ESCAFLOWNE WEEK 2021: Day 5: CONFLICT | JUSTICE

Fiat justitia ruat caelum

NOTE: Happy 25th Anniversary, Escaflowne!

Probably a more ambitious piece than the first one but given the prompts, how could it not be? It was tempting to use the plot of "The Pyre of Reckoning" for this but upon further reflection, it really was meant for the Fortunes and the Tower prompts.

Then, the dilemma of putting a story together that would do justice (pun intended) to this prompt without evolving into a huge multi-chapter fic. I settled on this approach. Just two short chapters, as a springboard for something bigger but that I will leave to your imagination.

I was not sure of who to feature in this and it risked having too many characters with different perspectives to balance. But in the end, I settled on Eries and Van, with a shoutout to Folken as well. But this is not really a shippy fic and just more of a political and historical take on Gaea. Probably influenced by both my studies and my line of work.

Enjoy and let me know what you think. Thank you!

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Before flying towards his final confrontation with Emperor Dornkirk, Folken Fanel left something behind far more explosive than any destiny machine.

Princess Eries Aston was surprised to find a package delivered to her chambers that was addressed to her by the former Strategos of Zaibach. It was a large leather bag filled with hundreds of pages of notes and records. The package came with a short note for the princess, written in Folken's concise style but conveying everything she needed to know.

"I fear I will no longer have the time to see this through. I trust that you will know the best course of action to take. Thank you."

The puzzled princess then began to read the documents from the package, and gradually made sense of it all. What she learned shook her to her core, and she understood what Folken's note was referring to at last. Dealing with the contents of those documents was an incredible responsibility and she shuddered to think of the disasters that would have taken place if these had fallen into the wrong hands. What needed to be done would be painful but necessary and it was clear that Folken Fanel had entrusted the right person with the fate of Gaea.

"Up until the very end, you still had one card left to play," Eries mused as she perused the papers, "And what a card."

For Folken had begun to uncover a vast conspiracy that would shake the foundations of Gaean society, a web of corruption and deceit going back generations, and that had been so well-protected by those involved that it had been difficult to put the pieces together. Emperor Dornkirk had first discovered the problems but since the flawed and oppressive system had worked to his advantage, he had decided to support it.

Eries spent the whole night arranging the papers, making sense of the charts, and organizing the records. There were some notes on the margins of some of the documents, where Folken had left clues as to how the pieces fit together. And fortunately, Eries herself understood enough of what she was reading to fill in the blanks, even as she grew more and more disturbed by what she had learned, not least because she was inadvertently part of the problem.

Simply put, there had been a secret agreement made among the ruling families of Gaea, long before Zaibach existed, and even before the invention of guymelefs. The leaders of Asturia, Freid, Basram, Cezario, Daedalus, Ezgardia, and even Fanelia, had created a pact that would ensure the stability of their kingdoms by keeping the same people in power in perpetuity.

While on the surface, this seemed like a universally beneficial arrangement to prevent wars and enable long-lasting peace, it came at a steep price. The people of Gaea would forever be under the rule of the monarchs, and they would be given little rights and next to no privileges. And many of the ruling families abused their power and murdered anyone who got in their way. They made secret agreements with other power-hungry leaders, to enslave their people, especially the beast-people, and to keep the rest of humanity ignorant of what they were being deprived of. Liberty. Knowledge.

This would more than sow the seeds for revolution. This would accelerate an explosion that would affect all of Gaea. The citizens of all these countries would not accept that they had been duped and enslaved for so long. Already there was clamor for change. Already there had been small rebellions that had been squashed but that kept on taking place. Tensions between the people and their sovereigns had been rising for decades. The revelation of this scandal would tip the scales in the people's favor.

This would not be like the destruction of Atlantis, with the Draconians brought low by some supernatural force because of their own greed and folly. This would be a shift in the balance of power, brought about by all the people who had been manipulated by those they had entrusted with their lives.

Eries stared at the mass of papers laid on her table and on her bed. She had not slept all night as she studied these documents. There was still some missing information, some things that needed to be confirmed, but this would be easily achieved with the help of her resources.

No, the message was clear. This would be the end of the monarchy as they knew it, not just in Asturia but in all countries. Her father, her sister, and herself, could not continue in good conscience after learning all this. They would have to subject themselves to the judgment of their own people, who would be the only ones to decide if they could maintain their positions and sustain their lifestyles.

Her father would never agree to this but he was growing weaker by the day and it was Millerna who was effectively ruling in his stead. Eries was certain that Millerna would be as horrified at the discovery of the widespread corruption of their family as she had been, if not more so. Millerna would welcome the radical change.

Such a thing would have to be done by the other incumbent monarchs as well. If Asturia started to change its system of government, it would set an example for other nations and their people would follow suit. Eries thought of her nephew, the Duke of Freid, still so young and with such a tenuous hold on his own power. She and her sister would try to support him through the inevitable transition. Knowing the other rulers, she had an idea of how they would react and she knew they would not react favorably.

But it could not be helped. She refused to sweep this under the rug. Justice demanded to be done and she would not stand in its way.

As she resolved to show all this to her sister and to Dryden Fassa in the course of the morning, Eries remembered that there was one other ruler she needed to consult on the matter.