkonsviði, Prydania

Sören Högh and Dynþór Langager both waited nervously. They were expecting Tenna and her lacky Reifnir Vídalínto arrive at any moment. The Twitcher nonsense had started them on this path, but the two rallies in Barosvik the other night finally forced Sören and Dynþór into this position; it was time to take back the Bandalag.

"More bread while you gentlemen wait?" a waitress asked.

"That would be lovely" Dynþór replied.
"You know what she'll do" Dynþór then said, looking at Sören. "She'll threaten to pull the Agrarians out."

"Yeah well...I'm not sure she can actually pull that off after Barosvik. You saw the news right? Her rally got dwarfed by that Peace not Blood protest. In her own home town!"

"She's going to lie and say it was out of towners bused in" Dynþór replied nervously.

"She can spin that bullshit to the press all day long, we have the polling numbers. At this rate there won't BE an Agrarian Party for her to pull out of the Bandalag."

"Yeah but Sören... election's not for three years. You know it's dangerous to rely on polling that far out and..." Dynþór stopped. His and Sören's phones both buzzed at the same time. An RÚV news alert.

"Holy shit..." Sören remarked.
"They did it....Langseth, Huso, Strom, Gard, Teigen, Aalberg, Hambro, Osberg, Amble, and Hareide. They all pulled out of the Agraian Party. They're joining Aðaldal as independents."

Dynþór nodded.
"And they're not just around Kiojaleit or Erkiengill. Gard, Storm, and Osberg are from Austurland. Fuck, Langseth's constituency is right up against Barosvik-Landerene River..."

"So we're down to 79 total Bandalag Þingmanni."

"There goes 'Plan A'" Dynþór chuckled. Sören couldn't help but laugh. "Plan A" was Tenna Nygaard's plan to become Prime Minister without an early election. The Bandalag had only lost to the Free Democrats 92 seats to 90 in the 2018 election. Neither faction had an outright majority, and the thirty Peers had chosen to back Magnus' Free Democrats as they had won the most seats. Tenna has postulated that she could rally the people to their cause over this Höjsleth business. If Magnus' wishy-washy response lost the confidence of the people? Well then...Tenna planned to ask the Peers to back the Bandalag instead. Of course the opposite happened, and Tenna's hardline had not only almost gotten Thorbjörn Höjsleth killed, it had turned large swaths of the country against her. And not just in Höjsleth's home town. Agrarian support was dropping in the countryside throughout the realm. And now having lost eleven Þingmanni...the Peers had all the justification they need to assert that the Bandalag didn't enjoy the support of the people to justify dropping the Free Democrats.

"'Plan A' was a longshot anyway...but this..." Sören nodded.
"We had fifty-one Conservative Þingmanni in 2018. We still have fifty-one Conservative Þingmanni" he continued. He was proud of that. Many of the mainstream Conservatives had openly discussed couping Nygaard or leaving the party, even before this Thorbjörn Höjsleth business. Sören had managed to keep them together.
"We had thirty-nine Agrarian Þingmanni in 2018. We're down to twenty-eight."

"Could be twenty-three" Dynþór remarked. "Abel, Distad, Eike, Evjen, and Hoffart are threatening to leave if she doesn't apologize for the anti-Shaddaist stuff she flung at Ísak Mattanel" he said as he read further into the RÚV story.
"Christ the whole thing's going to collapse."

"Good...I mean it Dyn. We have all the leverage we need to force her out right now. Maybe we can fix things over the next three years."

"We might have to actually go with the contingency..." Dynþór muttered. The contingency of propping up Conservative candidates in Agrarian constituencies. It was the first necessary step for the party to take if the Bandalag did come to an end.

"We'll cross that bridge when we come to it..." Sören replied, before seeing Tenna and Reifnir.

"Hello" Tenna said pleasantly as she and Reifnir took their seats.

"Pretty crazy stuff you said about Ísak Mattanel on Twitcher and Fluttr" Sören remarked.
"They both took it down, but you know what they say. The internet is forever. The screenshots are floating around."

"People needn't be so fragile" Reifnir replied, but Sören was ready to pounce. He'd be as diplomatic as he needed to be with Tenna to get this done but Reifnir? That snivelling sycophant?

"Shut the fuck up" Sören said to him.
"You know how many Shaddaists they had to pull down from lamposts in this city after the Battle of Beaconsviði? Fuck you."

"Let's try to keep the language civil.." Tenna began as Reifnir looked stunned.

"If you'd kept the language civil we wouldn't be here Tenna" Sören shot back.

"People are tired of political correctness Sören. Believe me, we will create a movement..."

"We've lost eleven Þingmanni! Peace not blood outdrew your rally in your own constituency two to one!"

"Those were..."

"I don't care Tenna, I really don't. You keep telling me to be patient, you keep telling me there's a wave coming, but at this rate? There won't be an Agrarian Party in three years. And it's because you're too fucking stupid to see the obvious."

"Excuse me?" Tenna protested.
"Don't you dare. I demand at least a basic level of respect and..."

"Do you know why we lost eleven Agrarian Þingmanni from Kanada to the Auburn Strait?"

"Yes" Tenna replied coldly. "Because of a Twitch. And because of Thorbjörn Höjsleth. Those Peace not Blood people are profiteering off of..."

"No, no, no. Why is Bandalag support dropping because of Thorbjörn Höjsleth? It's easy. If you knew anything about these small towns it's that they care for their own. And it doesn't matter that Thorbjörn hasn't been from Kiojaleit since 2006. People there remember him, remember his parents. And they feel protective of him. So you come along and go after the guy...and then good God, the stabbing."

Tenna sighed.
"I know this is hard to believe but I honestly didn't want him to be stabbed. And come on. Barosvik is very much the same sort of town Kiojaleit is. I know small town people."

"No one thinks you wanted him stabbed, Tenna. But when it happened you just doubled down and doubled down and doubled down and now the leader of the opposition is caught making anti-Shaddaist remarks on social media. And no...no Tenna, I'm not done. Barosvik may be a small town, but you clearly don't understand it anymore. You spent the war in Kalgary, Kanada for fuck's sake. If you ever understood these people, you've lost that. One small town saw you go after one of their own. And other towns, once they saw more of that, just said 'you don't do that' and they're leaving us too. I'm from Býkonsviði Tenna. How do I know more about this stuff then you do?"

"Are you done insulting me?"

"I'm giving you constructive criticism. I'm sorry if we've reached the point where the two are indistinguishable."

"Reifnir, come on. We're leaving. This was a waste of our time."

"Leave if you want" Sören remarked as the two Agrarian reps began to get up.
"But I'm going to motion for a vote among remaining Bandalag Þingmanni in caucus. I'm raising the issue of our confidence in you as our leader. I'm taking over. And I know, especially now, that I have the votes to do it. And I know I won't have a problem convincing His Majesty to go along with it either."

"You can only remove me as Bandalag leader Sören" she mentioned menacingly.
"If you dare, I'll take this party out of the alliance. And we'll see how well you do without our support."

"I don't think I have to worry too much about that Tenna. You're bleeding support by the day. But here's the thing. This doesn't have to happen this way. Step down. Resign. We might be able to salvage this."

"I'm not giving you or the vultures the satisfaction.

"Fine. I'll see you in caucus."

Reifnir and Tenna rose, storming out.

"You were awfully quiet" Sören said to Dynþór.

"You seemed like you were on a roll" Dynþór replied.
"You're going to go through with this? Killing the Bandalag?"

"We don't have a choice. She's going to sink us all if we don't force the issue. Look Dynþór. If we have to blow it up to save it then I'll happy light he fuse."

Dynþór nodded.
"Just don't hold back. Don't half ass this."

Sören nodded before spreading some butter on his bread. He was going to go after her with all he had. But first? He was going to enjoy his dinner.

Ríkilögreglu Headquarters
Býkonsviði, Prydania

"Vestergaard and Hvammdal" Captain Nóam Lystad said, making a point of meeting them as they came in.
"There's a situation."

Davíð and Wealþow looked at each other.
"What sort of situation?" Wealþow asked.

"I..." Nóam began...shit. How do you even explain this with a straight face?
"The ÖSU is here."

"You're fucking kidding me" Davíð replied, only for the Captain to raise an eyebrow.
"Sorry but still...the ÖSU?"

"This is above my pay-grade" Nóam remarked.
"They're waiting in conference room 3b. Good luck."

"Really though, what could the ÖSU want?" Davíð asked.

"I don't know" Wealþow replied.
"Something to do with my request to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs about the Skandan shell companies propping up Prydania Today?"

"You think we stumbled onto some international spy business?" Davíð asked with a smirk?

"You laugh, but why else would they be here?"

"Huh...yeah. Well..." Davíð said as he and Wealþow stood out front of the conference room they had been using as a headquarters to gather info on the Prydania Today investigation.
"They've been poking around in there for God knows how long. Let's see what this is about."

