Albion Rules the Wind 1 (Patreon)

Albion Rules the Wind - or ‘No, this is not a copycat of Noblesse Oblige’ (Zero no Tsukaima, Wales' Twin!SI)

Albion, the White Kingdom.

Once part of Tristain and continental Halkeginia, the Wind Stones that nowadays propel it to the skies have given it a natural independence in sovereignty and physical boundaries.

To say that being born in this place and knowing perfectly in which show I was did give me a bit of a case of ‘anxiety’ on not being ready for what was to come. Despite the medieval tones of Zero no Tsukaima, or Familiar of Zero, the events that were to unfold in my new home were akin to the British Glorious Revolution.

And as I was born in the royal family together with a fellow blond-haired baby, I knew this mattered a lot as I was a member of the Royal Family- one of the two princes at that.

My name is Prince Scottish ‘Scott’ Tudor, I am the ‘younger’ child of King James Tudor and my life was besieged by idiocy as the concept of succession started to become a pressing issue for my dear dad.

You see, akin to the Glorious Revolution, this monarch was afflicted by a standard case of ‘not understanding some fun trends in Gallia and Germania could not be replicated in Albion’.

Absolutism is an issue when there is no excuse to use it to establish it. And with a parliament already present and nobles being clingy to such an institution, the steps for a major fuck-up were already establish long before I came to this world with my brother Wales.

So, my father made a decision- send the ‘youngest’ to be given as the surrogate son to one of his most trustworthy vassals that lacked any heir. Duke Walpole was… a mixed blessing for someone like me. Initially a pain in the butt with his antiquate sternness, expecting me to be above and beyond what many kids my age.

And the first few years of going through that was… truly irritating. He was stern, yet he didn’t push it too harshly. He clearly was not a ‘father-material’ man, thus it was easy to realize for me that he didn’t seek me to make him proud.

He wanted me to make him rich.

So, it happened first when he complained with his steward over the peasantry no longer having space to expand within his fief. Similar to the British Isles, we had a main island plus a few smaller versions of Ireland. We were greater within the combined land size compared to the UK, but the issue was the aerial borders- more effective than the seabased of the OG Great Britain, but also limiting in terms of movements to try and shift migrations of people elsewhere.

Which is why, after nagging my tutor with a few questions in regard to Magic, I offered a proposal to Duke Walpole that, albeit expensive, would expand his coffers and land size.

“Hiring Water and Wind Mages to shift the water away and… Earth mages to elevate islands?” He summarized the papers I gave him to read as I, a mere 5 years-old, stood right beside his desk.

The old man had taken the papers with a degree of amusement, expecting it to be doodling from a mere brat. When he was done reading, and had seen the ‘expected expenses’ I wrote down, he appeared impressed but-

“I think we can bring that price to a lower expense,” He hummed with a hint of delight as he proceeded to start the beautiful exchange that would become important for my education within these lands.

In return for me giving him ideas to play with to expand his domain and his income, he would teach me the ways of how to exploit laws of the Kingdom to either go around regulations to avoid any major expenses while also getting a proper check-up for feasibility within some projects.

Legally speaking, no one had tried to do what I had offered him to do, so some regulations could be ignored in regard to the ‘endurance’ of the land. We were not planning to create floating islands, but elevated ones with a solid grounded base.

The effort took roughly two years to finalize, and this led to a controlled migration of the peasantry and some elements of the local military to occupy the newly named ‘Whirlpool Island’. I was 8 when he patted my shoulder and called me a ‘good lad’.

I learned later that day that my action led to a spar between the King to try and pass a new taxation law to prevent the expansion of land, but the parliament opposed this move as they wanted to pass a law supporting it.

Considering most nobles didn’t have Duke Walpole’s understanding of how to overcome excessive prices, no one made any concrete steps to expand the land, but this debate sparked more the growing divide between the two main political forces in the Kingdom.

I fucked my dad’s plan some more. Yay me.

After that, the tasks became a bit more complex but geographically limited. Such as expanding on the process of production for weapons and armors, or securing a greater agricultural yield, or drilling the regiments under these lands’ leadership.

Yet, the one that took the most time to accomplish, dragging up until I was 12, was an espionage and intrigue move that took a while to get wrapped up: demolish one of the two other Duke’s families by making it appear like an accident and I managed to do it.

