This fanfiction started out as the translation of a German fanfiction (also written by me) in April 2011. The English version, however, took a life of its own. As of September 2012, the German version is discontinued. The English isn't.

Warning ahead: this story will contain, amongst other things, bisexuality, angst, obscure references to obscure books, films, operas and artforms, a lot of detail, a well thought-through backstory, mindrape, implied incest, even more obscure references, politics, possibly language mistakes due to translation (though I'm revising the first chapters), Napoleon, Napoleonic France, Napoleonic Europe and Napoleon.

This story now has side-material! Look it up on my deviantArt account, firelord-zuko . deviantart . com (without the spaces). This includes maps and a lot of useless illustrations, but also a larger version of this story's cover image. Note that there might be spoilers.

Summary: While the Empire rejoices in the fatherless birth of an heir to the Britannian throne, a new, bloodier rebellion tears it apart. With millions dying every day, the teenaged Crown Prince is sent away to Lord Gottwald's plantation, where both love and the horror of understanding await him - but as the latter murders the former, he is caught between Skylla and Charybdis.

I am happy about every review I get and will reply to any question you ask as long as it's not an anonymous review. Seriously, I've had anonymous reviewers asking me questions.

I do not own Code Geass.

The First Servant

"I am the first servant of my state."

– Frederick II the Great, King of Prussia

Prologue – Parthenogenesis

Imperial Summer Palace at New Haven Shire, Duchy of Connecticut, Holy Britannian Empire

2nd of August 2019 Anno Ascensio thronum Britannicae (a.t.b.)

The call from Britannia had come as a surprise, and, as always when her phone rang at midnight, it meant no good – and the phone of Colonel Kozuki Kallen of the Order of the Black Knights often rang at midnight.

She had been in Japan, in Tokyo, deep asleep in the flat she shared with her mother: now, eleven hours later, she had landed at around 21 o'clock local time on the Homeland's east coast, in New England. An officer awaited Kallen by the runway; next to the black rump of the Order's transporter plane the stiff knight in the Imperial Guard's scarlet uniform and the dark stretch limousine with the Empress's standard seemed like toys.

"Colonel Stadtfeld?" he reassured himself, looking at her name tag, which only gave her Japanese name, though. So she affirmed, and with a curt bow the officer held open the car's door. Kallen got in and they drove off. The divider was up, the officer next to her silent.

Grumpily she tried to get a few glances on the houses, alleys and parks of the realm's makeshift capital through the darkly toned windows, but gave up soon. She hated this obsessive need of Britannian nobility to isolate themselves from the simple mob.

The officer kept silent.

"How's Nunnally?" she finally asked and the officer thoughtfully looked at her; he wore the bright scarlet Captain's uniform of the Imperial Guard, two pale blue eyes looked at her from a rosy face, thoughtful and surprised and she averted her gaze. She hated Britannians -

She remembered that she was just skipping school.

"Her Majesty is doing well," he then replied, "When I left the palace it did not seem to take much more until our holy Britannia has its heir. If only Her Majesty would give away the father's name ..."

They were silent, the car drove up the long, elm-bordered slip road to the Imperial Summer Palace. Soon the buildings came into their view: a magnificent neoclassicist building with tall, very tall windows and bright white walls of sandstone and marble. She had read that the several courts and the palace's sea side featured beautiful gardens and parks. The palace seemed to be far more liveable than the actual palace, which had been destroyed with Pendragon.

"Press, Majesty!"

Slightly ashamed Kallen turned her gaze from the bloody spectacle and from the agitated crowd of midwives, physicians and servants around the young empress. Nonetheless it drew her gaze, again and again. Gino – no, Lord Weinberg, Knight of Three, who had somehow shown up next to her – merely stared at the bloody imperial womb and looked like fainting.

Kallen felt useless, had never seen something like that, not even observed. She was no bloody midwife, she was a soldier! The screams of the delivering woman were ear-piercing. Besides, she had seen more than enough blood throughout her life and really did not need more.

