Queen Glimmer of Brightmoon walked down the road lined with onlookers. Behind her, the Royal Guard, the marching band, and an assortment of themed floats followed one by one. In honor of the fifth anniversary of the Victory of May Fifteenth, she had overseen the arrangement of parades in every hospitable corner of Etheria. Not only was the city of Angellia a most hospitable place to Her Majesty, it was its most populous and most prosperous. Glimmer was of course her usual genial self, and to the crowd there was no doubt she loved them dearly, but... this city put her off a bit, and she decided to keep that sentiment well hid. After all, it used to be called the Fright Zone.
Glimmer was about as popular of a Queen as anyone could have hoped. In the years that followed the Treaty of Salineas and the end of the long Horde War, Etheria was rapidly modernizing and slowly but surely opening up to the interstellar community. The Fright Zone, restored to its former status as the homeland of Princess Scorpia and renamed Angellia in honor of the late Queen, was the epicenter of Etheria's transformation: a big, bustling, techno-magically advanced, cosmopolitan city. This was no fluke.
Alongside Dryl and the Crystal Castle, the Fright Zone was one of the few places on the planet with much industry and technology, but the difference is that the Fright Zone was built to house and feed an army. Naturally, then, that was where most of the former Horde (clone or not) hung around after the war was over anyway, and it wasn't too long before people began treating it like a town in its own right. There were even a number of people returning to the Fright Zone, whose parents or grandparents had fled the region when the Horde had first landed. Among the guarantees of the Treaty of Salineas, Princess Scorpia had a birthright to the Black Garnet and the title of Princess, and so it was decided that the region surrounding the new city of Angellia was her realm.
This city, thought Glimmer to herself, was plain ugly. Was it advanced? Were the people friendly? Sure, but somehow it didn't seem right. She'd been in populated areas, but nothing this big, and certainly nothing this industrial. It felt like being in a different century. The city was filled with factories, and Glimmer wasn't someone who saw many factories. The streets were lined with more than just market stands, but entire shops built right out of some ghastly piece of old Horde rubble. To her it felt like a bad use of her mom's name, but she wouldn't have dared to say so aloud. One of her guards came over to her.
"Her Majesty will be pleased to know that Her Highness Princess Scorpia has requested a private audience after the parade."
"Of course. I haven't caught up with her in a little while."
As the parade ended, Glimmer made her way to the hoverlimo and then to the Garnet Estate, the (admittedly less ugly) official residence of the reigning Princess herself. She was invited in by Scorpia personally, who scooped her up for a hug.
"Wow, you're here! I mean, of course you're here, Glimmer! So good to see you, it's been so long!"
"it sure has scorpia now can you please stop compressing my lungs"
Scorpia released her power hold and Glimmer slumped forward onto her, gasping for air. Scorpia brought her inside, sat her down on a chair, and waited until she could speak again.
"Whooh, I think I'm good now."
"Honestly Glimmer, that was my bad. Perfuma tells me I really need to work on my hug technique."
"I think she has a point, but I'm so glad to see you all the same, Scorpia."
"I'm glad to see you too, but I need to tell you why I invited you here."
"Well, okay. Tell me."
Scorpia inhaled and exhaled through her teeth, then sat down across from Glimmer and looked up at the ceiling.
"I think I want to retire."
"Retire? I don't think that's how that works... don't you mean abdicate? Why would you want to do that? Who would even take the throne?"
"Not— not exactly, no. I want to retain my title as Princess, but stop doing the adminstrative work. Maybe I can move in with Perfuma, and really get fresh air in my lungs, away from this old dump!"
"Scorpia! What a thing to say about your capital city! I thought you liked it, last time I checked."
"I'm kind of... bad at expressing my emotions? I mean, that's what Perfuma said. Actually she says that about most people we know. Anyway, this place is full of bad memories, and Plumeria is full of good scenery and the love of my life, so there's just no contest."
"Who'd even run this city when you're gone?"
"I hardly do anyway. I'm mostly here to sign things and occasionally give my opinion on things. The office of Mayor Lonnie does a lot more work than me, which is probably for the best, because I don't understand politics at all! It's not like I have something against my heritage, and I'm grateful for what it's given me, but I can't pretend I enjoy the life of a working princess."
"I guess that's fine, Scorpia, as long as people here are okay with it."
Scorpia shifted in her seat uncomfortably, and sighed.
"I wouldn't put it that way, exactly. I'm gonna have to show you something, and I don't think you'll like it. Hold on a sec."
She got up from her seat and left the room, leaving Glimmer there. Glimmer began to look around the room. There was a bookshelf next to the bay window that looked out over the south side of town, and the view gave her chills. If this had been her realm, maybe she would have wanted to retire too. On the bookshelf, next to a number of books Glimmer didn't recognize, sat a small vase and a handful of flowers. On the opposite wall was a framed painting of a distinguished ancient gentleman with red pincer-hands folded on his lap, no doubt some distant ancestor or relative. This house was eerily quiet, she thought. Finally, Scorpia returned with a newspaper folded under her arm. She handed it over to Glimmer.
"Tell me what you think of this."
In big letters across the top: Etheria Ascendant. A subtitle, directly below: Thus Always To Tyrants. The text looked crudely printed and the paper was quite thin, but it was decently legible, and she began reading the front-page story.
More Things Change, More Things Stay The Same
It's May Fifteenth yet again, and a lot has changed in these five years. The defeat of Horde Prime and the founding of Angellia, to the credit of those Princesses of the Rebellion, were the events that allowed us to transform and enrich our surroundings with more freedom than we have ever had. Our city is huge, our living standards are far beyond ration-bar level, and we are probably richer than Brightmoon itself by this point. For all of this, there are those who thank the Princesses and the Queen profusely, and consider it as the clear justification for their power over this city and this planet. I do not count myself as one of those people. We don't owe it to uphold these unelected bosses, just because they helped free us from a different unelected boss.
I'm originally of the Etherian Horde, and served with them for almost a decade before the end of the war. I remember Princess Scorpia, who at the time was no higher-ranked than myself, and certainly not any better at the job. The First Ones only know why the hell Queen Glimmer thought it would be a good idea to put this Horde officer, undertrained and underexperienced, in charge of all of us by birth alone. I, for one, call into question the judgment of both, and remain thankful that we at least have an elected Mayor.
A democratic Etheria would be an Etheria capable of breaking past old limits. Interstellar space, that vast region where we have only barely explored, is the frontier we must cross for our planet to grow and mature, not to stagnate for endless ages in infancy. These magical monarchs will never dare do what we, the common Etherian people, are capable of, especially now that we have tapped into the energy of the Black Garnet to electrify this whole city. We must march forwards undeterred by tradition and habit.
Etheria, we must Ascend!