Not all refugees from the worlds beyond the In Between were content to remain destitute and homeless on Earth. The proud elves of Sintar were initially scattered across the world, but starting in the early 2000s, began to rally to the northern island of New Zealand, where they established a large community. The surviving government of New Zealand was initially welcoming, but as the elvish population came to outnumber the humans, mandatory assimilation programs began.
The Sintari didn’t react well. Most of them refused to learn English, preferring to only speak their mother tongue. While there was some trade, specifically in the form of magical knowledge, relations became heated between the humans and elves.
In 2010, an elderly human living on the northern island was murdered by his Sintari neighbours after refusing to learn their language (New Zealand authorities allege that the man was deaf). Police were sent to the community and fired upon by Sintari militia and mages. Three policemen died.
In retaliation, an elf community in Wellington was attacked by human rioters. Houses and shops were torched, and, in rare occasions, elves were publicly executed by vigilantes.
While many elf communities in the north had not been united behind the Trennari, an organisation of Sintari militants, the pogroms led by out of control humans forced their hand. Overnight, Sintari communities executed any human found on the northern island. (There are, however, tales of elves saving their human neighbours, hiding them and sending them to the south where they would be safe)
The New Zealand army had been decimated by rift-surges and dealing with the more obvious monsters of the Cataclysm. Even then, a peace-keeping force was sent to the island. The elven forces had been underestimated. The Trennari had been stockpiling weapons and battle-scrolls for years. Perhaps decades. The peace-keeping forces were eliminated and the 1st Sintari-New Zealand War began.
Two years later, with the threat of a coalition of Australia, the Polynesian states and Japan, the Sintari and New Zealand agreed to a ceasefire. Prisoners of war were released. But New Sintar, the newly dubbed state, refused to give up their new territory. Not wanting to risk more genocide, the coalition of foreign states forced New Zealand to concede.
The northern island was now an elven land.
Skirmishes followed, even during peacetime, with fisherman from both sides vying for the same waters. In 2019, a new war began as the Sintari sent an invasion force across the Cook Strait. A hasty defence by the New Zealand and Australian navies stopped, the bulk of the invasion force, but a detachment managed to land and form a beachhead on Arapawa Island. The New Zealand army was unable to oust them, and the beachhead formed into a Sintari fortress and then settlement.
The 2nd Sintari-New Zealand war ended months after it started, with the Sintari disappointed by their lack of gains, but still the ultimate winner.
On the eve of the Kat Drummond series, the Sintari and New Zealand are facing tumultuous peace talks. Children born during the first war have come to expect to serve in the next. Many, on both sides, want peace.
But when both sides are filled with hate, and both sides refuse to give – can there be peace?
