So, Medieval Fantasy AU. Jedi are an order of magic Knights, and the Republic is an elective monarchy with a complex system of governance that I'm not getting into right now, because this doesn't focus on them.
In the Kingdom of Mandalore, Grand Duchess Satine Kryze is killed alongside most of her Royal Protectors by unknown assailants. The only member of her household to survive is her nephew and appointed heir, six-year-old Korkie Kryze.
Young Korkie only survived the assault on the palace due to the quick actions of Protector Fenn Rau, who held the doorway to the boy's chambers by himself for what felt like hours with nothing but an axe and a dirk.
By Mandalorian law, the child needs a regent till he's at least fourteen, when he'll have his verd'goten. Enter his aunt, Lady Bo-Katan Kryze, who rather famously ran away to the court of Duke Vizsla after an argument with her elder sister.
Bo-Katan would rather not be returning to the capital, thank you very much. Especially not under these circumstances. The thought of Satine was one that always cut and comforted in equal measure. She was the overly perfect example Bo had always been held up to and found lacking in comparison. She was the whining voice tattling to their Father because "Bo-Katan tore her new dress running around with that page again".
But Satine was also the kindhearted older sister who would mend that very same dress and kiss her scraped knees better. The person who read Bo to sleep when she had nightmares, and stood off to the side with her and Ursa at balls and mock the various puffed-up suitors vying for their hands.
Bo always thought they'd have more time. She never imagined her final poisonous words to her sister would be her final words to her sister.
Life in the capital is...less than ideal. Most of her sister's remaining court looks at her with disdain. She hears the whispers as she passes through the halls. "Vizsla's pet" they call her when they are feeling kind, and "Vizlsa's whore" when they are not. Rarely do they feel kind.
At least they're smart enough not to insult her to her face; Bo would surely leave quite a few of them maimed in the resulting honor duels.
The plot revolves around Bo acting as regent for Korkie, while trying to solve her sister's murder and keep Mandalore from exploding into war. She's assisted in this by her old friend/former lady-in-waiting Ursa Wren, heiress to the County of Krownest, and Protector Fenn Rau, her childhood friend that she’s grown apart from due to circumstances beyond either of their control (complex backstory that I'll get into in another post).
Now, the thing is? No one knows who killed Satine. Everyone and their mother believes it had to have been a plot from Duke Vizsla's household, perhaps to usurp the throne using Lady Bo-Katan, but it wasn't (Pre's plan wouldn't have been ready for years, he's very put out someone beat him to the punch). The killers weren't even Mandalorian, if the few surviving eyewitnesses are to be believed. Their armor was an unfamiliar style, and all but a few seemed almost mindless. The leaders of the attack, they wore skull masks and bore staves that cast green orbs of hellish flames. Most horrifyingly of all, they just wouldn't stay dead. A mortal wound would only seem to stun the creatures before they began advancing once more.
And the whole AU contains some familial bonding, the discovery of old family secrets, the discovery of old family secrets that the other secrets were meant to hide, and evil cults.
