1703 marked the birth of Queen Aileen of House Stuart. At the turn of her second year, she was wed to King Elijah of House Potter. For the first year, twitters of gossip fawned over a seemingly flawless love story. Such sweetness, however, drew quickly to an end. Aileen and Elijah steadily began to quarrel more and, given his status as a Mainlander, Elijah held the bulk of power over parliament. She was snubbed and overlooked on all matters of state until, at last, the marriage had soured beyond the point of repair. Queen Aileen wanted a divorce—something perfectly acceptable in Highlander tradition but abhorred amongst the Mainlanders. She disregarded the parliament and used her leverage as queen of the highlanders to annul the marriage—which parliament twisted deftly into an act of treason against the unification of their nations.
King Elijah was unfavorable due to his stern disposition and obstinate views. The divorce, and the accusations of treason, fractured the throne. With Queen Aileen in exile, the parliament risked losing the tenuous peace that had been so hard-won just a handful of years ago. After a week of deliberation, a new queen is chosen and another wedding is held, albeit with less fanfare and notice than the last. So began the coronation of Queen Daphne, Aileen's sister. Ashamed of her Highlander roots, she was the perfect bride. Her blood was wild but her heart had been tamed by the comforts of the south. Ah yes, and her husband, Adamh Herondale. He was beloved for his kindness and generosity—and parliament was partial to a gullible king.
Now, during her reign, Aileen had borne a son: Jacob. He was nigh but a yearling when he and his mother were cast out in exile. His memories of court were vague yet tinged with the romanticism of a child. From dawn to dusk, he heard tell of the wrongs against his mother and how she would exact her revenge. He dined with soldiers, those that would meet them on the fringes of society and speak in hushed tones. He witnessed, early on in life, the growth of his mother's army—and its eventual failure.
In 1707, Aileen attempted a coup. She failed miserably. Many were slaughtered and tensions rose to the point where many expected the alliance to break. It should have, by all accounts, but King Adamh was unwilling to lose the Highlands. He quelled the rebellion and did his best to sooth hearts and minds. Adamh offered his hand in peace to those that would lay down their arms and commit themselves to the crown once more. But Jacob was still out there. And, when the second rebellion came, he did not intend to lose.
Throughout the years since Queen Aileen's exile, tensions had risen between the Highlanders and the Mainlanders within Rionnach. The forgotten Prince Jacob, once but a mystery, appeared to his disgruntled kin in the Highlands and presented them with a new vision for Rionnach -- one that put him on the throne. He raised the Jacobian Army to combat Adamh's imperial force, and he pledged to restore freedoms to his people, to legalize divorce, and to rip power away from the bloated parliament and give it back to family clans and local leaders. In the chaos, King Adamh was poisoned by a member of his own parliament, and he instituted a nationwide draft in Rionnach which left his country in chaos. Citizens were imprisoned for fleeing the draft, and sympathy for Jacob increased. King Adamh's daughter, Princess Mhairi, lost faith in her father and joined Jacob at the front, a true betrayal to her homeland.
After an internal skirmish and the poisoning over which he nearly lost his life, King Adamh appeared before his people, ending the draft and vowing to create a better government uncorrupted by the parliament. But it was not enough. Mhairi remained in the Highlands, hoping for meaningful change; Jacob's forces marched upon Adamh's Imperial Army; and the armies clashed in the summer of 1710, leading to a rebellion spanning the country. In the bloody aftermath, Rionnach was terribly fractured. Jacob, no longer a prince but a king, stole the Highlands from under King Adamh's nose. His mother, Aileen, served as Queen Regent to this new nation, dubbed Saora, which rooted itself in old Gaelic ways. Mhairi served as Jacob's political advisor, telling the Saorans all she had learned at the feet of her father in an effort to bring about true peace and restore the heart of the nation. King Adamh was brought to his knees, and though he retained control of the Mainlands and Lowlands, the blow was severe.
The Fae Fog
While King Adamh was licking his wounds and King Jacob was managing his fledgling nation, a strange new magic was at work in Rionnach. Long believed by Royalists to be a silly folktale, and by Highlanders to be real and respected entities of power, the Fae - mysterious, otherworldly beings - set their sights on the continent. In the winter of 1711, a thick fog suddenly rolled over the country, bathing every street, stone, and tree in an ethereal cold. In the brief suffocation of the sun and wind, panic ensued. And when the fog finally cleared, it did not disappear entirely, but instead rolled to the edges of the continent where it lingered like an ill omen. Beaches and oceans disappeared; the horizon was blurred. Rionnach’s borders were abruptly encased in a blanket of thick, impenetrable mist.
Unsurprisingly, King Adamh struggled to maintain control of the people - and across the border, the new King Jacob, so young in his reign, was suddenly found dead in his bed. It was unclear whether the ‘Fae Fog’, as it soon came to be known, was to blame - or if more mortal forces were at work. Whatever the case, one thing remained: Saora, so new, so bright, so young, crumbled in the wake of Jacob's sudden demise. Highlanders, now unmoored and ungoverned, screamed in the streets that the Fae had cursed them. Some wolves fled towards the King's embrace; others holed up in secrecy, fearing further Fae retribution.
