Previous | Next
Author’s Notes below the cut TW: Terrorism, bigotry (LGBTQ specific), societal violence, death, and grief. Also a little rambly as often my worldbuilding notes are...
Since I didn’t make room to have a full fake article about this event I thought I’d expand on it a bit here. I’ve mentioned the Bombing At the Decks event a few times in passing but this is a very important moment in the history of the isles because of the sheer scale of how many people were killed in the incident.
The Decks is the name of the former building that housed the Viridi Parliament. There are three representatives from each Comiterra. Viridis has 15 of these administrative districts and since there was a mandatory session on that day at MINIMUM the building contained these 45 people and their necessary staff. However as this vote was incredibly important - they were doing a massive overhaul of the inheritance laws to allow adopted and “unclaimed” (bastards) children from families to be legally recognized by their families as heirs - there were a lot of media, spectators, and dignitaries (like Princess Sancha of Apricus) in attendance to voice their support for these changes. Honestly Viridis is kind of the last island to do anything progressive most of the time so there was a lot of positive energy around the event. That being said, this ruling was particularly relevant to the Viridi royal family at the time because their proclaimed heir, Thea was/is gay and the despite the fact that she gave birth to her daughter, the state didn’t recognize her as an heir because her birth was not “natural.”
Anyway, the vote went off fine because the organization that orchestrated the attack did want this to happen. We’ll talk more about their goals when we meet their members down the road but the short is they timed the attack so the bombs went off just after the changes were confirmed because they benefited directly. The thought was that since it was clear they were supportive of the changes they wouldn’t be the focus of the follow up investigations but we’ll just say they misjudged some elements of their plan and were caught.
In the meantime though the resulting bloodbath is considered one of the darkest times in Viridi history. The few Comi that survived the attack were pegged as accomplices and hunted down and ceremonially drowned in the ocean by angry members of families that lost their loved ones. The royal family itself was impacted quite dramatically since whole branches of the family were present to support their heir and her child. Only five major members of the core royal house survived:
Prince Bastian, who was very unwell at the time and bed ridden. News of the event crushed him and he didn’t recover from his illness dying just a few days after the event. To be fair, he was VERY, VERY old. He’d been on the throne for like 70 years.
Doma Thea, who upon hearing that the ruling would not go into effect until the generation after her daughter, was furious and boycotted the vote with her wife. Unfortunately her daughter, who wanted it to go through for her own personal reasons, did attend and died in the event. Her guilt and rage over this led to her eventual abdication in favor of her niece Estra. She blamed the noble class as a whole for not being more accepting and “Would not be able to effectively guide people who do not respect me or my family.”
High Sister Neva, Estra’s older sister (seen singing the mourning song in this shot). She had taken Temple a couple years before and was serving as a Singing Sister at the Sky Spire on the border of Fideli and Apricus at the time.
Doma Estara, (aka Estra, the current Princess) she had wanted to attend but her father talked her out of it saying that she should be with her children that night since she had only really recently given birth to Zarina and had a difficult relationship already with her oldest child Poppy.
Dom Julian, Estra and Neva’s younger brother. He was attending uni abroad, which is pretty common for the family, and was discouraged from coming home for the vote cause “we have enough support, you focus on your studies.”
A handful of children from Bastian’s “unclaimed lines” also survived but they are not in the pool of succession and do not get a lot of attention from the press.
So anyway to wrap up this whole thing, processions and parades are a BIG cultural thing in the isles. So every year for the last 15 years or so (once things calmed down after the attack), Princess Estra has led a memorial walk from the New House (the royal palace in the capitol) to the former location of The Decks. Once they arrive she lights a big bonfire and they have a special communal mourning song together led by a high ranking member of the priesthood.