They told the historians later that the Netherward Realms annexed Aronafields the way respectable empires annex things: with polite letters, well-placed coin, a couple of diplomatically inconvenient cannon shots, and a treaty whose footnote read, in polite Latin, "with conditions." The historians are always tidy about these things; they like the bathwater to sparkle and the corpse to be properly labeled. I write with the sort of dirt on my paws that historians politely edit out. We did it the way anyone who owns a zeppelin fleet, a bank that hums when you poke it, and a surprising aptitude for soft smiles does: we turned up with stove-polished manners, a list of patents, and a squad of men whose boots had more declarations than their mouths. Folkvangr received our compliments and our emissaries and then our engineers—those blessed investigators who measure ley-lines with the sort of professional arrogance that comes standard issue with a title. Sessu—Sessrumnir, their castle—had priests who could pray like priests and cajole devotion like broth; they did not expect a treaty that read like a marriage contract for a country, with an appended interest rate. The Council of Priests signed their names in calligraphy and in faith and with a hand that trembled a little less than their vows. We learned the flexible gospel of religious councils: they could be flattered, monetized, and otherwise distracted long enough for a bank transfer to clear. That is how you fold a city into a realm without burning the cookbook—politely, with the right incense, and with a ledger entry that later works as a polite sort of apology.
Aronafields, when you look at it like someone cataloguing curiosities, reads like a museum curated by a very tired, very creative archivist who also likes practical jokes. There is the Ice Cave, where an ice lizard called Palraijuq sulks like a promissory note that forgot its purpose; Caraianna went out there with a clinical vengeance and a thermos of very focused frost and turned the beast into a pet that snores like a chapel bell. Tingting Pating the Megalodon and Squiddy McKraken the Kraken now have bureaucratic titles on hospital forms—Marine Adjunct, Patient No. 7—because in our world every creature deserves at least one job title and one dental plan. Odr Canyon smells of nostalgia and old war songs; it is the kind of place that hands you a memory in a paper bag and expects you to keep it under glass. The Audumbla Grasslands have a giant cow that grazes like a god who misplaced her sense of timing; the Plain of Ida is vast and deceptively quiet, the kind of open the cavalry likes and the poets fear. Portious Luna exists to be the setting for someone's childhood anecdote; the Shores of Tears, which local poets insist are literal and not metaphorical, collect enough saltwater to season a dozen tragedies. Minesville digs for problems that smell like promise and lead to very awkward board meetings. Freyja Volcano—home to Ifrit and his molten temperament—was a geothermal asset until Nikkibella took a personal dislike to magma and froze it into an artisanal chaise lounge; Ifrit spent the following fortnight reconsidering his life choices and sending very awkward fruit baskets.
Then you get to the neat little pockets of geography that read like a catalogue of very bad ideas and excellent story hooks. Niflheim is a town of wraiths that have taken municipal duties seriously; you file a complaint at the curator's office and a specter gives you a receipt written in fog. Skellington is town planning for osteologists; their civic dances are a choreography of bones that makes the Imperial choreographer weep with envy and dread. Tartarus hosts the ghouls who enjoy an identity crisis as much as they enjoy scavenging; Mhelfrancovince made them an offer more agreeable than starvation and they signed in sallow ink. Thus was born the Hellheim Horde: a patchwork of wraiths, skeletons, and disgruntled necrotic inhabitants who now parade under a banner that reads, in small print, "Great benefits, flexible haunting schedule." The Valley of Gjoll simply listens to things and echoes them back with interest; valleys are excellent at gossip and terrible at discretion.
We integrated Folkvangr and its Holy Triumvirate like anyone trying to graft a new branch onto an old tree: with care, gloves, and a plan for the inevitable gnarl. The priests of Sessrumnir were amiable to the idea of having their goddess acknowledged beyond their own stone and rune if, and only if, the arrangement included a promised restoration of shrines and a weekly stipend for incense. The Holy Triumvirate—our syncretic fusion of Jesus, Buddha, and Krishna—was not at first keen to be told how to operate in a Norse-style temple where the deity on hand liked domesticated cats and the occasional warbird. That negotiation required someone with charm and a taste for the theatrical, which is to say it required Nikkibella. She arrived wearing diplomacy like an embroidered shrug and a smile honed on years of trading favors for stability. She proposed an arrangement in which the Triumvirate's priests were afforded a place at the council, Sessrumnir's rituals were given official recognition for the purposes of civic cohesion, and a modest endowment from the Netherward Royal Bank would be designated for upkeep in exchange for the priests' blessing of an arc-node calibration. This is how religion is often integrated: with ritual, with money, and with a clause buried three articles down that allows for a yearly audit. The priests accepted, delighted by the incense budget and the prestige; the city celebrated. We can always tell how tidy an empire's annexation is by how many parties were held and how few bodies were left in entryways.
