Florencia, Princess of Asturias

Personal Information
Full Name:	Florencia Estefanía Cassandra Inma Abarca, KCSG
Nickname(s):	Pallas Athena Queen of Swords Queen of Spades
Species:	Human
Date of Birth:	{{{dob}}}
Service Details
Branch:	Terran Alliance Naval Reserve
Rank:	Chaplain-Lieutenant Commander
Unit:	{{{unit}}}
Awards:	Defense Service Medal (3 Bronze Stars) Belt Rebellion Service Medal New Worlds Medal Purple Heart Dame Commander of the Order of St Gregory the Great Dame of the Collar of the Order of the Holy Sepulchre Knight of the Collar of the Order of Pope Piux IX
Qualifications:	Linguistics Badge Mage Insignia Melee Combat Ribbon (Knife, Archaic) Parachutist Badge (HALO and ORBIT) Unarmed Combat Ribbon
Family Details
Spouse(s):	{{{spouses}}}
Children:	{{{children}}}
Relatives:	{{{relatives}}}

Origins

The eldest child of the deposed and assassinated King and Queen of Spain, Florencia was left in a state of limbo regarding succession since she had been born magically-talented. Since the Spanish Monarchy is still technically a Catholic monarchy and the Vatican’s response to magic was “shut up about it,” Florencia was hidden away from the public and her existence was a state secret known only to the royal family and certain government officials. Most of her youth was spent overseas, specifically in Italy with the Vatican (there was talk of having her become a nun). While at the Vatican she spent some time training with Sevorium Domini but never officially joined the organization since she was technically still a member of royalty. On public paper, she did not exist, but in the sealed records of the royal family and the official government archives she was first in line for the Spanish throne. However, it was acknowledged that unless something happened she would be passed over due to the circumstances surrounding her ability. Florencia never actually expected to inherit the throne - at least until 2015 came to pass.

World War III

Spain had always had a problem with anti-monarchists, in particular old Francoist hardliners and their Neo-Francoist successors. But the government had always ignored them, they were just a minor annoyance unlike the Basque separatists and Marxist resistance groups which were more active. But when President Abraham’s forces rolled into Spain after taking Gibraltar, the Neo-Francoists decided to act. In short order the entire known line of succession to the throne was eliminated, along with the King and Queen. This was made easy since the line was short - unlike other nations where the succession line was thousands of people long the Spanish line of succession was limited to direct relatives of the sitting monarch. Florencia was in Spain at the time and managed to escape the carnage, having been visiting with relatives near the French border. Fleeing into France, she returned to Italy and sought asylum with the Vatican and Servorium Domini while the Neo-Francoists consolidated their power. Under orders from Pope Joan II Servorium Domini was sent on a mission to steal the documents concerning Florencia’s existence and claim to the throne from the National Historical Archive of Spain in Madrid, right underneath the Neo-Francoist’s noses. Under the direct command of Cardinal Rufino Guarneri who took the field for the first time in decades, the order managed to steal the documents and return them to the Vatican and Florencia, however the Cardinal gave his life to ensure the strike team’s safe evacuation.

As the Neo-Francoists settled into positions of power, Florencia - now officially Florencia, Princess of Asturias - began to look at Spain from a distance and try to figure out what she could do to actually make good on her claim, but she was dissuaded from acting on it immediately with the American military still rolling into Spain. When the Francoists made peace with the Abraham administration, it was decided to wait longer to act, there was no way she could make a claim to the throne with a foreign power occupying Spain and working with the Neo-Francoist regime. For the time being, Florencia began to lay low in Rome and do what she could to help Servorium Domini - an organization she now felt a debt to due to the sacrifices they made in retrieving the documents from the National Historical Archive.

