Her Majesty the Steward, Queen Kelmena Thagor is the ruling Queen of Daggerfall and Greater Betony. Once the cheerful princess of the distant, simple Camlorn of her dreams, Kelmena has been forced into a hasty maturity by events far beyond her control - thrust first onto the world stage as the one flimsy pin that kept whole countries from tumbling headfirst into war, and then again into the spotlight of Daggerfall's labyrinthine court, to rule it - somehow - as its queen.
| Kelmena Thagor | |
|---|---|
|
Title |
Her Majesty the Steward, Queen of Daggerfall |
|
Age |
22 (born 4E 6) |
|
Gender |
Female |
|
Race |
Breton (Camlornese) |
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Height |
5'7 |
Titles[]
Her Majesty the Steward, Queen of Daggerfall,
By right of lordly acclamation, Queen of Greater Betony and the West,
Imperial Lady-Baroness of Tulune and of Betony,
Sovereign and Protector of Camlorn and all its domains,
Comtesse Westhill Court,
Defender of the Temples and the Divines' Faith, and of the Kynaran Orders of Daggerfall,
Thrice-turned Lady in Scarlet, as recognized by the Princes of the Void.
Appearance[]
The darling of the court, there is perhaps some truth to the boast that Kelmena is not only the Queen of the West, but also of the West's hearts; all, it seems, but one. Robbed long ago of her childish straightforwardness, Her Thagor Majesty has the appearance of a porcelain doll - so precious and fragile, one cannot help but feel something for her; be it affection, sympathy, or just simple pity. Slender-framed, and by far the shortest of her siblings, she is a cultivated, queenly grace personified, hiding her self always behind the regal echoes of her predecessors.
Much about her that was authentic, or even worse - Camlornese - has since been exorcised, her complexion just a little paler, and her features - just a bit more angular than once they were. Long, curly brown locks arranged into the next great masterpiece of art and engineering frame her face, accentuating or concealing the queen's moods and expressions. Her Thagor Majesty must walk always shrouded in the most tasteful of aromatic arrangements, and the efforts of a dozen maids ensure that the folds of her gargantuan dresses conceal a whole lavish garden's olfactory palette.
The breadth and depth of Kelmena's regally expansive wardrobe is not for mortals to comprehend. Each new occasion is welcomed with a new dress, always the height of ladylike fashion, and ranging from elaborate constructs that require a whole retinue's efforts to manoeuvre, to garbs of Nibenese soulsilk that astound with the sheer simplicity of their elegance.
Biography[]
Born at a time both brighter and less certain to the greats of High Rock, Kelmena seemed to most as sweet a child as could be. Almost as soon as she could walk, the little princess spent her days trailing along after her mother, Lysa's, skirts, taking in every move, every word, every story of the warm, vibrant south; and on those few days when there wasn't room for her at court, she was perfectly happy to busy herself with her siblings - most often, tagging along on Astien's next grand scheme or adventure.
Those were happy days, when the world seemed hers to conquer, when all was much simpler, and the underlying romance of things - so much closer to heart. So what if she fought with her father, often and terribly, over "dynasty", "propriety", "obedience"; so what if she slowly joined the rest of them in forgetting Claude, condemning what seemed to her his useless feud with Astien, and taking Maria's side more and more as their littlest sibling grew up and into the habit of leaning on her older sister. So much about life looked to be right and well then, and so much of what wasn't, she couldn't see.
But perfection is a flower far too fragile to last, and her twelfth year, the year that saw the precarious order of High Rock so dramatically shattered, brought with it a cold wind. Her mother's death seemed so sudden, so abrupt, she'd had no time at all to make sense of it before it came to pass that their kingdom died also - and she was the offering laid to rest with it, promised to a foreign king far away.
She had no choice but to march ahead in life for the next six years, feeling like some piece inside her had been irreparably broken. All that had seemed just and proper about the order of the world was twisted, slowly, into a terrible parody and an injustice as only an adolescent mind can imagine. She couldn't clearly see her family's hurt, and so the princess thought to herself that they felt none; and she loathed them for it, quietly, and for the fact that she was the only one to be sent away "for Camlorn's sake" while the rest of them stayed and festered. She couldn't look at her own reflection without seeing her mother - they'd always been so alike, and Kelmena had been so proud of it, once - and so decided it a cruel and terrible curse, not a memory that wouldn't die.
And finally, the day came when that much-dreaded promise made in her stead was to be made flesh, when she was to be whisked off to faraway Daggerfall. She promised Maria to write much and often, and - still a little princess at heart - she left to become queen.
But for all her fears and nightmares, for all the knots in her stomach, it seemed, at first glance, as though her exile - oh miracles of fate - might not be so terrible. One prison behind her, the warden to the next looked so much nobler than she'd imagined, so much more gallant, experienced and mysterious; and though she'd heard the rumours, of course, it was all too much for a little princess made suddenly queen, and she couldn't but get lost in the dancing, and the palaces, and all the attentions showered upon her. To be liberated so from her demons, it was bliss too good to be true.
And it wasn't. Four years have seen her reduced from the jewel of his eye, to a beloved afterthought; from a king's lover, to the mother of his princes. No longer allowed to be Kelmena, but forged instead into Her Thagor Majesty, she has slipped into a life of distractions, and distractions - and her love for her sons - are all that sustain her, now.
Talents[]
Kelmena was raised neither free-rider nor scholar - she was raised a princess, and later a princess who would one day be queen. Her domains are etiquette, manners, and a near superhuman tolerance for the elaborate follies of court; and in this, she has a regal stamina far superior to her wayward husband's.
Elsewise, and quite apart from her royal duties, Her Thagor Majesty maintains a number of interests to sustain her. She has something of an ear for music, though her blood and her station have meant precious few chances to try her own hand at any manner of song or instrument. As well, the Queen is, by all accounts, a skilled dancer - the fruit of Camaron's own labours, and the one thing she learned from him in their blissful first year - and delights in dancing whenever the opportunity arises.