A persistent and chilly rain fell down above the roughly thousand people who were allowed into the venue. A massive tent served as their temporary shelter from the beating rain. For anyone or anything else it would have likely been that these folks wouldn't have shown up at all. They would have most likely stayed at home and skipped any other outdoor event with weather like this.
This was no ordinary event to be skipped or passed over lightly. It had taken much consternation to even delay it as had been done. Some cruel, or minimally thoughtless, kismet took the chance for inclement weather into account for justifying the original delay, only for the same weather to come again the week later the event had been delayed.
The cloud that hung over their heads, however, was heavier than the one dropping this soaking rain. Yet, it was a cloud that was less than that which necessitated them being beneath these rains.
The public holiday known as Memorial Day was established about a year into the reign of the 100th Empress of the Holy Britannia Empire. The holiday is a somber one meant to be dedicated to solemn reflection and mourning. The date is that of the death of the Demon King.
"We come together here on this inauspicious day to grieve and to mourn the tragedies that have piled up so heavily on our hearts for so long. A year ago today… one year ago, we turned the page on a tremendously sad and difficult past. We who bore witness to a saga of tyrannical desires, unrelenting pain, and harrowing nightmares, in our quest to see through to a better day, stand here in solemn awe of the sacrifices made that allows us to be here. We all had to watch as the lives of precious friends and family were lost to senseless violence brought about by the selfishness of a few with power who thought that power meant they were free to do whatever they wanted.
"With the death of the man most responsible for many of these tragedies, our Holy Britannia Empire has begun the difficult task of amending the ways of a misguided history, and securing a more peaceful and just future. We gather today to mourn those brave souls who struggled with all they had for our sake, who made the ultimate sacrifice to grant us an opportunity for a tomorrow not dominated by the will of those who would use despicable powers that corrupt our will and twist our better natures.
"There is no greater gift we can give in honor of those we've lost than to do everything in our power to protect this precious, fragile, peace that has been entrusted to us. We will allow ourselves at least this day each year to shed tears of both sorrow and joy, as we go about the hard work each and every day to be certain no more loved ones, no future generations, need add to the list of names that we must mourn on this day."
Empress Nunnally was very much still a fresh-faced diplomat at the time she gave that first Memorial Day speech. That warm, sunny, day seemed so distant from the terrible events it was set to mark. There was still a wave of goodwill at her back from the reforms she had made, and from simply not appearing to be her father or brother. This speech was seen as a major test for her, and most agreed she'd passed.
In private however;
"I hate this so much…" she whined in a mousy voice only a couple days earlier.
"You can still back out of it, you know? Charles used to do that all the time, until he decided to just stop scheduling speeches in the first place. He'd just decide all of a sudden when he wanted to make a statement and everyone would run around to accommodate him. He considered it one of his privileges as emperor."
"But I don't want to be like father. To inconvenience people like that… it's not the right thing to do. I already committed to doing this, so I have to." Nunnally refuted, seemingly dismissing her own complaints.
"You're so silly," her companion laughed, mussing the empresses' hair a little. "He'd be really proud of you; you know that, right?"
"Yet I have to make a speech where I demean his memory even further. I have to be the one that tells all of these people I don't even know how terrible a person he was."
"Nunnally…"
She didn't have words for the young and inexperienced empress. There was no right answer to give her, so she just tried to comfort her. She cradled Nunnally close to her chest and gently stroked her hair as the empress resisted the urge to cry.
"Why is this so hard?" Nunnally softly bemoaned.
"I wish I could tell you that this all becomes easy, but I don't think it ever does; at least not that I've seen. Unless you close your heart off, these feelings will always be with you. But if you did that, it would go against everything he fought for."
"I wish you would stay here in the capital with me."
"That's not a good idea. You have your own life to live now, Nunnally. I'm nothing more than a relic of the past. Besides, it's not like I'll be gone forever. I'll come by to see you every now and then."
"Oh geez. You really are as capricious as a cat." Nunnally chuckled hoarsely.
