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She’s at the door, taking a moment to collect herself.
This is important.
This is necessary.
This will help her save her brother.
This is her job.
One more deep breath, and then…
“Ah, Mademoiselle Ishtar, you look trés magnifique, as always,” Monsieur Bonnefoy coos as Isis goes into the conference room, swirling his cup of wine while another glass set up for her.
“Flattery won’t help with our negotiations, Monsieur Bonnefoy,” she cooly rebuffs, setting up her papers for their meeting.
“Ah, you wound me, mademoiselle. But that is part of your charm, to be so cold when at work. It makes one wonder what you’re like in a more, how you say… intimate setting.”
“The proposals, Monsieur Bonnefoy.”
“Yes, yes,” he says, straightening up but never losing that cocky grin, “would it really be so bad to know me? I’m not that bad.”
Isis bit her tongue as they went over their itinerary.
I know who you are. I know the eons you’ve been alive. I know you mourn a girl your king condemned to death. I know you first came to Egypt with Napoleon. I know your darkest moments, the secrets you keep even from your closest friends.
It is… trying, dealing with the eccentric personalities of living nations. One that fellow members of the antique council oh so lovingly gave to her, since she already knew the secret. Not that they know. She did not wish to draw too much attention to herself.
Isis didn’t begrudge her peers for this task. It was fair, compared to how she became the general secretary of antiques. Used her tauk to secure her path, using Guanp’s own desires and yearnings to fund her education. A bit ruthless, but she needed to, to save the world, to save her brother.
There was bound to be jealous, especially in the egyptology department, to have some young girl an isolated part of the country that they didn’t even have a name for their settlement to suddenly be handed so much as she worked on her courses, knowing how limited her time is, how destiny doesn’t stop for the bureaucracy of modern society.
So, she took to the task, even though the personalities of the nations are less… poised as the woman who once served the Pharaoh, like she served all her rulers, until her son came to represent this land.
Perhaps it’s how it is, that there are highs and lows of their eccentricities, that they calm down after a millennia or two, if they survive that long. It would be naive to say things were easier back then, because that is a bold-faced lie she would smack the poo out of if they said it to her face. Perhaps it’s the weaponry? The new ways that people can dehumanize others and the impersonal way one can destroy another’s life?
Or perhaps Guanp’s mother had her own coping methods to keep her sane. Or at least more stable than some of the characters she’s met over the years.
Such as the Italies and their flirty behavior. Spain and how lax he is. Germany and his efficiency, a welcome reprieve. American and his… americanism. France and his amorous advances. And England… oh, England…
For all the… flattery that France gave, she still preferred it to the arrogance of England and his fucking museums.
The fact she hadn’t…
No, she has more self control than to do anything like that.
Even if it’s very tempting…
The nation left, ready to give the papers to the people who do care about this proposal, as oppose to using it as a time to flirt with a pretty thing to distract him from the gaping wounds of his soul… or whatever they have.
She gives herself a moment, letting herself relax, before she does the one thing she wanted to do since she saw who she was talking to today.
Isis takes her glass, fills it to the brim, and drowns it all in one shot.