Primogeniture (1351)

[Myroria]

Marynfell, Resdaynia¹
July 1320

"Divayth..." intoned a teenaged girl sadly. Her tone made it clear she was about to deliver bad news. "Llerah²," she continued.

"I've already heard." Divayth moaned. Adjusting his deel, he sat on the grass and fixed his gaze on the sun shining patterns through the trees. "But I'd rather have heard it from you, Hlerina."

"I'm so sorry. Your father... " Hlerina said, approaching and sitting next to Divayth. Marynfell, as the only city this far northeast in Resdaynia, was lucky enough to have a smidge of vegetation in its town square. She looked at the sun shining through the trees as well. "Your father is going write you into the inheritance now that Seryth's dead."

"What?!" Divayth exclaimed. "What about Teren? He's the secondborn, not me!"

"Teren..." Hlerina sighed. "Do you want to know what I really heard?"

"Yes, llerah," Divayth said.

"Your father said Teren's an even bigger disappointment than you."

"Aiyyyyy," Divayth exclaimed, burying his face in his hands briefly before looking back up at the tree.

"Look at it this way," Hlerina said, trying to improve her cousin's spirits, "Once your father goes you'll be in charge of the whole Temple. Basically the whole city,"

"If I can survive living with him until then," Divayth groaned. The motion of the sun seemed more and more enthralling as it played with the shadows of the branches of the tree.

"Think about the future! Your lot is bound to improve," Hlerina implored. Hearing nothing from her cousin, she turned to look at him. "Divayth?" Adjusting herself to look at him in the eyes, she quickly saw that they were rolled back in his head. "Divayth!"

Convulsing, he fell from his sitting position onto his back and his legs threw themselves out in opposite directions rigidly.

"Mother! Father!" Hlerina exclaimed, pushing herself to her feet and running towards a mud-brick house near the square. "Mother! Father! The ancestors are visiting Divayth!"

Romenna, Eluvatar
June 1351

"Find them and bring them to me. I want them alive," Divayth said forcefully. Sitting across from him, dressed in a brocade tunic and a plate cuirass of the captain of the city guard, was a chiseled-looking Dunedain man clearly uncomfortable being given orders by a foreigner, no matter how good his Eruvite was.

"With respect, Honor," the Dunedain man said carefully. "It's probably nothing. Foreigners cause a ruckus all the time," he continued with all but a physical nudge.

"Two Pelagian men skulking around near the palace walls are not a pair of drunkards. This is a risk to the security of the King!"

"If spies or... saboteurs were in Romenna, the guard would know," the captain said with a smirk.

"Isildur Belaedari!" Divayth said, standing. Dressed in a traditional Keihesse'zhi deel dyed in the colors of the royal court, he couldn't look more differently from the Dunedain captain of the guard if he tried. "I use your first and last names because I am being forced to speak to you as a child. When orders come from me, assume they come from His Majesty himself. These are Pelagian spies and a risk to the Confederacy. Have your men find them and bring them to me alive, or you will find yourself patrolling the streets of Romenna yourself!"

Isildur pursed his lips.

"Your will shall be done, Honor."

"You may leave, Captain," Divayth said, brushing his deel. The knee-length fastened robe was hell in this heat - unable to import heat-designed textiles from Resdaynia, he had to settle for Eluvataran wool.

Isildur stood from his chair. "Eru bless you, Honor."

"Ancestors guide you, sera."

¹: the Keihesse'zhi/Myrorian homeland north of Ozia
²: a Keihesse'zhi word meaning "cousin"

[Funkadelia]

Pelagis, Pelagia
October, 1316

The midwife quickly took the screaming child away and began to wrap it up in the cloth that she had prepared.

"Oveco... that will be his name. It's righteous... strong... a fitting name for a child as virile as ours." Geneviève looked with sparkling eyes at her newborn son, being cradled gently in the arms of the midwife.

"He is... beautiful..." Hernando said with an audible lump in his throat. "I finally have a son... I never though it would feel this incredible." Hernando, still in his robes after being pulled from a meeting of the Chamber of the Choir, leaned in to give Geneviève a gentle kiss on her forehead, still moist from sweat, and held his lips there for a few seconds.

As he stood up straight again, his eyes slowly shifted down at his bright red robes. At this instant his eyes turned to stone. He quickly turned his head to the midwife and barked out an order. "Take the child and hide him. Send him outside the city. No one other than the three of us must know of his existence."

Geneviève screamed, "No! Hernando, what are you doing?! No!" She continued to scream as Hernando stood silently, watching the child being removed from the room with frosty eyes.

"If you would like to stay with the child, then you can leave Pelagis as well. It is not my concern. I love you, Geneviève, but the Choir must not know that this happened."

"Hernando... the Choir is more important than I am? Than Oveco is? Well, is it?" Hernando shifted his cold gaze to her, saying nothing. He stormed out of the building to head back to the Chamber of the Choir, leaving Geneviève with tears streaming down her cheeks.

