"We mean direct descendants of Stormlord Estaminir Dalkaila, last Stormlord to rule Dalkas, the dawnlight island."

"So sad that democracy triumphed. Fenris would be so glad to be waiting in line to rule the island with an iron fist."

"Would he?"

"Oh, I would be terrible. I would gather all the power that the position grants me and use it to improve the lives of my subjects as best as I could."

"Presuming his personality stayed the same."

"Well, if you're going to propose alternate universes where the two of you still are born."

"Power corrupts, surely he would become an evil despot."

"Yes, and I bet with that sort of resources I would do evil things like break the natural order and fund research to end death itself. Like a true villain does."

"I'm not sure princes have that much power and money. Admirable goals, though."

"I could help repair relations with the Witchlands and then we would have a united magical world that would be better at turning their energy towards constructive ends."

"Are relations with them particularly bad?"

"If you ever wondered why the magical polities don't do more to help the planet or why they never even conquered it, you can blame that on the fact that Stormlands and Witchlands are too focused in posturing that they can defend against each other."

"I mean, that is not all of the problem, but it's 70% of it."

"Why is it a part of the problem, and what's the other thirty percent?"

"I don't think that is the exact percentage, but I do think that a good chunk of the problem is that the two major sides of the international magical community are at odds with each other so they can't reach a consensus on how to help magic people elsewhere. If that was out of the way, I think the Stormlands and Witchlands would be strong enough to seriously improve things everywhere else."

"And the thirty percent is just your good old religious thaumatophobia."

"Right, I mean, why are they at odds?"

"Yeah... I heard about it before, but never got any better explanation besides 'historical reasons' and some vaguely misogynistic commentary on the Witch-queens."

"I mean, historical reasons is in fact most of it. Without going into a history lesson, the Witch-queens tried to invade and conquer the Stormlands a lot in the past. Failed each time and then simply stopped. Generations later, both sides still hold a grudge over it."

"Well, it isn't unreasonable to think that the Witch-queens would invade yet again if they felt it would work this time around."

"And why do they want to invade?"

Shrug. "They're always fighting each other for territory too."

She sighs. "Yeah, I know, it's just... it's the twenty-first century. Just. Why."

"Like, I think the fighting was at least cultural, but most cultural things don't involve throwing city-leveling power around while dressed pretty."

"Yeah, exactly."