The coronation goes as well as these things can go, though. Big party, fancy chair, expensive hat, delicious food. She'd had invitations sent out to many of her peers (ugh) in the River Kingdoms, and a few of them even actually sent delegates. In an attempt to assassinate her, or leverage her against their own enemies, of course, but it still counts. Compared to the usual upstart kingdom (or more often 'kingdom') in the Riverlands, she's a shining beacon of legitimacy and order. Even has a fancy royal title that she didn't make up herself. A sorceress of her power in charge of a place is notable enough to be known, creatively, as the Sorcerer-Queen. Groundbreaking stuff, really.

So she shouldn't be surprised when she gets an invitation to attend the annual Outlaw Council. That is, when all of the powers of the nebulously defined kingdoms in the River Kingdoms all show up together to talk about times when actually they should tone down the backstabbing, for the sake of not being conquered by Cheliax or Galt or something. Huh. That's interesting. Usually, the attendees just sort of... show up... at the appointed time, in the appointed city of Daggermark, and nobody particularly cares if they were invited or not. She likely could have attended the last couple without being looked at askance, she just had more immediate problems to deal with than overall security of one of the the least stable regions of Avistan. And now she's just... actually been invited. Weird.

It's not clear if it's because they think she's too lawful to show up without an invitation, they're willing to acknowledge her now that she's actually calling herself a peer, they want to make some of the other attendees look pathetic in comparison, or if they've actually all decided that she's the biggest threat in the region and want to deal with that accordingly. Not directly at the council itself, probably, because if that truce ever breaks, the entire region will fall entirely apart and definitely be conquered by someone, but later is fair game.

Well. Whatever the reasons, it's clear that she absolutely needs to show up, squishy caster or no. Something something legitimacy, something something being nonthreatening, blah blah, blah blah, her moderately fallen angel has the eloquent explanations of the politics of the matter.

Nobody is especially happy about her needing to teleport to Daggermark under as many defensive spells as can reasonably be afforded, with only a bard, a ranger, and two large and menacing beasts to protect her from the bad assassins that could stab her to death in a single round, but, well. Here she is, overly excited bard and extremely miserable ranger in tow.

And if they break their precious vows and kill you despite all arguments about why this is stupid, what then? grumbles the ranger, over the group's Telepathic Bond.

Then we all have a bad time and are down a diamond when you inevitably retrieve my corpse. Cheer up, at least no one is going to expect you to talk, here!

I am in a Telepathic Bond with Linzi.

Sivetrys ignores Linzi's telepathic 'Hey!' and concedes the point.

Thank you for your sacrifice, you're a good friend.

The meeting hall in which the fabled council of outlaws is held is for council members only. Only them, too, no sending representatives to speak for them while they hide safely behind their walls. Her bard and ranger can wait outside with the rest of the retinues of the rest of her (ugh) peers.

She does manage to bully her way into getting to bring her gigantic pet leopard inside, though. Her arguments are manyfold, and she has a great deal of fun making them. Her kitty, Bergamot, is connected to her by sylvan magic, and is essentially her familiar. Does the council keep out other people's familiars, too? No? Then why is this different? Is it because normally, familiars are harmless? Oh, that's adorable, how incredibly naive, someone needs to get out more. Some familiars can carry and activate wands, you know. Which is worse, a leopard, or an intelligent and wand wielding invisible raven? Besides, is anyone else being asked to disarm entirely? No? They don't ask the leader of the Daggermark assassins guild to give up all of her knives, no really? Weird, that. Not very neutral to have everyone but the hosts give up their ability to defend themselves, is it? Anyway, they have heard she's a sorceress, right, she can't really be disarmed except in an antimagic field, do they have one of those around?

It'd be possible to go on, but the guard unfortunate enough to oppose her realizes that she's not budging on this, and that everyone else is starting to get impatient about the holdup. He budges, and in she goes, with her gigantic predatory cat. Hey, she's showing up in person, as a pure spellcaster, they need to let her have something to get her in the door.

Her welcome is about as she expected, really. Which is to say, someone scoffs at her and asks who started letting stray bitches of Brevoy into a meeting of River Kings.

"... Is that the best you can come up with?" she snorts. "Come now, I've been up north for years at this point, you've had plenty of time to come up with creative ways to insult me."

This was clearly not what the man was expecting, and some of the other guests look a bit amused, so she continues.

"You could call me a half blooded bastard, if you like. That one's even true. Or stick with my old title of baroness if the crown offends you. Might even be able to manage some nice alliteration, there. Bastard-bred baroness bitch of Brevoy, maybe? Hm. Bit unwieldy. And it'd be embarrassing for a mere baroness to have ever so much more land and power than you. What was your name again?"

 "I am -!"

  "- wasting everyone's time. Stop stirring up trouble you can't handle, pup, you're not fooling anyone," someone else cuts in.

Oh, look! Someone with actual power is talking! That would be... Raston Selline, of Mivon. Probably the closest thing she has to an ally, here. Not that they've ever met in person, before, just exchanged letters and envoys. His delegate didn't even make any attempt to kill her. Probably because he's her southernmost neighbor and does not, in fact, want to piss her off so much that she'll go and actually attempt conquest. Which is for the best, really, she doesn't particularly want to also be queen of Mivon. It'd be a hassle, and she'd really need to kill a lot of people, and it probably wouldn't even stick without her constantly babysitting the place. And throwing fireballs. It wouldn't even accomplish anything long term, it'd just be a grab for power. Why is everyone worried she's going to conquer them, again?

"Mayor," she says, cordially, and with a smile on her face. He has a similar problem that she'd been having; in Mivon, they have elections. They're a bit rigged, and the parts that aren't rigged involve honorable dueling, which equates to also being a bit rigged, but she appreciates the effort. She will accept his silly title that everyone else refuses to use in favor of 'king,' like how everyone refused to use 'baroness' with her. It's just polite.

