Interlude - Kivi
Sou'onuk, Kota, Federation of Elu
Kivi
After returning home, it had been Kivi's duty to brief her father on the many incidents that had occurred.
She'd told him of the civil war in Aviye, which was the nearest nation to the continent of Elu to the northwest. She told him of the duplicity of their host, the Usonan ambassador, and of the remarkable appearance of spirit warriors on the side of their host's enemy.
She spoke little of the battle at Nurezhin, having spent much of it imprisoned. But she attested that Ambassador Etude Rahin had been most flexible in keeping up the ruse of her importance, which she discovered after the fact.
As a daughter of the chief, she was a valuable symbol for choosing to serve her country in the ambassador's corps, but her loss would not have been any more important than losing a famous singer or artist. Still, it would have meant far more to her father and mother than the nation, and she was happy about that.