#Piltover writes checks that it can't cash

[summonthebats]

Arcane fic bit- wherein the Council of Piltover is not in a position to make demands and Sevika and Shoola remind them

“We are not here to beg.”

It was not the words that had struck Cassandra Kiramman silent. How could such bland, blunt things ever impress so longstanding a councillor? No it was not the words, but the force of them. The finality of them. The woman, a fist planted on the table, face still and stern but for the blaze of her dark eyes, fixed on an opponent far too accustomed to bluster and blandishments to stand under the weight of her gaze.

Shoola caught Mel’s eye across the table and tried to school her face to the practiced impassivity that had always served so well. Failed apparently.

And settled in to watch.

“We came here to make a deal, for peace. You keep demanding bargains on the bodies of my people and there will be no deal. And no reason for us to not take back the bones you built your palace on.”

“I built the system that keeps your city breathing!”

“After we had already choked for seven years. I suppose even you can only wring so much gold out of corpses.”

Ah. Here now was the truth of it. The root perhaps. The voice of Zaun finally able to spit the city's disgust into the faces most deserving of it.

“We will have safety. We will have security. We will have the means to keep our homes and our rights the next times you lot decide your gold plated potty is worth more than our lives. Or this is worth nothing.”

The woman, Sevika she was almost sure, who had been introduced alongside Vander and Margot but played nothing more than silent muscle since, straightened. Looked down a noes that had been broken a few times and inexpertly set, curled lips too recently split by a fist and either didn’t notice or didn’t care about the way it made her bleed.

“We will have equality. So you'd best unstick enough to make a sensible deal for it or we'll take it. Off your corpses if we must.”

“You dare stand before us and threaten war?!”

Hoskel never had been able to read a room. No wonder Margot was smirking. No wonder Vander had his head in his hands. No wonder every council member with half a brain and enough of a face to emote with looked appalled.

That was no threat, it was a warning. A promise. One Zaun could well follow through on, which was the only reason this meeting was happening at all and that damn idiot man forgot it the moment his unearned pride was wounded.

“War is a failure of statecraft.” Mel’s silky tones cut through Hoskels huffing. “Civil war would prove the failure of the state entire and I for one very much appreciate the ongoing efforts of Zaun to spare us such an embarrassment.”

“You cannot possibly think to support this madness?!”

House Kiramman had been pulling out of the Undercity ever since the Day of Ash. But having built so much of their wealth on the mines, having been to firmly established there for so long, they must still have considerable funds sunk in the place. Funds they might loose entirely as Zaun settled into self-rule. But Cassandra was not a cruel woman, not at the core.

“Who runs the postal service in the Undercity?”

“Oh love, there is no postal service in Zaun. Dear Vander here does his best in the Lanes, and if Chross thinks you are worth his time a letter might get though elsewhere I suppose.” Margot smiled, as sweet as the sugar they hid the poisons in. “If you can pay enough. I would bother trying myself.”

“Mm. Councilor Ferros is supposed to arrange that, within all of Piltovers territory.” And the man did not look suitably shame faced. “Who maintains the power network?”

“Network gives it too much credit. Majan holds what is left, most of it crumbled long before I was born. Her son does the work these days, though Silco has taken his share now.”

“Yeah, ‘cause he built it.”

“Yes yes my dear. No one would presume to question the Eyes claim to his cut.” A mocking waft of pale hands and Hoskel watching them all to closely. “But we would all so hate to see a quarrel.”

“Indeed. Particularly since the building and maintenance of the energy grid is supposed to be the duty of Councillor Boltek.” Shoola let herself eye her fellow councillor, who claimed a vast budget for work he clearly wasn’t doing. “Education then?”

“In a year it might just be capable of teaching a tenth of the Undercities children rudimentary mathematics! Unless I am, once again, far too optimistic!” Heimerdinger alone looked as distressed by his failure as he rightly ought. The poor little fool really ought never have left his laboratory.

“Councillor Shoola, if you wish to do this all day I would not dream of preventing you, but perhaps we are now ready to hear your point?”

“As you wish, Councillor Medarda. Then to my fellow councillors of Piltovor, I put forward that Zaun is in effect already self governing, and the sooner we accept this fact the sooner we may proceed to the matters of actual importance and contention.” Rather than this pointless posturing. “Of which there are so very many.”

Seven councillors. Two had arrived in favour, one long since persuaded, one who might bend any which way i this wind, two that would never bend at all and one, who was not cruel. Selfish, certainly, as they all were, but not cruel where it counted.  

“I could not agree more Councillor Shoola, very well said. As a councillor, and founder, of Piltover I hereby call a vote to formally recognise the independence of Zaun and its lands.”

Perhaps it ought not have been a surprise, that they had five votes in the end. It would take a certain steel to oppose the fair Sevika when she looked at you like that, and the young Ferros had none evident.