A chance to repay that debt came soon enough, as the Battle of Rome erupted the following year. Unwilling to sit on the sidelines while the Abraham administration that had enabled the Neo-Francoists appeared on her doorstep once again, and inspired by the early participants in the Stand, Florencia took up arms in defense of the Vatican and served in the Stand from February 4th to the 15th. On February 15th, Florencia resorted to calling forth Tizona to defend herself in a heated battle, unfortunately giving away a clear indication that she had some tie to the Spanish throne. While the mundane defenders and soldiers had no idea what the sword was, anyone with an inkling of arcane talent could sense that it was a powerful artifact, and those with arcane knowledge could easily tell that it was at the very least a powerful fragment of Tizona - Fireball of El Campeador, the legendary sword of El Cid and a relic of the Spanish throne. The original Tizona was long-lost, and the fact that she could call forth the sword meant one of two things: one, she was in the possession of a previously-unknown fragment of Tizona - or two, she had blood ties to El Cid, which meant that she was most likely Spanish royalty. Either way, Servorium Domini couldn’t risk this fact becoming public knowledge so they pulled her from the front lines of the fight and back into protective custody. Still unwilling to sit on the sidelines, Florencia conspired with a few others in Servorium Domini to create the identity of Livia Savona, an initiate in Servorium Domini and she retook the field on February 18th under this less-than-stellar disguise, which she wore until the conclusion of the Stand on the 23rd.

Post-War

Following the war, word began to get out that there may have been a survivor of the Spanish royal family who escaped, not unlike the disproven legends of Anastasia Nikolaevna’s escape and survival after the execution of the Romanov family after the abdication of the Tsar. The Neo-Francoist regime was quick to suppress these stories within Spain, but that only served to further fuel the obsession the people had with this concept. The Vatican was quick to issue what could only be deemed a ‘Glomar response’ in regards to the 2019 Neo-Francoist’s questioning about the identity of the mysterious wielder of Tizona during the Stand at the Vatican - “We can neither confirm nor deny the existence of an heir to the Spanish Throne being in our custody, but, hypothetically, if such an heir would exist, the matter of their claim to the vacant Throne would be a matter to take up with the Cortes Generales, an institution which was disbanded by the current government of Spain.” Needless to say, the Neo-Francoists were not amused by this answer. Through this time, Florencia continued to pass herself off as ‘Livia Savona,’ and got quite good at the charade, playing the part of the former initiate of Servorium Domini who went off and became a TAAF Navy Chaplain.

Florencia - under the guise of Livia Savona joined the TAAF Navy as a Chaplain early on in the organization’s existence, primarily to get away from those within the Vatican that would rather see her under lock and key until such a time that she could be used to essentially ‘claim’ Spain. She did her best to lay low during mandatory Naval training, but she couldn’t help but make friends during this time. In 2019 she entered into a relationship with a soldier from Spain, but the next year things turned sour. The soldier turned out to have ties to the Neo-Francoist regime and had learned of her true identity - she promptly found out the hard way that Florencia had no qualms about ‘thou shalt not kill’ when it came to Neo-Francoists. The soldier met her ignoble at Florencia’s hands and via Tizona in an incident that was later written off as an ‘an unfortunate accident during a quarrel’ - someone inside the Vatican had pulled strings to cover up what was pretty obviously a murder. However, the crew that she served on seemed to know better, and she earned the moniker of ‘Pallas Athena.’ Florencia stepped up and filled in for the dead soldier for the remainder of the vessel’s tour, but that incident remained on her TAAF record like a black stain - and the ‘Pallas Athena’ moniker stuck with her even when she was transferred to another ship for her next tour, the Marina Kokinos, a Stanislava S Popov-class Multi-Mission Destroyer stationed to Asteroid Belt patrol duty. Following Florencia to the Kokinos was perhaps her only true friend from that previous vessel, Celeste Scarsi, one of the vessel’s pilots. The year was 2022.