It did not take long for even the strictest non-believers to be faced with undeniable proof that the fog had been the Fae's work. Some wolves appeared to stop aging entirely. Others appeared drastically older or younger overnight, seemingly at random. Whispers spread; this phenomenon had happened before, but it had never spread to this extent. Additional proof of the Fae’s power soon came to light, and each new horror was miraculous and dreadful in turn. Some wolves fell into a deep sleep, unable to be awoken. Some lost their memories, unable to recognize even once-beloved faces. And still others began to rise from the dead, with a disparate awareness of where they had last been. With all this evidence of magic at play, suddenly, the Highlander's intense Fae superstitions didn't seem so far-fetched after all. Impossibilities suddenly became an everyday occurrence, and no other explanation offered answers.
Reunification of 1711
It did not take long until whispers of witchcraft began to plague the court.The Royalists blamed Saora and its peoples, and particularly Mhairi - and in turn, the native Highlanders blamed Adamh. Focus was diverted from efforts to reunify the peoples into trying to manage the ensuing discord. Adamh attempted to dismiss the Fae power as gossip and superstition - though with all the mystical evidence at hand, his argument was weak, even to his own ears. Mhairi was disheartened at the discord in the world, but did not discourage rumors that Adamh was proving increasingly incapable of leading them into this new age.
With his authority in question, Adamh leaped at the first opportunity to right the ship. He ordered his Imperial Army back to the ruined Saora and, without Jacob to oppose him, finally managed to reunify the continent. Once more, Rionnach was one nation, and Adamh brought the dismayed Highlanders to heel. Former Queen Regent Aileen was imprisoned, though Adamh still held love and fondness for his daughter. But Mhairi was at war with herself and with the world - angry with her father for causing more strife, angry with Jacob for passing before Saora could truly take hold, and angry with the Fae for taking Jacob from his people. Uncertain and dismayed, she allowed herself to be enfolded once more in her father's arms, and she waited as the new age began...and as magic continued to pervade the nation.
Coup of 1714
Years passed, marked by the rise and fall of the sun, the ebb and flow of the seasons...and still the Fae magic did not loosen its chokehold on the lands. For three years, Adamh attempted to divide his attention between the discord caused by the reunification and the outright fear and uncertainty inspired by the Fae. The result was increased infighting and an overall distrust of his power. Protests broke out in the streets; taxes were levied to attempt to recoup costs of the rebellion and reunification; and all the while, Princess Mhairi - restored of her title in name but not in spirit - grew increasingly maligned by the people as a spy, a witch, a Saoran plant. She tried to ignore the whispers, though she was unable to spare any piece of her heart to gainsay the rumors of dissent that rose against her father. As she aged, Mhairi wanted peace more than anything, but Adamh did not know how to reconcile his people, and the unrest was palpable.
Then, after three years of confusion, Former Queen Regent Aileen dies in prison. This loss finally caused the dam of Rionnach's popular opinion to break. Those who objected to Adamh had learned from the past that slow poisoning was fraught with issues. No, his death had to be sudden, and violent, and thorough. Only definitive change could bring about true peace. So, during the thin light of morning, that is how King Adamh died: suddenly, violently, and thoroughly, at the hands of his own people, who had spirited into the castle in the dead of night. Perhaps perpetuated by Highlanders, perhaps not - it was unclear from whence the final blow came, except that it came all at once. Queen Daphne, who discovered Adamh's bloodied corpse, succumbed to madness at the sight. In the chaos of the following weeks, it was clear that Daphne was not able to lead in Adamh's stead, and so Mhairi was crowned queen.
During her coronation, Queen Mhairi stood upon the steps of the castle and preached change in her father's image, and in Jacob's. She would finally end the conflict. She would not punish her people for what had been, but would focus instead on what could be. In the people's desire for an end to the violence, popular opinion of Mhairi softened, and a burgeoning new hope for the future was planted in Rionnach’s people.
Spring of 1716
Our story begins again here, in the fresh dawn of a new spring. Queen Mhairi ruled peaceably for two years, her optimistic empathy and tireless effort soothing the panic in her people. She eventually married and had a child, Beltane, only to then lose her beloved King Rupert to illness. In her grief, she passes of natural causes in early 1716, following her late mother into the afterlife. Young Beltane - just two years old - now steps into his role as king as the only survivor of the Herondale line.
But the Fae magic is evidently not yet done with Rionnach. After having encased the nation in the wicked Fae Fog for five whole years, the mists suddenly began to evaporate at King Beltane's coronation. Once again the horizon was visible; the beaches were walkable; and more notably, wolves began to notice land where there had been none before. In the five years of Rionnach’s isolation, pathways to new continents had seemingly risen out of the sea. When these new routes are followed, explorers from Rionnach find not only unknown flora and fauna, but other peoples, too. Entire new nations are suddenly connected to the crownlands, and Rionnach's internal conflict seems, for the moment, dwarfed by circumstance. All focus on managing these new cultures and this new magic, King Beltane sends diplomats to the newly discovered nations of Ildhrune and Da'Ira, and time ticks on...
