Name: Althea Noirfiscon, Ninth of her Name, Light of the Queen’s Eye… and Royal Bake Sale Champion
Age: 24
Race: Human
Appearance: Though Althea is the eldest twin, she does not have the same physical stature or hardiness that her sister Rosalia has. While Rosalia is a soldier, an accomplished and well decorated one at that, Althea finds her strength in more quiet pursuits and this shows in her physique. Though she is not weak, one would be surprised to find out she is able to take care of herself at all. Even at the age of 24, Althea has what one would consider a baby face, nothing like the rough, rock-hewn statue that is the marble Goddess of her sister. Where she is beautiful in a mature manner, Althea is soft, gentle… everything those Riordan commercials for shitty “women’s” hand lotion suggest a woman should be.
This is not entirely of her own design. Her mother, the Queen of Mistlord, insisted upon keeping Althea at home, preparing her for the day when she would inherit her birthright and become Queen herself. Instead of taking lessons in combat or joining any sort of military workout program, Althea was forced to maintain a strict diet so as to keep her girlish figure. She was also subject to multiple magical makeovers over the years, helping her to truly stay younger longer, at the risk of keeping her from truly ever looking her actual age. Though she is in her twenties, Althea looks to be 18 years old, 20 at best.
Due to the nature of her birthright, Althea’s eyes are silver, but in a washed-out, faded sort of way, almost like she is blind, though her sight is perfectly normal. She knows her eyes are very similar to the Queen’s, but something all Queens and heirs to the throne have shared beyond their silver eyes are the tiny flecks of color within the silver. Althea’s eyes have flecks of green, while the Queen’s have flecks of blue.
Althea’s skin color matches that of her twin’s but to a higher degree. She is pale and tends to wear clothing that keeps her covered and protected from the wintry climate of Mistlord. Unlike the amber color of her sister’s hair, Althea’s is a bright, golden blonde. Like her eyes, strange bits of color tend to grow into her hair, from normal browns and blacks to stranger colors, like deep reds and even blues. Her blonde hair color tends to be the dominant one, but on any given day, her hair could have changed in her sleep to give her a nice shock of green to her bangs, purple roots, or even blue tips. “It’s temporary until you become Queen,” her mother had told her.
Personality: As the firstborn daughter (only by a few seconds), Althea can sometimes be more than a little smug towards her sister. Though she has not acted in this way since they were young, as the two were growing up, Althea would lord the fact that she would be Queen over Rosalia. She saw value in the role early on in her life, merely accepting the high praise she was given by the sheer fact of her existence instead of earning it through any sort of deeds or adherence to a set of morals. In fact, before she was a teenager, the words “insufferable ass” came to mind more than once.
In short, she grew up spoiled for a time. Eventually, the weight of her future responsibilities came crashing down upon her when, in a brief scare during an attempted assassination of the Queen, Althea’s royal retinue had prepared to make her the new monarch overnight. Thankfully the Queen survived and Althea was spared, but knowing that her life could change in an instant like that ultimately changed something within her. At 14, she approached her mother with the intent for her lessons to become stricter and more frequent, showing that she shares that same sense of duty with her sister.
In the next ten years, Althea drilled and learned everything she needed to know about being royalty. She took her job seriously. At 24, she still maintains a wild streak that will most certainly never be snuffed out, but she does hold her duty in a much higher regard than she ever once previously did. The spiteful gremlin that was her pre-teen self was gone, leaving only a youthful, silly, but devoted young noble.
History: Althea was born mere seconds before her sister, but in accordance with how the heir’s birthright worked, that was enough to mark her as the once and future monarch of the Kingdom of Mistlord. The first Queen of Mistlord was a powerful soul, said in legend to be a powerful Aasimar or even a demi-god, though no proof of that could ever be found. Instead, it is historically believed that the first Queen was merely human and that her magic gave her an almost infinite power of will, living on in future generations matrilineally, from mother to daughter.
Once Althea was old enough to understand what this meant, she had taken to the idea with a wild abandon. She and her sister had both been given the “queen” talk, one to learn that she would not follow in her mother’s footsteps and the other that she would be given power unlike any one person had ever truly seen. This information went to Althea’s head, causing her to make Rosalia’s young life hectic. “Hey, remember how I’m gonna be Queen and you’re not? Oh, that’s right, you do remember. Sorry! Should have slipped out before me!”