They opened the door to find a man in a black tactical uniform- he didn't look quite geared out to be called a solider- sitting at the table next to another man. He was wearing a Skandan shirt underneath a dark grey sports jacket, and was wearing khakis and a loafers, and a set of brown rimmed glasses. A strange business casual look as Davíð and Wealþow had ever seen.

"Lt. Davíð Vestergaard and Lt. Wealþow Hvammdal?" the man in the Skandan shirt asked.

"Yeah that's right" Wealþow replied.

"Lovely. Max Hveiti. ÖSU. Please, shut the door and take a seat. We have a lot to talk about." He began to go through a stack of files he'd arranged next to him.

"I should inform you" Davíð began as he and his partner took their seats, "that this is an ongoing Ríkilögreglu investigation in conjuncture with the Ministry of Justice and the Alþingi's Committee on Media and..."

Max just tossed a hand up.
"Yeah I know" he said as he began going over some of the information in the top folder before setting it down. He looked to the man in black tactical gear.
"We're good?"

"All secure Chief."

"Ok. Excellent. Lt. Vestergaard and Hvammdal, what I am about to tell you is classified at the highest levels. You have been deemed necessary to know this information by the ÖSU and EF*. Repeating anything you hear during this meeting to any individual not granted clearance to hear it will see you in violation of the Ríkisöryggilög* of 1962. Am I clear?"

Davíð and Wealþow looked at each other again, and then back at this Max Hveiti person.
"Yes" Davíð replied.
"Same, yes" Wealþow stated.

"Good" Max answered before getting into it.
"Býkonsviði was taken in the late spring of 2017, ending our Civil War. The FNU's black operations department, of which I was a member, was the foundation of the new ÖSU as declared by the provisional government headed by William Aubyn. We immediately began to go through what was left of the Syndicalist Republic's Lýðveldiöryggiþjónusta* archives. These archives were incomplete, as the Syndicalist Republic ordered a massive purge of sensitive information in the final hours of the Battle of Beaconsviði. We did find something of note though. A paper trail establishing financial aid and the sale of weapons to the Syndicalist Republic by shell companies. In Skanda."

Davíð and Wealþow's eyes opened wide. The Skandan shell companies propping up Prydania Today...
"Shit" Davíð thought. "We did stumble into some international spy bullshit."

"These companies had no actual physical existence" Max continued, "aside from existing as a means to transfer money and sell weaponry. The Skandans had not yet gone communist by this point, but we considered the possibility that the Skandan Communist Party could have been behind the payments. Our investigations into that, with the help of our Goyanean friends, turned up nothing. But then your investigation. Your report, Lt. Hvammdal, contained a list of different shell companies in Skanda propping up Prydania Today. Different in so far as the names went. Yet the physical addresses and phone numbers were all identical to the list we found after the liberation of Býkonsviði."

"So what you're telling me is that whoever is funding Prydania Today also funded and armed the Syndicalists during the War" Wealþow replied.

"Yes" Max nodded.

"But why?" Davíð asked.
"The Syndicalists were a radical left wing regime. Prydania Today caters to the hard right."

"Ever hear of horseshoe theory?" Max asked with a smirk.

"Pardon?" Wealþow asked.

"It doesn't matter" Max continued.
"It's my opinion that these are not ideologically driven transactions. Lt. Vestergaard and Hvammdal, I was a part of the FNU's black operations detachment. I want you to appreciate what that means. I am well experienced in the art of destabilizing governments. What we see here is an effort to destabilize us. Fund the Syndicalists and when that doesn't work? Prop up a divisive brand of radical politics via a 'news' organization in a young democracy attempting to find its footing."

"So whoever is behind this, wants to destabilize Prydania" Davíð said with a nod.

"Yes" Max answered.
"Left or right, that's not the issue. It's stability. Create disorder, stress the system, see if you can't topple the whole thing."

"But if it's not a left or right matter..." Wealþow mused.
"...then why? What's the point, if there's no ideological gain?"

Max smirked.
"As I said, our Goyanean friends helped us investigate connections between the Skandan Communist Party and the shell companies back after we won the war. And those turned up negative. Yet we did find some interesting connections to a man in Skanda. Nothing we could pin on him, but enough to take note. The new list of companies that you filed allowed us to dig again. And we found the same name come up. This time with far more concrete ties."

"Who?" Davíð asked.

"Kurt Ventur Jr." Max replied.

"I don't know who that is."

"Me neither" Wealþow added.

"Kurt Ventur Jr. is the son of a man named Kurt Ventur, not suprisingly" Max began. "The elder Kurt Ventur was former Royal Prydanian Army before he struck out as an arms dealer in southern Iteria. He was killed during an ÖSU operation in the summer of 1987, but he had a son. Kurt Jr, born in Hadden three years earlier to his father and mother, one Pálína Ventur. He had been living in Skanda with his mother and father when his father was killed. He has since become a naturalized Skandan citizen and the owner of a rather profitable casino in one of Skanda's SEZs. He is also, beyond a shadow of a doubt, an arms dealer like his father. Thanks to your efforts in investigating the Prydania Today matter we are able to definitively link Kurt Ventur Jr. to Syndicalist funding."

"And we can tie that person to Prydania Today" Davíð added.

"Oh yes, yes you could Lt." Max replied.

"So what happens next?" Wealþow asked.

"Well Lt. Hvammdal" Max continued.
"What happens next is that we send this all to the Prime Minister and Mr. Mattanel. And let the wheels turn."


Haraldvígi
Býkonsviði, Prydania
Office of the Prime Minister

"I don't like Heikir Mýrmann" Ísak Mattanel said as he sat across the desk from Magnus Brandt.
"But he's offering someone bigger if we're interested. A 'bigger fish' he said."

"Oh?" Magnus shrugged.
"Who?"

"He's playing coy. His legal team has reached out, expressing a desire to help in investigating this mystery person if we lay off of Prydania Today."

"Well that would partially come down to what the Ríkilögreglu find" Magnus replied.

"And who the name is" Mattanel added.
"Magnus, I don't like Prydania Today or that worm Mýrmann but if they have dirt on someone as big as they claim they do...we might have to deal."

Magnus sighed.
"Of course that group would be in league with someone worse. Garbage attracts garbage."

It was at that point that Max Hveiti strolled in, a stack of folders under his arm. Whistling the tune to Ólafur Liljurós.
"Hello" he said, dropping himself down in the chair next to Ísak's.

"Hello..." Ísak began, giving Magnus a weird look. Magnus, who was used to the ÖSU Chief popping in when he pleased, just sighed.

"Max, we're in the middle of something."

"Yeah, I heard. Something about a fish fry. Look. Ísak. I have the answer to your problems. You're not going to have to cut a deal with Heikir Mýrmann."

"Who are you again?" Ísak asked more confused than anything.
"And how do you know about that? Were you listening at the door?"

"Max Hveiti, ÖSU, lovely to meet you" Max smiled as he held out his hand.

"YOU'RE Max Hveiti?" Ísak asked shocked as he shook his hand.

"Yes. And as for how I know about your Heikir Mýrmann situation...the nice Predician desk clock you got for Yirhet'kel* two years ago? I bugged it."

"What?" Ísak exclaimed.

"Yeah, don't take it personally. I wanted to keep tabs on the media committee. Never know when it'll come in handy."

"You bugged my clock?"

"Yeah, there's a transmitter on there."

"Did you put a camera in it too?"

"That's a little paranoid" Max replied.

"Max" Magnus insisted.
"What's going on?"

"I know who Heikir Mýrmann is dangling in front of you. And I have all the evidence here" he pat the folder under his arm "that you'll need. To go after that person, and shut down Prydania Today."

"You bugged his office too?" Ísak asked.

"Nope. Here's the deal. We discovered, when the War was over, that shell companies in Skanda had been funding the Syndicalists. Well funding and arming. These shell companies fell into the orbit of Kurt Ventur Jr, a Prydanian expat and arms dealer, but we could never prove a solid connection. Then the Ríkilögreglu investigated Prydania Today. Same shell companies propping them up. We have the paper trails for both. And we can now connect Ventur to them too. So we can prove Ventur was supporting the Syndicalists. We can prove that same person who funded the Syndies is funding Prydania Today- won't their viewers be shocked- and you should have enough to shut them down for good and toss Heikir Mýrmann into jail."

"What about Ventur?" Magnus asked.

"He's a naturalized Skandan citizen but he's Prydanian by birth. We have his birth certificate to prove it too. Born in Hadden, to Prydanian parents. We have enough to get the Skandans to the table, I think."

"If you get me that information" Ísak replied, "I can have the committee vote to reccomend the Ríkisskiptiþóknun* shut down Prydania Today."

"And we can get someone who propped up the Syndicalists."

"You can also make Tenna Nygaard's very bad week even worse" Max chuckled.

"I'll consider that a bonus" Ísak added with a smile.

