A Relatively Unbiased Recent History As Written By Mitch The Man Witch

[beastlyroses]

Once upon a time, there was a country that – well, it managed. Things weren’t as great as some might have hoped, but they weren’t as shitty as some might have feared. There was a lot of potential to the place – yeah, for those of you who haven’t picked up on it already, I’m talking about Loria.

This was about, I don’t know, sixty years ago? Whatever. Anyway, the king wasn’t really taking advantage of that potential, but it turns out that just because one monarch doesn’t notice what a place can be used for, that doesn’t mean another one won’t. Her Imperial Majesty Alexandra the Fair set her eyes on the place. Things would’ve been a lot simpler if she’d just stuck with window shopping, but I don’t tell history what to do.

The story goes that Alexandra turned sixteen, overthrew the despot ruler of her own kingdom and decided, why stop there? She wasn’t called Alexandra at that time – the woman picks up names like some people collect coins – but I wasn’t in that part of the world back then. I don’t remember what she was going by, and I don’t know the details of her rise to power. The point is, by the time she set her sights on Loria, she’d amassed as many countries as she had names behind her, and had picked out a new one for her new nation.

She gave the king a choice; unite by marriage, or endure a long and bloody war. There was no question about who would’ve won, eventually, but back then Loria’s navy was impressive enough that it would have meant resources that Alexandra could’ve used on ‘taking stewardship’ of some other kingdom. The marriage was the best choice for everyone involved, with the caveat that upon the death of the king, the monarchy of Loria would pass to Alexandra until the time of her death, whereupon it would revert to the king’s daughter, Tristana.

And yeah, the king died like a year into that marriage, surprise. Alexandra started to integrate Loria into her empire, and it became clear that by the time Tristana got a piece of the pie, the country would be pretty much unrecognisable from the one she’d been set to inherit.

So Tristana rebelled. And at first her Imperial Majesty pretty much laughed at the pampered princess camping out in the forest with her inspirational slogans, that didn’t last long. Don’t ask me where Tristana got so good at guerrilla tactics, but the stories go that she proved to be a match for her Imperial Majesty, and Alexandra just wasn’t able to stamp her out . Instead of an easily crushed rebellion, we ended up with full out warfare. But Tristana wasn’t able to get back what she felt was her rightful place as queen, either.

How does all of this shit apply to you lot? Because so far as I’ve been able to tell, it was one of them that cast the spell to bring you here. Or the curse, as it turned out to be, because it turns out that there’s no real good magic that tears open time and space, oops. That was about fifty years ago. I can’t tell you who did it specifically, because bother parties disappeared into the fucking ether before I could strangle either one of them.

All magic has its price, and it turned out that the cost here was magic itself. Things would’ve collapsed without Alexandra or Tristana around anyway, but the force of the curse completely fucked with everything. The earth itself sickened in most places, sustainable only in small areas like around Astor. The Glass Forest tripled in size, the magical creatures started going crazy, and most human practitioners of magic had to uh, stop doing that, or risk catching fire or melting or other nasty effects.

And it was spreading, so the last three Witches got together and set up a barrier to keep the poisoned magic locked in Loria. It wasn’t supposed to be permanent, but some asshole dragon called Flavia went and ate the Mother. So there’s one witch on each side of the barrier, when there needs to be a 2:1 ratio in order to bring the thing down again.

Not that I’m interested in doing that right now, because the magic is still poisoned, and it’s enough work just trying to keep this place from completely collapsing. Worrying about the rest of the world is definitely not on my agenda right now.

My job is to maintain the balance. Unless this place up and fixes itself, I’m not the one who’s going to send you home, so don’t pester me about that. Your best bet for now is to settle in for the long haul, and hope you really are the heroes half of Astor thinks you are.

Oh, and don’t trust Fox. Tricksters don’t care about anything except their own entertainment.