“With a thousand lies and a good disguise”









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» The territory where the Kingdom of Castilya now stands was once populated by a variety of European and Iberian tribes. In the ancient times, the Iberian peninsula was ruled over by the Romans, and then by the Lusitanians. Christianity was introduced to Castilya in the first century CE.

» Some time later, the Iberians seceded from Lusitania, and the territory was divided into multiple small kingdoms, who feuded constantly with each other. However, the entire Iberian peninsula-including where Castilya now stands-was conquered again, this time by Moorish Muslims.

» During this period, Castilya became a hub of art and trade, valued for its strategic location along the Strait of Gibraltar. However, as the Muslim caliphates began declining, their holdings in Castilya fractured into a series of rival kingdoms, allowing small Christian states to greatly expand their territories.

» And so began the centuries-long Reconquista (lit. "reconquest") in which Christian rule was re-established over modern-day Castilya. The Reconquista was considered officially complete by the sixteenth century CE, when the last Muslims were forcibly expelled from the kingdom. During this time, the small Christian kingdoms began merging together through alliances and marriages, forming the Kingdom of Castilya.

» The sixteenth century also saw the Castilyans spreading their influence to the other side of the world, under the Vargas dynasty. They colonized many territories in Southern and Central America, one of them being present-day Evalusia. The sixteenth century was effectively Castilya's "golden age".

» In the beginning of the nineteenth century, a foreign emperor forcibly instated his brother on the Castilyan throne after putting the Castilyan king under arrest, beginning the Averetian dynasty. Overseas, Castilyan colonies grew discontent as the Averetians tightened their control, triggering a series of revolutions and/or revolts as they declared independence. Castilya lost its last colonial holding in 1898.

» (It should be noted here that the Averetians were eventually ousted as the foreign emperor's power declined, and the rightful rulers of Castilya were re-instated in the mid-1800s)

» In the first half of the twentieth century, the monarchical government's inability to respond to the worldwide economic crisis led to the Castilyan Civil War. It ended with the victory of the fascists and marked the beginning of a long, brutal dictatorship under a man by the name of Federico Fernandez.

» During this time period, much of the royal family and their supporters were extinguished, although a few cadet branches and powerful families survived by either currying favor with Fernandez or fleeing the country.

» The House of Aguíla came to power in the 1950s, after the death of Fernandez. They were distantly related to the former royal family, and had risen to prominence during Castilya's period of colonial conquest. They had maintained their prominence through a wide network of foreign connections and their staunch support of the Catholic church, and they managed to survive through the Fernandez regime by outwardly supporting Federico Fernandez.

» Although Fernandez's regime is now a distant memory, its legacy still lives on through the extensive espionage network run by the Castilyan military, reminiscent of Fernandez's obsession with surveillance and information. The Kingdom of Castilya remains neutral in many conflicts between world powers these days, preferring to sit back and observe and quietly gather information rather than actively engage in violent confrontation. It is now one of the wealthier countries in the world, attracting millions of tourists each year due to its pristine beaches and rich culture.

» However, unlike most of its wealthy European counterparts, Castilya is still rather conservative, and the influence of the Catholic faith can still be seen in a number of indirect ways - even though Castilya is largely a secular nation - partially because of the influence of the monarchy.

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Princess Beatrice König is the darling of her kingdom, the jewel of Königreich der Welten.

Born to a beloved king and his Liangii queen, the people of Königreich der Welten love all the royal children, just on principle. Their firstborn, Eugene "Gene" König, is said to be a younger version of King Niklas - he is the dutiful soldier-prince that his father once was, with a bit of a mischievous streak that he still has not outgrown. And Olivia, the second oldest, is said to be reserved, but kind, also with a strong sense of duty. Ming, named after the emperor of Liang (and their mother's uncle), but referred to as "Alex", is the charming trickster, friendly and amicable.

And Beatrice? She had already wormed her way into the peoples' hearts as a baby, being the youngest of the royal family, and when she grew up into a woman who bore a remarkable resemblance to her mother - her poised, elegant mother, with her soft smiles and gorgeous gowns and air of polite refinement - she cemented her place as the jewel of the kingdom. Like her mother, she is charming in a demure way; like her mother, she is perfectly put-together, no matter what the occasion, oozing refined elegance and a quiet sort of dignity.

And, just like her mother, if you peel back all the layers of smiles and makeup and polite words, Beatrice is cunning and calculating and a bit, well, cold. Not as cold as her mother, Beatrice would like to think, but cold enough.

Beatrice is not the jealous sort. She is, however, more than just a little bit ambitious. From an early age, she was always vying for her father's attention, because she didn't want to be married off to some stuffy old noble for political purposes. She didn't want to be nothing more than a pawn for her parents to use. Beatrice managed to keep all of this to herself, until one day she simply exploded at her older sister, asking her how it was fair that Gene and Alex got to go sit in with the military commanders when Alex was total shit at talking strategy.

Her mother, Queen Mai, overheard. Beatrice had frozen, afraid that she was about to be punished, but her mother had simply smiled at her - not one of those smiles that she put on in public, those smiles of polite, mild interest, nor the loving (but somehow off) smiles she gave her husband - but a small, sad smile, tinged with a bit of...wistfulness? Beatrice couldn't say.