---

*EF= Embætti Forsætisráðherra= Prime Minister's Office
*Ríkisöryggilög= Realm Security Act
*Lýðveldiöryggiþjónusta= Republican Security Services
*Yirhet'kel= Festival of the Cold Moons, a Shaddaist holiday that takes place in the winter. It celebrates the Maccabees' victory over the Shavians in defence of the Shaddaist community in Meron in the 150s BC.
*Ríkisskiptiþóknun= Realm Communications Commission, an independent agency of the Prydanian government that regulates communications by radio, television, wire, satellite, and cable across Prydania.

Býkonsviði- It began with Jafet Johnas Juhl before the Alþingi Media Committee on potentially harmful effects of sensationalist media and news. Juhl was following his boss, and Prydania Today founder, Heikir Mýrmann's combative stint before the same committee. Juhl's turn focused less on the content of Prydania Today and more on his on-screen character.
Juhl admitted, under oath, that his persona on the Prydania Today "news" show is "a character."
"It's exaggerated to the nth degree" Juhl stated. "An act. I play a character."

Committee head and Free Democratic Party Þingmanni Ísak Mattanel, who was the target of Bandalag leader Tenna Nygaard's anti-Shaddaist outbursts on Twitcher and Fluttr, asked him if the "character" of J Johnas Juhl was reflective of the real Jafet Johnas Juhl in any way.

"I'm politically conservative" Juhl admitted.
"I was approached by Mr. Mýrmann to become Prydania Today's main news anchor after the War, in 2017. I believed in the mission, a conservative-aligned news program, but the character came later. As we found our 'voice' as a program."

Mr. Juhl was grilled on various claims he'd made during his three year stint as Prydania Today's main on-screen personality. He admitted, under oath, that he didn't believe the survivors of the InAura Club massacre were 'crisis actors,' as he claimed on tv, and that the tacit support the program showed to the Messianic League uprising was a calculated ploy to win people sympathetic to the ML but otherwise against the aborted insurgency on board as Bandalag voters.

On the topic of Thorbjörn Höjsleth he admitted a degree of discomfort.
"I'm a refugee, same as [Mr. Höjsleth]. I had to rebuild my life in Cerdagne when I fled there. I, like a lot of people in Prydania, saw Thorbjörn Höjsleth as a positive affirmation."

Mr. Mattanel pushed to know why, then, he attacked the Santonian National Assembly Deputy on the air.

"I found his remarks about our troop deployments in Gothis to be distasteful" Juhl remarked.
"Beyond that, I was given marching orders by my superiors at Prydania Today. This was the job I was hired to do, they're paying me, so I do it. I didn't like that he got stabbed...I didn't think that would happen."

Mr. Juhl admitted that a "grey area" existed when Committee member Konkordía Helgfell (FLFP) asked if his role of playing a "character" meant that Prydania Today was less reliable than "mainstream" news.

"It's a character, a world view, a message that we're selling."

Prydania Today Formally Shut Down following new evidence of Syndicalist ties

Mr. Juhl's testimony was followed by a bombshell a day later. Ísak Mattanel's committee heard testimony from Ríkilögreglu and ÖSU officials, all of whom detailed the investigation into Prydania Today and the findings that the media outlet was being funded by Skandan shell companies that were also tied to financial funding and arms sales to the Syndicalist government during the Civil War.
The news seemed to shock all Committee members across party lines, but the Ríkilögreglu and ÖSU offered heaps of documents into evidence linking all of these dealings to Prydanian expat Kurt Ventur Jr., a naturalized Skandan citizen.

The usually vocal Tenna Nygaard refused to comment on the revelations while the Ministry of Justice filed new charges against Prydania Today's parent company UíD related to conspiracy against the Realm. The Media Committee in the Alþingi formally voted to recommend Prydania Today be shut down in light of this new evidence, a request the Ríkisskiptiþóknun complied with after reviewing the documentation. Prydania Today went off the air at 7:42 pm local time, the last "news" story concerning a J Johnas Juhl assertion that Goyanean-based credit card company Nordisk Austrykke was engaged in a Goyanean ploy to trap the world in financial domination.
Heikir Mýrmann, his business associate Jakob Bjarg, Jafet Johnas Juhl, and other Prydania Today officials were taken into custody by Ríkilögreglu agents.

Minister of Foreign Affairs Marianne Toft issued a statement that she and Minister of Justice Peter Wollan had formally requested the Democratic People's Republic of Skanda extradite Kurt Ventur Jr. for his roles in financially supporting the Syndicalist Republic as well as the recent charges of conspiracy to undermine the constitutional order of the Prydanian Realm.

Bandalag Breaks Amidst Fallout

The revelation of Prydania Today being in league with subversive elements and the issuing of new criminal charges added ammunition for Conservative Party leader Sören Högh, who already had an impressive stock of metaphorical ordinance following the defections of ten additional Agrarian Þingmanni following Kiojaleit representative Ísgeir Aðaldal's defection earlier in the month.
Tenna Nygaard's support for Prydania Today, her unapologetic attacks on Thorbjörn Höjsleth's character, and recent anti-Shaddaist rants on social media have resulted in the Bandalag losing eleven Þingmanni. Five additional Bandalag Þingmanni, Magný Abel, Ragnhildur Distad, Kládía Eike, Hallmar Evjen, and Teó Hoffart, threatened to break with the alliance if Nygaard refused to apologize for her anti-Shaddaist attacks against Ísak Mattanel. All defecting Þingmanni came from the Agrarian Party, with the Conservative Party's core of representatives remaining intact.
This all led to Sören Högh issuing a leadership challenge in caucus. The remaining Bandalag Þingmanni backed Mr. Högh who took the results to His Majesty to petition he remove Nygaard as opposition leader. His Majesty accepted the results of the vote and formally requested Mr. Högh form a new official opposition.

Tenna Nygaard's removal as Bandalag and Opposition leader has not resulted in her removal as Agrarian Party leader. Ms. Nygaard announced that the Agrarian Party was formally splitting with the Conservative Party, ending an eighty-nine year old electoral alliance that has governed Prydania on multiple occasions. Abel, Distad, Eike, Evjen, and Hoffart followed the announcement by formally declaring themselves independents and sitting with the previous eleven Agrarian defectors.

Ms. Nygaard's Agrarian Party now sits as the Alþingi's third largest electoral caucus, at twenty-three. The Free Democrats sit at ninety-two, the Conservative Party opposition at fifty-one, the People's Party at two, with sixteen independents. Ms. Nygaard has been able to retain control of the Agrarian Party- for now- but her reduced status in the Alþingi will reduce her ability to grandstand.

"I'm grateful for the members of my Party for supporting me through this" Sören Högh remarked to reporters.
"And I am grateful to His Majesty for believing in me to form an Opposition that can both hold the government to account and return decorum to both sides of the aisle in the Alþingi. I wish the remaining Agrarian Þingmanni luck and promise you that we can always mend fences, if both sides are willing."
Foreign Pressure

Tenna Nygaard's behaviour has caused foreign officials to weigh in. Iraelia, Astragon, and the Federal Kingdom of Mita in Bashime- nations with high Shaddaist populations- issued complaints with the Prydanian government over Tenna Nygaard's anti-Shaddaist statements. A spokesperson for Absalonhöll replied by issuing a statement on His Majesty's intentions.
"His Majesty has no desire to interfere in the affairs of the Alþingi caucuses. He has the upmost trust in each caucus' internal process to deal with disputes and censor individuals who bring their faction or the Alþingi itself into ill-repute. His Majesty will review any request to officially change the status of the Opposition's leadership if such a request has the backing of the majority of the Opposition's elected Þingmanni."

Many saw the statement as a veiled sign that the King would not interfere if the Bandalag voted to replace Ms. Nygaard. In fact His Majesty formally accepted the request to replace her as Opposition Leader.

"Our democracy has a process" Minister of Foreign Affairs Marianne Toft said in a statement.
"I ask our friends in Iraelia, Astragon, and Mita to be patient, and I am happy to inform them that the Opposition made the choice to break with Ms. Nygaard's toxic brand of politics."

Agrarian Party Future

Where the Agrarian Party goes from here is a mystery. There have been rumblings that the sixteen newly independent Þingmanni forming a new Agrarian Party and ally itself back with Sören Högh's Conservatives, but this view is far from universal among the Independents.
Ms. Nygaard finds herself in control of a caucus of only twenty-three Þingmanni, when she once commanded an opposition that was only two seats short of matching the Free Democratic Party government. Still, she vows to fight on. Even as she remains embattled in her home constituency of Barosvik-Landerene River.

For Ms. Nygaard destroying the Bandalag is a gamble. She hopes that by doing so she can rebuild Agrarian support and perhaps re-ally with the Conservative Party in a position of influence. For now though, Agrarian Party poll numbers are bottoming out across the rural countryside. That Ms. Nygaard so closely associated with Prydania Today and its founder Heikir Mýrmann- now known to be a front for a conspiracy against the country- cannot help her chances.

Nýtthvarf Pub
Býkonsviði, Prydania

Ísgeir Aðaldal sipped a Diet Toki's. He was a teototaler*. Which would have normally made his presence at a pub eyebrow raising. He had a very good reason for being here though, even if he was early. First to break with the Agrarian Party, first of the newly independent Þingmanni to arrive. It was fine though. He watched PFD* highlights and sipped his pop to kill time. He'd become engrossed in a Býkonsviði/Keris highlight package. He'd actually missed this game and hadn't heard who won. His immersion into the highlight package was interrupted by an excited voice.