Palace of the Cantator, Pelagis, Pelagia
July 12, 1348

"Chancelier Louis Caraffe receives.... three votes. He does... not have the required majority." The Premier-Chancelier deliberately called out each Cancelier's¹ name and how many votes they recieved.
"Chancelier Hernando Brazagac recieves.... sixteen votes. He does... indeed have the required majority. Henceforth, he is the Supreme Pontiff, our Chanteur."

Upon hearing this news, Hernando immediately dropped to his knees in prayer. The rest of the Choir joined the Premier-Chancelier in singing loudly towards Hernando, "Acceptasne electionem de te canonice factam in Summum Pontificem?"

In response, Hernando was barely able to mutter, "A-Accipio." In response, the Choir asked, "Quo nomine vis vocari?" After taking an extended period of time to consider the answer, "Cornelius," he said solemnly. At this instant, the doors to the conclave room were thrown open by the lower Chanceliers, the rest of the Choir began their long procession down the halls of the Palace of the Cantator singing in a low but magnamious tone, "Habemus Cantator!"

Meanwhile, Hernando had been dressed by the Choir boys in his the Chanteur robes. They had obviously practiced for this moment, as they were able to change his clothes in mere minutes, and Hernando still had enough time to make it to the rear of the procession as the Chanteur is intended to.

The Premier-Chancelier swung the door open to the balcony, where the senior members of the Choir packed themselves into what space was available, continuing to sing "Habemus Cantator!" while the Pelagian masses cheered in the streets below. Hernando made his way to the door frame, where he was motioned to stop by a Chancelier on the inside of the building. The Premier Chancelier shouted, still in his bass singing voice, "Annuntio vobis gaudium magnum: Habemus Cantator! Eminentissimum ac Reverendissimum Dominum, Dominum Hernando, Sanctae Universalis Ecclesie Pelagiae Cancellariae Bragazac, qui sibi nomen imposuit Cornelius Septus."

Chanteur Cornelius slowly walked through the door, his hands in the air as a gesture of peace. He joined the rest of the Choir in a low tone, and began to recite a prayer of absolution in Old Pelagian. In the streets below, the people were in frenzy. "Vive la Chanteur! Vive la Chanteur!"

After the prayer finished, the Chanteur continued to wave to the crowd, then retired back into the Palace. He turned his head to his closest friend in the Choir, Chancelier Jean LeFoix, and whispered into his ear, "I could get used to this, you know." LeFoix chuckled nervously, and Hernando continued to walk down the hallway to his chambers to absorb and reflect on the events of the day. One thought continued to cross his mind, however. The sight of a child screaming, and a woman crying hysterically. As much as Hernando tried to disregard the thought, it pierced through anything else that he tried to force into his mind.

^{1: A Chancelier is a member of the Choir of the Universal Pelagian Church, equivalent to a Cardinal in the RL Catholic Church, in case you couldn't tell.}

[Myroria]

Marynfell, Resdaynia
January 1321

This far north from the Ozian border, the winter wind had an unmistakeable chill, and the streets of Marynfell, a bastion of civilization in the vast Resdaynian desert, were almost bare. Those people who had managed to get themselves out of their homes at all today were at the town's temple for the consecration of Odaishor Rariseth, an older man well-known throughout the town for his efforts to house the poor.

Poor Odaishor had died at the beginning of the month from pneumonia; despite a persistent cough he had insisted to his wife that he walk the town giving alms to the poor. Within the week his lungs were filled with fluid, and a doctor brought all the way from Wahd'e'ruhn could do little to cure him. Though the wake was a cause for celebration, with good tidings from the entire town and confetti thrown from the buildings, Marynfell still felt like it had lost something special.

After the pyre, when his bleached skeleton was carried off to Mereruhn - the 'House of the Dead' and Resdaynia's largest necropolis - for interral, the procession was followed five miles out of town by Marynfell's homeless, crying and laughing in grief.

Magnaminously, Odaishor had left half his estate to the local workhouse, and furthermore had donated one of his knucklebones and his left kneecap to Marynfell's temple. Such a donation was an enormous honor and a tremendous gift. A solemn ritual, presided over by the temple's priest, Benethran Solarith, and his oldest surviving son, Divayth, was immediately scheduled to imbue these artifacts of Odaishor's courtesy with the power to keep malevolent spirits away from the town.

The temple used their best incense for the ceremony - a large brazier, filled with the stuff, was painstakingly stoked by Divayth, who always prided himself on his skill tending the 'rulgamutha', as it was known.

"It is a testament to our dear Odaishor's good humor and kindness that so many of you turned out," Benethran began. He was wearing his best deel - a blue embroidered robe, with a silk shell and fur liner made for the northern cold. "Truly, his spirit smiles from the afterlife."

