PROLOGUE: A FUNERAL
EMPEURESS' 'DEATHBED DECREE' LEAVES FUTURE OF MONARCHY UNCERTAIN
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Reform will likely be Fredrika's legacy
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HM Meneldur elected Empeurer, Sendryna Andraniseth likely to become Prime Minister
By AMOS TROVTRITH
Special to the IVORHEART POST
Pelagis, July 3 - His Majesty Meneldur Quarrovth Ilium, in a public statement days after his election by the General Assembly, called for public calm in "this time of drastic political change". A decree made by his mother, Empeuress Fredrika Quarrovth Tar-Ilium, hours before her death last Saturday enacted sweeping reforms that almost overnight have made the Myrorian monarch a largely ceremonial head-of-state. Serja Sendryna Andraniseth, a minister of the Assembly representing Thanelen, will likely be elected Myroria's first Prime Minister by the end of the week.
Ælar Quarrovth Ilium, Fredrika's second child, Count of Traval, and head of Great House Quarrovth, called the reforms "a mistake". He denied, however, that he sought to return the Great Houses to political power, assuring gathered reporters that "he will always be a member of the Liberal Party first and a member of House Quarrovth second."
When pressed for a comment, Emma Ilium Quarrovth, Fredrika's youngest child and partner of Ozian dire Vendecci Parpaski, only said that "as an Ozian citizen [she had] nothing to say regarding Myrorian politics." Regardless of their differing political views, His Majesty and his two siblings will all be attending the late Empeuress' funeral tomorrow.
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Analysis: the latest reform, the undeath of the Great Houses, and Ælar's political rise
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In 1999, when Fredrika dissolved the Council of Great Houses and ordered Myroria to hold her first nationwide elections, she assured conservatives that the new General Assembly would ultimately still answer to the monarch. However, in the last years of her reign and shortly before her death from duodenal cancer last week, it became clear to any political analyst in Fellowmoor-Pelagis that Fredrika had one last reform up her sleeve.
However, the breadth of the reform that came shocked even the most liberal activists in the capital. In one five-page document, likely written months before her death, the Empeuress took away the last vestiges of political power reserved to the Great Houses - making them little more than private organizations. The purpose of her centralization of power in the throne over the past 30 years immediately became clear - the queen had always intended to wash away the House system, but first had to make the Great Houses politically impotent. Once that happened, Fredrika was free to enact her vision for a 21st century Myroria without the interference of the conservative nobles opposing her - for better or for worse.
Though the breadth of the queen's deathbed decree was wide, its depth was shallow - more of a general vision than a new constitution. Whether or not it this was her intention - to leave the functioning of the new "Noble Republic of Myroria", as she styled it, to its new government - its vagueness has resulted in arguments both in the Assembly and outside of it. These arguments are wide-ranging but all seem to have several questions in common: to what extent does the new "Noble Republic" have to adhere to the wishes of a dead monarch? Could Fredrika even absolve herself of her power and the power of her successors, constitutionally? And what role, if any, do the Great Houses have in this new government?
Reports from Ivorheart recently have shed light on a street brawl between Quarrovth and Ondanitrith youth - showing that old feuds die hard and that House vendettas have become more, not less, violent since the Council's prorogation and dissolution. Open violence between Houses - in the city no less - has not been seen since the earliest days of the Myrorian state. Membership in the Houses, too, has shot up - without direct participation in the political system, Houses have started to admit anyone who applies - often using young men as muscle to back up business interests throughout the country. Great Houses are starting to look more like Ozian direships than traditional Myrorian clans and rites.
Connected to this is the meteoric rise of the Tar-Ilium's second son, Ælar. The prince has shot from a minor noble in House Quarrovth's bureaucracy to the organization's leader - commanding the fierce loyalty of the House's burgeoning young population. Though he has not yet advocated for a return to the House system, he would certainly be in good company if he did. A recent poll has suggested that nearly two-thirds of respondents in Myroria's rural areas would prefer a return to traditional ways - likely because voting in elections is hard in the large swaths of the country lacking election officials or polling places.
If Ælar were to come out in support of the House system, he would be able to force the issue like no one else in Myroria.
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Meneldur elected to the throne
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Meneldur Ilium, the eldest son of Fredrika Tar-Ilium and disgraced Empeurer Peté Tar-Ilium, was elected by the General Assembly to the throne. The vote was mostly a formality, as the recent reforms have made it all but certain the throne will belong to the descendents of Fredrika and her husband for the foreseeable future. Despite rumors that Meneldur would take the regnal name "Fendryn II Quarrovth" upon his accession, honoring his grandfather, he chose to remain known as "Meneldur Ilium".