Being empress was a lonesome thing. It made Nunnally ponder quite often if perhaps her father's errors were perhaps the outcome from combating that specter of loneliness. Surrounded by people yet no one to talk to. People around you all the time, and not one person who really knows you. She wanted to live, be happy, for Lelouch's sake. He gave up everything for her so she could do that. But at times it was so hard. Thinking about it only made that pain worse. She felt like she was letting him down if she didn't smile or find something about each day to make her say, "I'm happy about that" or "I'm glad."
But seeing someone who looks like your sister who was supposed to have died years ago, on live television, in a standoff with police, didn't evoke such feelings of contentment and joy. Seeing her escape police attempts to question her about a suspected arson, flying off atop what looked like a creature that shouldn't really exist, the only silver lining she could find was that no one was killed this time.
Information control will only get you so far. The modern world has too many variables which can make that task highly difficult, if not impossible. It was even more so the fact now that Britannia was not as iron-fisted a rule as it had been under its last two monarchs and before. The consequence of that freedom was that information could get out, and it was hard to pull it back once it did.
News organizations that once would have been beholden to the imperial will were now free to report as they wanted. So when a news crew on the way to report on a fire at an important national museum came across a scene of a police standoff, their thoughts had no reason to drift to questions of whether the crown would be pleased with their reporting. Where they would have held back when thinking the story might negatively reflect on the crown, they now eagerly rolled their cameras.
They saw the police cornering a suspect, guns drawn, so they rushed to get their cameras on that as soon as possible and made it a breaking news story. And just like that, the story about the imperial castle's burning began to crumble. The small rumors about the visage of a dead princess, or of massive, winged, black, beasts, were all confirmed.
"It's all over," one advisor bemoaned in depression as the images ran for about the fifth time that morning. "We should've kept our grip on the media. They're nothing but pests who keep stirring up trouble."
"It's too late to be worrying about that now. The cat's outta the bag. We've gotta figure out how to fix this mess," another advisor chided. "Where's the empress right now?"
"She's in closed session with her brother and sister. I believe a couple of special attachés are with her as well."
"And Zero?"
"He's gone to investigate the scene himself."
"Tch, he must be pissed too. He was the one that killed her to begin with. That damn Massacre Princess… this is a nightmare!"
"Just relax. There's no lies in anything we've told the public," a military aide said with a exasperated sigh. "Nothing about this changes what we've been saying; all of this has been the terrorist acts of some unknown aggressor, a clandestine terrorist organization that has yet to make itself more widely known. Prince Schneizel was worried about something unexpected coming up, that's why he insisted we stick to that limited message."
"There're already stories going about that we've been hiding the fact that she didn't die six years ago. They're saying…"
"They can say whatever they want to say. It doesn't make their words any less fantasy they've made up for convenience. Anyone who rather believe some made up story about somehow hiding away someone as notorious and recognizable as the 3rd princess is liable to believe any story they're fed at any time. You all getting rattled and panicking is only going to make our jobs harder."
"Y-Yes sir,"
"For five years now people have been predicting that our empress would stumble and fall. She's done better for Britannia than anyone could've hoped after the mess she was left with. It's about time her hard work was rewarded with a little faith."
Alphard Fitzdale was an up-and-coming figure in the world of Britannia politics. He was formerly a lieutenant in the Britannia military, serving for a time in the Europa theater as well as stints as part of Cornelia and Schneizel's security details. It was his Europa service that he gained notoriety for. He managed to lead his unit out of a number of dangerously close shaves. He was known for being very pragmatic and far less cutthroat than those around him. While contemporaries had lost their lives and the lives of their men making prideful charges to try to win acclaim, he focused on supporting other units and ensuring supply lines. When others were pillaging the territory they won, he would protect infrastructure and maintain public order.
For that, he was appointed to be the liaison for the Eastern Front's withdrawal from Europa when Nunnally announced the withdrawal of Britannia from their territory. He then transferred into a role as a member of the Joint North Atlantic Task Force, a body set up under the United Federation of Nations to facilitate the generally uninteresting parts of diplomacy and peace – shipping and transport rights, status of forces agreements in certain waters, and other such entertaining topics.