Benethran held up a purple velvet pillow, upon which rested the white, bleached kneecap and knucklebone. "It has been over one hundred twenty years since a member of our congregation was so gracious as to allow us to inter a piece of their body in our temple. My father's father's father was the one to preside over that ceremony, and it is a great honor for me to follow his example." Placing the pillow back down on the altar behind him, he nodded at Divayth, standing to the side. Benethran walked to the opposite side of the altar so he could once again face the congregation.

"I know that Odaishor's warmth will keep the coldness of mad and depraved spirits from Marynfell. Much as he served in the town guard in his younger years, he will serve to protect us once again." Benethran heard gasps from the crowd and widened his eyes, confused.

"Serjo!" yelled a woman from the congregation. "Odaishor visits your son!"

Benethran turned to see his son convulsing on the ground. As the crowd ran to the altar to comfort the boy, he scowled.

Romenna, Eluvatar
June 1351

"Honor," said Isildur, approaching Divayth as he walked the halls behind the king's throne room.

"I hope you have good news to report, Captain." Divayth replied, waiting for Isildur to draw nearer.

"We believe the spies are either in the Ozian Quarter... " he began, adjusting his belt.

"Or?"

"Or the Keihesse'zhi Quarter." Divayth's straight face turned to a scowl. Taking a step closer to the captain, he leaned in.

"You must be the bastard son of an Ozian, Dunedain." Taken aback, Isildur stepped backwards and grew red in the face.

"I don't follow, Honor."

Divayth went from scowling to livid in the blink of an eye.

"Because you use such slurs in my presence! 'No name people', agh! Ancestors protect me!"

"I apologize if I - " Isildur began.

"Do not give me your apologies, Dunedain! I swear on all the spirits of my House, if I ever hear you use such language again, I will kill you, drag your body to the shores of Cefnor myself, and toss you in! I will sail to Thanelen just to wait for your corpse to float ashore so I can spit on it! Agh!"

"Forgive my misstep, Honor." Isildur begrudged.

"You will find these spies, Captain." Divayth said quietly. "I don't care if the Ozians and my people ally to keep you out of their Quarters. I don't care if Empress Berenguela herself marches in force on Romenna to keep her kin safe. I don't care if the Tar-Romen names you his heir, you will find them and you will not fail me!"

"Eru bless you, Honor."

"Spirits watch over you, sera." Divayth replied, turning and walking towards the throne room.

[Funkadelia]

Palace of the Empereur, Pelagis, Pelagia
August, 1298
"WHY?!" the tall, white haired man shouted out in the empty halls of the palace. His exclamation echoed across the buttresses as the much shorter and stouter man in front of him cringed from the sudden cry.

"She is the legitimate heir... There's not much I can do. There is a lot of tradition behind these sorts of things. We do not want to annoy the wrong people here."

"BUT she is only EIGHT! Eight years old! And she's a.." The old man suddenly got a lot quieter, down to a whisper, "..A young girl! You know that women are not fit to rule!"

The short man took a long sigh. "Jean-Philippe, you know that there is nothing I can do. I must follow the law, and the Primogeniture Decree of 1242 is something we cannot remove!"

"You are absolutely useless. When I take the throne, you may want to go into hiding somewhere, you cockroach of a man." Jean-Philippe shoved the short man aside, knocking off his hat and pushing him into the wall.

"Alright, Berenguela, now spin around slowly!"

The little girl with long, chestnut brown hair twirled around in her deep blue gown, as the elderly maid looked on with a wide smile.

"You look... absolutely stunning! Everyone is going to be amazed by how you look!"

The girl looked at her with her head tilted, striking a pose, "Do you think daddy would have liked this? I think he would say I am beautiful and give me a big kiss!"

The maid's face steeled a little bit. "Well... yes, of course. Daddy would have thought you were beautiful. Now, let's get your shoes picked out, it's the only thing that hasn't been picked out yet!"

The places were set, and the sound of an organ filled the enormous cathedral hall. Royalty and nobles from across Pelagia and beyond flocked to the Chancelier Cathedral to see the coronation of just the second Empress regnant in Pelagian history. Little Berenguela, dressed in her royal blue gown and blue shoes, with a crystal tiara on her head, walked down the red carpet lined aisle in the middle of the cathedral hall, escorted by her mother Françoise, the Empress dowager. Her tiny body was dwarfed even further when she sat in the enormous throne at the end of the aisle.

After a brief ceremony conducted by Chanteur Christophe, the Chanteur lifted the jewel encrusted Crown of the Empire, and placed it on Berenguela's head. Again, her tiny body was made to look smaller and smaller by the grown man-sized crown and the enormous cloak that was placed upon her. She looked quite uneasy, probably due to her being but a small child, and the sight was almost comical. She looked up at her dearest uncle, Jean-Philippe, but he could make nothing but a scowl. She was visibly taken aback, and then she just stared off into the middle distance while waiting for the ceremony to be over.