The Kokinos was on-station in the Asteroid Belt when the simmering Belt Rebellion went hot on May 1st, 2022, and the destroyer was switched from patrol duty to full-time insurrection suppression by mid-May. The Kokinos was deployed in support of the Marines who were sent in to quell the rebellious miners and trigger-happy private security, and it served with distinction during several of the battles that year. By August, the understaffed Navy had issued a directive allowing ‘support personnel’ such as chaplains to start serving more actively in combat situations if they chose to, and Florencia took up arms once again to serve with Navy security teams clearing mining emplacements. During one battle she took a full burst from a private security Crusader Arms Machine Pistol to the hand, removing her from the fight and the conflict. Due to the injury, she was returned to Earth for convalescence and found herself back at her apartment inside Vatican City.

Public Reveal

2022 also saw the release of Pope Joan II’s Potentiae Fidei encyclical, a self-written piece of work redefining the definition of ‘magic’ within Catholic doctrine and the place it has within dogma. With the majority of the Cardinals distracted by this stunning revision of doctrine and all the mages within the Church coming out of the woodwork, Joan had a chance to make some headway on one of her other projects - the matter of Spain and Florencia. The two conferred with each other, with contacts inside Spain - ‘radicals’ who opposed the Neo-Francoist regime, and with the heads of state of other nations. The decision was reached to retract the glomarized response and give a more truthful answer. “The Bishop of Rome officially retracts a prior statement issued in response to the 2019 matter of the wielder of Tizona who served in the Stand at the Vatican. She, and the wielder, are now prepared to issue the following statement. The wielder of the holy blade designated by the Supernatural Defense Agency as ‘Tizona - Fireball of El Campeador’ is confirmed to be Florencia, Princess of Asturias, sole surviving child of Felipe VI and Letizia. Due to Florencia’s status as one of the ones blessed by the Allmighty [a term the Church was using to describe mages at the time], she has been in the protection and custody of the Holy See from an early age. Her choice to join the Stand at the Vatican was her own, and the fact that she escaped the massacre of her parents can only be seen as divine providence. For the moment, Florencia remains under the protection of the Holy See and Her Holiness. Copies of the documents proving the authenticity of her claim, as well as a DNA test will be made available at the earliest possible opportunity.”

Spain responded about as well as could be expected - monarchists rallied joyously in the streets, and were promptly rounded up and detained by the Neo-Francoists. The Vatican, of course, denied any claim that they were attempting to foment a revolt inside Spain, saying that they were simply doing their duty in revealing the truth of the matter. There were no fewer than seven attempts on Florencia’s life by Neo-Francoist agents during her convalescence, and the attempts only ended after Italy declared that any future attempts would be seen as an act of war. At this point the Alliance stepped in and attempted to smooth matters over, but the Neo-Francoists would have none of it - they were content on remaining in power and began to ruthlessly crush any attempt to restore the Crown to its previous status as Head of State. Florencia, for her part, wanted nothing to do with the Neo-Francoists, seeing them as the murderers of her parents and family - she would not make a claim for the throne until they were removed from power, preferably by the Spanish people. Through her contacts, Florencia made contact with Alejandro Orellana, a media personality on the only allowed anti-Francoist station in Spain. Orellana operates as Florencia’s primary information source inside Spain to this day.

Later TAAF Career

The TAAF, meanwhile, had to deal with the matter that ‘Livia Savona’ still had a few years left on her enlisted tour of duty. Florencia had gotten good enough at passing herself off as Livia that there was no need to do any kind of hush-hush bookkeeping, just a few [TOP SECRET] flagged records inside her dossier tying the naval Chaplain-Junior Lieutenant to the now-revealed Florencia for those with the clearance to know about it. With her convalescence complete, the Navy (with the Vatican’s permission) shipped her off as far away from Spain as they could - to Alpha Centauri for the 1st Exploration Mission. Why place a public figure laying low in such a public role? Nobody in the Neo-Francoist regime had tied the two together yet, and the Vatican had access to a few personnel who could play the part of Florencia, providing the illusion that she hadn’t left Vatican City. Thus, the Chaplain-Lieutenant found herself assigned to ATS07 T.A.S.S. Yevgeni Vassilyevich Khrunov (NVY-185) ostensibly as a mission specialist but in truth she was there to get her away from Earth.

