Elsa and Eva exchanged remarks in between the rounds, the two of them betting consistently, but modestly, on each fight and who they thought would win.
anwhile, Bruno watched his family as much as the ongoing tournant.
So many had gathered that, were it not for the fact they were all wearing casual, comfortable clothing, one might have assud this was a gathering of Europe’s most prominent kings and emperors.
There was a reason Bruno held his Christmas celebrations on Christmas Eve, and not Christmas Day. His daughters were married to n who, on paper, were more important than him.
But Bruno was not a compromising man, and he wanted his entire family, not just most of them, present for the holidays. Hence why even his in-laws, including Kaiser Wilhelm II, were present.
The aging Emperor stood firmly, albeit with a cane for support, gazing upon the gathering of royals and high nobility all dressed as commoners, enjoying the festivities without politics between them. He smiled.
He patted Bruno on the shoulder, who continued to watch the fights, gaining the man’s attention, and motioned silently toward the doorway.
Bruno placed his cup down on the coaster of his seat’s end table and rose to the occasion, following the Kaiser to a quieter, more comfortable place.
"It is a miracle, isn’t it?" Wilhelm said softly. "At any other ti in history, this room would be filled with bickering and posturing. And yet you have done what Nicky, George, and I always dread of, always thought was possible, but in the end could not. You have weaponized family bonds to bring Europe together under our banner..."
Bruno chuckled at this, casting the Kaiser a subtle, knowing glance.
"You’re a cunning old fox, aren’t you?" he replied.
"Truth be told, your plan had rit. But you failed to cultivate those bonds thoroughly, not just among yourselves, but among your children. Nor did you account for the necessity of providing an external enemy your three nations needed to face together."
Bruno glanced out the window, and took a deep pause before continuing.
"The United States was the perfect enemy for us to unite behind: distant, alien, and philosophically opposed to us all. When this war is over, the blood our kingdoms and empires spilled together will build a shared mythos, a morality that borders on religion. One that will bind our nations together, hopefully for the long term."
The Kaiser nodded in understanding. He had more or less pieced together Bruno’s long-term plans, despite the man seldom speaking of what he plotted for the era after the war.
Still, he looked at Bruno with a hint of hesitancy, sothing Bruno imdiately picked up on.
"Go ahead," Bruno said. "Ask."
Wilhelm sighed and shook his head as he gazed out the window into the peaceful, snowy Alps that lay beyond the stained glass.
"It’s nothing," he said. "I just sotis wonder how long this peace you’ve built will last. You plan to turn inward after the world is over, focusing on our own developnt, while the rest of the world fights over the scraps left behind, yes? Is that not why you send more and more rockets into space each year? What is up there, Bruno, that is so worth all of this?"
Bruno did not speak at first; whether for dramatic effect or because he was choosing his words carefully.
In the end, he looked in the sa direction as the Kaiser, not to the fields below, but to the heavens above and what lay beyond.
"Everything we could ever need..."
Wilhelm did not answer at once.
He stood there longer than he intended, cane resting lightly in his grip, eyes fixed on the night sky beyond the glass.
For most of his life, power had been tangible. Borders on maps, n in uniform, fleets counted in tonnage and guns. Even empire had limits you could trace with a finger.
But what Bruno was describing had no borders.
A future where Germany did not scramble for colonies, did not exhaust itself policing the world, did not bleed generation after generation into foreign soil.
A future where dominance was not enforced through endless war, but through preemption, through seeing threats before they were born and strangling them quietly in the cradle.
Wilhelm felt sothing unfamiliar stir in his chest.
Relief... and irrelevance.
Not bitterness. No, he had lived too long, seen too much blood spilled in the na of pride to resent this.
But there was a quiet grief in realizing the world Bruno was building would look nothing like the one he had been born into. The one he had lived his entire life in.
This was sothing else entirely. Bruno did not seek to rule the world. He intended to transcend it.
Wilhelm exhaled slowly.
Perhaps this, he thought, is what victory looks like when one survives long enough to see it.
Not banners over capitals.
But silence. Stability. Distance.
And a future no longer chained to Earth.
Still, there was a nagging part of the Kaiser’s old soul that felt what he heard was little more than superstition.
His voice turned colder, sterner, almost as if he were demanding reassurance before his ti finally ca to leave this Earth behind, and his Empire with it.
"And how do you know, precisely?"
Bruno turned to him at once, a far gentler smile than Wilhelm was accustod to gracing his aging features. He began to walk past the Kaiser, patting him lightly on the shoulder as he did so.
"Because my satellites don’t exist rely to monitor the Earth," Bruno said.
"They exist to penetrate deep into space, to peer into a universe beyond our limited understanding. I won’t go into too much detail, Your Majesty. But rest assured, we have confird there are at least a hundred billion planets, not million, billion, in our galaxy alone worth exploring. And before Death finally takes , I will live to see the day humanity’s derailnt is solved permanently. That is my vow to you, and to our families."
He paused, glancing back with a faint smile.
"Now, let’s return to the festivities, shall we? It’s not every day we get to celebrate such a peaceful existence during a ti of war."
The Kaiser stood where Bruno had left him, staring first at the space the man had occupied, then back out the window, this ti not at the world below, but the universe above.
His eyes were filled not with disbelief, but uncertainty... and perhaps reverence.
"A hundred billion..." he murmured. "God in heaven..."
By the ti Bruno and Wilhelm returned to the ho theater, a snack table had been set up, and Elsa and Eva had beco the focus of the room rather than the tournant itself.
The two were in the middle of a catfight over whether Eva needed to pay out, as her favored fighter had bowed out of the third round due to an injury sustained in the second, despite technically winning the match.
Wilhelm cast Bruno a sly, mocking glance. Bruno sighed, announcing his presence and ending the debate.
"That’s enough, both of you," he said. "Since the fight was called off and his opponent received a bye, it will be considered a no contest. Whatever petty wager you placed is null and void. You both know that. Lord have rcy, you’re both in your forties. Must you really have your father intervene like petulant children?"
Eva was dumbstruck, sulking into silence. Elsa glared at her father with pouting eyes.
"I’m thirty-eight!"
The sudden, almost childish outburst, from the Tsarina of the Russian Empire no less, sent the entire room into laughter, including Eva herself, who had been fighting with her sister monts earlier.
In the end, even Elsa couldn’t help but laugh, despite being the target of the joke.
And so the tournant continued, as did the holiday celebrations.
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