Fic Update Thread: I can't drive 55

[Mamorien]

A Thing of Vikings (HTTYD/11th century) Chapter 161: Crowns (cw: "Explicit Dueling Sequence, Explicit Minor Character Death, Implied Minor Character Deaths, Discussion of Miscarriages").

As the executive ruling body of the North Sea Empire, the Imperial Council was made a formal institution in 1064 after having spent the previous twenty years as a de facto but informal structure. The formalizing event used to mark the occasion was the marriage of Valka II and Olaf III, to formally unite the North Sea Empire with the Kingdom of Berk, and the appointment of the couple as the junior emperor and empress of the realm, as befitting their statuses as the elected heirs to their respective crowns.

In the ensuing decades and centuries, the Imperial Council remained mostly stable as a ruling body, consisting of five to seven members of the imperial family, with later reforms giving them ten year terms staggered at five year intervals. In line with the original makeup of the council, featuring Emperor Hiccup Haddock and his wives and King Magnus and his wife Ruffnut, and their heirs, the council generally (but not always) takes the structure of senior and junior members, with the bulk of the authority and responsibility in the hands of the senior members, while the junior members are given both training and delegated authority.

While there certainly has been strife on the council—thankfully only once rising to the level of assassinations and civil war—in general the structure of junior and senior members of the family serving on the council and sharing the stresses of leadership has allowed the Empire to weather malcontents and misfits and the occasional demagogue or Caligula who has managed to convince the electorate of the Empire to appoint them to the council.

https://archiveofourown.org/works/104089.../148389166