78 Six Months After
“This is the last dose of the treatment,” Dmitri injected the needle into Diana’s arm, causing her to wince in pain before a small trickle of red liquid oozed out. “You should feel better after this.”
Diana gave a nod as she felt a wave of dizziness wash over her body and let herself fall back onto the bed.
“Congratulations Your Royal Highness, this concludes your six months medication, how do you feel?” Dmitri asked.
“Never been better,” Diana said with a smile as she touched her body here and there. “It’s still hard to believe that your Emperor actually created such a cure for this horrible disease,”
Dmitri smiled upon hearing that. It’s been six months since Her Royal Highness started her medication to treat her tuberculosis. It took time for her body to heal and regain its constitution. Her once pale and skinny frame was now filled out with muscle. She didn’t need any help to get around such as walking as she can do it now by herself and doesn’t require a wheelchair, though it might take her a while until she can perfectly return to normal, it all became manageable now.
“I’ll excuse myself, Your Royal Highness, If you need something or anything just call,” Dmitri said as he rose to his feet and gave a small bow.
Diana nodded gratefully as the doctor made his way out of the room leaving her with Lancelot, who was standing idly next to the window watching the outside world pass by.
“His cure indeed works, Your Royal Highness,” Lancelot commented as he shift his head to look at her, “Turns out that he’s not a fluke,”
Diana nodded slowly as she looked up at the ceiling “Yeah, I still can’t believe it. I even asked Doctor Dmitri about the medical journal he published about this new medicine, only to hear him praise Alexander. As the future ruler of the Britannia Empire, one important asset for me is to have the ability to discern whether a person in front of me is lying or not. Dmitri wasn’t lying…” her voice trailed off as the memories of her judging Alexander’s capability flitted across her mind.
Lancelot raised an eyebrow at that, clearly noticing the change in tone of her voice. He moved from leaning against the windowsill to standing beside her.
“I misjudged him and it’s a shame for me that I did,”
Diana sighed heavily as she hugged her knee closer to her chest. It was true, she had judged him harshly during the day they met again. She doubted his ability and knowledge though it was justified by the information she had on him. Still, It made her feel embarrassed about herself and wished that she could turn back time and apologize…Because, ever since that day when Alexander visited her, it was the last time she saw him.
He never visited since then and was focused only on his work as the head of state of the Ruthenia Empire, attending various trips across the Empire to oversee the construction of their ambitious infrastructure projects that aimed to modernize the country. Swamped with meetings and paperwork.
She learned of this from Sophie, who would oftentimes tell stories about her future husband and how hardworking, dedicated, and intelligent Alexander was. There are even times when Sophie would tell her about him working on a project that revolves around a new type of aircraft called a helicopter, where instead of a propeller installed on the mouth of the aircraft but above it, rotating at high speed to generate lift.
It was a silly and unheard idea, yet Alexander seems to be willing to invest his own money and make a huge leap of faith. She confirmed this from Sophie again when she told her that Alexander is withdrawing an enormous sum of money to fund his own company called Imperial Dynamic Systems.
Diana had Lancelot dig deeper on this matter, which led them to find out that Alexander’s company revolves around the military. From aviation, military vehicles, and shipbuilding. Which made her feel concerned. After all, this implies that the Ruthenia Empire is building its military. Not to mention, modernize the armed forces by reorganizing.
It’s unfortunate that the military of Ruthenia is secretive about its development as none of their informants were able to gather anything related to the military.
In addition, while inside the Peterhof Palace, Diana was able to get information about Ruthenia through newspapers. And Alexander was always on the front page. There’s even news that Ruthenian oil prospectors found huge oil deposits in the Caucasus and West Siberian Region and are building an oil refinery to extract them.
A lot of things happened in the first six months of 1923. The Infrastructure Bill created millions of jobs for the common people of Ruthenia and are dispatched from every corner of the Empire to build railways, roads, transmission lines, telephone lines, power plants, water treatment plants, schools, factories, ports, dams, oil and water pipelines, causing an accelerated growth of the economy and increase employment and human index development rate.
In short, the Ruthenia Empire is growing rapidly at an unprecedented rate that could surpass the world’s leading economies such as her country, the Britannia Empire, the United States, and Deutschland Empire.
This growth can lead to more business opportunities for them, and the empire could grow by leaps and bounds. Now that the cells of the infamous international insurgents, identified as “The Black Hand”, and their irritating indoctrinated intrusive ilk in Ruthenian have been dealt with by imperial implementation of injurious immediate intervention. Ruthenia is gaining back the confidence it had lost from its neighbors due to internal strifes and civil disorders. There’s even a word from back home that the Deutschland Empire is investing in Ruthenia.
This is bad news for Britannia and other superpowers. The Ruthenian Empire has been diplomatically isolated before, leading them to only ally themselves with the Francois Republic. Relations between Britannia and Francois were going steady but the Ruthenia Empire was not that good. ρꪖꪕᦔꪖꪕꪫꪣꫀꪶ
The Ruthenia Empire has been a superficial superpower due to stagnant structuring. Now, this promising growth made the Deutschland Empire and the Francois Republic engage diplomatically to win over Alexander.
Once she returns to her homeland, she must tell her father about this. The Ruthenia Empire is threatening to tip the balance of power in mainland Europa, and it is once again becoming a major player.
“Alexander…what happened to you?” Diana muttered under her breath. With this information at hand, she is starting to see Alexander in a new light.
A light that might cast the largest shadows.
Lancelot heard a soft hum coming out from Diana’s mouth.
“Is something the matter, Your Royal Highness?” Lancelot asked with a curious tone in his voice.
“Where is Alexander right now again?” Diana asked.
“According to the latest newspaper, he’s at Moskva to attend the Ruthenian National Exhibition. It looks as though His Majesty’s company is participating,”
“Hoh…” Diana mused, “What kind of technology will they present?”
Just as the two were talking, a knock on the door was heard, causing them to look up at the door.
“Who’s that?” Lancelot asked.
“Palace’s staff, we are under the direct orders from His Majesty, Alexander Romanoff. He said that we should set this thing up in your room,”
“Set something up?” Lancelot frowned and glanced at Diana.
Diana gave him a nod.
“Okay, you may enter,” Lancelot called.
The door opened revealing five people carrying something.
“What is that?” Lancelot asked as Diana gazed at the object curiously.
The object looks like a large, tall dresser but with all its drawers removed and a convex foggy gray square mirror fitted into the empty space. Some dials similar to those found on a large radio are below the “mirror” and the mesh screens to conceal the speakers are on the left and right of the “mirror”. And a pair of metal twigs on its top.
“A….radio?”, Lancelot leans in to look at the strange “mirror radio”.
“It’s called a television, sir, Your Royal Highness. It’s a new product made by Imperial Dynamic Systems,”
The two cocked their heads to the side and intoned “Television?”