Maiyun

"Oh, they even spelled our name right," Ardirnien noted with glee. "GOD bless!" She proceeded then to cut out solely the section involving the idyllic duchy of Adria and pin it to the corkboard in her office. She admired it there for a good few minutes, nodding to herself.

"Late," Ardirnien muttered with disdain, carrying with her a large stack of ultimately useless paperwork. Such was abandoned as she vaulted the velvet ropes to secure her recordbook. Oh, how foolish of her to think that would be the worst of her troubles this day. Zygmunt Euler, a bald, boring man who made her job endlessly difficult by refusing to inform her as to any of his whims. She wondered, often, irate, why he hired her in the first place if he was so damn intent on doing everything himself. Still, she remained, given she owed him a debt for the peace she had found in this rural, nowhere town. Ardirnien looked around to the crowd of grieving townsfolk, a family in despair, and the beautiful, beautiful buildings that had been so carefully planned and constructed by the Euler; it hardly appeared to be that same dusty, empty square it once had been. Atop her desk, a stack of half-finished papers in preparation for the election, one she had thought they would tackle together. Now, Ardirnien found herself muttering with growing alarm as she scanned the list of unfamiliar names and titles, some of which surely had been a joke. Surely. "How dare he leave me now, with all this work to do . ."

THE GREAT DUMAPALOOZA SUMMONING OF THE DUCAL ELECTORS CONVENTUS ADRIAE. In the year 651 of the Age of Ascension ☩ ‘LO UNTO THE DUCAL ELECTORS & THE ADRIAN PEOPLE, Almost 30 years now, the Duke Zygmunt Euler ‘The Builder’ has ruled the Duchy of Adria, raising a shattered people to renewed prosperity, giving them a home upon the banks of the Glassbrook & Avenor rivers in the heart of the Autumn Hills. Ever tireless and unrelenting, seldom resting from his work, the Duke had given his very spirit for his home and his people, until his strength finally gave out, passing away peacefully from this mortal coil. ELECTORAL DECREE: The Duma shall consist of the following categories of electors, each carrying the weight of Adrian tradition and the voices of their constituents. All electors or their chosen representatives are urged to present themselves promptly, accompanied by appropriate retinues and prepared to deliberate upon the matters at hand. On the Ducal Candidates: Let it be known that any Adrian man or woman over the age of 18, whose loyalty is to no foreign institution but to the Duchy and her People is eligible to be elected, so long as they are nominated by one of the Core Electors. I. CORE ELECTORS, THE NOBLES OF ADRIA The Nobles of Adria bear the greatest voting power in the Duma, reflecting their stewardship over the lands and fealty to the Duchy. Each noble elector wields one vote, representing the strength of their holdings and their commitment to the Adrian realm. Only this group of electors may nominate candidates. i. The Count of Aldersberg, Miloš Sarkozic; ii. The Count of Eulersburg, Frederick Euler; iii. The Baron of Montereine, Castille Fontaine; iv. The Baron of Madvon, Adelmar von Kanunberg; v. The Baron of the Wickwald, Adelbert Wick; vi. The Abbot of Owynswood, Father Oliver Sarkozic; vii. The Lord Shepherd of Adria, Callahan. II. ADMINISTRATORS OF ADRIA The Administrators and Guildleaders of Adria, revered for their service, wisdom, and skill, hold significant influence within the Duma. Each is granted one vote, symbolizing their merit-based contributions to the Duchy. i. Chancellor of Adria, Ardirnien Arthalion; ii. Captain of the Ivory Guard, Baudemund Euler; iii. Knight-Captain of the Turtle Knights of the Ivory Tower, Frederick Euler; iv. Huntsmarshal of the Esberian Hunter’s Guild, The Iron Huntsmarshal; v. Head Artificer of the Adrian Artificer’s Guild, Godric Silverwood; vi. Chief Steward of Belgrade, Miloš Sarkozic. III. HONOURARY ELECTORS The Allies and Friends of Adria, those who have shown themselves worthy of the respect and friendship of the Duchy and its people. Each is granted one vote, as a sign of respect and proof of their bond with Adria. i. The High-King of Idunia, Tar-Pharazon Arthalion; ii. The Emperor of Man, Marcus I Horen; iii. The Church of the True Faith, Magister Iudas; iv. The Arch-Duke of the Petran Commonwealth, Joseph I; v. The Prince of the Dark Elves, Ulln Thoyne; vi. Queen of Hags, Decrepit Vagrant to be retrieved from the streets; vii. The Dwarven Vote, Clan Jewelbeard; viii. East Turkin; ix. West Turkin. IV. CROWS PROPIUS Each Lord Crows of Prominent Carrion Houses, with direct historical ties to Adria, bears one vote, contributing to matters of general governance. However, their votes are nullified in existential questions concerning Adria’s sovereignty. i. Sarkozic; ii. Vladov. iii. Tuvyic; iv. Ivanovich; v. Suzecz; vi. Van Aert; vii. Rostova; viii. Barbanov; ix. Basrid var Susa; V. CROWS EXTERIUS The Distant Carrion Houses, while granted a spectator seat in the Duma, collectively wield one vote as a bloc. This vote is excluded from existential decisions about the Duchy’s legacy, and granted membership based on Carrion legitimacy and ennobled status. i. Ludovar; ii. Ruthern. PROCLAMATION OF CONVENTION: The Dumapalooza shall convene on the appointed date of [4PM EST, SATURDAY 2ND OF MAY], at the Duma Hall of Belgrade Let every eligible elector or their chosen representative attend and fulfill their duty to the Duchy, as mandated by the Dumageddon Doctrine, and the enduring spirit of Adrian Dumacracy. The Honourable, Ardirnien ‘Narthadis’ Arthalion, Chancellor of Adria.

