A Journey In Space [ISS]

This new deal that daddy and papa have worked out has its good parts and its bad parts. Of course, the best part is that there's any deal at all - otherwise she'd have quite literally fallen from the sky. All the trickiness associated with keeping the people from the Pact and Allegiance affiliated countries from being on the station at the same time, on the other hand, she doesn't like.

Not that she doesn't understand it - she may not have been there when the negotiations took place, but she was told what happened. Daddy had been very quick to say that his people could handle sharing the tight quarters on the space station with members of the Pact, but papa had been just as quick to call that unrealistic and state that he couldn't promise that nothing would happen. Anna herself has to reluctantly agree with her papa - it is unrealistic to expect nothing to happen, and so it's probably for the best to keep the two parties apart, but it makes her sad that this has to be the case.

But just as with anything else that is sad and outside of her control, Anna tries not to think about that too much. Instead she tries to see the bright side - not only does she have people back on board, using the station for what it was intended to do (which by itself feels amazing after being completely abandoned for a few years), this arrangement encourages other people to come visit who wouldn't otherwise. Most of her aunts and uncles are in the Allegiance, especially the ones who used to pay the most attention to her - giving her presents and sending their people up to visit her if not coming themselves. But now there's suddenly a huge need for people from the more neutral countries to come visit whenever there's a scheduled switchover of the station from Allegiance to Pact or vice versa - which means that now she gets to meet a lot more people that she wouldn't have met otherwise. And she loves to meet new people!

Like now, for instance - ever since she saw the schedule for today, she's had a hard time containing her excitement. She's never met anyone from Switzerland before, even though his flag has been next to the PMA in Harmony for pretty much as long as she can remember. It's enough to make it difficult for her to concentrate on her work, but she forces herself to do so anyway.

Especially since what she does is important - mainly helping out the people doing research (while talking their ear off, of course), while also doing the sadly necessary task of keeping an eye on them to make sure that they don't do anything they shouldn't. Even if they're not on the station at the same time, that doesn't mean that one of the astronauts or cosmonauts won't get it into their head that this is an opportunity to bring the war into space in spite of all the treaties and promises her fathers have made. She'd call the risk of that to be rather low since the people who get sent into space don't get sent into space unless they are the best of the best and very professional, but she'd rather double check and not find anything than not check and miss something. In fact, she plans on giving everything one last check after the current group of Russians leave and before the next group of Americans arrive, just to be safe.

Of course, she also definitely wants to take the time to get to know the people coming from Switzerland while they're here too, so the next few days are going to be very busy! But it isn't until the little shuttle bringing them starts to come close that something changes everything - she can sense a nation! A nation is coming? She didn't know! The Russians, now methodically guiding the shuttle in, glance up in surprise at the shocked exclamation that comes from the young girl but are quick to turn back to their work - if you've been on board the station for long enough, you get used to her doing things like that. But humans don't have a very strong ability to sense nations, especially not their own, so they have no idea of knowing what she's reacting to. Anna, on the other hand, doesn't really have much of a presence - probably because she's about the size of a football field and doesn't have any people that are actually hers - but she can tell when there's a nation coming close.

Her mind scrambles to catch up with this information. First of all, who is it? Hopefully her uncle Switzerland - otherwise someone is being sneaky and this is a very bad thing! But if it's him, then why didn't he tell her that he was coming? She usually gets some warning! Usually a nation just sends a couple of their people unless they have reason to want to visit personally, but if they're coming they tell her. Then again, if it's her uncle, he may not know the way things are normally done. He's definitely been one of her more distant relatives - something that she's been told isn't that surprising because he apparently likes to keep to himself a lot. In fact, though she could name at least one part of the station that was directly contributed by most of her family, she can't off the top of her head think of anything he's given her, though she knows that he helped pay for things. And that's a good contribution, she supposes - anything in space is extremely expensive! And perhaps it does make sense for him to come now - nations don't show up to absolutely everything, but they do like to be there when something significant to their country happens, and this is the first time the Swiss are coming to the International Space Station, so it does make sense.

Okay, so it's probably her uncle Switzerland - but now she feels so unprepared! Then again, aside from psyching herself up for it, what is there to prepare? And luckily, the docking process is rather tricky and it takes some time, so by the time that's completed and the hatch is opened, she's had a chance to settle down a lot. As usual she manages to snag the spot of being the first one to greet each of the people who enter the station.

Her usual greeting is a friendly, "Welcome aboard the International Space Station!" But when she sees the man who could only be her uncle Switzerland, instead she says, "Hi! I'm Anastasia Jones." Which says a lot in one sentence - her first name is used in many parts of the world, but is a name beloved by Ivan. Her last name is the same as her daddy's. That statement coming out of the mouth of a girl who appears to be twelve - much too young for anyone in their right mind to send into space if she was a human - easily identifies who she is even if she's too small to really sense as a nation. And then there's her appearance - her white hair and blue eyes are uniquely hers and a product of where she lives, but her features show her parentage: the shape of papa's eyes, daddy's nose, papa's skin, daddy's cheekbones, uncle Kiku's lips, uncle Feliciano's jawline...

Although Anna is a bit nervous about meeting her uncle Switzerland, especially with so little warning, even more than that she's excited. And when so many aspects of his greeting seem to indicate that he's more nervous about meeting her than she is about meeting him, it helps her relax a bit. And when she also sees that he's trying to not be scary, she can't help but giggle a little - she's her fathers' daughter, and is not so easily frightened. The only thing that makes her nervous at all right now is the mere fact that she's meeting someone for the first time that she considers to be a relative - and that's a reason to be a little anxious no matter who you are.

"Can I call you Uncle Basch?" she asks, because even though he said that she could call him anything, she still figures that it's better to ask him if her choice is acceptable, "And yeah that's me! And yes, you can call me Anastasia. Or Anna - lots of people call me Anna." Perhaps if she continues to grow and actually become something more like a proper nation with her own people and everything she would eventually prefer to be addressed more formally, but if that happens at all then it's going to be a long time in the future.

Unbothered by the way that he's staring at her - lots of people stare at her the first time she meets them, in fact the astronauts from Switzerland are staring at her right now too - she can't help but giggle a little when he asks for a tour. "Maybe we should wait until you've gotten more used to floating - it's a big station! But I should show you Columbus - it's not very far, and Europe made it for me and that includes you, and I can show you everything on the way," she says enthusiastically. "Here, I can help you!" she adds, offering one of her small hands.