New Bandish diarchs take throne

ROSEWOOD – Thursday saw the annual coronation ceremony in the Band Room Realms and the formal establishment of a diarchy there, with King Ethan and Queen Harper ascending the Throne of Chairs.

Though their predecessors all gave speeches issuing their first decrees and court appointments from atop the throne, the new rulers chose to postpone any lawgiving, which will require their mutual consent.

In appointing two successors, departing Queen Kaylee broke the five-year tradition of Bandish monarchy in favor of co-rule by a king and queen. She described this as a way to promote gender equality in the Realms, and stipulated that sitting Kings and Queens of the Band Room must never be romantically involved.

Kaylee was the first female sovereign of the Realms, and is widely considered a reformer. Many remember her for decreeing at her coronation that her subjects must be kind. One foreign analyst described her as “smashing patriarchy in the Band Room,” given her breaking of a glass ceiling, proclamation of the gender-equal diarchy, and introduction of a tiara to the Bandish crown jewels for the use of successive queens.

The ceremony of mounting a pyramid of classroom chairs and auto-coronation occurs every June at Mountlake Terrace High School, traditionally making the new ruler the nominal governor of the school’s band room during their senior year. Ethan and Harper embody the sixth generation of this institution, which was established by King Franklin, a classmate of King Adam of Überstadt, in 2012.

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First snow for Northwest nations doesn’t stick around

ROSEWOOD – Last Thursday night, the lowlands of the Pacific Northwest were awed and inconvenienced by their first snow of the season, but the powder did not stay for long.

American weather forecasts days before the snowfall suggested the possibility of several inches of precipitation, but gradually decreased their predictions. By Thursday morning, the US National Weather Service was predicting between one and three inches in the Puget Sound basin, home of the small nations Higgsbury and Überstadt.

The snow clouds came ashore in Oregon and drifted north. Flakes began falling on Higgsbury in the early afternoon, and Überstadt in the evening. At the Überstadti capital, Rosewood, about three inches fell overnight.

While this is not an extreme amount of snow, the region’s steep hills and curving thoroughfares make driving on slippery roads especially hazardous. No citizens of affected small nations were involved in any vehicular accidents, but were impacted by the overall slowing of surrounding traffic.

The thaw began Friday, and by Saturday afternoon, the blanket of snow had melted away and trickled into the streams and rivers. For the brief time it lasted, though, the beauty of the frozen outdoors was a delightful spectacle. In the words of Higgsbury’s leader, “the crisp, clean aesthetic of winter [hung] from every limb of every tree; all of life seemed muffled by the peace of the snowfall, familiar forms still echoed in its shape but exciting and different with the prospect of the icy powder.

“It was one of the most beautiful sights I have seen in my entire life.”

Above: Snow covers western Rosewood and surroundings. Photo by the Duke of Edmount.