Ardirnien cast a baleful glance to the nearest gossipers, grumbling road-men who found themselves disappointed that the foul devil had managed to escape execution once more. She listened, as was her way, with a keen eye and clear judgment for what moral complacency was rowdily expressed overtop jeering and the clanking of wooden mugs. She examined her hand, noting how her veins had grown more prominent, an impatient tap of her fingers betraying her rising frustration. With a sharp screech, the pale-haired woman rose from her chair in a violent movement that saw the feet scraping against the ground. It provoked the briefest of silences, a lull in nearby conversation the only acknowledgement that came her way. A handful of shimmering coins clattered against the surface of the table. Then she was gone.

Remembrance of Rosceline found Ardirnien in the midst of one of many, many celebratory glasses of wine shared with her people. Young, she had been, when she lost her lover. Younger still had been the Lady Rosceline, drawn into a conflict in a bid to protect the one she loved. Arriving in the capital of a kingdom that surely despised her for the actions of her Roger, and yet made every meek and kindly attempt to quell the rage of those in the room. Words like salt rubbing into fresh wounds, a cry for peace, and the end of bloodshed. The end of bloodshed, laughable, that it was accompanied by a lack of consequences for her grief! How dare they do this to her? How dare she appear before Ardirnien contrite and convinced in the madness of culling to Savoyard unity? Ardirnien had known then, and she conceded in a moment of gallows humor, that the best day of her life certainly would be the worst of Rosceline's. There was no other option, for the cost of her soul and salvation was the same actions that would make of the young bride a widow. Still, she had not imagined that day would also be her last. What was the crime of Rosceline, truly? In that she was a dutiful bride, a mother, and a woman born into a structure that did not allow her to seek station above such? Perhaps she did not need it. Perhaps the Lady Rosceline was content in what she had acquired, in maintaining warm friendships and high standing among those of the empire, evidenced by the desperate pleas of her companions during the execution. She wondered, then, at her own accuracy in providing such a distasteful wedding gift. Fated truly to tear the other apart in artful, painful survival. She swirled the contents of her glass around once more, watching again with that same expression of morbid amusement to the way the crimson liquid clung in faint stain to the shimmering crystal. A heavy sigh escaped her, souring the taste of jubilation that had arrived with the crowing of soldiers around her. There was nothing to be done, on her part. Ardirnien was neither a friend to the woman, nor a relative. They had spoken maybe twice, in all the years of their tangled, twisted connection. In fact, any movement to claim some of the tragedy as her own would be crass at best. Allow those who loved Rosceline to abide her memory, to plant a grave of her hopes and dreams and water them with stories of what might have been. She raised her glass, downing the remainder of the contents in a silent toast to the departed.