"Ísgeir!"
It was Ingrid Teigen, one of the other rogue Þingmanni. Ísgeir waved as she made her way over to him.

"Hey, how are you?" Ísgeir asked.

"It's been a hell of a day...I need a drink" she replied, asking a passing waiter for a vodka tonic.
"Sorry, I know you don't..."

"Eh it's fine" Ísgeir replied sipping his diet pop some more.
"So...what do you think you're going to do?" he asked.

"I think you mean what we're going to do" Ingrid replied. Ísgeir blushed just a bit. He had a bit of a crush on her. Of course she didn't mean "us" in that way but still. Regardless, he answered her.

"We're not bound to all do the same thing."

"Yeah but don't you think we should? There's sixteen of us. There's nearly as many of us as Tenna's remaining Agrarian caucus. We could make a difference if we stayed as one group."

"I don't know. Some of the others have been talking about taking the Free Democrats up on their offer. I don't think I can."

"Why not?"

"I'm the Þingmanni for Kiojaleit and the surrounding farms. That's where Thorbjörn Höjsleth is from. People back home still remember his sisters and him, his parents and his older brother who died. I do..." he sighed.
"But I broke with Tenna because of what happened. How can I do that and then join the governing party that got into the war he was speaking out against? I can't do it. It feels wrong."

"Well what about joining the Conservatives? Or forming an alternative Agrarian Party and reforming the Bandalag?"

"I guess we'll have to wait for the others but we'll see. I'm not really sure right now."

Ingrid nodded and the two began to converse about less important matters and they waited. More of the sixteen rogue Agrarian Þingmanni trickled in, the conversation staying light until they'd all assembled. Bersi Langseth had called the meeting, but he turned to Ísgeir.

"You were the first one to break. You have anything you want to say?"

Ísgeir wasn't one for speaking, funnily enough for a politician. Up until Tenna began...whatever she was doing...being an Agrarian Þingmanni meant having a name people in town knew, and promising to stand for their interests as farmers. If you did that, you'd likely win. At least in a place like Kiojaleit. All of that was going to change though. Ísgeir didn't know what the next round of elections would look like exactly, but the rural townships in the stretches of green constituencies looked mighty competitive today.
"Well" Ísgeir began.
"I think we all did what we did because we thought it was right. So whatever we decide today, maybe we shouldn't pay much mind to what's politically convenient." He sat down and gave Bersi a nod.

"Short but sweet" Bersi said before standing up again, a mug of beer in one hand.
"Ok. So here's how I see it. We have options. The Conservatives and Free Democrats are wooing us."

"I don't think we should just join either" Ingrid replied.
"We can stand for something together. We're just more bodies as part of either."

"So we form a new Agrarian Party" Ragnhildur Distad replied.
"We call it...I donno....Agrarian-Bandalag and join up with Sören and the Conservatives. We'll keep our independence in an alliance."

"That could be bad though" Teó Hoffart said, piping up.
"Think about it. We go into the next election and the ballot says "Agrarian, Agrarian-Bandalag, People's, Free Democratic. We're splitting the Agrarian vote, could give the Free Democrats the path right up the middle."

"Do you think Tenna will be able to keep that much support where we're splitting with her?" Bersi asked.

"I don't know" Teó replied.
"But even if she doesn't, do we want that Agrarian Party brand milestone?"

Ísgeir listened as the sixteen talked their options over. At a certain point all the realistic choices were laid out, and the period of talking in circles began. Hearing the same arguments circle again and again though, it just got him thinking on other stuff. What was it that got Tenna Nygaard on her back foot in Barosvik? Peace not Blood...what was it that people mobilized, engaged? What did people care about? Peace not blood. The droning of the conversation went on and he thought...it's not a party...not yet but...it's not the same. That's good! Conservatives, Free Democrats, Agrarians...they were all parties that pre-dated the Civil War by centuries. Even the People's Party claimed the positive elements of the Syndicalist legacy...more old politics. But what if...

"Hey guys" he said speaking up.
"I'm going to reach out to Rósalind Brúnsteð."

"The Peace not Blood girl?" Bersi asked.

"Yeah...I'm...I'm going to ask her if she'd be ok if, in the next election, I ran on a Peace not Blood ticket."

The sounds of the bar around them- casual chatter, a game of darts, the hum of the tv still playing sports highlights- overcame them as they themselves fell silent.
"Yeah" he said, "I'll do that. Look guys, I hate to duck out but I have a call to make and..." he looked at Ingrid.
"You wanna share a cab home?" the two lived only a few blocks apart.

Ingrid looked around and then back at Ísgei.
"Yeah...let's go" she said standing up and gathering her things.

"I'll let you all know how the call goes. I'm sure we'll need more candidates if she says yes" Ísgeir said, as he and Ingrid left the pub into the early summer evening.

---

*teototaler= teetotaller
*PDF= Prydansk Fótboltadeildinni= Prydanian Football League, the top flight association football league in the country

Býkonsviði- Tenna Nygaard has lost a lot. She lost the role of Leader of His Majesty's Official Opposition. She lost sixteen Þingmanni, leaving her Agrarian Party with less seats than the unelected Peers. She's seemingly lost the loyalty of her home town and home constituency of Barosvik-Landerene River if the recent Peace not Blood rallies are any indication. And now she has lost Twitcher. Sweet Twitcher, the refuge so many across the world take, will be missing one combative and fiery personality. And it doesn't seem like the rest of Twitcher minds.

Ms. Nygaard's troubles on the platform began when a Twitch she posted attacking Free Democratic Party Þingmanni Ísak Mattanel. The Twitch attacked Mr. Mattanel's role as head of the Alþingi committee charged with investigating Prydania Today. The Twitch also attacked Mr. Mattanel's Shaddaist heritage, with Ms. Nygaard suggesting he "return" to Adonai-Jireh. "Return" being operative. Mr. Mattanel was born in Keris and his family has been in Prydania for centuries.
Twitcher saw fit to remove the offensive Twitch, with Ms. Nygaard declaring she was off to Fluttr. She reposted the message on that platform, anti-Shaddaist slurs and all, only to have Fluttr remove the offending Flutt. Prydanians in Saintonge took note, with a few starting the #TennaBanned.

Things went from bad to worse for Ms. Nygaard on social media. #TennaBanned became #RekaÚtTenna. Thorfinnur Fatland, a Prydanian who had to flee to Saintonge, hails from Ms. Nygaard's home town of Barosvik. He had seen Ms. Nygaard's racist Twitch before it was deleted and began pinging relatives and friends back home, asking for their help in removing Ms. Nygaard come the next election.
A sensible move at this point would have been for Tenna Nygaard to put the phone down, collect herself, and perhaps refocus on how she planned to lead the Agrarian Party caucus in the Alþingi now that it can no longer rely on Conservative Party backing. Tenna Nygaard's actions, however, show that "sensible" is hardly in her vocabulary. "Conventional" is not how she does things.

Ms. Nygaard personally tagged Mr. Fatland and barraged him with insults. She accused him of lacking a right to have a say in Prydanian affairs, claiming he'd "abandoned" the country when he was forced to flee to Saintonge. Mr. Fatland responded, raising the point that Ms. Nygaard fled to Kanada when the Civil War began, had enough wealth to live comfortably in Kalgary, and had an easy enough time regaining her family's lands. Mr. Fatland viciously exposed her hypocrisy. But it didn't end there. Oh God no, it didn't end there.
Mr. Fatland's response was just the first of a wave of Twitches. From Prydanians and those of Prydanian heritage in both Prydania and Saintonge taking Ms. Nygaard to task. Some responses included a meme or two. Others were more serious. Tenna Nygaard had crossed a line by attacking those in immigrant communities abroad. Many pointed out the Syndicalist links to pro-Nygaard Prydania Today. Others chastised her for going after their friends or family. The messages was the same though. She had attacked her fellow Prydanians, and they were simply not having it. It was an encouraging display from Prydanians- both home and abroad- that these politics do not seem to be welcome.

The saga seemed to end with two Twitches. The first was a final Nygaard remark. What it says is a mystery. Only that she has, in fact, deleted her Twitcher account of her own accord.
The second was one from His Majesty. He had remained silent on the platform through all of this, but he did weigh in early this morning. He indicated that he believed it was not his role to interfere in democratic politics, but also stated his love for William Aubyn. The former Bandalag leader and Prime Minister grew close to His Majesty during the Civil War, with many indicating the FNU leader raised him. His Majesty mentioned how he had "no time" for anyone who degraded Mr. Aubyn or his sacrifices. Many claim His Majesty was referring to Ms. Nygaard's assertion that Mr. Aubyn was a "failure" when it came to peacetime politics and that his role in the Civil War was overblown. What the King meant exactly is up to interpretation, but one thing is clear. Prydanians on Twitcher have spoken; Tenna Nygaard's race bating and insulting attacks against those who fled as refugees would not be tolerated.
It is perhaps worth celebrating that, for once, she seems to have gotten the picture.