Her mother told her that she must learn to be patient. That there were ways to influence the course of events, from behind the scenes. She taught her how to lie, how to be the princess that the people wanted to see. And slowly, Beatrice came to realize that her mother held not a single ounce of love for her father. Slowly, she began to realize that her mother probably hated her father.

And Beatrice didn't want to be like her mother. She didn't want to manipulate and play puppetmaster from behind the scenes - she wanted to be in the foreground, making the decisions without having to hide. The hiding and the deception is what Beatrice hates the most, perhaps because it scares her so much. It scares her how cold her mother's eyes will get, when they are alone, or how tight her expression will go, or how soft and quietly deadly her voice will get. Beatrice sees murder in her mother's gaze, sometimes, and fucking hell, it scares her.

She wonders - do Gene and Alex and Olivia see this side of their mother? The same woman who would sing them Liangii lullabies when they couldn't sleep, or who would feed the ducks in the pond behind the palace, or who would laugh and tell them jokes at dinner. The same woman who kisses her husband good-night and sleeps beside him, in the same bed. Beatrice wonders, sometimes, how her mother has lived through all these years, how she has kept Niklas from seeing how much she despises him.

Beatrice decided, early on, that she would rather die than marry someone she hated as much as Mai hated Niklas. Beatrice didn't know why her mother hated Niklas so much, but she knows that she isn't as strong as her mother; her Liangii mother who was told to eat her own bitterness, and who has tried to pass that on to Beatrice, but goddammit, Beatrice doesn't want to. Why should she have to suffer like this, eating her own bitterness, simply for being a girl? Why should she have to marry someone she doesn't like, be the consort with no real power besides her own skill at deceit and manipulation? It wasn't fair. Fucking hell, it wasn't fair.

Beatrice never said anything, of course. But her mother saw right through her. Her mother always saw right through her.

She was sixteen when things started to look up. She overheard Mai arguing with Olivia, her older sister. Mai had been working, behind the scenes, to get Olivia instated as the empress of Liang, through some sort of political marriage. Beatrice had never been jealous, because she was well-aware that Olivia would have been nothing more than a figurehead, had the plan gone through.

Olivia said that she didn't want to be empress. Mai, as Beatrice had come to expect, did not argue, and Beatrice remembers the bitter taste that filled her mouth when she realized what her mother was doing. Her mother was pretending to agree while she retreated inwards, while she made plans to fix things behind closed doors, because that was what she was supposed to do, as a consort. She wasn’t supposed to put up a fuss. She wasn’t supposed to make a scene. Mai had backup plans upon backup plans, schemes upon schemes. Beatrice knew for a fact that she was running through them all in that moment, trying to find the best way to manipulate the situation in her favor.

Olivia - blunt, straightforward Olivia, who was as frustrated with their mother as Beatrice was - had demanded an explanation. Mai had given one.

"Beatrice wants to be an empress, you know," said Olivia. A pause. "You know that." Another pause, slightly longer this time. "Why won't you give it to her?"

“Because Beatrice would not be happy,” Mai had answered, finally. “She is...your sister is too much like me. She would not be happy being second to a man. But, just like me, she would be determined to work around it.” Her voice was laced with a sad sort of bitterness. “You, my dear, are much more straightforward than that. You are not so interested in...politics. You would be happy simply serving the people. It would be enough for you.”

Her mother was right. Of course she was right. And after that, when the plans with whoever Olivia was supposed to marry fell through, Beatrice came to her mother with a proposition. She would be empress of Liang, and since the Liangii court would not accept her as the standalone heir, she would marry an heir that Mai and her uncle picked out.

Her mother had wavered. Her mother, Beatrice was coming to realize, did not like to take risks (or, perhaps, she just could not fathom a world where it worked, a world where the emperor and empress ruled with equal power). But she had agreed, and the plan had been set into motion. This time, however, it was done secretly. Her father had plans to annex Liang; her father would not want the current emperor picking an heir. He would rather appoint one of his trusted officials as the ruler, once Liang was fully annexed, marry Beatrice off to them, and send them on their merry way. And Mai was not going to hear it.

And so, after a few years of "vacations" back to Liang and whispered phone conversations in an obscure mountain dialect, Mai and the emperor found a certain Zheng Hu to take the throne, after Emperor Ming eventually died. Beatrice has not met him very many times, thanks to the secrecy of it all, but she knows that her mother would not have picked someone who would force her to be the agreeable consort that Mai has molded herself into. She knows that her mother would not have picked someone who would be cruel to her.

The only wrench in everything, of course, is her father. Mai has forbidden her from telling Alex and Gene about the plan, and though she hates keeping secrets from her brothers, she understands why her mother would do this. Alex and Gene are her brothers, and they have spent more time with Niklas than they have Mai. Beatrice knows that their secrecy is not guaranteed.

And, of course, there's the fact that King Niklas has recently betrothed her to Prince Raiden of Xi'n. Beatrice recognizes it for what it is - a ploy to make sure that Königreich der Welten has allies nearby, once Niklas begins the process of formally annexing Liang. And now Beatrice can see how much her mother loathes him, more than ever; and though Beatrice's heart will never belong to Liang the way that her mother's does, all she wants to do is to make the murder in her mother's eyes go away. One day, she'll be an empress, and her mother won't hate her father so much.

What could go wrong?

"Not a saint, but do I have to be?"