Ardirnien stared down at the paper, the contents of which held memories of the decades previous. Ever the source of her hatred, that bastard Druscan. She had seen little of him, in truth, since it occurred. You did not need to see a man such as that to despise him. In fact, there were certainly other people in the world who hated the man, people who had never met him at all. But she met him on several occasions. Decades of sleepless nights, scrawled in a piece of parchment. She crumpled the missive, tossing it to the side. Someone was talking to her, certainly, and she made every effort to appear as though nothing had occurred. Carrying on a conversation to make up for the lack of any real thought to commit it to memory. Stamped, signed, and sealed. She would need to get another copy, a lamented glance to the now crumpled initial. And her thoughts flew, once more, to the young woman she had met only twice. She recalled the shattering of a glass jar upon the ground, staring with something akin to venom in her eyes at the bride sat across from her. Guilt tugged in brief at her heart, in knowing that there was a very real world in which she might be widowed, as she had. Guilt never lasted very long, however . . Beneath it all, that deep, deep well of grief. She smoothed down the front of her dress, as though trying to usher calm once more in soothing motion. Someone asked her then about blades, and her eyes caught the flicker of the glass-like sword belted at her hip. Ardirnien might have laughed in amusement at the thought of herself actually using the fairly ornamental weapon. There stood the man, once more, in the back of her mind. Blood dripping to cold, northern floorboards. A murder in broad daylight. The weight of her limbs as she somehow kept upright in the face of terror. Useless, heavy limbs. The burden of it sat upon her chest in the dark, her eyes held to the distant ceiling, the taste of alchemical tea on her tongue. A warrior, her? What a laugh. Someone offered her a prayer, and she dipped her head. Ardirnien regarded the pyre, the crackling of the hearth. Her mind pulled previously to a memory in the tavern of the capital, to the less grand but equally as admirable hearth there. A younger her in blue silks, a beautiful dress she had been terribly fond of, pointing out the shape of the incisors in the preserved head of a minotaur. Standing up upon a stool, gesturing her beloved adventurer to direct his gaze to the sharpened ivory specimens. She recalled the dip of his smile, and the way it tugged at the scars on his face. Her fingers tapped absently to the silver ink scrawled across her forehead. The crackle of the hearth persisted, drawing her focus once more. The light cast her into strange pallor, and she drew her hands together- and she prayed. Silvered, nearly colorless hair fell over her shoulder, having tugged itself free of the plait it bore. She prayed, She prayed, And prayed some more. The hearth crackled, a branch splitting.

Ardirnien picks up a copy that was mixed in with the rest of her mail.

And Owyn was made again as the light of his blade, and the great city was destroyed. And for leagues all the wicked who looked upon it were stricken with the afflictions of Harren. So Owyn joined his father’s father in the Sixth Sky. Book of Silence, 20-22. It has come to the attention of the Crown that the Cursed Children who reside within Numendil remain without the protection of any explicit law. In pursuit of change and the betterment of our realm, an allowance has been granted for the enactment of the following writ, crafted to safeguard their livelihood and continued presence within the walls of Numenost. Númendil is a realm of redemption, and it is only fitting that our laws bear testament to that creed. I. Under the ecclesiastical authority endowed to His Eminence, Cardinal Nerium and the royal lineage of the Arthalionath, the group herein referred to as the Cursed Children shall be considered a protected class within the capital of Númendil. II. The Radiant Guard is hereby empowered to interpret acts of harassment, discrimination, or unjust persecution of this protected class as grounds for lawful intervention. They are expected to act swiftly to dispel such disturbances within their patrolled wards. III. Any attempt to provoke conflict as a means to subvert the protections of this writ shall be seen as an offense against the Crown and may be met with punitive measures at the discretion of the royal authority. IV. Those who claim the protection of this writ do so with the understanding that they are beholden to the laws and customs of the land in which they dwell. All who seek such protection must present themselves for assignment and registration through Cardinal Nerium. V. Within the Bene Lisse Choir of Saints Avenel and Amyas, a special place is reserved for Cursed Children seeking to elevate the status of their kin and the pursuit of a cure thereof. May they walk the path of healing beneath the watchful eyes of the Creator. Praecordia Est. Her Royal Highness, Princess Ardirnien Narthadis Arthalion of the Royal Arthalionath, Diplomat of Numenost, and caretaker of her people.