Though this behavior was not something the Queen appreciated, it also wasn’t something she had intended to stop in any way. As a woman in Mistlord, Queen or not, Althea’s mother had a high opinion of herself and of her princess. By rights, Althea was allowed to gloat. How else was she to learn she was superior to not only most people but to all men as well? The Queen nurtured this ideal within Althea, but for what could be considered a good reason.
Laurence, the twins’ older brother and the firstborn child, was given a good life and taken care of, but Mistlord does not look favorably upon men. They have been seen as second class citizens for centuries. It is for this very reason that the Queen fueled Althea’s pride in her royal birthright. She intended for the young girl to push her brother in certain directions, feel less than. She had given the boy an original name, one never held by a member of the royal family. The history of a name was something to be treasured in Mistlord and though Queens rarely had sons in Mistlord, when they did, they were usually given names of wise ancestors. The Queen took this from her son intentionally.
High on the odd actions of the Queen, Althea became even more haughty the further into her teens she got. It was only until the Queen was nearly assassinated that the full scope of their situation became clear to Althea. She knew they had been at war for centuries like the rest of the world. She knew their land had been the last to oppose the Riordan hegemony, but she didn’t truly realize the danger she and her family were in. In what was a rather harrowing, sleepless night, Althea was urged to claim her birthright and become the new Queen. Thankfully, Althea did not go through with this, instead opting to sob openly into her pillow, her sister’s shoulder, even her brother’s waiting arms. They had lost their mother, but only Althea would be the one to bear the weight of what that truly meant. She was not ready.
As the morning came, news of the Queen’s demise had been greatly exaggerated. She strode into the throne to find her three children waiting for her. Althea did not rush to her side, though Rosalia and even Laurence hugged their mother as if squeezing her tightly would prevent any and all future attempts on her life. Once they were finished, Althea called to her mother, “Queen.” It was less an address and more of a statement. ‘I was almost made Queen last night’ it said. ‘I am not prepared for that at all.’ The emotions she had felt upon thinking she lost her mother and that she had to become Queen herself were powerful, tangible. She had felt the actual weight of her future crushing her back and decided that who she had been was not enough.
Though Laurence quickly left to learn Tactics and Rosalia earned her title as Heir Protectorate, Althea discovered that being Queen was nowhere close to what she thought it would be. She’d had daydreams of ordering servants around, calling out foreign diplomats in court, casting judgment as necessary, or even making use of the harem of men her mother had collected from Zekeshaven. Instead, it was boring meeting after boring meeting, class after class on manners, etiquette, the garbage all noble children needed to know. It wasn’t until she began her history classes in earnest that she truly began to learn the things she deemed worthy and necessary to be Queen. Centuries of conflict, continents rising and falling, power through both the pen and the sword. Were her kingdom not the last hold out against the evil Riordan Empire, Althea would consider being Queen during this time as exciting and interesting. Instead, she felt the weight of the world against her once more. The more she studied, the more she asked, “How much longer can we hold out? Should we?”
She focused herself and her mind. Eventually, even the boring lessons and classes proved their worth. Althea knew she would need to be something of a diplomat in the future, not a soldier like her sister, nor even a tactician like her brother. Her strengths were her words and the power of her birthright. She could see the writing on the wall just as her siblings had. Mistlord was losing the war. Part of her asked honestly if it was simply their time. Ending the war now would save so many more Mistlord lives.
In the Seat of Power, the central building of Poria and the figurative center of the entire Riordan Empire, Althea sat with her brother and sister. Close by stood the emperor. He stared at the three of them, his eyes locking with her own in particular. What did that look mean? The emperor raised his hand and a hush fell on the crowd instantly. It was time.
Magic: As the heir apparent to the Mistlord throne, Althea’s magic is somewhat different from an average citizen’s. She uses her magic in the same way as anyone else, channeling some source of power from within herself, but her birthright provides her with powers unknown to her as of yet.
What Althea currently understands her power to be is simple light manipulation. She can throw it like a weapon, use it in self-defense if necessary, and amply light up a dark area if necessary, but without proper training of any sort, her magic leaves much to be desired.
Her birthright, however, lies dormant until she officially becomes Queen. The birthright is a sheer boost of power as no two Queens have entirely the same abilities. Though they share common elements and the process of unlocking the birthright is the same, every Queen finds that their magic is enhanced tenfold, almost to the point of becoming unstable in some cases. When her time comes to accept her birthright, Althea will take it without question, but she’d be lying if it didn’t scare the shit out of her.
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