There was, however, an evening—let us not embroider this like a hymn—when the candles guttered and the priests looked up at their new alliance with a goddess they were not sure wanted a bank account. Mhelfrancovince asked not whether Freyja would become an ally but whether, if she existed in this world and took umbrage, she might declare a holy war against us. He asked not in the panic of the startled politician but in the sort of dry curiosity that sounds like a man discussing weather with an acquaintance who happens to be able to summon storms. Nikkibella laughed in that slow way that is the diplomatic equivalent of filing a complaint and then immediately forgetting to sign it. "If Freyja wants to declare war," she said, hands folded over a cup of something scandalously good and caffeinated, "she will require a valid grievance and a properly notarized complaint. We will provide tea and forms. War loves paperwork; paperwork loves signatures." Mhelfrancovince considered this for a long beat, and I, who have sat on laps that have saved cities and slept on pillows that once belonged to disgraced ministers, decided to insert myself into the negotiation by rubbing my face against his knee because politeness requires that someone demonstrate vulnerability.
"Humans make claims and gods make counters," Mhelfrancovince observed, as if this were the least surprising thing in the world. He looked slightly tired in that lovely way of people who have a mortgage on the fate of a metropolis and an unhelpful sense of mercy. He shrugged as if shrugging were a truce. "If Freyja wants to send a Valkyrie with a complaint, let her. We have an Imperial Roster and an appeals process. Besides,"—and here he looked at me with a kind of conspiratorial exasperation—"I cannot say I would mind a duel that involves more poetry and less paperwork."
Nikkibella adjusted her gloves, the ones that have survived treaty tables and one unfortunate incident involving a tank and a misread map. "You underestimate the value of paperwork," she said, smiling in a way that suggested she had once sold a smile to someone who could not pay in cash but paid in lands instead. "Paperwork keeps people busy and quiet. Besides, if Freyja does throw a hissy fit, we will invite her to a gala. Gods are notoriously bad with schedules but excellent at accepting public honors." She added, sotto voce, "And if she eats the hors d'oeuvres, we call that cultural exchange."
I, who had been preening, decided this was a moment to contribute. I hopped onto the council table, knocked over a glass that had the sort of liquid likely to stain a treaty, and batted a pen across the scrolls. "Listen to me," I would have said in human if I had the gall. "If Freyja shows up and is incandescent and veddy goddess-like, offer her a shawl and a seat by the radiator. If she wants revenge, she will want witnesses and a narrative. Fill the narrative with people who like the Emperor and cheap wine." They laughed, the kind of laugh that is mostly relief and partly the recognition that a cat has more sense than most committees.
Mhelfrancovince did not, in the end, object to the Triumvirate's integration; he objected only to the idea that any deity get to be more present in governance than a Duke who had been subject to a particularly poor education. He looked at the priests and said, in a tone that suggested both pity and admiration, "We will share a calendar and share responsibility. But know this: our wards will keep your shrines from decay, and in return, you will keep the city from thinking it is sacred. The world is indifferent; we are not allowed that luxury." The priest nodded with the air of someone who had made many bargains and who understood that gods are long-suffering but enjoy a holiday as much as the next immortal.
Later, when I curled in the warm lee of a table like a proper cat and watched the candles tremble, I thought about how integration is a polite kind of violence. You invite people into your great hall and then decide that your rugs are more comfortable. We did not conquer with spears and anthems alone; we conquered with contracts, with the quiet boring work of appointment and audit, and with the small comforts of immunity. We circulated incense and coin and then locked the door and called it a covenant. That is the thing about empires: they ask you to live with them and then invoice you for the pleasure. If Freyja did take offense, she could have had our heads on a pike by morning. Instead, she got a satin cushion and three prayers a fortnight. That is diplomacy for you—harsh, oddly tender, and with a good catering service.
