Royal palace: Stately visit

(Year 231, Winter) This week the royal family of Mazaloom is hosting a state visit, as the royals of Sea kingdom spent a full three days at the royal palace in Del Sol Valley. If there were political maters to be discussed between the two monarchs, they were easily overshadowed by Crown Princess Emireza's 20th birthday.

Left to right: HRH Crown Princess Emireza of Mazaloom, HRH Queen Venezia and HRM King Tarriot of Mazaloom, HRM King Salomar and HRH Queen Medaka of Sea, HRH Prince Weever.

The royal guests counted HRM King Salomar with Queen Medaka, and their youngest son Prince Weever (31). Our royals visited Sea kingdom for Crown Prince Longjav's grand wedding earlier this year.

Crown Princess Emireza turns 20. While she must wait 5 more years to have her Young Adult rights, 20 is an important age, though. She is still a high school student, but her life will now gradually change. At 20 it simply gets more serious, it is by Law the minimum age for reigning the nation in her own right, if so should be needed. It means she will work even closer with her father, the King, and not the least - she will probably be added to the royal House's payroll from next year. We might see her representing a lot more, and to get more involved with community in general.

Crown Princess Emireza (20) and mother, Queen Venezia. Observing from the wall, long gone Queen Anne.

Everyone was hoping for a new portrait of the Crown Princess, but these pics are all that the royal palace did publish. Emireza looked a lot more formal and ladylike than she normally does, some did already comment that she obviously inherited her mother's eyes, while those eyebrows... well*... Others thinks she is way too skinny, and worry if the boarding school's kitchen is to blame.

Aged 20 also means that - off protocol - it is time to prepare for future relations and a possible spouse. It's normal within aristocracy that parents contact other houses on behalf of their main heir - perhaps their 2nd child too, sort of reserving some hands here and there as they see fitting. These contacts probably go all over the place, but naturally within your own class. The King and Queen most likely directed such requests to other royals but also the dukedoms, The routines are secret, and probably not even written down. From the age of 20 most families will arrange meetings between their child and the candidate(s), to allow them to either choose the one that feels like the better personal match, or to turn down all the candidates if needed. Traditionally minded parents might be stricter and decide quite a lot, but today most will accept that the main heir has preferences and a politically arranged wedding is not normal unless the heir had minimum two candidates to choose from. Everyone knows that love is not guaranteed, though, it would be quite impossible combining romance with the power that aristocracy actually protects.

We can only speculate about who King Tarriot and Queen Venezia reserved for their main heir, the Crown Princess! On this top level of society there might be as many as 3 candidates, while lower levels might reserve just one - if any. Prince Weever (31) of Sea kingdom might indeed be one of those candidates. And an interesting one, too, especially genetically... 

Cousins: Royal Chief Attendant Patricia Maiden and Prince Weever.

Following the photo session, that took place in Queen Anna's Salon, the palace's Royal Chief Attendant Patricia Maiden (50) was admitted 10 minutes to greet the royal guests. This would be a quite remarkable post on such a program, if it wasn't for Ms Maiden being their newly discovered relative! Prince Weever is her Cousin, that she never before met and just recently learned about. Her mother, the one being painted in Empire of Snorthia, was the sister of King Salomar, but of unknown reason she left Sea kingdom at young age and never used the Princess title. However, this discovery, which also caused a serious cultural conflict between Mazaloom and Snorthia, proves that Ms Maiden descends not only from the Sea kings, but also from the previous Snorthian Emperors! It is quite a lot to take in! Finally meeting some relatives must be such a big thing!

* I never adjust eyebrows - how they were born is how they will stay. Eyebrows are normally not genetic, but it would just be too boring if hey all looked the same. So, this time it was the Crown Princess that was not very lucky...