THE HAUNTING LEGACY OF THE SUMMER OF SORROWS
Two Months On, Images From the July Coup d'état Still Burn Brightly in the Public Conscience
— An Official Wire of the National Gazette of the Evenguard (NGE) —
Tuesday, September 23rd, 2014 | Sanctum Maior, Evenguard of Azura | (English Version Formatting)
This article may not be republished or retransmitted!
Though just two months have passed since the infamous start of our Summer of Sorrows, to the people walking in this new and uncharted world, events that transpired in July must feel like a lifetime ago. With the sudden coup d'état attempt launched by rogue military elements severing the continuance of governance and all chains of custody, the materiel damage to the Evenguard far surpassed the physical damage wrought by the grievous assault on Sanctum Maior and the deliberate targeting of Azuran diplomats in a suicide bombing in Belfras. Let it not be said that the wounds caused by the bombing and gunfire in the capital were not painful, for they strike deep in the heart of Azurans two months on. Those men and women charged with our defense engaged in a variety of acts that stained our national reputation moving forward.
That pain shall pass, however, as the glory of our national pride and the institutions upon which our faith now rests reassert themselves in the grandeur and pomp of a new political age in the Evenguard. What shall remain is the scar tissue, both emotional and mental in capacity, that will forever haunt the Azuran people over their great season of discontent, a sorrowful chapter in an inglorious tome of Azuran history. For by the capacity of a few to bring so much death and destruction upon the Children of Azura, an unconscionable degradation of our standing in regional affairs was brought to bear upon our collective soul. Such wounds never fully heal, despite the saving grace of messianic heroes and gallant souls that try to undo the insipid acts of the barbarous and macabre. The casualties of the coup will cry out forevermore in anguish.
More than ten thousand casualties have been recorded in the assault on Sanctum Maior, with more than five thousand still unaccounted for—lost souls whose hope of being found alive has long since vanished under the painful acceptance of our changed reality. The assassination of our Praetor, Her Graceful Eminence Calixte brought about the sad end of a sorrowful episode; a leader trying in vain to overcome the forces moving betwixt the shadows, undermining her progressive reforms. The economic contraction and market crash that stymied four years of sustained growth have brought even more economic turmoil, even as Praetor Baelfire begins to assert his new brand of leadership upon a leaderless government desperate for direction. Whispers of fires that continue to smolder in cordoned-off areas of the desecrated capital still haunt world-weary souls two months on.
For the Children of Azura, their Summer of Sorrows have yielded to an Autumn of Uncertainty, clouded by the lingering questions that remain from this unsettling period of transition. As the Praetorship of Lord Baelfire asserts itself, a new generation of leaders will emerge to begin consecrating the restored Evenguard, and a desperate people will cling to their one beacon of hope as we prepare to enter the long, dark night. Disgraced Premier Nathanael Falco continues his convalescence-cum-exile in Rodarion, while the whereabouts of former Nera Strega commandant John Cailean draw more questions than answers. Though darkness besets the grandeur of an Azura that is no more, the rugged spirit of the Lost Children will continue to echo through time immemorial, as a formerly great power of Pardes begins the slow process of recapturing that which it once longed for dearly so: respect. Without which, the dream of the late Calixte Vardanyan and those who came before her will have died in vain.
- Financial analysts consider the prospect of prolonged economic contraction.
- Capital Redevelopment Committee meets to determine location for a Saeculum.
- Nathanael Falco continues his exile in Rodarion, pledges support for Azurans.
© N.G.E. Sanctum Bureau — Foreign Edition 2014 (Credit to Virana)