Childish Air [America]

A young boy with a surprisingly serious stature walked through the halls of a somewhat rambling building in Rio de Janeiro. Really, the fact that Izalene's house was there made no sense whatsoever, or so the boy had found, given that the city was no longer the capital of Brazil. Izalene, though, had just vaguely waved her hands around when asked and said something like "I didn't feel like moving," which at the time had been mildly insulting to the kid, who looked about ten. Over time, though, he'd come to realize that just about everyone had gotten a response like that to a perfectly reasonable question when asking Izalene things.

She could also be rather disorganized, which was why Brasília, her much more organized capital, found her feeding several large birds. The birds were making a variety of very loud screeching noises. Izalene did not seem to mind. He sighed for a moment before tapping her on the shoulder, waiting for her to turn around. Once she did, he signed: 'Izalene. The United States is coming over today to discuss strategy. You should be in reasonably nice clothes. You have about half an hour.'

Izalene grinned back. 'Yes, Patricio! Thank you for reminding me. What would I do without you?'

'You're welcome. I am not certain. I do know, however, that it would not be even a little productive,' he responded, his expression mostly deadpan and the rest exasperated.

She pouted, and with an overdramatized gesture, signed 'That hurts. Rio and I managed things just fine before, and you know how she is!' After this, she whistled, and the last of the birds flew away. It flapped its large blue wings until it was back in its nest with another, similar bird. Izalene grinned. That was a Spix's macaw. She'd been trying to help breed them to save them from extinction for quite some time now. The war had made it difficult to actually restore the birds to the wild, though, which was a shame. Luckily, their habitat wasn't one of the locations in her border that had been assaulted, so slowly but surely she was trying her best to get the beautiful birds back where they belonged.

'Yes, and it is a miracle nothing burned.' her capital responded.

Izalene made another 'I'm wounded!' gesture, and, laughing, went to go change out of her messy birdkeeping clothes. As she left, one of the large birds, a hyacinth macaw, followed her. Brasília raised an eyebrow. Izalene just shrugged at let the bird do as it willed, but not before sternly signing at the bird 'Don't make too much noise or a mess, Safira.' The bird ruffled its blue feathers in a somewhat offended fashion. Safira was one of the animals around Izalene that, like many animals that stuck around Nations for too long, had developed her own sort of personality and a paradoxically long life. She figured that she could handle herself.

Several minutes later, she was actually consulting the bird to try to figure out something that looked decently nice. She didn't own much between "very traditional" and "very casual", to be honest, but she had to at least look decent, given how important the United States was in the war effort. After a bit of searching, though, she managed to find a relatively decent green top and a nice floral skirt that her bird also seemed to approve of. Deciding to go with that, she looked at her watch and sighed. Alfred would be here very soon. She should probably get to the door.

Perhaps it was a bit strange, really, that Izalene was inviting him over to her actual house as opposed to meeting with him in the capital. If it had been anyone else, it almost certainly would have been. But this was standard operating procedure for Izalene, even if it bugged her boss that she held negotiations outside of the capital. She felt it made the whole situation feel a great deal more relaxed, and she liked being relaxed. It definitely helped that other people were more likely to give her what she wanted when relaxed, too, and that it made her seem particularly friendly.

Not that she wasn't! It was simply that it was always very good to be perceived that way, or at least, she thought so. Never quite bought the "better to be feared than loved" thing. She was actually fairly certain it was the opposite? Though, a healthy dose of fear wasn't necessarily bad, all things considered. Just didn't come before "loved", was all. Being friends with people around her made them more likely to help her, she thought.

She got to the door at just about the same time as the doorbell caused lights to flash along with its tone. Safira rustled her feathers from Izalene's shoulder. Izalene opened the door, a wide, only slightly-faked smile on her face for the leader of the United Allegiance. She supposed that, despite having put her outfit together, she probably still looked rather casual, given that she completely forgot about her hair. Also, the bird. Ah, well, didn't particularly matter, she figured.

"Estados Unidos! Bem-vindo!" she said, her eyes and voice bright. "You are here to help me figure out how to dismember my western neighbors, right?" Her eyes were still sparkling as she spoke, indicating that had been mostly a joke (mostly).