Was it tedious? Infuriatingly so. I had to carefully chip away those members that hardly got out of their homes for some silly reasons and make sure the timing of their passing didn’t appear suspicious.

Once I had trimmed the sides, I went for the full cut as I created a ‘radical zealotry plot’ as I had picked this candidate because someone I wanted dead early on lived in his fief.

Oliver Cromwell of this world, at this point, had yet to be approached by Gallia to try and establish a coup, so I had decided to strike him now that he was exposed and remove a pawn from the Gallian Chessboard.

A major explosion ripped apart the manor of Duke Cunningham during an important family event. Only a few children survived, and considering that none was directly tied by blood to the Duke, it started a feud to decide who had to sit on the big chair now. Meanwhile, the guards would track down the source of this disturbance to Cromwell and, without much investigation, see him slain for the crime.

This further destabilized the situation, but while this was good to further weaken the king and favor a more democratic delegation, this only made the matters of instability more visible for the people and our neighbors.

At the age of 14, I was sitting by the edge of Lord Walpole’s bed. The old man had reached 67 and he had a big fall no less than a week before. He had lost much of his vitality with that unpleasant event, but he didn’t seem upset. I knew he had been plotting something big, but he just promised that ‘everything was going to be clear soon’. And he gave me a key to one of his cabinets in his office.

He died the next day as he was found unresponsive and no longer breathing early in the morning by his butler and maid.

I wouldn’t say I considered him a father, but it felt like a mentor died. Someone that taught me things, that broadened my view of things in this world and that, in his own way, taught me what kind of sternness was needed to rule over others.

With his body being treated for the funeral, I walked to his office and checked the cabinet. Papers and papers came out. The first batch were roughly plans to install a new monarchy with a new ‘understanding’ with the parliament by depriving power from the nobles and enabling more of the ‘new blood’ rich people to make a claim to positions of relevance.

Some of this stuff I remembered suggesting limitedly for this fief, but he had expanded on it. It just confused me why he had left all of this for me to find- but then I found some unfinished or unsent letters.

A few of those were for the king to ‘switch me with Wales’. In his view, I was a better candidate to be a crown prince. But I spotted a response to an earlier letter about it from the King deciding that ‘Wales was more malleable’. And I think that’s where what loyalty Walpole had for the king started to vanish.

Gone was the romantic view of a strong autocrat, now replaced by a man that was desperate for yesmen. One of the letters was literally all about the island creation process, with Walpole holding back a response to an earlier letter that ‘reminded’ James that the Dukes couldn’t overrule an absolute majority in the parliament.

I continued to read some, but I finally stumbled on one meant for me. It wasn’t the last, but it was clear he had sensed he didn’t have the time to get his plans into play. The first lines had me frowning. He apologized for ‘not seeing me as a proper son’, saying that ‘I had done more than enough for his family, but having a greater duty than just that’.

The entire letter was the old man beating himself for not being a bit more open with his judgments and his criticism. How many of the things I had done with him, the things I learned through him, made him proud of what I was turning into. He stressed a bit that my journey was long, but that I had to strive for the kingly crown.

These skyward islands have long missed the presence of a good king. James, your father, is too entranced by the Gallian and Germanian view of the world, unwilling to see things can go back.

You have to be the one that pushes forward rather than backward.

By the time I was done, I felt a sense of emptiness. It didn’t change much how I viewed the old Duke, but I did feel like I owed him words. A response to all of this I could never hope to provide with his passing.

The funeral came and went, but it was the old man’s last will that confirmed a suspicion that manifested as I read the letters. Before that, I thought that I would have been sent to court so that one of the cadet branches of the Walpole family would have claimed the Dukedom… but Walpole gave it to me. He had this succession paperwork signed by the king, so I had been made Duke the moment the lecture of the paperwork was over.

I could only think that the king had given me this role to chain me away from being a pretendent, but I knew that the late lord gave me this opportunity for a very simple reason.

I had proved myself crushing a rival duke and his family, now it was time for me to go forth and remove the last hurdles to claim the kingdom… starting by ingratiating the parliament to me.

—------d-d-d-d—---

AN

Albion shall indeed rule the Wind and the Skies!

Some pics for the current ‘timeline’:

Prince Scott;

Map of Albion - Legend:
Blue - Crownlands;
Lilac - Dukedom of Tudor-Walpole;
Purple - Dukedom of Cunningham;
Green - Dukedom of Wallace;