Aymis le Tyr was Empress and Tyrant of the Great Valley Empire. Lady Moon, her Second Daughter, was Princess Regent and Crown Heir. Empress le Tyr wore the Red Star Crown, while Lady Moon wore the Cloud Spire crown. The Princess Regent ruled the court in the name of the Empress and oversaw the needs of the Red House and Throne.

  Lady Moon sat on the Throne when the Empress was not present. She carried the Scepter when she sat on the Throne. If the Empress entered the Throne Room, Lady Moon would stand and place the scepter on the throne, then step aside and kneel. The Empress could ascend the Throne, take up the Scepter, and Sit, but she sometimes chose to address her Court from the floor.

  Of course, the reader will ask, "What was the relationship between Princess Regent Moon and Prime Minister Elle Grobbe?" Since the Throne and the State overlapped in authority and mandate, one might suspect they feuded and schemed. In fact, the Empress selected both her subordinates for their zealous subservience and pragmatic humility. They seemed to perform their functions without conflict for nearly two centuries.

  When Aymis le Tyr first ascended the Throne, prior to the organization of the Empire, there was no State to speak of. All functions of territory, military, and service were devolved to the Red House, the Six Queens, the Orders, and the Regional Crowns. The Gaia Council and the Eukaryos Council functioned as parallel power structures, not answering directly to any authorities. When le Tyr appointed herself Empress and declared the State Act in 584, she appointed a council of Ministers to ratify it. This Parliament continued to advise her and ratify her Royal Declarations until the Total Abdication of 719, when Lady Moon, the Last Empress, dissolved both the Throne and the State.

  When Empress le Tyr first outlined the State Act, she explained that a secular bureaucracy was necessary to preserve the spiritual purity of the Noble Houses. In fact, she may have desired a strategic meritocracy, responsive to her whims, unencumbered by tradition. In this sense, she supplanted half the authority of the Throne, thereby endowing the Empire with real power. By making the Throne and the State equal, she elevated herself far above the nobility, upon whom she no longer depended. The peasantry, grateful for the opportunities offered by State Service, rewarded le Tyre with almost a century of loyalty.

  So Lady Moon, despite sitting upon the Red Throne, was really miles beneath her Empress. Like Prime Minister Grobbe, she had no authority over policy, only execution. The distinction between policy and execution blurred somewhat, so each of the Empress's subordinates had theoretically limitless authority to serve the Empire. Even the Councils of Gaia and Eukaryos were theoretically subordinate to the State (via the Office of Faith) and the Throne (via the Holy Order).

  While reports of strategic competition between the State and the Throne are exaggerated or entirely falsified, it seems that the personal romantic relationship between Lady Moon and Prime Minister Grobbe is entirely real. The anonymous High Maid who reported them "engaged in their nightly flirtations at the conference-table" may have been fictional, but Empress le Tyr's private journal, describing an "impeccably balanced intimate alliance" must have been authentic. Indeed, her management of this three-way relationship might have been the supreme achievement of her Imperial authority. It seems that the unquestioning loyalty of the Prime Minister and her Princess Regent partly arose from their faithful loyalty to each other.

  The popular papers of the time called Elle Grobbe, "unfeminine and blocky," and "probably somewhat Ogre-blooded." Kirsige Moon was, "tall and narrow," and "more elegant than the Empress herself." The latter statement was the subject of a famous trial until the Empress herself interceded, moved to tears, magnanimous, laughing, to declare that, "The truth shall never be considered libelous." For the sake of discretion, let us simply say that the private relationship between Princess Moon and Prime Minister Grobbe explored some of the power dynamics which duty forbid them to exercise in public. The Empress may have encouraged this exploration.

  During the Aicortitz campaign, Royal Flying Cavalry launched extremely bold strategic shock operations, while National Infantry suffered extreme losses in combat with Blue Magic Artillery. In popular culture like "The Song of the Gleaming Dive," poets and artists both State-sponsored and Royal positioned RFC as the heroic savior of the NI. At that time, Lady moon was seen personally serving tea to Prime Minister Grobbe, assiduously inquiring after her health, and proposing expansions to her benefits.

  During the Green Rebellion period, which coincided with declining respect for Royal authority, Prime Minister Grobbe resolutely buttressed the faltering houses, viciously hunted dissidents, and famously declared, "The Throne is the Foundation of Culture. The Scepter is the Pillar of Culture. The Crown is the Apex of Culture." The Dissident Declarations of the National Movement imagined a fissure between State and Royal power, calling on Grobbe to demand more authority. Grobbe invariably treated these Declarations as Treason.

  So, then, did Lady Moon's Total Abdication betray the faith that Grobbe had placed in her? Not exactly, since the circumstances had changed by that time. With the death of le Tyr and the collapse of most armies, Empress Moon had little alternative. Furthermore, the Empire in Exile, which they ruled together from the Winter Palace, seemed to satisfy them both for several decades. They published a letter declaring that the Total Abdication had been performed under duress and the Null Conference was therefore illegitimate. Until 792 they persisted in these claims, when they performed a True Abdication and retired. After that, they continued to live in the Winter Palace until at least 840, when they announced their departure on "an errand of research and exploration." The Red Star Crown and Scepter were left behind in the Winter Palace Vault, where they remain today. From the ruins of the empire, the women took only the Cloud Spire Crown, one Insignia--class mage-cruiser, and about one thousand loyalists.

  The Tapestry of Three Rulers is kept in the Capitol Bank Gallery, while the Relief of Moon and Grobbe still stands in its original position behind the Winter Palace Throne.