Upon his election, he made a brief speech to the General Assembly, addressing them by the traditional Myrorian honorific of "Serjos a Serjas". Born in the province of Ilium, Eluvatar, in 1945, he will be the second Myrorian monarch born on foreign soil - after his father, Peté. Taking the throne at the age of 63, Meneldur is one of the oldest Empeurer's in recent history, with two children of his own - Berethor, his son, and Relmerea, his daughter. HM Meneldur also has one grandchild - Llervu, the daugher of Berethor and his wife Daynasa.
Meneldur promised a "speedy transition" to an "open and transparent democracy", adding that he awaits the confirmation of Myroria's first Prime Minister with "bated breath".
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Sendryna Andraniseth on course for Prime Minister's office
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Serja Sendryna Andraniseth, the Assembly Minister (AM) representing Thanelen in the General Assembly, has been confirmed by the Worker's-Republican Coalition to be its pick for Prime Minister - Myroria's first. The Liberal Party, representing His Majesty's Loyal Opposition, called the pick a "mistake for Myroria in this delicate time".
Serja Sendryna made her name politically in the late 1980s as a young noble of House Quarrovth and Thanelen's representative on the Council of Great Houses. On the Council she was a fierce defender of Fredrika's reform efforts and helped push through a proposal for the construction of girls' schools in the rural areas of County Ivorheart. After the Council's dissolution in 1999, she was easily elected to represent Thanelen in the new General Assembly and helped form the Republican Party.
In the Assembly she continued to be a close ally of the Empeuress and helped push through more reform efforts throughout the early 2000s. After the Worker's-Republican Coalition won the election of 2007, she was picked to be the Coalition Leader and quickly won the election for their nominee for Prime Minister after the queen's death. With a clear majority heading into the Prime Ministerial elections on Friday, her election has been all but assured.
"I can only thank the Myrorian people for letting me get to where I am," Serja Sendryna said yesterday. "May all of our ancestors bless this Myrorian democracy."
A cook crumpled up the Thursday Edition of the Ivorheart Post and stuffed it into a chimney under the grill. On this hot July day, not even the drafty interior of the Quarrovth Estate could keep the humidity away - cooking inside would be unthinkable. Myrorian wakes were drunken affairs - and in a country house full of inebriated Quarrovths, all one insult way from a physical fight, more heat was exactly what wasn't needed.
Ælar took a sip from his drink - Novic whiskey on the rocks - leaned on a tree, and turned to Meneldur. Ælar was a spitting image of his father - high cheekbones, short, wiry hair, and dark eyes - but Meneldur was more a mix of both his parents - high cheekbones, but steep, curved eyebrows. Short, wiry hair, but a dark brown instead of black - or at least it was a dark brown in his youth. Now His Majesty's hair was white and his hairline quickly receding.
"Where's Father?" Ælar asked - more out of genuine curiosity than genuine concern.
"He's with the body," Meneldur said, voice oozing empathy. He was a charismatic - and genuinely caring - man, a rarity in this nation. To any observer it would seem he almost blundered into the kingship.
"I don't think he'll know what to do with himself now."
"Same thing he's always done," Meneldur replied with a sigh. "I don't think they ever saw each other more than once a year anyway."
"He used to watch the television hoping she'd make a speech;" Ælar began, taking another sip of his drink. "She never even let him know ahead of time. He wouldn't have done this, you know."
"What is 'this'?" Meneldur said. He loosened his tie, hoping to get some cool air on his neck.
"Turned us into novelties. We'd be something."
"We are something, Ælar," Meneldur sighed. "We wouldn't know what to do with that power if we had it."
"You wouldn't, maybe," Ælar said dismissively, looking towards the estate gardens and taking another sip of his drink.
"I was the last to consent to this," Meneldur said, taking a step towards Ælar as he pushed himself off the tree. "But now that it's happened I won't stir the pot."
"We could have had it all! But you let Mother ruin it!"
"She had our country in her heart," Meneldur pleaded.
"No she didn't," Ælar scoffed, taking a step towards his brother. "She wanted all the power for herself, then when her favorite Emma skipped off to Ozia she decided she'd rather no one have it than one of us. You know it."
Meneldur opened his mouth but was interrupted.
"Oi! My brothers talking about me behind my back?"
Meneldur and Ælar both turned to see their sister approaching. Though Vendecci was nowhere to be seen, she had two bodyguards hanging back by her car that certainly met the wake's brown skin quota. Emma herself, after years in Ozia, had darkened her skin tone from a 3 to a 7 - no small feat, for a pasty Myrorian. She wore an untucked grey cotton button-up and black trousers, and wore a black ribbon tied on her left arm. Though Emma had jumped headfirst into the Ozian culture, she wore no keffiyeh - yet.
"We were just discussing the future of Myroria," Ælar said smugly.
"He was. I was trying to discuss our departed mother." Meneldur interjected.
"Like either of you half-Dunedain can talk about what's best for Myroria," Emma said.
"And you can? At least we live here," Ælar near-shouted.
"I never said I could. But I know what I want for Myroria..."