So the Realm of Aronafields folded into the Netherward Realms, not because it lacked identity but because we had more patience for paperwork and a very effective marketing campaign. We sent engineers and priests and cannons in balanced measures, and we left emissaries who knew the price of silence. We brought the things empires bring—laws, banks, and pets with dangerous appetites—and we received in return a cow that would prefer to be left alone, a wraith who knows the municipal code better than most clerks, and a goddess who prefers knits to conflict. It is a fine exchange as exchanges go: inconvenient, messy, and exactly the sort of story historians will tidy into a neat paragraph for university syllabi. I keep my version scribbled in the margins, in my fur and in the journal I will not lend to anyone who cannot make a good cup of tea. If you want the truth, ask a cat. We do not care for titles, but we keep receipts.
Who is the one tasked with preserving all the Empire's interests when diplomacy veers toward slapstick or war? My technical parents, in short: the people who made me by threading their Manas—yes, dark magic and a lot of paperwork—into a cat embryo in a test tube and then taught the resulting creature how to take notes and vanish. They are Grand Duke Mhelfrancovince Netherward, second in line to the throne and Minister of Imperial Defense and Security, and his wife, Grand Duchess Nikkibella Korallensburg Netherward, the Under Minister for Military Administration—a couple who own the sort of combined auFreyjaity that makes maps and ethics committees tremble in equal measure. When diplomacy goes south, these two do not call for parliaments and petitions; they file a field report and then politely rearrange the geography. The Imperial Armed Force of the Netherward Realms is organized not as bureaucratic branches but as a network of combined-arms teams under immediate supervisors, consolidated and muscled into being by the Ministry of Imperial Defense. Active soldiers number approximately 1,651,855 and counting—a sum that is both a comfort and an accounting error waiting to happen.
Under their direct command are units with names that read like a darkly whimsical war game and a tax accountant's fever dream. Beta-01 "Central Corps," sovereign to my makers and administered by Lieutenant General Princess Alekrizna Netherward, runs administration, engineering, research, logistics—Stargate Battalion included—and medical divisions with platoons that sound like bad omens until you realize they are very good at fixing things that explode. Section 13, Asclepius Medical Battalion, and Paranormal Research and Defense all sit under this banner; they are the tidy toolbox of emergency solutions and slightly illegal necromantic experiments that somebody with a doctorate signs off on and then regrets over tea. Beta-02 "Apis Mellifera" is Deity-meets-Entomology: humanoid bees, genetically engineered, comprising 30,000 Workers and 50,000 Drones under Duke Edgarius von Korallensburg—an insect army with a union and better dental care than some provinces; they are useful for pollination, swift assaults, and being worshiped by horticulturalists. Beta-03 "Wild Hunt" is an elite task force of mixed races—Elven, Dwarven, Faefolk, Merfolk, Demons, Angels, Devils, Beastmen—used to keep peace in the Imperial Capital District and show off our concurrency model for multicultural policing. Iota-02 "Dark Knights Brigade" is an expendable force under my nominal command—yes, I, Benetton, have a brigade's name attached to me for reasons that began as a joke in a margins meeting and matured into official paperwork; two brigade-strength task forces of magical Dark Knights used for missions the steadier brigades find distasteful. Omicron-04 "Frame Gear" under Major General Toya Brunhild mixes mechanized frame gears and IFVs for when militarized cosplay needs to be functionally violent. Rho battalions—the Lycans and Chiropterans—do recon and assault, and yes, Lieutenant Colonel Jacob Blackwater and Lieutenant Colonel Edward Cullen are names that make the HR department have a small, tasteful panic. Phi-01 "Shadowkhan" and the Psi brigades—Dark Whispers, Xaviers, Deep Web Surfers—do covert ops, intelligence, and cyber hygiene, meaning they break into things professionally and then fix the parts the others complain about in memos.
This is the machinery that preserves interest when negotiations go pear-shaped: muscle, wits, pets that could eat diplomats, and a cat who remembers receipts. If you are looking for romance in this arrangement, there is some—romance for order, for the smell of a battlefield secured, for a ledger that balances even if it smudges—and for the occasional absurdity: a megashark with an appointment card, a frozen Ifrit who now volunteers at charity bake sales, and a chubby bureaucrat who once tried to keep a dragon in a tax bracket. We are, at the end of the day, an empire that composts its mistakes into fertilizer for the next policy, and I, Benetton, will continue to sit on the budgets and bat pens into the ink when things look too neat. Because empires like ours are equal parts theatrical and procedural: they sign treaties in candlelight and then file every grievance by the number of tears it caused, and a good cat will always know where the extra receipts are kept.