He was then invited into his current role as on the advisors to the Council. Initially he had been considered a skeptic of the Nunnally regime. He, like many, thought her too weak and inexperienced to do any good as a leader. She was likely to do something foolish, he thought, out of a misguided attempt to earn herself the accolades he presumed she thought due her. That had been, after all, the experience he'd been surrounded by in the military – those in power using that power to justify their having power. It was an insecurity that annoyed him; these folks always looking over their shoulders and terrified of anyone saying a bad word about them.
He was relieved, however, to see something a little different with this empress. There was still that bit of fear in her. She looked so dainty and fragile that, yet could get such a defiant look to her too. That was a bad combination, to be sure. Those sorts tended to lash out the worst, liable to start a war for fear that whatever enemy they could conceive would get them if they didn't start a war.
"Memorial Day? What a splendid idea, your majesty!" one general puffed during royal court when Nunnally formally proposed the idea. "The Knights and members of the Britannia Armed Forces will be most pleased to have such rousing support from her majesty."
"While it's true that I would like to do something for all the hard work and sacrifices of our military," Nunnally began a little shakily. "I would like to use this day to help heal the wary hearts and minds of all Britannians. There is much work that must be done to recover and repair the damage caused over the last many years, and the people are feeling a sense of exhaustion and weariness from enduring that work without time to reflect on the memories of their friends and loved ones who they've lost. It is my wish that this day at least be set aside for all Britannians to be able to do just that."
"I-I see," the general replied. It was obvious that he was holding his tongue, anxious to speak up against her, if not that she was him empress.
"That sounds like a wonderful idea, your majesty," Cornelia stated pleasantly. She was still early in her plans to transition out of the military service. "I would think the individuals here are anxious to fully articulate your ideal. Perhaps give them some tie to come back with proposals for how this should all be conducted?"
"Yes, you're right. Please, everyone, take time to consider my idea and how we might make this a proud part of Britannia's heritage going forward."
Alphard was happy to hear her idea. He was confident the last thing Britannia needed was another day for military parades and speeches on how to beat-up on people weaker than you. He was very hopeful for what would come of it.
And he was relatively pleased with the holiday. He wasn't completely thrilled with the tone, but he was content. It seemed ill-placed that so much of what was meant to be a day to remember and find comfort in the good memories of lost loved ones and heroes, was instead spent ridiculing the mistakes of the more infamous deceased, but he couldn't deny that it was to be expected to some degree. "It will peter out over the years," he told a friend who shared his concerns. "The further we get from that day, the less animated folks will be."
"So long as they don't forget the whole point," the friend said back.
It echoed in his head now like a broken record – so long as they don't forget the whole point. It was one of the failings of humanity to forget the point of their own actions as time goes by. Actions repeated enough times become so rote that the action itself assumes more meaning that what it was originally meant to accomplish.
But Alphard was an optimist if nothing else. So, even as people bashed the reigns of the monarchy, and even if his empress endured against raging tides while piloting a boat full of holes, he always looked to the silver linings. "Even if this moment looks fairly bleak, as long as her majesty can stay true to herself, I think we will be better for it. I'll do what I can to keep her dissenters at bay."
"We remember, on this day, the likes of Alphard Fitzdale, Alpine Tursk, Bartholomew Simpson…"
At the beginning of the ceremony, there was an invocation. Memorial Day, year five. After having already been postponed once, the decision was made to go ahead a week later with the annual ceremony. Echoing the words the empress herself spoke in dedicating the day five years ago, the idea was to use the day as a rallying cry for all of Britannia to hold fast against the newest scourge against their peace and prosperity. It was thought that, even in the midst of these terrorist acts, a day like this one could comfort tired and worried souls, help to unify the nation, and brace it to combat the new foe.