"Your highness," he says, dryly. "Varn isn't with you?"

Sivetrys's smile turns wry and she shakes her head. No, that'd be too nice. One definite ally and one probable ally would really be quite the treat, wouldn't it.

"He's fled from politics," she answers, seriously. Technically he's also sworn fealty to her, but really, he was fleeing politics. Nobody he'd politicked with had come to save him and his people, besides her, and so in his mind they could go to the Hells or the Abyss for all he cared. Very reasonable of him. Terrible that she can't do the same.

"And declared you his queen. Hiding behind your skirts, is he?"

The speaker is a woman who the River Kingdoms can actually agree probably isn't a monarch of some kind. Because she's being the Supreme Vessel of the Assassin's Guild of Daggermark. She has tried to have Sivetrys killed (well, been paid by others to try to have her killed) many times already, and it has yet to stick. Not an ally, though complicatedly not an enemy either. A bit of attempted assassination is just fair game, for her, when the money's good.

"Pretty much," she agrees, brightly.

The lady snorts. "And you, your majesty? Will you retreat to hide behind Brevoy's skirts?"

What is this, an attempt to bait her pride? Get her to prove herself to be the next Razmir now, before she's properly got a power base set up? Obviously the poking is pointed, but she's not sure which of the available traps this woman is trying to lead her into.

"I think neither half of that skirt is all that protective," snorts Sivetrys. "Or concealing. Or welcoming, for that matter."

Eyebrow raise.

This woman absolutely knows all of this already. So having her say it is... giving her an opening to explain herself to those less educated? That's actually rather nice of her. It makes her even more suspicious. She will still use the opening, though, just - watching for backstabs.

"The sanctioned coronation is more in the vein of 'enough rope to hang yourself' than an actual alliance," she says, for the benefit of everyone but this very deadly woman who could absolutely kill her in under thirty seconds, here, in close quarters. "That and trying to placate me for how worthless their 'alliance' was before. This way if I decide to fly over and start flinging fireballs, I look like the next wannabe Razmir, and they have a chance to maybe con someone into trying to kill me."

The meeting is... surprisingly boring from there. There's a lot of posturing, of course, but the majority of the people in this room don't actually want to piss her off. Once they understand she's not an extension of Brevoy, they mostly want her to explain it to them. Is it likely to want to march south? (Absolutely not, Brevoy is currently trying its best not to fall into a civil war.) What about Numeria? (March, no, raid, always. This should surprise no one, Numeria is always doing this. The barbarian clans were recently beaten to a pulp, though, so expect it from the Technic League, not them.) Either way, the tone of the council is not that she's the biggest threat that they must all ally against, but that she... has as much right, if not more than, many of them. It's deeply weird. She was expecting more hostility or resistance.

Her impression is that this is because she bothered to show up. It would probably be different if she declined, after the invitation, and she sees hints that some of the earlier councils did involve more openly discussing if she was a threat. But, well, the fear is that she will be the second coming of Razmir, sorceress-with-big-cat edition. Razmir certainly never bothered to show up to any of these, even though arguably he's in the general area to count as an honorary River King. He'd just never deign to. So... maybe showing up to one is enough to let her skip the others without having too much scheming behind her back? That'd be nice. She doubts it, but it'd be nice. The main topics at hand ultimately aren't very relevant to her, and it's kind of not worth two teleports, a telepathic bond, buffs, and most importantly her time. She has better things to do with all of them than this. But she's a queen, so she will politic.

After they ask her opinions on Brevoy, they talk about how Galt continues to be trying to spread its perpetual revolution, and Cyprian's future conquest plans, and Ustalav being a wretched country whose only export is undead, and blah blah blah all stuff that's either a bit too South or West to really matter to her country in particular. She listens, nods, makes concerned noises, but she knew about literally all of this already. Despite this, she agrees to send funds and some supplies (wands, mostly) to people she doesn't like and doesn't trust, because she has pattern recognition and would like those messes to keep being too far away to be a real problem for her, thanks. Compared to the other attendees, she's practically a team player. Her motivations are entirely 'leave me out of your shit, please.'

It's essentially a bribe, but everyone in this room is also fine with that. It even seems like it's likely to work fairly well.

So it's very annoying when, after she returns safely to her lands without incident, she immediately has to start dealing with a neighbor attempting politics at her.

It comes in the form of.... a gigantic golden statue.

Of herself.

Nude.

Posing as one might expect a statue of a nude woman to be posing. Her facsimile is, to its credit, apparently trying to cast something.

"What... the actual fuck," says a woman whose eloquence has abandoned her entirely in the face of this. ... This.

"It's a gift. From the King of Pitax," offers her secretary, Namel, helpfully. "It's gilded bronze, not full gold. We checked."

"Why..." she begins, and then stops, because her question was going to be 'Why would anyone make this.' She knows the answer to that. Lots of people like looking at pretty women, especially in the nude. "... did he send me... this... as a gift?"

The last question was a little plaintive.

"His Majesty King Castruccio Irovetti is famous for his love of the arts, and is a patron for many aspiring sculptors."

Namel is using that dry tone of voice she has, when she feels the answer is obvious, but she's too polite to say it out loud to her boss.

Answer is obvious, she's just too much of a sixth circle workaholic spellcaster to notice. Right, okay, she can put together this puzzle. Sivetrys stares at the statue.

She was under the impression that Irovetti mostly had gaudy statues made of himself. She doesn't know of many instances of him having statues made of others, why would he want her represented in a light that he sees as flattering?

".... oh, gods, he's trying to court me, isn't he."

"Yes, ma'am, I believe so. The statue came with a poem, if you'd like to read it."