Tales from the Triverse

Bombings: part 1

London.
1973. November.

The river's surface appeared unusually still, ship traffic being light and the wind having died down overnight. London went about its business, airships overhead, factories along the Thames pumping fumes into the sky, bridges full of rickshaws and buses and pedestrians. A blanket of grey held above the city, the sun not able to penetrate through, and the Joint Council tower fading into cloud.

Small fishing boats, trawlers, water taxis and ferries moved up and down the river, making way for the occasional larger vessel arrived from the coast. The London of Mid-Earth was still a thriving cargo port, not least due to the convenience of having two portals in such close proximity.

One such a ship, a cargo vessel loaded with containers, made its way slowly from east to west, its faded blue hull entirely nondescript and unremarkable. Its contents would also be of no consequence, save for one specific shipment, nestled unobtrusively in among the rest. A container like any other, but with most unusual contents brought all the way from the mid-Atlantic, across to Portugal and then up to the British isles.

The cargo ship drew itself closer to the docks.

Koth Embassy.
Joint Council tower.

The embassies housed within the Joint Council tower were unusual in that they inevitably represented entire universes rather than a specific country. The grand city states of Palinor were all there, of course, of varying factions and ethnicities. The aen'fa had a complicated arrangement, split politically and culturally by those who lived happily in the cities of their home world and those who chose to live in the forests. The latter had long declared themselves independent aen'fa and even had their own embassy - a show of political power on Mid-Earth that far outweighed their influence back home.

As on Palinor, the koth kept to themselves and presented themselves as being of one mind. The embassy was relatively small, being on only a single floor of the tower. There were half a dozen koth with the rest of the staff made up largely by local, London humans. The tower was neutral ground for all concerned, and finding a koth to talk to about political matters was easier in London than it was anywhere on Palinor. In that regard, London lived up to its reputation as being the hub of the triverse.

Ambassador Vahko had been assigned to Mid-Earth for over a decade, largely because nobody else had wanted the job. Once they'd arrived Vahko had discovered that the Mid-Earthers were most interesting, and far more complex than expected. Throw in the embassies representing Max-Earth's various planets and there was enough in the Joint Council tower alone to keep anyone enthralled for decades. And so, Vahko had stayed. The drawback being that prolonged exposure to Mid-Earth had also resulted in them being regarded as something of an oddity, almost thought of as being as strange as the cave-dwelling koth back home., There was suspicion that they had become too Earthen.

It wasn't an accusation that Vahko had yet tested. Their suspicion was that returning to Palinor, to the koth settlements in the mountains of Appilan where they'd been born, would ultimately prove difficult. If they were destined for exile, though, then being banished to the two other dimensions of the triverse was hardly a punishment. And in the meantime they would do their job as koth ambassador.

The morning had been quiet an uneventful. Paperwork, meetings with Palinese reps from downstairs and Max-Earth diplomats from upstairs, telephone calls to Kingdom politicians in Westminster, a frustrating conversation with a journalist about the rise in violent attacks on koth - which the journalist somehow reframed as being the fault of koth - and it was still barely 11am. Vahko sipped at a coffee, stretched out their wings and sighed contentedly.