Hôpital Général de Saintes
early afternoon

Kristin Höjsleth was busy arranging things in the room’s closet. Clothes, toiletries, food and other stuff… She had been literally living in the hospital since this happened. She turned around to retrieve more of the newly-arrived stuff from the luggage bag and glimpsed at her brother, sound asleep.

That night when the police called them to inform them that something happened to Thorbjörn… brought back so many bad memories to Kristin. A chilling call in the middle of the night. It was like the time when a sympathetic neighbour secretly called them to say that the Syndicalists murdered their father Draupnir and that they should leave their house. Their mother Elina and older brother Hallkell organised their escape from Kiojaleit, but they were caught at a Syndicalist checkpoint outside their hometown.

Kristin was almost hysterical when he saw Thorbjörn lying on the stretcher after the stabbing, with a huge ugly wound on his chest. She didn’t want to look at it again. Until now, she would look away when nurses tended to Thorbjörn’s wounds. It reminded her so much of what happened to her older brother; the Syndicalists had forced them to watch his execution. At the road checkpoint, with their mother also dead, the Syndicalists shot Hallkell in the chest. Kristin could never forget that scene. The huge hole in Hallkell’s chest, blood spurting out of his body, his agonal breathing, his parting words to his three younger siblings… They would’ve probably had shared the same fate if not for that Santonian diplomatic van that happened to pass by. The Syndicalists fled like cockroaches seeing light, leaving the three of them, crying over the corpses of their mother and older brother. The Santonians took them in and sent them to safety in Saintonge.

Or so they thought they were safe in Saintonge. Their older sister Gudrún warned Thorbjörn not to get into that politics business, but their younger brother could not be stopped. “What happened to us… I don’t want to happen to others,” he once told them. Despite Gudrún’s private disapproval, Gudrún and Kristin supported Thorbjörn in his endeavours. “What can we do?” Gudrún told Kristin during their first Christmas dinner with Thorbjörn as a member of the Santonian parliament. “We’re family. We gotta support each other.”

Gudrún was always that stoic older sister. Gudrún cried, but she did not wail like Kristin did when they saw what happened to their younger brother. Perhaps it was because she had to take up motherly duties early on. She was sixteen when they were taken in by the Santonians at the Santonian Legation at Erkiengill. Two years later, the orphaned Höjsleths were sent to Saintonge, where Gudrún insisted with the Santonian Immigration and Integration Agency that she and her siblings did not want to be separated. Gudrún, then already of legal age, would be their guardian. Gudrún took odd jobs while attending night classes to provide for and support her younger siblings. Perhaps that contributed to her stoicism. But now that all of them are adults, Gudrún had started a family of her own. She now has two small children. Which meant that the task of staying behind to care for the sick Thorbjörn fell to Kristin.

Not that she didn’t want it. Kristin and Thorbjörn were close as children. If Gudrún was the stolid older sister, Kristin was the doting older sister. During the first month of Thorbjörn’s National Service, Thorbjörn nearly got into trouble because Kristin kept calling him at the barracks to check how he was doing. Even though they lived apart now, Kristin still regularly called Thorbjörn to keep up.

Kristin’s thoughts were interrupted when her phone rang softly. Somebody was calling.

She fished her phone out of her pocket. It was Odda Öxndal.

Kristin went out of the room to take the call, so as not to disturb her younger brother’s sleep.

“Hello, Aunt Odda.”

Odda Öxndal was also from Kiojaleit. She was married to Kvasir and they had two children named Markthór and Addý. The Öxndals also resisted the collectivisation of their farm, but they got out early. The Höjsleths met the Öxndals during their stay at the Santonian legation. Because they were from the same town, Kvasir and Odda acted as their parents while there, hence the Höjsleths called them ‘aunt’ and ‘uncle’ even though they were not related by blood. Even though the Öxndals were rescued earlier, the Höjsleths got sent to Saintonge first because they were orphans. Kristin was able to reconnect with Aunt Odda and Uncle Kvasir in 2014 through a Facegram mutual friend with Markthór.

“Thorbjörn is sleeping… Yes, Aunt Odda, he has been better. His breathing tube was taken out two days ago. The doctor said that if the drainage from his chest tube is minimal, that can be taken out too…”

“Yes… thank you Aunt Odda. We appreciate it, but the doctor advised that we limit visits… We were told that Thorbjörn’s situation may not be critical anymore but he’s still not out of danger.”

Kristin sat at the bench outside Thorbjörn’s room. “Although Aunt Odda, we can have video calls now!” Kristin chuckled when Aunt Odda said she didn’t know how to use new technology. “I see. Have Addý set up a video call for you through Beeper. We can do it when Thorbjörn is awake.”

“Care package? Thank you Aunt Odda, but I’m going to get fat from all the care packages! Yesterday the Princes Thibault and Timothée sent a care package… Prime Minister Courseaux too, sent stuff. Thorbjörn can’t eat them that much because he still has a feeding tube and his stomach and intestines were injured.” Kristin looked around to see that none of the nurses were listening. She whispered to her phone. “Although I couldn’t resist giving him a nibble of his favourite chocolate.” Kristin giggled at being the indulgent sister. “It’s just a bite… poor Thorbjörn.”

“I give away the contents of the care packages to patients in neighbouring rooms or to the nurses. I can’t eat them or else I won’t fit in my wedding dress! My fiancé has been very supportive, but Brice also brings me food and he will make me fat too…”

“… still, thank you Aunt Odda. We’ll keep in touch. Hopefully Thorbjörn gets stronger so you can visit… Thank you… Bye!”

Kristin went into her brother’s room after the call. She heard him call her name.

“Thorbjörn, what is it?”

Thorbjörn was now awake, but he still couldn’t move much. The stitches on his body was still painful. He was still connected to a tube to drain fluid from his chest.

“Kristin… please help me sit…”

Kristin smiled sympathetically at her brother. “Thorbjörn, you can’t sit up yet. Do you want me to adjust the height of your bed instead?”

Thorbjörn nodded.

As Kristin was raising the head of the bed, Thorbjörn asked her who called.

“Ah, it was Aunt Odda. She’s been calling almost every day to see how you are doing. But she doesn’t have good timing because you’re always asleep when she calls.” Kristin had finished adjusting the height of the bed. “I told her we can set up a video call.” Kristin went to the closet she was trying to arrange and temporarily closed the doors so that Thorbjörn would not see the chocolates inside and ask for them. “I assume that’s okay with you, right?” Kristin turned to her brother, who signified consent. Gudrún had a video call with her siblings yesterday – she couldn’t come because she was breastfeeding her younger child. It was also a chance for Kristin and Thorbjörn to see their nephews Dreipnir and Hallkell, who Gudrún named after their father and brother.

“Thank you… for caring for me,” Thorbjörn told Kristin.

“You tell me that every time you wake up,” she told him lovingly. Kristin then sat beside her brother and held his hand. “You’re such a sweet li’l bro.” She squeezed his hand. “I will never get tired of caring for you, Thorbjörn. Even when we’re old and frail, big sister is going to be here for you.” Kristin stood up and gave her brother a gentle hug.

Kristin’s phone rang again.

“I’ll just go answer it.”

It was Brigitta Lomheim, the unannounced visitor yesterday. She said she was from the Prydanian Embassy in Saintes. Brigitta said she was tasked to get more information on Thorbjörn’s situation. Kristin gave out as little as possible. Kristin thought it was somewhat weird that Prydania would suddenly care specifically about them, when they were actually Santonian citizens now.

After the visit, during which Kristin did not allow Brigitta to see Thorbjörn, she researched her on Chercher. Brigitta was what she said she was – a consular officer at the Prydanian Embassy.

Out of courtesy, Kristin picked up the phone. “Yes, Kristin Höjsleth here.” Kristin signalled to her brother that she will just be going out to take the call. But she still hadn’t left the room when she heard why Brigitta was calling. “What? The King of Prydania wants to talk to Thorbjörn?!”

The Prydanian diaspora was never something Tobias had thought about as a child. The realities of the war were far more pressing to day-to-day life. Just staying alive was often hard enough to worry about what was happening elsewhere. Tobias’ world was, for most of his childhood and early adulthood, various safe houses and bunkers and camps in eastern Prydania. It was a bleak, cold, harsh world. And it was all he knew. Of course he knew that some Prydanians fled, but he was never afforded a moment to think too much on it.

And then football. It was football, of all things. The war had ended, and he had been crowned King. And as it just so happened...the 2017 Prydanian national team made it to the World Cup Finals of that year. How...why…it didn’t matter. They did. And for the newly crowned King of Prydania, it was a moving experience. It wasn't really football though. His television was ablaze with scenes from Saintonge, Highton, and Goyanes. Of Prydanian fans in the streets, celebrating their team’s unexpected advance. It suddenly dawned on him how many Prydanians were elsewhere. Who had fled. And he had a strong desire to reach out to them. How? He didn’t know. And for a while it didn’t matter. The time immediately after his coronation was spent trying to help the country recover. He thought about them though, the Prydanians elsewhere.