Florencia’s time aboard the Khrunov was relatively uneventful - the entire crew was in on the secret, sworn to secrecy, and hand-chosen so that there was no repeat of the earlier incident in her career. Consequently it was also extremely boring to interact with the crew, since everyone knew who she was and seemed to be more focused on keeping her out of danger than actually being friends. After two tours of duty aboard the Khrunov, Florencia got tired of this treatment and put in for transfer. Unfortunately, the TAAF was still focused on keeping her away from Earth so they put her on another distant posting - the Conqueror project, more specifically as support staff for the security for the project since she had insufficient clearance to actually know about the project itself.

Post-TAAF

Florencia had finally had enough, and when she was offered a chance for her a 6-year out (as opposed to the normal 9-year out for officers) she took it and the 30,000 Credit grant that came with it and dropped down to the reserves. The allure of military service had worn off, and she consequently returned back to the Vatican and her apartment. The uproar caused by the Vatican’s announcement a few years back had died down some and the Neo-Francoist regime was no longer threatening military action against Italy. Suppression of monarchist supporters continued, but the demonstrations in the street had given way to underground resistance. However, with her return to Earth the amount of people that she had to see in an official capacity as Florencia rose rather quickly. After spending so much time as Livia, Florencia suddenly found herself in demand again. As a former member of Servorium Domini, Florencia was now a member of the Pontifical Order of Saint Joan of Arc - work which kept her focused as dignitaries from all over now sought to curry favor with her.

Now back on Earth, Florencia began to use the Livia identity as a means to escape the ‘high life’ or at least travel around incognito. Florencia became a regular at social events among the upper crust of Rome, while Livia became a regular at a dive bar frequented by Rome-based SDA members and Agents run by ex-Agent Dino Fattore. Technically Florencia was listed as a non-Agent member of the SDA 7th Directorate, but due to the circumstances surrounding her safety if she were to leave Italy she was never deployed on 7th Directorate operations outside of the Italian sphere of influence. The Neo-Francoists didn’t take long to find out that Florencia was back on Earth and the threat of military action by Italy did not dissuade them - the attempts on her life resumed shortly after her return. These threats, plus the growing internal tensions inside Span led a Spanish expat who ran an anti-Neo-Francoist newspaper to seek her out for an interview. León Araujo of the Spanish-language newspaper La Verdad Semanal (The Weekly Truth) was granted the first solo interview that Florencia had given since 2022 - all previous interviews had been glorified press briefings run by Italian or Vatican officials. The interview itself became a hot black-market item in Spain, and La Verdad Semanal remains a popular newspaper among the anti-Neo-Francoists to this day. León Araujo continues to feed Florencia information about the growing rebel movement inside Spain through his own contact network.

Livia continued to remain a regular at Dino Fattore’s bar, meeting a wide range of transient and local SDA personnel. One of the more notable ones was a doctor doing studies of magical oddities for the SDA, one Dr Stephany Weird. Doctor Weird was based out of the SDA’s Rome facility and was therefore a regular at the bar and soon became a drinking buddy of Livia. Livia, as the alter-ego of Florencia, was registered as an oddity with the SDA as well, and Doctor Weird was able to provide Florencia with some insight into her status as an oddity.

2027 saw the return of someone into Florencia’s life - Celeste Scarsi, her friend who had followed her to the Kokinos in 2022. Petty Officer First Class Scarsi took her nine-year out in 2027 and returned to Earth...and promptly found that she lacked a purpose anymore. Florencia directed Celeste to the Sanctioned Catholic Orders, which were always looking for more mundane help, and Celeste’s driving skills were quickly found to be useful to the organization. Pope Joan II, seeing an opportunity to help mitigate Florencia’s growing obsession with Spain, pulled some strings and had Celeste assigned as Florencia’s personal driver and aide. Celeste’s driving skills were still top-notch and her ability to evade incoming fire in any vehicle imaginable proved invaluable during the infrequent attempts on Florencia’s life. At some point along the way, Celeste became Florencia’s confidant, and then more. Whether or not there had been some chemistry in their days back on the Kokinos and earlier remains their secret - fraternization between actively-serving officers and enlisted was frowned upon, and is still frowned upon. This may have also caused a bit of a stir in some of the old Catholic hardliners who still opposed the reforms of Anistasius V’s Third Vatican Council, but it does not seem to have impacted Florencia’s support within Spain as of yet.

