Vesper was often, perhaps annoyingly, one of the first to arrive when she had something to observe. Her new role kept her very busy and sometimes she had to choose which things were the most important to observe as there was almost always more than one thing going on at once. She entered the room with the now familiar and near ominous sound of the step, thud, step, thud, step, thud of her false leg and took up her place in the corner of the room where she could see everyone and not be in the way.

Odina was prompt upon her arrival a few moments behind Vesper Delvaux, dressed in her mixture of Nevermere elegance and Cambrian sultry, hair tied back tighlty. She offered Captain Woodwick a kind smile, "Captain, good to see you," she brushed a hand with matching polished nails across the man's arm, just a kind gesture she felt and didn't think much of it as she moved on. In her turn she noticed the woman, she had been heading to her corner with a thumping step, her blue eyes would wait for her to turn and acknowledge her presence with a small curtsey, there was a smirk or a kind smile given as well but that was a smidge of her own thing. Odina liked cute women.

The Princess came to stand beside the other arrival @raff offering the soldier a kind bow of her head. She stood at attention herself but her hands were relaxed in a gentle grasping of her hands in front of her waiting.

Cambria. Not Dresmond. Cambria. Why were they going to Cambria? If he had to go to there, why did it have to be with these people? The questions bounced around Ber’s mind as, quite unfamiliar with this part of the castle, he peered at each door that he passed. And where in the world was this— Oh, there it was.

As he stepped into the meeting room, not late but apparently one of the last to appear anyway, Ber’s first instinct was to turn toward the corner, where he would be able to sit in the back, listen to whatever @warren had to say, and hopefully be entirely ignored. When he made to do so, however, he found it already occupied by the woman whom he’d glimpsed - and heard - walking through the hallways of the military wing. Apparently, she was charged with watching people, which definitely wasn’t remotely disconcerting at all, and apparently, she would be watching this, too. Given his preference for avoiding scrutiny, Ber did not spend more time than necessary around Vesper Delvaux and her creepy, piercing eyes, and her stealing his corner did not endear her to him any further.

Well, he wasn’t about to fight her for it, so to some other part of the room, then. Admittedly, @raff standing at attention had Ber hesitating and wondering if he should do the same - especially with the inspector general lurking in the corner - so instead of heading for the seat furthest from Woodwick like he wanted, the soldier awkwardly stepped out of the way and to the side, lingering close to the wall. From there, he surveyed the rest of the room and its assembled occupants until his gaze found the one face he didn’t recognize.

Utterly nonplussed, Ber stared at the noblewoman, who seemed very out of place, for a long moment before looking around at the others. No one else seemed particularly concerned or confused by her presence. His gaze slid back to her. Who was she? Why was she here? And why was she dressed like she was attending some sort of ball rather than a briefing about their deployment?

She took the seat pulled and offered sitting graciously, her smile had actually faded replaced with a serious line.

"When I last left Cambria, Isolde was just a a Witch Doctor a follower of the All-Mother, it wasn't widely followed I believe thats all changed of course. She's charismatic and her acolytes typically are very loyal to her...if that influence has spread to the Valykrie then be prepared to be very cold shouldered, they are highly trained warriors. Cambria women for a long tine were beaten down by men of Coheed until our intervention and protection still they trust none I fear of any blood outside of their own, most especially men," she looked at each and everyone at the table before addressing Warren's question again, "from my understanding Isolde is more conniving using the All-Mother as a way to twist her will upon the others, she from my understanding poisoned the previous Governor to take the position as Governor. She's been calling herself the Priestess...we can't underestimate her undermining operations."

Dark eyes had rested on Woodwick as the captain began speaking as to their goals in Cambria, though they shifted to the stranger as he introduced her as Princess Odina Ellis . As he took his seat, he supposed that explained why she seemed so out of place and why Ber hadn’t recognized her. Only once before had he been in the company of a Princess, and it had ended with an old witch cursing Ophelia, which did not make for a great track record of time spent in the company of Nevermerean royalty. Were they supposed to bow to her, now that they knew who she was? If other people did, he would too.

And why did they need their help to replace the governor of Cambria? Couldn’t they just swap out this Isolde woman for the Princess and get back to Dresmond?

Apparently not. Dark eyes focused on the Princess as she spoke of the state of affairs in Cambria, but the more she spoke, the more Ber realized he knew very little about the territory that Nevermere had acquired years ago. A slew of unfamiliar words and titles washed over him. There was a Witch Doctor, who followed the All Mother, but who was the All Mother and what did she do? What was an acolyte? What was the difference between a Witch Doctor and a Priestess and how was Isolde, former Witch Doctor, both a Priestess and the Governor of Cambria? And she also mentioned some Valkyrie, which were apparently highly trained warriors who didn’t like men.