He’d been excited when he heard of Thorbjörn Höjsleth’s ascension to the Santonian National Assembly. And his desire to reach out to the Prydanian diaspora was why he agreed to meet Thorbjörn and other notable Prydanian immigrants to Saintonge when he and his wife Alycia arrived there for their honeymoon.

“You don’t have to,” everyone told him. “It’s just an idea. Everyone will understand if you want your honeymoon to just be yourself and your wife.” And he still insisted on making that time. The meeting was brief to be sure, but pleasant words and well wishes were exchanged. It wasn’t the most important meeting of Tobias’ life. Not by a long shot. It was, however, the closest he’d ever come to actually reaching out to the Prydanians abroad.

Many of these people...they weren’t even Prydanians any longer. They were Santonians, or Goyaneans, or Hightonians. Yet he cared. How could he not? They had suffered like he had. Lost family like he had. He’d lived through the war, and helped in every way he could, but he felt their pain. Maybe they weren’t Prydanian citizens by and large, but they were still Prydanians. And he felt a sense of responsibility. However small.

Brigitta Lomheim had been dispatched on his orders. He’d dealt with it personally. She had reported back that her meeting with the family was...ok. “A bit standoffish” was the wording she’d used. It was somewhat like a punch in the gut for Tobias, being the emotional person he was. Yet it was understandable, given everything. Still, Brigitta had informed him that yes. Things seemed “doable” for what he wanted to do. And so here he was, on an old couch in a study. The intricately carved wooden paneling lining the walls giving everything a warm and cozy feeling, even in the middle of summer. Phone in his hand. Waiting. And then they got it.

“The embassy will transfer your call, Your Majesty” Brigitta had said, and then a dial tone.


Kristin went back to Thorbjörn’s bedside to inform him of the caller. “Thorbjörn… the King of Prydania wants to talk to you - video call.”

Thorbjörn’s eyebrows rose up and his jaw dropped in a surprised expression. “No joke?”

Aside from Gudrún, the Prime Minister of Saintonge and the oldest twin princes of Saintonge were his video callers yesterday. Now it’s the King of Prydania?

“What shall I say?” Kristin whispered as she covered the microphone on her mobile phone.
“Sure, maybe we can talk?” Thorbjörn answered.

Thorbjörn Höjsleth did not even know what to say. He didn’t even know what to expect. But he thought it would probably just take the call, out of courtesy.

Kristin handed him the phone and Brigitta was on the screen. “Good afternoon, Mr Höjsleth. His Majesty wanted to talk to you. Is it okay?”

Thorbjörn nodded.

“I’ll be transferring you to Absalonhöll.”

After a few moments, the King of Prydania appeared on the mobile phone screen. Tobias had tossed his sports jacket off, but was otherwise formally dressed.

“Thorbjörn?” Tobias said a bit nervously. “It’s…” he thought for a moment. And in a split second decided how he’d announce himself over this call. “It’s Tobias. I wanted to see how you were doing?”

Thorbjörn Höjsleth could hardly believe what was happening. Was this a dream? If these were the result of the painkillers, this was a happy side effect. He had met the King of Prydania formally in 2019, just after he was installed as National Assembly deputy for Saintes. But it was a brief meeting and he didn’t really talk much on a personal level.

Thorbjörn felt the same feelings when he was on a video call with Princes Thibault and Timothée of Saintonge yesterday. He felt honoured - and a bit embarrassed - at the attention he was getting. He came to Saintonge as nothing. Now all these important people want to have a word with him despite his sorry state.

“Good afternoon, Your Majesty,” Thorbjörn bowed his head a bit as respect for royalty. He winced at the pain the movement caused. “I apologise… if I’m not in my best.” He suddenly became self-conscious on how he looked.

The Thorbjörn Höjsleth that the King of Prydania was seeing was not the same Thorbjörn Höjsleth in the official portraits or in the newspapers and social media accounts. He was barely recognisable. The right side of his head was shaved, with a stitched wound running from the back of his ear to the hairline on the right side. His right eye was swollen shut and the eyelids were of an angry purple colour. Only his left eye could see for now. Another stitched gash was on his right cheek. His broken nose was bandaged, and the feeding tube exited out of his left nostril. His lower lip was split, with the surrounding skin bruised.

Thorbjörn’s appearance didn’t bother Tobias too much. He’d grown up in a warzone. He’d seen people just as bad, if not worse. It wasn’t pretty to be sure, but he could handle it.

“No, don’t worry about it…” Tobias began. “I’m just glad you’re ok. I was very worried when I heard what happened. We’ve all been praying and hoping for the best.”

He truly didn’t know how much Thorbjörn knew about events in Prydania. A lot had happened, and a lot of ink spilled writing about it. For all he knew, Thorbjörn’s most recent notion of what was happening in the country of his birth came from the debates being thrown about over his speech, before his stabbing.

“I mean that,” Tobias added. “We all have.”

“Thank you, Your Majesty,” Thorbjörn said in Prydanian, the raspiness of his voice a remnant of the previous presence of the endotracheal tube that kept him alive. The phone nearly fell off from Thorbjörn’s weak hands and the video jarred. Kristin hurriedly supported her brother’s arm and eventually held the phone for him. “I apologise for that... Your Majesty,” Thorbjörn said. “My arms… are still weak.” Thorbjörn was speaking in careful paces, as any exertion in breathing or speaking triggered shooting pain at the stab wound and along the chest tube.

“You don’t need to apologize,” Tobias replied. “I can’t imagine how you’re feeling or what you’ve gone through, but I know you must have heard some of the things that were said about you in Prydania following your speech. And I… I think I can understand that, a bit. I would hear what the Syndicalist state media would say. About me, and people I cared about. And it can be disheartening but I wanted to tell you, and let you know that most people here care about you and we’re happy you’re getting better.”

Tobias chuckled a bit. “I know how awkward it can feel, when people you don’t know express how much they care. It can be strange, but people here have come out for you. I don’t think you understand how much you mean to us back here in Prydania.”

“Thank you, Your Majesty,” Thorbjörn said. “I haven’t read the news ever since I woke up. My sisters… they don’t want me to stress over it.” He tried to shift slightly to a more comfortable position. “I don’t doubt... the sincerity of what you are saying, Your Majesty… but I’m just a refugee kid. A beat-up refugee kid trying to rebuild… a new life in a new land. I just wanted what happened to us… not to happen to anyone else.”

Tobias raised an eyebrow ever so slightly. His sisters didn't want him stressed by the news? He wasn't going to get into that, but he did chuckle to himself. Thorbjörn was going to have a pleasant surprise. In more ways than one. What got to him more was Thorbjörn's assessment of himself. He was actually around the same age as Tobias. Less than a year younger. And well...

"Thorbjörn..." Tobias began, "I'm probably not the person you would expect to hear this from..." his heart was beating quickly now, but he kept himself composed. "I never felt special. When I was little, I had nothing. My family was gone. I didn't feel like a prince or a revolutionary, I was just a scared boy who didn't understand why he was suddenly alone. Fate afforded me a chance to do something because of who my parents were, but it wouldn't have mattered if I didn't take that chance" he said as he felt his heart pounding.

"I did everything I could to help people when I could, and just do...something. Help someone somehow if it made their life better, but I had to claw that out of a war.”

War. That's what he came from. War took his family, it forced him to fight back. It forced him to take lives. People flocked to him and their movement because he fought. He had to fight. The Syndicalists had to be opposed. Not every enemy was the Syndicalist Party though - and not every problem that appeared to be a military problem had to be solved as one. Violence begets violence. Tobias was sure he’d heard that somewhere. Where, and from who, he couldn’t remember. It seemed very relevant now though.

“You understood what I didn't. You stood up for peace and you've proven to every refugee kid that had to flee our war that they could make things better."

"You're just a refugee kid, Thorbjörn..." Tobias said. "I'm just a scared kid with no one...but I want to help make the world better. Like you have."

Thorbjörn was somewhat surprised by the admission of the King of Prydania. Here was the monarch of his old country, a symbol of Prydania, revered and acclaimed, telling him that he, too, felt the same thing. Thorbjörn knew what the Syndicalists did to the Royal Family and the King’s relatives. Thorbjörn was lucky he still had sisters. Tobias had… none.

“You will always… have us Prydanians,” Thorbjörn assured him. “I might be a Santonian citizen... serving in the parliament to represent Santonians… but I’d never forget where I come from. Which was why I feared that… Prydania might fall again into the tangles of war… that it may never get out of.”

“We were thrown into war,” Thorbjörn continued, pausing every now and then to catch up with his breath. “We had been drawn into a horror… that we have no control of. We lost our loved ones in the Civil War. But this one... I felt was different. Prydania had a choice… and Prydania chose to join this war.”