Early in 2029 there was yet another of those infrequent attempts on Florencia’s life, and this one almost succeeded. A homing missile managed to get a successful lock on the car that she and Celeste were travelling in - a car which thankfully had been reinforced against missile attacks. However, the missile still totalled the car and caused a major accident, badly injuring Celeste. Florencia escaped with minor injuries and managed to hold off the subsequent attack on the wrecked car, eventually resorting to calling forth Tizona for the first time since the Stand. With the attackers dead or incapacitated, Florencia finally allowed herself to pass out. Due to the severity of this attack, the TAAF Judicial Bureau decided to step in and take over the case from the Carabinieri, sending the Sector Ranger assigned to Italy to manage the investigation into the attack. Sector Ranger Katrina Teagan assumed control of the case and is still working several leads in it. Thus far it has not been definitively tied to the Neo-Francoist regime in Spain, but the signs are starting to point that the Neo-Francoists at the very least may have enabled the attackers.

CLC Incident

Florencia, for the most part, has tempered her obsession with Spain - an influence of Celeste, no doubt. However, this has left her with an increasing amount of free time. Both Livia and Florencia began to go out in public more now that the injuries of 2029 were healed, at least until she and Celeste got a message from a mysterious man working for Cardinal Logistics Corp. They both knew of the company, as denizens of Rome how could they not? CLC was known for their work in the late 2010s and early 2020s making sure that materials for the restoration of Rome made it where they needed to be on time. But neither of them were expecting the blackmail that followed - the spectre of the ‘Pallas Athena Incident’ had once again fallen over the two of them. Blackmail? Of the heir to the throne of Spain? This merited active investigation...and the work they had to do might at least entertain them for a little while. The mysterious figure who blackmailed Florencia was determined to be the head of CLC, a man who had made his money during the rebuilding of Rome after the Battle of Rome. He now sought to engage in a massive magical ritual to grant himself god-like powers at the cost of the citizens of Rome, however his plot was uncovered and stopped by Florencia, Celeste, and other agents that he had been blackmailing. Very little information made it out about this incident, however the SDA confiscated numerous magical items from CLC's stockpiles when it was resolved. Florencia is suspected of having seized some items for herself as well.

The Seeds of War

Later on in 2030, Florencia began to find herself getting drawn into the ticking time bomb that was Spain. The Basque Freedom Organization, a Basque indepencen movement, requested her presence as mediator for discusisons between them, the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Portuguese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and the European Union Continental Affairs Office. The negotiations needed to take place in secret, far away from the prying eyes of the press, so some strings were pulled with the Bureau of State Security and OPERATION CRIMISON SUNRISE was initiated. The negotiations would take place during the annual cross-country rally run by the Benevolent Martian Order of Cydonian Knights. However, the Sandoval Regime caught wind of the plan and staged several attacks before and during the course of the rally. Administrator Rathe Valorous and his team of StateSec agents kept the situation under control and managed to capture some of the Spanish-funded operatives as well, however the attacks increased in scale as the rally went on, eventually culminating in rocket attacks against the rally as a whole and wanton terrain destruction. There is a theory that the operatives were cooperating with the Red Dragons crime syndicate during this time as well, but no proof exists.

In early 2031, another attack against Florencia is launched, this time by special forces from the Spanish military itself. They struck at her while she was heading to the Terran Alliance headquarters in Tycho, causing massive damage to the surroundings and killing dozens of bystanders.