They tell you Niflheim like it's a cautionary footnote—grim little tourist stop where the weather has commitment issues and the locals compose complaints in fog—but that washing of civility never quite reaches the marrow; you will step into their market and find petitions folded into scarves and grievances stamped with the mayor's municipal badge as if a bureaucrat had decided haunting required an orderly queue. I, who keep records in my fur and prefer my facts with a garnish of disdain, can tell you what the guidebooks omit: Niflheim smells like a library after midnight, like chalk and regret and the small, metallic tang of promises kept on the wrong side of history. The wraiths there wear their grievances like tote bags and attend every council meeting with the polite persistence of unpaid creditors; they are excellent at remembering who promised what and at reminding you with a polite intonation that is half sigh, half lawsuit. Mhelfrancovince—my human, who inherited more honors than a cathedral has candles and more ethical knots than a rope-maker's union—stood among them one afternoon and read the room like a man who knows how to count ghosts for tax purposes. He did not come with a speech so much as a ledger and a small, ceremonial pen, which in our polity is the equivalent of bringing a howitzer to a bake sale. He offered them contracts written in neat necromantic ink that smelled faintly of old libraries and colder regrets; the ink does not lie, but it also does not forgive, which is an important distinction in rites of incorporation.
Across the negotiating table—if you can call a circle carved in frost and lit with lanterns a table—sat Hela Lokisdottir, Curatrix of the Curatorate of Recently Departed Persons, whose résumé reads like a municipal ledger of sorrow. Hela wears municipal badges pinned to her spectral lapel like medals and speaks with the dry humor of someone who has handled estate claims for centuries. Her voice rustles when she laughs; it sounds like the turning of brittle pages. "Contracts," she observed when Mhelfrancovince first set his pen down, "are fine, in theory. They are very tidy things that like to be displayed in frames. The problem is enforcement. How do you enforce an obligation against an ocean of absence?" She tilted her head, and a breeze answered with an echo that included the pagination of a thousand unresolved wills. Mhelfrancovince smiled in a way that meant he had considered this and found it inconvenient. "We enforce by offering purpose," he said. "We give you a role, structure, a schedule. We make municipal work respectable for the restless. In return, you march under our banner and keep the streets patrolled during the blue hours." He folded the contract like someone folding a map that had been used to navigate a storm—precise, practiced, and a little tired.
It was at that precise, diplomatic point that Jacques Skellington—who runs the Undercity Assembly and whose legal name is subject to ergonomic complaint because every form refuses to let you write bones as residents' names—popped up from the shadows with a rattle that sounded suspiciously like applause. Jacques is all femur and civic pride; he organizes parades with an anatomical precision that makes the capital's choreographer cry into his ledger. "Order! Order!" Jacques intoned, and the bones in his chest made a clasping noise as though applauding himself. "We will accept municipal roles," he declared, clacking his jaw in a cadence that counts as punctuation in his town, "if you agree to invest in cultural programming. Skeletons prefer parades with themes and sequencing. We will not be reduced to mere props." The idea of Jacques as a performance artist and municipal statesman is, on paper, delightful and destructive; Mhelfrancovince blinked and produced a budget line item because he is the sort of man who sacrifices his own sleep to produce spreadsheets for funerals.
Livia Lazarus, who runs the Tartarus and whose ghouls are misunderstood contrarians with dental problems, hovered politely at the edge like a chorus in a tragedy that had long ago become a farce. Her people needed spokesmanship, a face that would argue on their behalf in committees where their voices did not carry—goulish voices do not fit with the accents the Parliament prefers, which are brittle and well-heeled. Livia's first concern was the basics: food, secure coastal rights, and an excuse to stop being called "the scary place" in polite conversation. "We will stop eating your fishermen," she offered dryly, "if you stop sending tourists who gape and then leave reviews." Mhelfrancovince laughed in a manner that could be filed as sympathy and then, because he believes in the theater of consent, put down another clause that granted Tartarus a limited trade exemption and a festival date to be declared a national holiday—on the proviso that ghouls keep their teeth clipped for the ribbon-cutting and don't attempt to eat the ceremonial scissors.
Nikkibella, who has the face of a woman who has negotiated a treaty and a dessert menu in the same breath, observed all this like a painter assessing her palette. She sipped tea as if it were a legal argument and then blessed the room with a smile that is legally binding in three provinces. "You will have civic roles," she said to Hela, with that soft diplomatic steel of hers, "and you will be paid by a trust that grows with the city's economic expansion. You will be recognized in municipal law and—most importantly—you will be granted the right to counsel on funerary regulations so you may keep your own rites." She turned to Jacques and added, "As for parades, we will fund a cultural festival; let it be famous. Let it be slightly absurd. Everyone likes absurdity when there is good catering." To Livia she offered a practical thing: protection for the islanders' harbors and a slot on the trade register. "You will not be a footnote," she said. "You will be a chapter, and possibly a very well-reviewed appendix." The ghouls cheered in the manner of those who have been given the promise of a book deal and an annual stipend; it is astonishing how morale improves when you assign someone a page.