“With all due respect, Your Majesty… I thought that Prydania... could’ve chosen a different path. I am not a pacifist. I served in Saintonge’s National Service. I was trained how to shoot a gun… at anyone who dares invade this country. But the reason I made that speech… was out of fear and concern. Fear that Prydania may be trapped in war. Concern that Prydania is exhausted… after years of continuous violence. I wanted Prydania to succeed… unencumbered by the burdens of war,” Thorbjörn started to sniffle. “I don’t want to see Prydanian mothers losing their sons… sisters losing their brothers… children losing their fathers… to something I thought could’ve been avoided… I hope you understand…”

Choice. Tobias nodded. Choice. Choices always seemed simple. And they were, but not as they appear. The choice at first was simple. Do you stand with our Andrennian brothers? Do you repay them for their sacrifices in Prydania during the War? Yes, that was a clear choice. It seemed so anyway.

Then time goes on and you think. Sometimes you think because the reports of dead soldiers keep coming. Other times because a refugee kid said something that made you think.

“I do Thorbjörn,” Tobias said softly. “I understand, and I…” he paused for a moment, searching for his words. “I wanted to thank you. Thank you for reminding me that I’ll always have my people. And reminding me of what I owe them. I owe them better than what either you or I had” he smiled slightly.

“And just as I will always have my people, I want you to know, Thorbjörn, that you can always count me as a friend.”

A… friend? Thorbjörn mused. The King of Prydania wants to be friends with him? Who is he to become the friend of the king? Thorbjörn smiled a bit, but not too much because his lips were still painful. “I… it would be an honour, Your Majesty,” Thorbjörn said. “I’ll be here if you need me.”

“Likewise” Tobias said with a smile. “I am going to have Brigitta send you a number. It’s mine. You can call me or text me at any time. I mean that.”

He thought for a moment. He didn’t want to pressure Thorbjörn into reading the news, but he wanted him to see something.

“I think your sisters are right. You shouldn’t stress over the news. Still, I would say you should make one exception. Search ‘Kiojaleit vigil’” Tobias suggested.

The phone call ended with Thorbjörn and Tobias each wishing each other well. Tobias set his phone down and loosed his tie, pulling it off as he tossed it aside before laying down on the couch he’d been sitting on.

He’d called Thorbjörn out of a genuine desire to see if he was alright. And Thorbjörn’s words echoed in his mind. The war in Dučrijeka. What he owed Prydania. Was it peace? Was that his first, and primary, responsibility? Before any treaty, before any mutual defence pact? Was it simply...peace? For his people, exhausted from war?

Tobias rubbed his temples and sat up. There was time to think on that later. Right now though, he counted himself lucky. Lucky that he’d made a good friend.

---

OOC Notes: Post co-written by @Prydania and @Kyle .

Býkonsviði- Tenna Nygaard expressed shock and outrage at revelations that sympathetic "news" outlet Prydania Today was financially supported by shell companies in Skanda that funded and armed the Syndicalist regime during the later years of the Civil War.

"The notion that I, in any way, supported the Syndicalist government is absurd" Nygaard insisted.
"My commitment to standing up for Prydanian values that were trampled by the Syndicalists is unblemished. I am as surprised as anyone to hear of Prydania Today's funding, but Heikir Mýrmann has always been a questionable fellow. You trust the wrong people sometimes."

Ms. Nygaard's assertions don't seem to have carried much weight, as Agrarian poll numbers remain weak, even in constituencies where they should be strong. Ms. Nygaard did not field questions but critics were prepared to rake her over the coals. Ms. Nygaard's now-infamous deleted Twitch included an assertion that she and the Prydania Today founder were "good friends," leaving many to question her sincerity in distancing herself from Mr. Mýrmann now.
Many Prydanians on Twitcher also pointed out the Syndicalist ties of Prydania Today, long seen as an unofficial mouthpiece for her. Someone even called her Madame Syndicalist.
The anger seems to have worsened her polling numbers. Potential Agrarian voters are traditionally the groups of people effected most directly by Syndicalist agricultural collectivization. Prydania Today's ties- and thus Nygaard's- to these Syndicalist-connected shell companies has dealt the most powerful blow to the Agrarian Party's support in a month of powerful blows.

The Ministry of Justice confirmed that they have no evidence of illegal activity on Ms. Nygaard's part. Still, the stench of the Syndicalist connection seems too pungent to wash off.

Who is Kurt Ventur Jr.?

The man at the heart of this conspiracy remains a mystery. He is reported to be a Prydanian by birth, though he is a Skandan citizen. He also seems to be a casino magnet who owns the Jewel of the Desert Casino in Skanda. Little is known about him other than he has been on the radar of a number of law enforcement and intelligence agencies the world over for ties to arms sales. One source reported to RÚV that Ventur is known as the "Merchant of Death" through southern Iteria.
Prydania continues to await word on whether the Democratic People's Republic of Skanda will move to extradite.

Peace not Blood: From Social Movement to Political Party

Rósalind Brúnsteð and Ísgeir Aðaldal announced Peace not Blood's entry into the realm of politics. Ms. Brúnsteð, the national coordinator of the group, introduced Mr. Aðaldal as the first Þingmanni of Peace not Blood. The thirty-one year old Þingmanni from Kiojaleit was the first Agrarian to break with Tenna Nygaard. He broke after Brynhildur Hraunberg, expressing support for Ms. Nygaard's rhetoric, stabbed Prydanian and Kiojaleit-born Santonian National Assembly Deputy Thorbjörn Höjsleth after he criticized Prydanian troop deployments to Dučrijeka.
Mr. Aðaldal has since been joined by fifteen additional defectors. He is the first to take up a new party. Mr. Aðaldal officially requested the Speaker's Office reclassify his affiliation from Independent to Peace Not Blood shortly after the press conference.

"If there is anything to be learnt" Mr. Aðaldal said, "it's about the dangers of violent rhetoric and the need to protect our young democracy from forces who would try to turn it on itself. I'm proud to stand with Peace not Blood, and hopefully we can be a voice for positive change in the world."

The announcement fundamentally alters the political arena. The Free Democrats and the People's Party both showed tacit support for Peace not Blood because they represented a rising tide of young people- especially in the rural parts of the country- that were rejecting Ms. Nygaard's rhetoric. This was enough for the Free Democrats to view them favourably, even though they remained critical of the government's decision to send soldiers to Dučrijeka.
Now though? Well Peace not Blood is now a competitor for votes. And their support base- young and politically motivated- could dig into the bases of both the Free Democratic and People's Parties.

Regardless, the political landscape of Prydania has changed forever.

A beam of sunlight from the red, early morning sun shone through partially closed blinds. The soft hum of an air conditioner accompanied the smell of tea. Click. The next slide came up on the large flatscreen. A tall man with sepia brown hair and a lower face covered by a five o’ clock shadow was standing in front of a concealed body camera. The video played and the conversation, in Skanda, followed…

"I'm a bit at a loss as to what you expect me to do," Sora Ichiku said, sounding beleaguered.

"The same thing as always. I need the port authorities to look the other way on those containers. What's the problem? Slip some Yira, he calls it construction equipment. Messiah's sake Sora this isn't rocket science."

"You don't understand Mr. Ventur. There's a new Zara Port Administration appointee. They have their own people now. It's not just party loyalists you can make happy. These are management sorts. Professional. They like to make sure they've got everything down right!"

"Well what needs to happen then?"

"Well I would advise you to halt shipments Mr. Ventur."

Kurt grew frustrated, snapping.
"That's not happening. Get me someone suitably high up on the food chain so I can get this bride over with! Bloody hell."

"Of course Mr. Ventur. I'll contact my people in the Administration. We can have something worked out."

"Excellent."

The video ended and the room lit up with the bright white ceiling lights.

“Ladies and gentlemen, we have an opportunity of a lifetime today. This video? This is a video of Kurt Ventur Jr. attempting to bribe our man on the inside. This is one of many pieces of evidence we have against him. I know our intelligence division has been cooperating with the KSK on this since 2017 and I can’t thank both of them enough for their surveillance. Without them what we’re going to do tonight would be impossible. Ladies and gentlemen, we will be raiding the Jewel of the Desert. That’s Ventur’s casino.” Spoke a man’s voice, as smooth as silk and as deep as rumbling thunder. Haru Kiromashi was the General Commissioner of Skanda’s National Police Agency. He ran a hand through his graying black hair. There was a look of disbelief upon the various meeting attendees faces.

“That’s the reason we’re doing this meeting so early in the morning. All of this is happening today. I know, it’s a bit of a rush and we’ll need to brief the Special Investigation Team before noon even hits, but the Commissar needs Ventur arrested by tomorrow morning. Beaconsfield is putting pressure on Saitō to extradite him but… Skanda has other plans. Those plans can’t be delayed any further. Even if we agreed to extradite him, we don’t actually have him in custody yet anyways.” He sighed, sipping from his “#1 GENERAL COMMISSIONER” mug. It was full of… not tea, actually, but rather orange juice. Haru’s doctor said he needed to lay off caffeine.

