So it is done

Promises and Decisions

"We've arrived, sir." The voice coming from the speaker made Ghira nod involuntarily, an unnecessary act considering the fact that the speaker couldn't see him.

He had barely gotten comfortable in his room, before it had ended, not that he could get too comfortable, though. His own quarters were more luxurious than Ghira himself would have preferred – Ghira didn't understand the point of allocating him a full quarters on the airship at all...

However, politics required him to maintain a certain degree of gravitas. It wouldn't do, after all, to have the leader of Menagerie look poor.

Menagerie's first and so far only airship, built with Glenn's support – and in no small part thanks to renegade scientists, technicians, and engineers from Mantle and Atlas – it was quite the vehicle. It had to represent a figure of power for Menagerie, the White Fang, the Faunus Kingdom – it had to be a powerful message that the Faunus were not to be underestimated.

Something that it accomplished with aplomb.

An air fleet, strictly speaking, was not a unique Atlas invention – all the Kingdoms, even Menagerie in their poorest days, possessed some semblance of an air force. Mostly transport ships, with a smattering of privately owned small craft designed to perform a multitude of functions. They were used from transporting cargo to evacuations – and maybe even for basic reconnaissance and covering cities from the Grimm, who remained a threat to any living thing, regardless of species or political affiliation.

However, a full-fledged mighty military fleet remained the prerogative of Atlas – insane costs, difficulty in building and maintaining, high demands on more than specific personnel with high levels of knowledge and skill kept it so. The other nations simply did not have the resources to maintain even a semblance of Atlas' air fleet.

Not to say that no one had tried to do so in the past.

However, the cost/benefit ratio of such a solution eventually forced the other states to abandon their original grand plans, and the air fleet has remained a unique 'calling card' of Atlas. A kind of confirmation of the truth of the already well-known fact – Atlas' army is second to none.

Still, it doesn't mean that it's impossible.

It took years, but the first airships rose into the air, bearing not the white snowflake branding or the Atlas Kingdom crest, but a white tower framed with nine circles, the symbol of the Glenn Kingdom. Or a white skull on a blue background framed with a white circle – the emblem of the White Fang... Or, one could say, the crest of the Menagerie Kingdom.

The only reason Menagerie – or even, to put it frankly, Glenn managed to get their first airships up in the air was the brain drain of professionals from the rapidly deteriorating state of Atlas and Mantle. And what better place for fleeing dissidents than the two states – Atlas' main ideological and political enemy, Menagerie, and the main patron of unfortunate people of Mantle, Glenn?

Oh yes, the fact that Glenn was supporting the protesters – even the rebels, perhaps – in Mantle was practically an open secret for anyone who had access to information. It wouldn't be another few months before that information became known to anyone. The refugees were definitely not silent in what they had done. Oh yes, the people who escaped were grateful – and having an airship, proudly bearing the White Fang crest – the 'Wise Ka, was just one form of this gratitude.

After decades of undivided Atlas rule in the air, their greatest political and ideological adversary, appearing in an airship in the Atlas capital itself, arriving at the request of the Atlas government itself, was a statement.

A very crude and flamboyant statement.

And while Ghira himself absolutely did not want to escalate the situation – one that is already quite complicated even now, no doubt – that had been created between Atlas and Menagerie, he couldn't help but admit... Some boyish part of him was glad that he could flaunt his expensive new toy in front of Atlas.