I have the Springtime Lake - Summer Lake 'verse I have created (feudal yet LGBT fantasy: no large communities or technology from before the 1850s; the presence of pegasi, werebeasts, dragons, and fair folk... yet queer, interracial, and subversive characters, and issues like speciesism and realpolitik play a relevant role)...
and its female ruler Radegunde in mind. To loyalists of the old regime, she's the wicked stepmother or the usurper, "an evil-disposed woman"..:
"she concealed the malignity of her heart under the mask
of friendliness..."
But she has also got supporters at court, who know the truth about their warrior queen's rise to power: she's actually an upstart of the gentry from the provinces, sent to court and betrothed at an early age against her will (by a powerful widowed mother) to an adult child with a penchant for strong drinks and fair maids... She's actually a well-intentioned usurper, something like Catherine the Great. She led a conspiracy of army officers against her own husband. I took inspiration from Catherine and from this text (aside from the Clever Princess, one of my favourite characters):
<< Not all of us became Christians ; and one of our
orders in particular, which had learnt from a Greek the
philosophy of Epicurus, still held to its doctrines.
A light and godless race they were, thinking
nothing worth their care but how to appear in colors
gay ; and to their sensual maxims true, they would
drink deep of ambrosial dew, and then for hours would
sleep... By their uncer-
tain zig-zag flight, dear child, thou well may'st see, that
they have drunk more than is right, and their senses
clouded be.
These were the confirmed old topers, who
had imbibed so much of the ambrosial dew that their
bodies had grown fat and unwieldy, and had very large
stomachs. and so whenever one ap-
proached, each bent aside its calyx bright in mockery
of the uncouth wight. Or if by chance one clambered
up to reach the blossom's nectar-cup, its stem would
bend beneath its weight, and down the-awkward creature
straight would go, and all its members dislocate.
ir evil deeds they did under the cover of the
night. When every flower was soundly sleeping, they
came like midnight robbers creeping — ^then drew them
softly to the ground, and sucked from their lips their
nectar breath ; so that many a flower at morn was found,
lying pale in death, and sinfully robbed of all its wealth,
that had closed its leaves in rosy health.
and emptied the pitcher with a satyr-
like expression of countenance.
The liquor seemed quickly to affect him ; for almost
as soon as he had swallowed it he manifested his satis-
faction by fantastic leaps, and all kinds of ridiculous
antics. Overpowered by
fatigue, and the strength of the liquor he had drunk, he
gradually sank down by the stream, and fell asleep.
" Those who had drunk deep by day, roused by it
could not sleep away the ill effects of their carouse, so
they with aches and fevers rose.
<< In the first tumult of their ire some of our fiercest
spirits did conspire their monarch's blood to spill. They
tore the thorns from the stem of the rose, and the strongest
and longest and sharpest they chose to work their wick-
ed will. Beneath their mantles green they hid the
spears; and sought their king, the curse-beladen one,
who again in the tulip lay alone in sorrow and in tears.
Wildly they the stem ascended, and in their rage they
struck the deadly blow ; they pierced him till his heart's
blood forth did flow and with his life his sorrow ended.
Whether it
was the effect of the too hastily swallowed drink... he lay dead.
And her only son Kyle, allegedly (according to the old regime loyalists) a bastard, is later revealed to be gay... a direwolf and a white female cat he met in the wide world (a thick fir wood
,), revealed to be werebeasts (the werewolf is the rightful heir Henri, and Kyle's lover!), follow Kyle back home... What will happen at court? Will war return to the lands of Verlangens? Will the "usurper" fall?
There is a scene where a whole army is turned into the cutest little boys ever, inspired by this story:
...he caused his whole
army to draw up on the plain, and commanded them to
watch day and night, that no one whatsoever should
approach the tower.
As he
came nearer to them, he remarked that they grew
gradaally less and less, and that their lines contracted;
and when he got so near that they could bear
him speak, he perceived, to his no small astonishment,
that all these formidable soldiers, and mustached gren-
adiers, had shrunk into children of four years old, so
that he cried aloud to them : — " Yield this moment, or
you shall all be whipped."
Then the whole army began to cry, and ran away...
To as many as he could catch, he gave sugar-plums,
whereupon they immediately swore to obey him.
...................................................................................................HERE'S MORE INSPIRATION
...to the open plain, and began to strike, his sword here and
there in the ground, and in. a few minutes there stood
on the plain many thousand well armed combatants,
and the youth himself, richly armed and adorned, sat as
their leader on a noble horse decked with gold embroid-
ered housings and a lustrous bridle. The young general
led his troops against the foe, and a bloody battle was
fought. Unceasing death-shots thundered from the
commander's hat, and his sword called up one regiment
after another from the ground, so that in a few -hours
the enemy was vanquished and scattered, and the flag
of victory waved above the conquered camp. The victor
pursued and conquered from his foe a considerable por-
tion of his country.
The realm beyond which the wide world begins is the isle of Verlangens,
located in the middle of Springtime Lake and with the misty Summer Lake in the middle.
It's a feudal land without settlements, only castles, villages, and marketplaces.
There's a monarchy and several vassal dynasties.
The ruler is Radegunde (disabled and pardoned, abdicates) then
replaced by Kyle and his two disenchanted companions as a ménage à trois.