Rather dubiously, the soldier glanced around at the others seated around the table. Right. That was great.

What he did understand clearly was that this Isolde was clever and sneaky, that she likely had a far stronger influence over her people than anyone in this room did, and that she probably wouldn’t be willing to step down of her own accord. Closing his eyes, Ber ran a hand down his face and resisted the urge to sigh. In the silence that followed, he would wait for an invitation to ask questions or for Woodwick to provide further explanation. After both occurred - or enough time passed that he was sure nothing would follow - he would look around the table again, wondering why he seemed to be the only one who seemed confused about what the Princess had said.

He cleared his throat. “I, uh— Sorry, but what’s a Witch Doctor? How is that different from being Priestess?” The questions came hesitant as dark eyes flicked between Odina Ellis and @warren . He had no recollection of ever sitting down for an explanation of the traditions of either Coheed or Cambria n Nevermere acquired them, and all any of the soldiers wanted to talk about with regards to Cambria were the women.

A brief pause, then he ventured: “And if this All Mother is saying that Isolde is in charge, can we get her to say that she changed her mind and the Princess is supposed to be Governor instead of Isolde?” That seemed like an easier way to complete their task than trying to get a bunch of enhanced women to obey men to whom they already weren’t inclined to listen. If Isolde had the All Mother on her side, then Ber didn’t see why they couldn’t do the same. Surely one potentially stubborn woman, whoever she was and whatever she did, would be easier to convince than a whole territory of them.

Odina listened very intently nodding ever so often in agreement, she liked the questions asked from the one mam, and Woodwick was nailing it in the explanation. When he asked for her confirmation she didn't hesitate to answer, "No all was perfectly well said Captain," she reassured him before speaking on behalf of the his confession on lack of knowledge about the Valykrie, "These women go beyond that of the regular standards of being a warrior: they eat, sleep, train, and live everyday of being a Valykrie...try to think of your mandatory training and how most of the population go into the military after, it's just like that for them everyday. But, tighter. I honestly don't know much about the ceremony works, when I came to Cambria I was embraced but always an outsider an elderly woman took me in. I do know when the Bantu Siri tribe last attacked Cambria and I was there I learned the tribe of men took the item or piece of the ritual needed to preform these additional feats of strength, I'm not sure if that's helpful but I do believe it's worth knowing."

Before Zevran, Ber had never cared much about the happenings of other kingdoms - arguably, he still didn’t for most of them - but despite Nevermere’s acquisition of a Coheed and Cambria, the Dresmondi had been the first to truly show him that not every kingdom functioned like the one that the soldier knew. If Nevermere and Dresmond sat at opposite ends of the spectrum, then it sounded like Cambria rested somewhere between them.

Providing the Nevermerean equivalents that helped Ber make sense of these foreign titles, Woodwick spoke of four high ranking positions in the kingdom: three Elders, one Witch Doctor, one Chieftess, and one Chieftess’s Second. After Nevermere, the Chieftess became the Governor - that was the position they wanted the Princess to fill. Isolde, the Witch Doctor turned Chieftess, combined the two roles into the Priestess, which made her the Governor of Cambria as well. As he put it all together, Ber nodded his understanding and leaned back in his seat. His gaze shifted from the captain to the Princess as she spoke of the Valkyrie, and his heart sank as he imagined, should the situation call for it, trying to somehow hold his own against well-trained warrior women who all had the strength of a werewolf.

He doubted Cambria would have throne room walls to stop him if someone decided to send him flying a second time.

That hypothetical combined with the last piece of information that the Princess shared split Ber’s thoughts into two different directions. The thoughts percolated while Terach spoke his piece, and once he had and the questions had been answered, Ber wavered for a moment before picking one to cover first. He looked back at @warren , hesitated for another heartbeat, then finally asked, “If the All-Mother is, uh, not a real person who can contradict us, couldn’t we still say that the All-Mother decided that the Princess should be Governor?” Dark eyes glanced toward Odina Ellis as he asked this before drifting back to the captain. If Isolde could use religion, Ber didn’t see a reason to avoid fighting fire with fire; maybe it was a little underhanded, but Nevermere wasn’t paying him for honesty. And, he figured, at the very least, contradicting claims could cause enough confusion to lessen Isolde’s hold over her followers.

He turned to Odina Ellis now, mind shifting to the second question that had arisen with her words. “And following up on Lieutenant Terach’s questions - if part of the coming of age ritual has been missing, then there’s a group of women who should have had that ritual done but haven’t? They don’t have the extra strength.” A pause. “Do we know who they are? Or how we can tell who has had that ritual done and who hasn’t?”