“So-” One of the three attendees Lian Yesunege, the Chief of Zara’s prefectural police department, spoke up. “-you flew us out to Kuhena at six in the morning to tell us something you easily could’ve told us over video chat or phone call? I don’t know how you guys do things in Skanda Proper but in the TAR we consider that a dick move.” He scoffed, a scowl growing on his face.

“I can’t show you my model over video chat. Besides. We’re not using Zara’s Special Investigation Team. We’re using Kuhena’s. We know that Ventur has been guilty of bribing officials, who knows if he got to one of your men too?”

“Of course he built a model... he always builds a fucking model…” Grumbled the leader of Kuhena’s aforementioned Special Investigation Team, Kawata Aya. She wasn’t happy being woken up so early on a weekend. She gets two days of the week off and now she had to spend part of one of those days in this meeting. Haru and his damn models…

---

The bright city lights shone in the otherwise pitch black night over Zara. The white and pastel highrises of the City of Bliss, built in the old regime of Yoshi’hiwe, stood out amongst the dark grey streets. It was a stark contrast from the neon-bathed, modern coastal cities of Skanda proper. The Jewel of the Desert stood above most other buildings in Zara. It gave a great view from it’s top office. It was covered in windows and its unique shape made it a landmark of the city. That didn’t change the fact it was harboring a criminal, of course.

The Special Investigation Team, flown out from Kuhena, was here to deal with Kurt Ventur Jr. They had spoken with the Tsaizargan Electricity Company prior to this and they would send a man into the building’s basement to shut off the main power to the building. They’d shut off the power and then, in synchronization, bust in through multiple points to overwhelm any guards he might have.

“Get those night vision goggles on. I’m signalling to cut the power in 30 seconds.” Aya spoke through the radio, her voice popping into the ears of the various other SIT officer’s comms.

She looked to her watch. 2:29:30 AM. 30 second timer set. The helicopter was hovering above the building. They got their lines ready and the watch beeped.

“Cut it.”

Deep in the basement of the building, a Maru electrical worker heard the officer’s voice over his own radio. The circuit breaker was flipped and the Jewel of the Desert went completely dark.

Officers on the ground, all geared up, night vision goggles lowered, and having been sitting in two unmarked white vans (six officers per van) piled out from them and stormed into the lobby, shouting in Skandan as they did. The casino had closed 30 minutes ago and there was no chance of civilian casualties but it never hurt to be sure as they secured the main floor.

“This is the Police! Get on the ground, we’re only here for Kurt Ventur Jr.!”

Meanwhile above the casino, in sync with the officers on the ground, the other SIT team rappelled down from the helicopters. When they got to the large window that made up one of the walls of Ventur’s office, they swung upwards and smashed the window in, barreling into the office with weapons trained on any confused guards in the darkness.

“Police, drop your weapons and put your hands up!”

Ventur threw his hands into the air, causing papers on his desk to go flying as he did. There was no point in resisting arrest or trying to run, six officers had just rappelled into his office and he was certain they had more on the ground. They read him his rights and charges, threw him in cuffs, and that was that.

Within a few minutes flat they had breached Jewel of the Desert, dispatched or incapacitated any guards that were attempting to use force, and arrested their target. Ventur was brought out into one of the white vans and had the lovely experience of sharing the back of a van with four armed SIT officers while in handcuffs. The vans peeled out, the lights flashed back on, and you could hardly tell they’d been there if you didn’t look inside. Various officials related to Ventur’s bribery charges were arrested throughout the rest of the night. All in a day’s work.

---

Býkonsviði- Rósalind Brúnsteð and Trym Varvik started Peace not Blood less than a year ago. The Messianic League uprising had panicked a nation that feared a return to civil war. That uprising was, thankfully, put down relatively peacefully. And yet it inspired Rósalind and Tyrm to start something. A movement. Rósalind is twenty-two and Tyrm is twenty-five. They grew up and came of age during the Prydanian Civil War and knew first hand the horrors that armed conflict brings. Which is why they created Peace not Blood after the Messianic League uprising had been snuffed out. They were tired of war, and eager for Prydania to not slip back into it.

The organization grew out of Keris, and began to volunteer in the Kanadian March region to help with any damage caused by the Messianic League. And they had a message- strive for peace above all else. The movement was not unknown. They made national headlines by disrupting small pro-Social Commonwealth gatherings outside the former home of Stefan Toft. And they issued a statement of solidarity with Thorbjörn Höjsleth when he stood before the Santonian National Assembly to condemn Prydanian troop deployments to Ducrijeka and to ensure no Santonian aid money was funding the conflict.

The stabbing of Mr. Höjsleth by a Prydanian immigrant in Saintonge set off a series of events that seemed unthinkable even a month ago. Tenna Nygaard- then the leader of the Official Opposition- had criticized Mr. Höjsleth's position, going so far as to question his stated love for his birth nation. Many of her younger Þingmenn, including the one who represents Mr. Höjsleth's home town, jumped ship. And the Prydania Today investigation still clings to her and those who have remained loyal.

Peace not Blood, however, rallied to the assaulted Thorbjörn Höjsleth. They organized a peaceful vigil in his home town of Kiojaleit. And the staged a peaceful march in Býkonsviði to demand Prydanian troops be withdrawn from Ducrijeka. And here we are now. Prydanian troops are withdrawing from the Andrennian lines in Ducrijeka on the King's order. And Peace not Blood counts sixteen Þingmenn. It began with Kiojaleit's Ísgeir Aðaldal, the first Nygaard defector. And now the fifteen others have joined him. Tenna Nygaard once led a unified Bandalag opposition that was only two short of Magnus Brandt's Free Democratic government. Now she sits with twenty-three Agrarians. Less than ten more of a bloc that is, in part, of her own making.
The new Peace not Blood caucus elected Bersi Langseth of Axlarhagi-Landerne River as their leader. That Mr. Langseth's constituency borders Ms. Nygaard's can't be a coincidence.

"We stand for peace. It's simple. We want a Prydania that is no longer drawn into war. The cycle does not stop unless we collectively decides it should" Mr. Langseth said after his election.

Prydania's next election- be it in 2023 or earlier- will be an interesting one to watch.

---

Býkonsviði, Prydania

"The Skandans won't give him up?" Rylond asked as he leaned back in his lawn chair. Two lawn chairs were perched on a part of Absalonhöll's roof.

"No" Tobias replied, leaning back in the other. The sunset over Býkonsviði was truly beautiful. And for once Tobias couldn't criticize Rylond's decision to wear dark sunglasses. He'd followed suit.
"They did say they'd put Ventur on trial in an Iterian League court though. We're sending a representative."

"I'm kind of surprised they even replied" Relyond mused.

"Eh" Tobias answered, sipping a Gull beer.
"They're not so bad. We trade a fair bit with them actually. We each get some of what the other produces. It's a good arrangement. And they've been rather amicable since we agreed to let Cogoria come into the Bergum Pact."

"Look at you" Relyond said, turning to his friend.
"Toby from three years ago wouldn't have even wanted to talk to a socialist country."

Tobias smiled slightly. Queen Mélisende...he owed her a lot actually.
"I guess I just...let go of a lot of that."

"I'm glad" Rylond replied. He'd been through a lot during the Civil War, but he couldn't deny that Tobias' experiences were...harsher than anything he had seen.
He smiled softly seeing his friend- much less his King- finally getting over a lot of that.
"Well anyway, ralt!"

"Ralt!" Tobias replied, smashing his beer can into Rylond's before they both drank.

"But I need to get going. Alycia won't let me chill out here forever" Tobias chuckled, stretching as he stood up.
"You coming in?"

"Nah. I'll watch the full sunset."

"Here, finish this off" Tobias replied, handing Rylond his half full beer can.
"The Knights will arrange for a car to take you home. I have a pregnant wife to get to though" the King said as he made his way to the door that led back inside.

"Vertu frost!" Rylond called out.

"Þú líka!" Tobias replied. He glanced once more at the setting sun before taking off his aviators. God this country could be a beautiful place, if her people wanted it to be.


Endirinn

OOC:

So concludes If You Love these People. The various happenings related to it will go on in their own threads of course, but this story has come to a close. First and foremost I want to thank @Kyle. He and I throwing ideas back and forth over Discord, including a joke, is what spawned this. He's been amazing to write with, work with, and worldbuild with. Hell, he started this, if you go by the four "prologue" posts that I linked in the first post. Once again Kyle, thank you. It's been an honour and a privilege

Another big thanks to @Andrenne and @Xentherida. Their Ducrijeka War thread led to this whole story. Between Andy and Xen, and Kyle and myself? It's been an amazing example of what collaborative RP can do as people work off of each other's stuff and create new stories that lead to other stories. And a huge thanks to Andrenne as well, for his part in the Skandan apprehension of Kurt Ventur Jr.

Finally, thank you to all who read. This was a great thread to write, a great thread to get into. I think I can speak for Kyle when I say we're both glad you all enjoyed reading our work.