Side Stepped

[Mogar]

Kazuko slept upon the flight, the Mitsubishi SonicStar taking three hours to reach Uriankhai after leaving Hesse., it was a far cry from Tokyo, but East Asia was another world compared to most people's reality. She had sent a message ahead arranging the proper time, she was not sure what she expected in this wild land, but it was certain to be a new experience.

[Lestari]

Khün Kuzevin was not, as it were, a diplomat.

 

Sure-- she'd learned the strange and subtle art of manipulating people into seeing her side of things (sometimes without even threatening them with bodily harm and violence!), and had come into something of a talent for whipping a crowd into a frenzy from behind the metaphorical podium. But the niceties of diplomacy... that sort of thing still evaded her, which was probably why she'd yet to get the memo that apparently the head of state wasn't actually supposed to be the one doing the driving.

 

Nevertheless, there she was, alone by her car on the runway of the Kyzyl International Airport-- a humble little facility if ever there'd been one, and clearly a port that received little traffic most of the time. She watched as the plane bearing the Japanese empress, Hoshiko, taxied along down the runway, trundling across concrete and bits of fragmented paving before at last grounding down to a halt before Khün. And she watched as the staircase descended from the port of the airplane, permitting the Japanese head of state to join Khün down on earth.

 

It was to be her first diplomatic engagement with a foreign leader-- but she wasn't anxious. Or at least, if she was, she was not one to let that anxiety have free reign. Leading a revolution tended to beat that sort of thing out of you rather quickly.

 

That being said... yes, she was new to this, and no, she wasn't sure what you were supposed to open with during a diplomatic visit from a foreign head of state-- she didn't even terribly like foreigners, frankly, but she supposed this sort of thing was going to be necessary if she was to remain the leader of a sovereign nation. And so, as Hoshiko descended from the plane, Khün stepped forward, raised a hand in greeting, and, with all the formality the greeting merited in the hard rasp of her voice, grunted, "Hey."

[Mogar]

Kazuko looked around, the place was a mess but she had not expected much, the place was rumored to be a nation of modern day huns.  "What's up? Good to see someone else who prefers to just relax and not do all the fancy bullshit. I assume we don't need to do the tacky pleasantries and we can just go grab something to eat? I'm starving. I figure we can talk about getting along and whatnot over some food. You seem pretty null so I'll fully admit I am far more hungover than I had planned to be, Hessians certainly know how to have a good time." There was much to discuss, the fate of a few million people in Amur would be settled by these two after all.

[Lestari]

"The Hessians don't know shit about a good time," Khün drawled. "I think I know a thing or two about how to get over a hangover." She cracked open the passenger door, and left it open for Hoshiko as she walked around the other side to fit her bulk into the driver's seat.

 

The car hurtled along-- at first down one of the many arteries of rural roadwork that sprawled throughout the backwater of Tuva like veins though a human's respiratory system, though it wasn't long before the car departed the beaten path and began trundling along the brazen terrain of the steppe. It was a half an hour of largely uneventful driving, before at last two objects began to emerge on the horizon-- at first small, shapeless masses, gradually coalescing into immense, grey warehouses, like industrial blisters against the skin of the steppe. Khün brought the car to a gradual stop before the two warehouses, and then killed the ignition, stepping out and nodding to Hoshiko to do the same.

 

"As you are Japanese..." she began slowly, strolling on up to the two warehouses and snapping her fingers; with the grinding and whirring of gears, the gates into both the warehouses pulled upwards and open.

"I imagine you're not unfamiliar with what these are," she finished, gesturing to the two mobile suits nestled within the warehouses.

[Mogar]

She smirked, running her hand across the smooth metal of the 18 meter machine, looking almost exactly like a Tikalian Gouf Model "I had just been to the Northern Province to see the latest version of our own mobile suit, I have a vested interest in technology that lowers our own casualties and maximizes our opponents. Perhaps we will have to arrange for some war games to improve upon both of our respective designs. I assume you brought me here to partake in a little fun? I think you and I will be getting along quite well." she said, ascending the scaffolding staircase that led to the cockpit of the gunmetal machine. "You'll have to come to visit sometime with one of these, we can provide for an aircraft able to carry one if you desire, I can't promise I will be entirely comfortable with your system but I am certain I can manage." she shouted over at Khün, fumbling into the seat and beginning the start up sequence.

[Lestari]

Khün proceeded up the scaffold that led to the cockpit of her own machine-- a mobile suit of comparable height and bulk to the other, though painted in rather distinct colours. The immense metal hatch lay gaping open, waiting for its pilot, specially fitted to accommodate her bulk; she lowered herself into it, and relaxed into the familiar embrace of the pilot's seat. It was not long before she felt the suit grumble to life, not unlike some great beast stirring from a previously tranquil slumber, and heard the thrum of its powerplant as it activated. It was a satisfying sound-- she allowed a vague hint of a smile to tug at the one corner of her lips that was not paralysed by the arteries of scarring across her face, and pressed forward on the controls.

 

The mobile suit lurched out of the warehouses, step by step into the freedom of the steppe, and then launched into the air.

 

"Well then," Khün intoned, her voice emerging on the other end in Hoshiko's cockpit through the comm system as, up in the air, her suit reached a hand to its skirt armour to withdraw a single hilted beam sabre in a single fluidly deadly motion. "What is the nature of your diplomatic business here, Empress Hoshiko of Japan?"