To open the ceremony held in Pendragon, they began by dedicating the day to those lost in the prior year. A priest would say a prayer, and a deacon would read the names of some of the more notable names lost. Just a couple days after the museum incident, where the cameras caught sight of the person calling herself Euphemia li Britannia, Alphard was with a group of officials touring a base about 200 miles southwest of Pendragon. The base was getting set to deploy forces to backup defense efforts around Pendragon. It became embroiled in a battle. Alphard was killed when a wall was blown away and collapsed on top of him. Although suffering significant burns, it was ruled that he was crushed to death, likely only feeling the intense heat for a very brief moment before he died. A small comfort to those who were now mourning his passing.
Nunnally didn't know it, but she was a little lonelier that day. Alphard was a quiet man by nature. Despite what repute and fame he'd earned, he wasn't a glory seeker. So much of his support for Nunnally went unnoticed. She'd obviously known him by name, and could probably pick his face out of a crowd, but they never really spoke much. He likely offered her a kind word once or twice, in passing, but that was about it. He hadn't been seeking her recognition, or even wanted it really. He only wanted her to succeed because he thought she was the best chance for the nation to succeed. If it headed down the path of Charles or Lelouch, he was sure Britannia's days were at their end. He considered Nunnally the chance Britannia needed to pull itself above its less than reputable past. With his passing, there was at least one less person supporting her in her purpose.
"Every year, it's always the same thing," Nunnally lamented in private as she read over her speech. "I sit there with a gloomy expression as I listen to the names of precious lives I couldn't save. I listen to speech after speech about how terrible my brother was. And then I have to give a speech where I also tell them how terrible my brother was. And now, this year, I have to tell them how terrible Euphie was too. Even though it wasn't her fault, even though she was the sweetest and nicest person in the entire world, I have to tell them a lie they want to hear, all because someone chose to use her name, her face, to commit such terrible acts.
"I'm so sorry Euphie. Even after all Lelouch did, even after I became empress, I'm still too weak to change things the way I want. I can't even tell the truth about how wonderful you really were, and let everyone ridicule you unfairly.
"And brother… it's even worse when I think about you. What a terrible thing I've done to you, big brother."
"She really hates this whole thing," Sara murmured from her seat in the press gallery.
"You think so?" Chris asked her. She resisted the urge to pinch him for always being so quick to question her. "She just looks sad to me," he added in for good measure.
"Of course she is. But that's something different from the expression she's wearing right now. There's an anger on top of the sadness. Unlike normal sadness that should wane over time, hers gets a little worse every year."
"Hmm, well, I think that might be expected? I mean, I don't know about past ceremonies, but doing this one after all the trouble that's been going on, someone showing up and committing terrorist acts while claiming to be her dead sister, can't be easy."
"It's definitely something more than that. Well, it's not like staring at her is gonna get me anywhere," she said as she got up. "I'll be back in time for her highness's turn at the mic, okay. Make sure you're ready to record even before I get back, got it?"
"Yes ma'am."
Sara liked to keep her thoughts on Memorial Day to herself. She was plenty smart enough to know the kind of trouble she could stir up if her lips were too loose with her thoughts. But the truth was she didn't much care of the holiday. She regarded it as nothing more than the chance for old wounds to reopen, and for the callous and weak-willed to bellyache about their woeful past as though the world owed them something.
Really it was her own insecurities that ate at her. She generally hated being around people who were depressed and crying. She was empathetic enough to be annoyed at her own inability to do anything to help them. People couldn't come back from the dead, so a day dedicated to a bunch of people being depressed about dead people was entirely fruitless. She tolerated Chris' moments of dunderheadedness more now because it at least usually lightened her mood ever so much. She'd probably sleep with him again later just to avoid having to think about the day.
She would rather have some interesting story to work on. The whole business with that Euphemia double wasn't of interest to her. "Return of Princess Massacre" sounded like a terrible B-movie title, but so many news outlets were running with that one now. After the museum incident, and the showdown with the police, there were a spate of attacks on military bases. The military wasn't being very forthcoming on the scale of the damage being done, the size of the force that attacked, or much of anything. But it was still known that the Euphemia lookalike was at the scene of each one.