Even more so – wasn't Nunnally only 15 … no, 16? A first child at 16, and from an unknown father! And seemingly the heir they longed for couldn't come soon enough for those damned Britannian nobles. How could that have happened at all? Nunnally might be sweet and innocent (or had been – at the moment she bore an uncanny resemblance to a dying walrus and she was certainly not innocent any more), but none of that could have been a reason for Lelouch to omit telling her about the birds and the bees! When she had been 15, Naoto had … Kallen's thoughts came to a halt. No, she had not been educated by her brother, either, but from her older friends in the ghetto of Shinjuku. And of course such topics had never even been mentioned at Ashford Academy – bloody Britannian prudery.

Nonetheless, Nunnally was a smart girl. Why for all gods' sakes had she and her ominous friend not used a condom, then?

Another loud scream from Nunnally and the encouraging call of the leading midwife ensuing interrupted her wandering mind.

"Yes, ma'am, well done, keep pressing! … I can see the head!"

Kallen heard a muffled sound next to her. Gino Weinberg, Knight of Three, had just fainted.

Finally the nude, red baby was put into her arms. Exhausted and incredibly weary, but content Nunnally watched her son. Strangely the newborn did not scream, but was merely staring at his mother from curious, wide, lilac eyes. With the help of a midwife Nunnally tried to feed him; it had gotten quiet in the Red Salon.

"Milady," Sayoko finally asked, approaching her pallet, "Would you have a name in mind?"

Wearily Nunnally looked at her confidant. "I thought of … Faramond. Yes, that one I like – Faramond Ichiro Lelouch vi Britannia ..."

One of the midwives suppressed a scream, but Sayoko smiled understandingly. "Of course, ma'am. If it's all right with you, I shall take him now – His Highness The Prince Schneizel has to present your child to the court ..."

Nunnally softly kissed the slumbering newborn on the brow, then she handed it to Sayoko – reluctantly, it was her son, after all. Carefully the maid took the baby into her arms. "Rest now, milady. You've had an exhausting delivery."

From the corner of her eye Nunnally observed Sayoko dressing the infant in ridiculously dressy rompers in the Empire's colours and then passing him to Schneizel. The Prime Minister asked for the prince's name, then in surprise raised a brow. Finally he took the child into his arms, went to the salon's entrance. The halberd-armed guards flanking the large oakwood doors stood at attention, then took the brazen door handles and opened it.

Prime Minister Schneizel el Britannia, second Prince of the Realm, slowly paced to the adjacent Hall of Mirrors. Hundreds of pairs of eyes focused on him and the baby in his arms; almost the entire nobility of the realm seemed to be gathered here and in the tall mirrors that gave the hall its name countless rubies and emeralds and diamonds on the ladies' dresses reflected, lighted by soft candle light.

Schneizel highly lifted up the newborn prince, all the eyes in the hall followed him.

"His Imperial Highness The Prince of Wales and of Newfoundland, son of Her Imperial Majesty The Empress – the Crown Prince, Faramond Ichiro Alexander of Britannia!"

Jubilation broke out and for Nunnally, everything went black.

I was born the child of a mother and no father the 2nd August of the year 2019 a.t.b. – that is, at the end of a long decade that had brought with it suffering and pain and revolutions like barely another, in Britannia and in the world.

The decade had begun with the Britannian annexation of Japan as Area 11. Thereby the Realm not only secured the country's vast deposits of sakuradite for its army and economy, but also gained a strategic bridgehead against the Chinese Federation and the EU. By now it is pointless to note what is common knowledge: that the two exiled children of Emperor Charles III, Prince Lelouch and Princess Nunnally vi Britannia, disappeared during the invasion – for the time.

This bridgehead – Japan – the realm immediately used to expand its influence in Asia as well as in Europe. Over the next years it were especially Prince Schneizel and Princess Cornelia who conquered countless territories for the Empire; the former with the weapons of the word and brilliant strategy, the latter by her character's power and her divisions of Knightmares.

But soon, but seven years after the conquest of the country – the sole under the banner of the Realm to preserve some stamina – a new world order emerged from Japan. From the ghettos or from the Britannian settlements of the rigid colony a man emerged who, albeit masked and nameless, became a symbol of hope and of freedom for the suppressed of the world: Zero.

To this day it is not settled what kind of connection existed between Zero and Lelouch vi Britannia. Similarly it is unknown by what means Zero carried out some of his plans; the theories go from bribery to supernatural powers.

