Concert of Second Europa pt. 1

	Walking through the streets in a picturesque viliage, a young man looked over at his charge. She was tall, fair, her rose hair flapping in the cold December wind

	"Princess. Calm down." he said, smiling slightly. "We haven't agreed to anything yet, and my compatriots with the Austrians have been very understanding about the whole thing."

	"Still!" she said, hair bobbing as she walked. He'd have to talk to her about that ornament, though. "It's just... I had always hoped to find a man on my own, alright?"

	Her friend and adviser chuckled slightly. "Where, on Drummand?"

	"Maybe." she said, pouting. "It's not like I don't live there, now do I?"

	Her friend kept laughing quietly, obvious to the puddle of royal confusion next to him. "I was actually considering cedeing Isle Royal to you as a base in Superior in case the French decided to press the claim over the Soo. If the wedding goes through, that is."

	"Right, right." the Princess said, distracted. "So, the plan for today was..."

	"Dinner at the Zehnder's Hotel, and then a few days here for yourself and the Hapsburg to get acquainted. If all goes well, I get a nice vacation down here where it's warm, and you get to play blushing bride. The only question that's left is if we use the Detroit Cathedral, or the St. Mary Proto-Cathedral back home."

	"Tabac!"

	"What?"

	"You can't just- my wedding- ahhhh!"

	"Yes, Princess."

---

	Not two dozen yards away, an eerily similar conversation was happening.

	"I was a teacher, not some political pawn!" a young man groaned into his mittens, white breath floating through the air. "Why did this happen?"

	"Well, my first guess is that your mother nearly, and I do mean nearly got stuck into a matrelinial marriage to your father." a grumpy older woman said, poking his leg with her cane. "Then there was the bit where you all moved out into the sticks. Kalamazoo, of all places? What were you- Dutch?"

	"Mother always hated the Rezenschloss..." the man said, rubbing his leg.

	"Quite. Well, we've an appointment to be keeping, and you're not going to be wasting the gas of the poor folks who're holding the reservation at Zehnder's."

---

	Walking into the parlour at Zehnder's, Graf von Marquette sighed quietly, holding his hat in his hand and just looking over his charge. The Prinzsessin Sarachtoge had always been an indipendant soul, even when constrained by bounds of steel and iron. Now, as a person, she was even worse about it. He'd been her friend and confident for years, ever since her "birth" from the steel at his humble base and estates on Drummand after the War. He'd known that chaining her to a political marriage would never work, no matter what the Kaiser wanted. Still, the Old Man knew his weaknesses, and the opportunity to unite the Austrio-Hungarians to the Deustche Reich would solidify their position as masters over the Lakes and give them a strong position against the English and French if they decided to cook up any mischief.

	Mind, getting the whole affair past Chancellor Bismarck had been difficult to say the least, and why there were conditionals on Sarachtoge entering into it with eyes wide open and a smile on her lips. That crusty old battleship was almost as good at the Great Game as the French, and she was even more ruthless to boot.

	Stopping, Graf von Marquette looked back to Sarachtoge, where she had stopped dead.

	"Tabac... who is that?" she asked, eyes set on a young man accompanied by a grumpy old battleship. Squinting, Graf von Marquette saw the hint of a pair of latice masts over her shoulders, and a forest of three-inch guns.

	"I believe that would be the good ship Michigan of the kaiserlich und königlich Kriegsmarine, Sarachtoge. She was present at your christening, remember?"

	Swatting his arm, Sarachtoge pointed at the man next to the Venerable Dreadnought. "No, you goof! The one next to her!"

	Graf von Marquette shrugged, looking him over. "If my notes were correct and the lithographer took a good shot, then I believe that is Jan Daniels von Hapsburg, alias your prospective groom."

	For a moment, the princess locked eyes with the perspective prince of the southernmost German-speaking state, then she nodded. "Tabac, just between you and me, I think this might be the start of something beautiful."

***