As far as Sara was concerned, anyone giving oxygen to the theory that this was somehow the reanimated real princess, brought back from the dead, was a moron whose common sense was severely lacking. It wasn't a story worth following when the answer was so obvious; someone was using a lookalike precisely to do what was being done. they were sowing confusion and speculation and finger pointing over something that didn't matter. It wasn't as if this somehow really being the princess would change the facts on the ground about Britannia chasing its own tail trying to contain whoever this was and their brazen attacks on Britannia's military. While folks were obsessing over the more flashy angle of figuring out the details about someone dressed up to look like a dead princess, Sara didn't really care.
"In the end, we all know it's just a stunt. They'll figure out the rest sooner or later. It's just like it was with Zero seven years ago. Who it is isn't important – it's what they're doing and how you stop it," she said to a colleague who asked her about it a couple days ago.
Really, all Sara wanted was to know Nunnally's take on all this. Her aides were keeping her from talking to the public much now, though it wasn't like she was a media gadfly to begin with. Her reading some prepared speech out here on stage at some event she hated to head each year, Nunnally wasn't likely to share anything worth hearing. It was purely an annoyance to Sara to think of having to watch Nunnally do that. It was her job to record and report on the empress doing this, so she would, but Sara's interests were in more… proprietary information. If she couldn't spend her time getting interesting shots of the empress, she'd at least spend her time on interesting stories.
"What do you mean?" she overheard someone asking.
"Hey, keep it down," the companion replied in a panicked voice.
The two looked to be junior officers, likely part of the venue preparation team or something along those lines. Sara had occasion to interact with those sorts before. At this stage of an event they were usually staring to get bored with hanging around in the back with nothing to do. they would generally start gossiping, and as only junior officers could be a little lacking in terms of discipline when it came to keeping sensitive information quiet. She didn't know these two or she might have approached them to coax the info out of them a little more clearly. Instead, she stuck to the other side fo the corner from where they were and listened as closely as she could. It was difficult, however, given the volume of the event.
"They're tryin' to hail Madrid to see if they might know something. The Saratoga might launch a recon plane to take a look."
"A recon plane? Seriously? Aren't they overreacting a bit? I mean, it's probably that the comms room decided to get to the bottles a little faster than us is all. It's like what, five in the evening over there? They're probably just sittin' round a screen waiting to see the empress's speech."
"That's why they haven't alerted her majesty yet. I mean, if the base commander let the guys screw off for over an hour, he'll be lucky if he ain't court martialed."
"Well, I guess you got a point. We're practically on a war stance right now. Last thing HQ needs is to be chasing down a bunch of drunk idiots, hoping a base ain't under attack."
"This sounds like it could be interesting," Sara thought as she started away from the conversation. These guys were too green to really know anything. They likely got their commission on mommy and daddy's dime if they were dumb enough to think that a military base was going to go silent for an hour because some guys were drunk and lost track of time. No, something was wrong. It wouldn't take long to figure out exactly what it was.
The sound of applause began to echo, signaling the end of the latest speech. It was now time for the empress to take her turn at the microphone. With great anticipation, Sara quickly made her way back towards the press box. She would be a couple minutes into Nunnally's speech, but that would be okay. She'd wring Chris' neck if he failed to record any of it though.
"That's gotta be some kind of joke," she heard someone angrily shout. This far away from the stage you weren't likely to hear him up there, but certainly some stage hands would be telling whoever it was to keep it down.
"You think they'd be stupid enough to joke about something like this?" the other person angrily shouted back.
Sara didn't consider herself one of those people who could just sense stuff. In her business those types were said to be able to sniff out stories. She never considered herself much of a reporter anyway, so that wasn't something that meant anything to her. Regardless, hearing that man make that declaration sent a sickening feeling to the pit of her stomach. She had never felt that before, and she couldn't understand why she was feeling it now. But it was certainly a foreboding to be reckoned with. Something big was about to happen, without question.