There is a Blossom known as Hartford, after the Hartford Empire which rules the entire planet. Its head of state is the vampire Emperor Jeremy Hartford I, who placed his empire's capital in Hartford, Connecticut when he officially took over the world on fifty years ago. Today, the skyline of the city of Hartford is dominated by the Imperial Citadel, a 3000-foot building of iron-bluegray walls and heavily tinted windows. Its 250 floors are divided into over a dozen tiers, each narrower than the ones below, with the top two floors consisting of a penthouse suite for the Emperor.

The 200th floor dominated by a large hall, with 200 desks for the Senate of Princes, and one for the Emperor. This evening, the Senate has convened to discuss a bank robbery which happened in New York City not long ago. Two hundred red-eyed gentlemen, all attractive in an anemic sort of way and with unhealthy-looking skin, each of them ruling over a different region of the Hartford Empire.

"A troupe of demons committing a crime and retreating to the Netherworld isn't unheard-of," says Prince George Reagan of America. "It wasn't as though it was an important bank, anyway. But the perpetrator was Daaria Qarr'zy, an offworlder." An image of Demon Queen appears on the screen behind him. "This has the potential to change the entire shape of political opinion towards the World Tree, especially since the Gardeners did nothing to stop it!" The response from the other Princes is a general muttering of outrage. How dare they come and attack our world! The entire point of the Hartford Empire was to get rid of the very concept of people from other nations butting in!

Prince Vlad "Dracula" Tepes of Transylvania maintains a poker-face. "And what course of action do you recommend?" he says. "Blockade all contact from other worlds? My information is that given the way Vines behave, such a thing would be impossible."

"If necessary!" says Prince Reagan. "If the Gardeners can't keep their rabble away from causing trouble here, we shall have to take matters into our own hands!"

"We're overlooking an obvious alternative strategy," says Prince Shinzou Morimura of Japan. "We unite the World Tree under Emperor Hartford, just as we united Earth." This accompanied by a more quiet, but no less enthusiastic murmur of assent. "The Gardeners will be --"

Emperor Jeremy Hartford I clears his throat. He's sitting in the center of the senate hall, hands folded behind his head and with his feet propped up on his desk. It is well-understood that he would rule the world singlehandedly, without the tiers of nobility, if he thought it was even slightly possible to manage an entire planet by himself. (Or at least, well-understood among the Senate of Princes. And they're the ones who actually matter, right?)

Prince Morimura stands and bows to the Emperor. "My apologies, Your Imperial Majesty," he says. "The way you united this world, formerly known as Earth --"

"You're all being dumbasses," says His Imperial Majesty. "Except Vlad, probably." He lowers his feet and leans forward. "Like, for one thing, the World Tree is big. I mean really big, my dudes, as in 'there's thousands of Blossoms, some of which are internally the size of a whole-ass galaxy' big. And tee bee aitch, we don't even know what we have to contend with from the Gardeners." He raises his eyebrows. "Oh, beyond that little detail about how they can kick our asses from outside our dimension if they decide we're big enough trouble?"

This silences all chatter in the Senate. A few princes give each other uneasy glances. For all his informal manner of speech, the Emperor is surprisingly savvy, both politically and militarily. All of them remember that he's the one who managed to put himself on the Imperial Throne, after all. And none of them wants to interrupt him while he outlines whatever plan he's come up with.

Emperor Hartford sits back and steeples his hands, waggling his eyebrows to let everyone know that the gesture is ironic. "So step one is, we make nice with the Gardeners," he says. "Get some diplomats out, let 'em know we're gonna play ball by their rules." He grins. "That way, when it's time to ... grab a few spots on a other Blossoms?" He sits up straighter. "They'll be happy for our help."

He stretches. (A meaningless gesture, when you're undead.) "In the meantime," he says, "we spin this as, like: Hartford is a part of the World Tree, and the World Tree is a part of Hartford." He gestures expansively. "It's a part of our life now, and dividing ourselves between 'us' and 'them' will only lead to tears. Hartford is built on the philosophy that we are all in this together." He looks around. "That'll shut up the rabble, y'know?"

There's a smattering of applause, and a general murmur of enthusiastic agreement. If there's one thing they all see eye to eye on, Prince or Emperor, it's that at the rabble is in need of shutting up.

Emperor Hartford snaps his fingers. The image of Demon Queen on Prince Reagan's screen is replaced by pictures of Serrah Delany, Diantha Windsong, Luke Gray, and a couple of variously-blurry phone-camera snapshots of Holly Winn and Norman. "Oh, and also obviously," he says flatly, "we point out that all but one of the people who came to defend against the robbery were offworlders, which means that the World Tree did in fact protect us from itself, you morons."

And that shuts down the conversation entirely.