There in the lantern-lit courtyard, as ink dried and spectral clerks argued with municipal clerks about submission deadlines, I—Benetton, the procedural cat and professional saboteur of unwindable agreements—decided to contribute. I hopped onto the table, knocked a quill into a puddle of spilled tea, and licked the edge of a parchment as if to suggest an amendment that said, in blunt feline grammar: "Respect the creatures and do not invoice them for grief." The council, with astounding self-awareness, laughed. A laugh in such company is not merely sound; it is a policy instrument and a safety valve. Hela made a dry joke about the quality of the tea—"It tastes faintly of regret," she observed—and Jacques performed a miniature jig that required a spine that can be applauded for it. Livia, who never smiles unless she has something to gnaw on afterwards, allowed a corner of her mouth to lift, which counts as consent from a ghoul.
Mhelfrancovince, who is never entirely at rest unless a problem is folded into an excel sheet with the correct margin settings and the appropriate apotropaic sigils, presented the Hellheim Horde as a solution and a compromise. "They will patrol desolate wards, guard border shrines, and participate in civic restoration," he explained. "Their labor will be compensated, their grievances heard, and their right to haunt returned by appointment." It was a pragmatic stitch in a garment frayed by centuries of conflict: use what you have, give them dignity where possible, and invent benefits that read like dignity on paper. Nikkibella added a wrinkle—always a woman of subtle traps and softer traps—"We will provide therapists for the living who have trouble with the dead, and teachers for the dead who have trouble with new municipal laws." The dead, by and large, appreciated this sort of bureaucratic tenderness; it is astonishing how even ghosts soften in the face of a form that feels like attention.
Yet there is always a cost. Agreements with the dead are, legally speaking, weird; they bind by very particular rules and they do not respect your sentimental deadlines. Ghosts require precise language lest they interpret clauses literally and climb into municipal heating ducts in protest. Skeletons have a fetish for protocol and will consequently object to anything resembling improvisation; Jacques is likely to stage a protest if a parade lacks a program and a key signature. Ghouls, being ghoulishly practical, will demand free dental care and the right to advertise on municipal boats. Also, the living have a knack for resenting being guarded by corpses; it is an understandable prejudice that requires patience, pamphlets, and a good public-relations office that can make necromantic service sound appealing in a family-friendly way. We drafted public information leaflets, arranged a show called "Haunt with Pride," and instituted a licensing arrangement that made the Hellheim Horde lawful auxiliaries rather than unmanaged apparitions.
At dawn, when the lamps still smelled like midnight and the contracts had a sheen to them that only new promises do, the trio of leaders—Hela, Jacques, and Livia—stood, signed, and marched away under their banners with a dignity that made the city's street-cleaners pause and weep with the sentimentalism of long nights' work. Mhelfrancovince watched them go with the expression of a man who has closed a difficult ledger and discovered a new set of discrepancies waiting at the next page. Nikkibella folded her gloves and noted the budget's new line items with a simpering, slight affection that is probably illegal in some countries and fiscally prudent in others. I, content with having nudged a pen, curled into the shadow of a ledger and licked my paws, because a good cat knows when to be present and when to let bureaucracy do its slow magic.
That is how we integrate the unsettling and make it municipal: with ink, with incense, with a festival and a careful provision for dental care. It is, in its way, both grotesque and tender—a brass band in a funeral march. If you find that monstrous, then congratulations: you have a pulse and a moral horizon intact. If you find it comic, well, history always preferred people who could laugh and then sign a contract before the punchline wore off. The city marched on, a little stranger, a little safer, and populated with auxiliaries who will, in future, complain loudly when their benefits are adjusted without adequate notice. Which, in a place that prides itself on paperwork, is as profound a civic blessing as one might reasonably ask for.