Mostly settled is, however, that Zero debuted by completely annihilating a twentyfold superiority in Shinjuku and then assassinating the viceroy of Area 11, Prince Clovis. During the event at which a scapegoat – Suzaku Kururugi, who would gain some notoriety as a knight and traitor – was to be paraded to his trial, Zero then firstly appeared in public, even more so on live TV.

He had always managed to recruit the mass media for his purposes.

Zero won one battle after another, especially the one for the hearts of the Japanese. The resistance army led and founded by him – the Order of the Black Knights – grew and grew, until it became a force to be reckoned with. When Princess Euphemia, deputy viceroy under her sister Cornelia, lured thousands of Japanese together under the pretence of establishing a Special Administration Zone and then massacred them, the revolt began. The Black Knights soon gained superiority, until Zero – for unknown reasons – left the field. The revolt was crushed without its leader and made history as the First Battle of Tokyo or the Black Rebellion.

It was but a year later that Zero reappeared, and outright he annihilated an entire brigade under Viceroy Calares in Tokyo and entered an alliance with the Chinese Federation. His goal: an independent nation within first Tokyo, then in the whole of Japan.

Ensuing was a long fight sometimes with, sometimes against Britannia, sometimes with, sometimes against the Chinese: unquestionable was that the Black Knights under Zero now won and won. Nonetheless Japan was out of reach for now: when Viceroy Nunnally vi Britannia tried to convince Zero to cooperate with her on a second version of the Special Administrative Zone by the promise of free passage, the rebel leader managed to smuggle more than a million Black Knights and civilians onto an artificial island in the Gulf of Bohai – Horai Island, until today the headquarters of the Order of the Black Knights.

Shortly after that the order managed to pull off a coup d'etat against the Chinese Federation's High Eunuchs, bringing the Empress back to power. With the support of the crumbling superpower and parts of the endangered EU the Order managed to establish the United Federation of Nations – UFN or UNIFON – under Zero's control; and with its attack on Japan the Second Battle of Tokyo began, in the process of which the FLEIJA bomb developed by Nina Einstein was first used … the city centre of Tokyo was destroyed completely and Zero disappeared anew.

Recently the historians presume that Zero did not die nor went underground, but was indeed exchanged for Japan's independence in a truce between the Black Knights and Prime Minister Prince Schneizel as Britannia's representative. As a matter of fact there were and are no commentaries on that from either side, nor from Zero himself.

Apparently it seemed to the contemporaries that the Realm was vulnerable: independently Prince Schneizel and the Knight of Seven, Suzaku Kururugi, as well as the re-emerging Lelouch vi Britannia pulled off coups: the latter finally killed his father, the Emperor, and joined up with Kururugi. A month later Lelouch proclaimed himself Emperor and his childhood friend the Knight of Zero in Pendragon.

Thus began the reign of terror that went down to history as that of the Demon Emperor. An alliance between his own sister, Nunnally, his half siblings Schneizel and Cornelia, and the Black Knights came together against him, destroyed the Capital of Pendragon using FLEIJA bombs and was defeated in a magnificent battle above Mount Fuji, though Kururugi fell as well. Lelouch went on to grasp world domination and got it by merely threatening with FLEIJA.

Yet then, when everything had seemed lost for humanity, another hero thought dead emerged to the bright day: two months after the Battle of Mount Fuji Zero reappeared, as a complete surprise to everyone, directly in front of Lelouch and the cameras of the world on Tokyo's new parade avenue. In his hands he carried a golden blade … Zero stabbed Lelouch, ending the terror.

Nunnally ascended to the throne, returning the realm to a period of peace and its old borders before the reign of Charles III.

It did not take long, though – could not take long – until the old divides in society reappeared which had previously been covered by strong chauvinism against the numbers under Charles and then surpassed by common hate against Lelouch.

Now against each other turned: the Patriots, who wished to lead back Britannia to old glory and re-establish the nobility's privileges, the Democrats, fighting for a limitation of imperial power and a strengthening of the House of Commons, the Loyalists, who wanted to retain the current political system whilst pursuing a pacifist foreign policy and supported the Empress and her Prime Minister Prince Schneizel more than all the other groups, as well as the Republicans, who effectively wanted to abolish the Empire and the nobility in favour of popular rule.

All these parties fought each other against the will of the Empress, who preached peaceful coexistence. Sometimes they fought with words, sometimes with arms. They do so till today.

My name is Faramond.