━━━━━━━☆☆━━━━━━━ Ardirnien closed her eyes briefly at the shattering of glass. Around her, both standing and sitting- the fellows of Drusco. She opened them to view before her the lady Rosceline, a young woman of but eighteen summers garbed in her bridal attire. At her side, the mocking smile of the lady in waiting who had shattered the admittedly ill-intentioned gift she had chosen to bestow upon the happy couple. A jar of dead centipedes, harvested from the corpse of her murdered beloved. A tawdry, tasteless thing to offer them. That much was apparent to all those that stood in attendance. Ardirnien felt the look of scorn from her mother with all the heat of a brand to the back of her neck, and she squared her shoulders back to fight down the hint of shame that accompanied it. This was owed. This was what she must do. No one understood, she did this not because she wanted to- But because she must. And so she arrived in a place she was not wanted, with a party of eager eyes from kingdoms of both her own and foreign, to cast discomfort into the stately affair. She talked loudly, she spoke rudely, she threw what weight around she could in a blind rage, if only to give to them a sense of the pain that she herself felt in her waking moments. Behavior most unbecoming for a princess, a royal, for a diplomat as she was ordained to be. With it, the memory of hushed conversations from those closest to her, advising her against such. Whispers of concern, in how she was losing herself to vengeance. Pleas in that Louis would not wish to see her reduced to such in his absence. These words fell on deafened, unwilling ears. She could not let them get away with it. She could not allow them to get away with it, how dare they feel even an ounce of happiness, how dare they hold a wedding and move on from what had happened- When she could not. The young woman had thought her poorly disguised barb, her blatant attempt at ruining the wedding would bring with it a sense of satisfaction, a balm to the roaring grief that continued to keep her nights sleepless and her days as though in a fugue state, her feet tapping against the cobbled streets of her kingdom as worked from the rising of the sun to the slow ascent of the moon. But no such relief found Ardirnien Arthalion, after the sound of shattering glass.

Her dress was ruined. It was not because of the tears from her incessant, pathetic weeping. It was not because of the dirt from when she had been flung from a horse and finally, finally rescued by reinforcements that had arrived far too late. The jewel-toned, blue silks had been marred a murky, reddish brown from when she had sat quietly in the hall of her kingdom with a burlap sack cradled in her lap, the head of her love sat inside of it. Leaking, ever insistent, as what blood remained slowly escaped the crude wound of the beheading. Around her, the chatter and clamor of different people was heard. Her brother, intent on leading a hunt of some kind, guards that sat near her and made attempt to coax her from her stunned state. But all of it were muffled, sounds distant as though she herself were underwater. Only two sensations were present to Ardirnien then. The warm, uncomfortable weight in her lap that was all that remained of Louis. A mangled head that would never again smile at her or call her some stupid, silly name in that strange tongue of his that her father so disapproved of. The second of these was the strangling pulses around her heart, the seizing of an unseen pain that lanced through her in continued agony. Her heartbeat was loud in her ears, bringing with it the flashes of the night. The boy who sat at their table, the men who burst into the doorway with weapons brandished, Louis pleading for her to leave, and her stubborn refusal to move. But neither did she move to save him, the coward that she was. With every beat of her heart, she cursed her useless, powerless limbs. She saw the dismissive looks of well-armored guards she had never met, and a dull, almost bored gleam in the eye of Tiberias. She saw herself, hours prior. In a bid to console Louis from the murder of his brother, the possible death of his father if she could not convince the Tar, HER FATHER, to act .. Uttering the foolish words, sat next to him in the safety of her city: ".. Wanna get out of here?" The memory brought with it a fresh wave of tears, cursing her folly. Her naivety. As pain seized around her heart once more, she moved up to her feet, although she never felt them actually touch the ground. It was as though she were a ghost, and in a way, she certainly could have been one. Ardirnien climbed the stairs of the residential wing, her gaze trailing along the floor. Servantry parted swiftly from her path, eager to put a wide berth between themselves and the young woman who may have walked straight into them had they not otherwise done so. She stripped herself of the ruined silks, casting them to the floor and crossed to her wardrobe. Countless dresses of finery twinkled in the dim lighting of her room, pushed past so that she might draw out a plain dress of soft, black linen. She hung it on the door. On her bedside table, a half-drunk cup of now decidedly cold nightsap tea. It was tossed back, the cup cast carelessly to the floor where it cracked. Chips of painted porcelain were scattering the fine hardwood of the bedroom floor. She dragged herself beneath the heavy covers of her bed, curling inward on herself. As dreamless, alchemical sleep claimed her, the young royal prayed most earnestly to the angels above. A prayer, a desperate plea, that tomorrow might never arrive. . . . Unfortunately for her, it arrived all the same.