They told the clerks to bring parchment and the royal seal and then they did the sensible thing everyone does when the world might tilt: they made a charter and made it sound like a promise instead of a threat. The sky over Glasshelm was having a sulk—an atmospheric thing that likes to drizzle on good intentions—and so we took to the council hall with the sort of domesticity that suggests the end of the world is best handled with tea, a ledger, and a small, sharp opinion from the family cat. Mhelvayne arrived in a coat that had the faint smell of policy and old iron and sat like a man who understands that people will forgive a great many crimes if you balance them properly on the budget sheet. The Emperor, Francorleone, was present with the calm carefully practiced by men who have eaten more storms than soup; he smiled like a fund manager and kept his hands where intrigue could not trip them. Mhelfrancovince—my very own maker, that habit of a man who can rearrange mountains and still be charmingly awkward at banquets—sat opposite Nikkibella, whose smile could broker a ceasefire and a dinner reservation in a single elegant line. I seated myself directly on the charter because I am both an animal of taste and an expert in interrupting false piety with a hairball or a well-timed purr.
"Read the preamble out loud, and make it sound like a bedtime story," Nikkibella said, not unkindly. Her fingers toyed with a glove as if she were plucking the notes of a chord only diplomats can hear. There is an art to making power sound like peace: you say the word "charter" and then you add phrases like "mutual security" and "shared resources," and people put down their knives for the length of a comma and believe themselves sensible. Mhelvayne, who is a precise man and allergic to florid nonsense, did the honors. He spoke of combined arms and civic auxiliaries and of a military reorganization that would tie together the Hellheim Horde, the Iota brigades, and the administrative corps into one surgical instrument, not a blunt club. He used the word "family" in the way men who own empires use it: as a device to create loyalty that smells like obligation and tastes like porridge. "This is not merely a force," he intoned, "it is a responsibility. We are forming a combined arms organization that protects the clan, the realm, and the fragile commerce of civilized habits." He paused long enough for the gusty skylight to remind the room that weather is an unforgiving editor.
The charter named it plainly and with the legalistic modesty of someone trying to hide a very sharp thing under a velvet cushion: the Military Combined Arms Organization. It would consolidate command and allow for rapid deployment, but the language—oh the deliciously careful language—ensured it also read like a domestic council you could invite your aunt to. Iota-01 was given the more poetic title "Helheim Horde," because Mhelfrancovince understands the virtues of theater. "Sovereign: Grand Duke Mhelfrancovince," the scroll declared in a hand that trembled only slightly under Nikkibella's watchful eye. Beneath it: "Army Brigade under Brigadier General Olivia Moore." An expendable brigade of the dead, the text said in a passage that read like a joke if you were the sort of bureaucrat who enjoys gallows humor; it was to be used on missions where deniability mattered and where compassion for the living was an optional extra. The charter framed the Hellheim Horde as a humane enterprise, a social rehabilitation program for those who had had the misfortune of being unliveable. "Great benefits, flexible haunting schedule," the recruitment pamphlet would later read in a flourish that made the cultural affairs office both proud and mildly nauseous.
Mhelfrancovince spoke then, in his manner that mixes exhaustion and the faint, reliable cruelty of someone who has found the right lever. "We will not make monsters out of the dead," he said quietly, which is the sort of sentence that sounds noble until you count how many bodies the Empire asks you to repurpose and call 'auxiliaries.' "We will make them agents of order, not instruments of fear. They will guard our borders when the living have other duties; they will reclaim wards and mend ruined shrines. They will not be denied dignity because we find their existence inconvenient." He looked, for a breath, like a man who believes in the possibility of redemption and then, because this is the Netherward, added a clause about pensions and dental care. That made the Emperor smile—the smile of a man who thinks a pension fund is a form of church—and Mhelvayne made a note in the margin that read, simply: "Audit; ensure compliance."
Nikkibella folded her hands and suggested a clause she called "Civic Reintegration and Cultural Sponsorship." It was the sort of muscle-flexing wording that put culture on the invoice and empathy on the payroll. "We will offer parades and public roles," she said, "so the Hellheim do not merely patrol—they appear in civic life and are given a stake in the city's visible ritual." Jacques Skellington could be persuaded to march if you paid for a decent costume and a key signature; Hela and her wraiths might protest less if given a stipend for incense. "Make them official," she said. "Let them have union representation." The room laughed at that because the idea of a union for the dead is at once absurd and, for some reason, very reassuring.
The Emperor, who has the patience of a man who balances a continent on his morning schedule, glanced at me and then at the charter. "Family," he observed, in a sentence so small it sounded like an aside in a hymn, "is the lens by which we govern. Ours is a family that includes many kinds of kin." He was not speaking only of bloodline; he was speaking of those whose debts and duties were tied to the crown by other threads—veterans, contractors, the undead who now march in formation. There is a tenderness in that sort of sentence when spoken by someone who has satellites and promises to keep. He signed the charter with a flourish that cost a province a small festival, and he smiled as if this were all the economy required: a good signature and a public holiday.
