The NATO Conference

[Victor Steiner]

Planet Cambridge always looked better in Autumn, Edmund thought looking out across the hinterlands. Dark, foreboding and yet beautiful in it's own right. Strong winds caused dead leaves to spring to life once more and dance across the fields into the woods further beyond, like forest fairies running away from modernity. Dead trees standing like guardian statues, waiting for the spring to arrive many months away. He liked this part of Cambridge, but rarely was he allowed to visit. The Amber Palace, as it was so named, was little more than an extension of the Queens Winter Palace, but he did not know if she came here very often. Not many enjoyed the sight of frozen forests and distant mountains shrouded in clouds, but he did. He felt that it somehow reiterated how Bretonia felt, a house that was now a shadow of it's former self. Still, it was not in the nature of Bretonia to remain broken. Like the trees that lay beyond the fields, Bretonia would awake once more, come the spring.

His brother arrived now, his shuttle settling on the landing pads, it had been too long since they had been together and spoke as one. Victor was alone, as usual, and Edmund watched as his youngest brother trudged through the piles of dead leaves before reaching the front door, not bothering to look up and see his brother staring back at him. The others, he guessed would be along soon. Edmund had put this meeting off for too long, the music of the next age was calling, and try as he might, he knew he had to face it. Some comfort was taken however, in the knowledge that he would not have to face it alone, and he heard his brother coming up the stairs.

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