Ardirnien scanned over the missive in brief, one of many placed to a stack at her bedroom door. It was only that the pile of parchments, missives, and written sympathies fell over and scattered across the hall, knocked against the untouched tray of breakfast, having long since gone cold, the moment she cracked open her door that she decided to finally take them inside. Better not to make a mess for someone else to clean, on top of all else. The room was dark, a half-sputtering candle serving as light in the quiet space. Grief muffled what sound could have passed these walls, hanging in the air as though it were a shroud. She sank down into the mattress, sitting on the edge of her bed as she continued to read it. The joy of others, the joy of THEM was like ashes in her mouth. With a sharp, shuddering breath, the princess of Numenost turned over the colorfully inked parchment so that it lay face-down on her bedside table. Weight overcame her once more, coaxing her to crawl back beneath the heavy blankets sprawled in the dark of the room. She went back to bed.

Morning found the rather jovial princess of Numenost as it usually had, after a bath of milk and honey and a breakfast brought straight to her office. The air was murky, and a fresh batch of oiled lavender was cast above the flame to allow it to seep into the room itself. With a little flourish of one delicate hand, she brandished her letter opener to begin making her way through the pile of correspondence that sat there every morning. All was well. Peaceful, even. Invitation to tea . . Invitation to tea . . Spam . . A bounty for Louis . . Spam . . Ardirnien paused, picking up the bounty missive once more. She scanned over the contents a few times, and then a few times more, before ordering a copy of Ravenmire CRIMINAL LAW to be brought to her immediately. A headache began to brew in the back of her mind, worsening the fog that the nightsap tea she drank before bed had wrought upon her. So much to do, and now Louis were in need of assistance. Very well. Nothing a little tea and conversation could not fix.

Why am I in this?

It had not been so late in the day for worry to find Ardirnien. No, worry came after the sun had fallen from the sky and the moon had risen in place, when all those nearest to her had gone to bed. To be so worried this early in the day was a rarity, brought about by the unnerving buzz of the servantry. It left her curious, curious enough that at least she made the excuse of bringing down her own teatray when she had finished with it, the delicate porcelain clattering against the brightly painted thin metal. In her heart she was certainly aware that eavesdropping was not a polite manner to maintain. And after all, the servantry deserved to be able to gossip freely without fear of their employers listening in. But it did have her still lingering near the doorway of the kitchen, right as one of the scullery maids clapped her hands to her mouth in horror. "They found her where?" The teatray clatters to the ground in a display of noise, colorful, and flying shards of pottery stained with the remnants of honey-lemon tea with a slice of candied orange. A fragrant, aromatic brew that was locally sourced. The gossiping maids rushed out in a panic through the doorway then to find Ardirnien standing at the center of the disaster, her hands shaking. Soft, silken slippers that were certainly now ruined with shards of ceramic that were scattered around her like starlight. Of the five cups there, only three remained.