Mhelvayne, who will never be accused of being overly sentimental, read the logistical appendices and then—because he is fond of the practical—outlined rules of engagement. The Hellheim Horde would be deployed where the living would not go: sinkholes, ley-surge zones, sites with moral ambiguity that left comfortable men queasy. They would be given clear chains of command, rotation schedules, benefits, and a stern admonition against unsanctioned haunting. There were clauses about apportioning blame and credit, and another clause, in smaller type, that stipulated the Horde's right to a say in funeral policy. The Emperor and Nikkibella were keen on dignity and spectacle; Mhelvayne was keen on budgets and the less poetic matter of liabilities. "If an undead auxiliary wanders into a banquet and upstages a visiting noble," he said dryly, "we require restitution and a public relations plan." That comment was, frankly, the sort of thing that warms the heart of any committee that needs to feel important.
They signed it all. I signed by leaving a neat tuft of fur on the corner where the Grand Minister's quill had dragged, which I consider my official feline contribution to statecraft and which they dutifully recorded under a clause we later titled "Nonhuman Witness." The charter passed, and the Helheim Horde marched. They were given colors and a modest parade and a legal existence that read like a miracle to some and like an accounting footnote to others. Brigadier General Olivia Moore, a woman with a country haircut and a taste for clean metaphors, took command with the sort of calm that suggests she had once put out a rebellion with a checklist and a kettle. She arranged training, a rotation schedule—that flexible haunting schedule—and brought in therapists who were comfortable with the physiological particularities of the undead. She also instituted a dress code because there is no greater morale boost than someone who looks spiffed up for duty.
There is a comedy, of course, in making the undead a structured military resource. They cannot complain in the normal ways, which makes union negotiation a delightful exercise in rhetorical gymnastics. Jacques wanted a day named after his mortality; Hela wanted an incense budget line increased by ten percent; Livia asked for a safe harbor without fishing tourists. We gave them parades and pensions, dental care and an option for office hours where they could grieve under supervision with a forms assistant. In exchange, they patrolled the blue hours, they sealed ruptured wards, and they retrieved the bones of the dead from storms. They became part of civic life in a way that made people uneasy and, increasingly, dependent.
If there is a moral to this little charter drama, it is this: the Empire is good at turning discomfort into ordinance. We make paperwork out of fear and bind it with ribbons of ceremony until the public assumes competence. We file away our anxieties with stamps and signatures and call that governance. I, the cat who prefers the unvarnished world under a table, watched them all believe for a minute that they had done something noble. Then, as is my wont, I coughed up a hairball on the annexation map to remind them that empires are living things and that living things shed.
If you ask me what this all meant—beyond treaties, titles, and the occasional oddly placed kraken (seriously, who leaves a kraken in a diplomatic gift basket? That's how you get embargoed)—the proper answer is the sort of dull human thing I've learned to appreciate: power rearranges people, and people rearrange power like toddlers rearranging furniture—loudly, irrationally, and with a suspicious amount of glitter. The Realm of Aronafields became a mirror in which the Empire glimpsed both its kindnesses and its appetites, like a drunk uncle at a wedding who insists he's "just being honest" while stealing the cake. For the natives and the newly annexed, it offered both opportunity and a brand of impatience that comes from being ruled by people who were trained to prefer plans you could sign and enemies you could point at like bad Yelp reviews. For us, it was a project: the sort of thing you set up committees for and then forget to staff until someone sets fire to the minutes and the interns start unionizing. For me—Benetton, professional familiar, clandestine note-taker, and occasional saboteur—the Realm of Aronafields was an atlas of scents I had never learned. Every canyon had a story, every cow a grievance, and every bureaucrat a folder labeled "Urgent" that hadn't been opened since the last eclipse. I made notes in my journal, because someone must keep the receipts, and because there's an odd comfort in knowing that even a city-state as proud as ours will one day need a cat to point out the subtle fraud of empire with a flick of a tail and a very pointed yawn.
Now, as per the Local Government Area Code of the Netherward Realms (a document written by three lawyers, one drunk archivist, and a sentient spreadsheet named Kevin), all of Aronafields' towns and cities were reclassified as Viscounties. That means they're technically freehold zones governed by elected officials who wear ceremonial hats and pretend they aren't terrified of budget meetings. Viscounties are the Empire's way of saying, "We trust you to govern yourselves, but we're watching you like a hawk with a clipboard." Exceptions were made, of course. The undead towns—Niflheim, Skellington, Tartarus—were too necromantic to be trusted with elections (zombies don't vote well, and skeletons keep spoiling ballots with bone dust), so they were given special status under the Helheim Charter. And then there was Freyja Volcano.
Ah, Freyja Volcano. A geothermal tantrum with lava issues and a population of fire elementals who think diplomacy is a warm hug followed by spontaneous combustion. The domain was originally slated to become a Viscounty, but Ifrit—yes, the Ifrit, Lord of Magma, Duke of Dramatic Entrances, and Patron Saint of Unsolicited Eruptions—had other plans. He wanted to be a Baron. Not just any Baron, mind you, but a real one, with a title, a crest, and a seat at the Imperial Banquet where he could roast marshmallows on his own head and complain about zoning laws.
The meeting to discuss this was held in the Imperial Council Chamber, which smells faintly of incense, ambition, and the kind of upholstery that screams "I was expensive, but emotionally unavailable." Present were Mhelfrancovince, Nikkibella, Boninacarla (Minister of Interior and Realm Administration, and the only person who can say "municipal reclassification" without crying), and me, Benetton, curled on a stack of zoning maps and shedding judgment.
Ifrit arrived via lava portal, which is the elemental equivalent of kicking down the door while singing your own theme song. He was wearing a ceremonial sash made of molten obsidian and a monocle that kept melting off his face. "I demand recognition," he boomed, in a voice that could sauté onions. "I have governed Freyja Volcano for centuries. I have kept the magma flowing, the fire spirits in line, and the tourists mostly unincinerated. I deserve a title worthy of my contributions!"
Boninacarla adjusted her glasses and consulted a scroll that looked like it had been written by someone who hated joy. "According to the LGA Code, Viscounties are designated for Freehold Cities, Shires, Boroughs, and Public Imperial Lands. Baronies are reserved for territories governed by aristocrats with hereditary or appointed titles. You, Ifrit, are technically a geological anomaly with a strong personality."
Ifrit flared. Literally. The curtains caught fire. Nikkibella waved a hand and froze them mid-combustion, turning the flames into tasteful ice sculptures shaped like middle fingers. "Let's not get dramatic," she said, sipping her tea, which was brewed with the tears of disappointed interns. "Ifrit, darling, you want to be a Baron. That means you'll be subject to noble obligations—taxes, audits, ceremonial appearances, and the occasional duel with someone who thinks your lava is too loud."
"I accept," Ifrit said, puffing smoke from his nostrils. "I will duel anyone who questions my lava. I will pay taxes in molten gold. I will attend banquets and flambé the hors d'oeuvres. I will be the best damn Baron this Empire has ever seen."
Mhelfrancovince, who had been quietly sketching a flowchart titled "How to Politely Say No to a Volcano," looked up and sighed. "Ifrit, you understand this isn't just a title. It's a responsibility. You'll be expected to submit quarterly reports, attend council meetings, and refrain from erupting during public holidays."
"I will erupt only on weekends," Ifrit promised. "And I'll bring snacks."
Boninacarla pinched the bridge of her nose. "Fine. Freyja Volcano will be reclassified as a Barony. You'll be granted noble status, a crest, and a seat on the Council of Fiery Affairs. But if you miss one audit, I swear on the Emperor's beard, I will reclassify you as a geothermal hazard and send in the bees."
"Not the bees," Ifrit whispered, visibly shaken. "They sting with purpose."
And so it was done. Freyja Volcano became a Barony, Ifrit became a Baron, and the Empire gained a noble who could cook a steak with his handshake. The undead towns remained under special charter, governed by Brigadier General Olivia Moore and her brigade of polite zombies, bureaucratic skeletons, and wraiths who file grievances in triplicate. The rest of Aronafields settled into Viscounties, where elected officials now debate whether arc-lanterns should be taxed and whether cows can run for office (spoiler: they can, and they're polling well).
As for me, I continue to nap on the margins of the empire, watching as power rearranges people and people rearrange power like drunk decorators with a grudge. I keep my journal close, my claws sharp, and my sarcasm sharper. Because in a world where volcanoes beg for titles and skeletons demand parade budgets, someone has to keep the receipts. And that someone, dear reader, is a cat with excellent taste and zero patience for nonsense.