[b]26. RAERINNE[/b]

(originally made for Of Gods and Monsters (polyvore))

CS: https://urstyle.com/styles/490008

[hider=Raerinne, the Puppetmaster]

♔ PRINCESS CONSORT RAERINNE
[The Puppetmaster]

»"Of course I'm a threat. Why? Did you think for a moment that I wasn't?"« 
"Light of the Seven" (Ramin Djawadi) | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w9PXLTLuuSE  ;

—Nicknames | Just call her Princess Consort Raerinne, please and thank you. Call her Rae-Rae or something equally as stupid, and she'll have you poisoned in your sleep.

(Was formerly Lady Raerinne Sadelyn of Rose Point, and sometimes Rinne, but those days are long gone)
She is sometimes called the Princess of Roses, owing to her penchant for red and the seat of her family’s house, but she has also been called the Queen of Thorns (never to her face, of course)

—Title | Princess Consort 
—Age | 28

✦ 𝐏𝐄𝐑𝐒𝐎𝐍𝐀𝐋𝐈𝐓𝐘 ✦ 
—Positive Traits | Extremely perceptive, observant, analytical, calm and collected under even the most trying of circumstances, logical and rational, constantly aware of her surroundings, cunning, sly, shrewd, possesses a sharp sort of intelligence that allows her to pick up on even the slightest of cues, holds herself with a refined grace and dignity no matter what the situation, able to be charismatic (albeit in a vaguely terrifying way) if she chooses to do so, has a great taste in fashion (or so she thinks, anyway), very good at "playing her cards" right, notices /everything/, good at remembering names and faces, picks up on small, specific details, meticulous and thorough in everything that she does (whether it's plotting an assassination or planning a feast), loved her daughter more than she loved herself at one point (does that count as positive???), knows the ins and outs of court etiquette like the back of her hand, exceedingly polite (in an almost frightening manner), tends to think things through before she acts and rarely allows her temper to get the best of her (though it’s definitely happened before), very determined to get what she wants

—Negative Traits | Can be quite ruthless and amoral, rather haughty/aloof, can be shortsightedly disparaging, cold and callous, quite cruel, unfeeling, overly ambitious, will stop at nothing to get what she wants (Raerinne's not above the occasional poisoning or two, as a multitude of dead men can attest to), frighteningly manipulative, has very few "true" friends that she knows she can count on no matter what, more likely to inspire fear than love in the people she encounters, not above playing dirty but also hates getting her hands dirty (both literally and figuratively), really high-maintenance, bitter as fu.ck, a total snake, kind of pretentious, super power-hungry, the embodiment of a backstabbing-bi.tch, kind of all-or-nothing in the matters she feels strongly about, blinded by her emotions when well and truly angry, perfectly poisonous

—Likes | The color red, roses (especially /red/ roses, though she's quite fond of white roses as well), pearls, diamonds, rubies, emeralds, sapphires, and other precious jewels, cherries, blackberries, being in charge/in control, when people scurry to obey her orders, being feared (or so she tells herself, anyway), the colors black and gold, telling people what to do/ordering others around, the position of influence that her husband's status has afforded her, delicacies such as swan or peacock, heady, cloying red wine (though she /hates/ getting drunk-she doesn't like feeling that she isn't in /control/), elegant, expensive gowns that show off her impeccable taste as well as how wealthy her family is in a refined, understated manner, accessories that are both beautiful and deadly (bladed fans, armored/bladed parasols, dagger-like hairpins and the like), daring rouges and lip tints, poison, power, people who are loyal to her, toying with and manipulating others (especially men), vengeance against those who have wronged her in the past, blades and daggers with ornate jeweled hilts, crimson silk, a good poisoning or a perfectly executed murder, subtlety (when it is needed), knowing everyone's secrets

—Dislikes | Her ex-husband, incompetence, when something/someone unnecessarily ruins her hair or clothing, silly stories about true love and chivalry, relying on others, men who are only powerful because they're men, being sweaty, messy hair, dirty clothing, crude manners, her ex-husband, being underestimated because she's a woman by people she actually trusts (who are few and far in between), sloppiness and messiness in general, drunkards, useless and meaningless violence and destruction (could you /get/ any more rude??? All of the violence and destruction that Raerinne partakes in is plenty meaningful, thank you very much), physical altercations (they're just so /messy/), large dogs (they slobber too much), her ex-husband, ale, most meat dishes, sweltering summer days, being a pawn in some dumb /man/'s game of politics, feeling powerless or helpless, being forced to marry people for stupid reasons (like, if she's going to be forced to marry someone in the first place, it better be for a damn good reason), being viewed as "property" just because she's a woman, gender roles and stereotypes (even though she frequently uses them to her advantage), the smell of smoke, people who feel the need to question her motives/her commands, the color orange, oh, and did we mention her /ex-husband/? 

—Goals/Objectives | Becoming queen, becoming queen, becoming queen, somehow disposing of the current queen in order to become queen, helping her husband become king (so that she will be the queen), finding and torturing and killing all the people involved with the murder of her daughter beyond her husband and that sorcerer (which she will do once she's queen), eliminating her enemies in the most discreet way possible, finding the perfect gown for her future coronation, and becoming queen. That is all.

—Fears | Never becoming queen, dying alone and forgotten, harm coming to her surviving immediate family due to her actions (though Raerinne's quite certain that both her mother and her older brother are more than capable of defending themselves), being betrayed by the few people that she actually trusts

—Strengths | Raerinne is very practical and has both feet planted firmly on the ground. She is capable of saying exactly what she means without saying anything at all, as well as flattering and insulting someone in the same breath. In a physical altercation (not that she would ever seek one of these out-they're so terribly /uncouth/), Raerinne would be capable of holding her own with her viciously practical stiletto blades (which she dips in lethal poisons of her own creation). Where Raerinne truly excels, however, is with words and outward appearances. Raerinne is more than capable of bandying words about all day long, and she is extremely perceptive when it comes to what others are thinking or feeling. She has almost the entire kingdom afraid of her-and the ones who are /not/ afraid of her will learn to fear her, or they will die.

If information is the game, then Raerinne is a merchant of great renown. Capable of lying, manipulating, seducing, or blackmailing her way to someone's secrets, Raerinne will have what she wants out of someone before they even realize she has her sights set on them. Raerinne is a coolly charismatic seductress who will play with her victim like a cat plays with a mouse, torturing them with frostily polite words and coy looks-all the while teasingly wrapping her arms around her husband. 

Raerinne fights with words just as well as she fights with her poison and her daggers. She's very discreet about it all, and if she wants to draw blood, you won't know it until the crimson liquid is oozing out of the wound. Raerinne hates it when things get messy, though, so she mostly fights with icy looks and coy smiles and threats cleverly disguised as compliments. Raerinne would /never/ be engaged in an all-out fight (that's what guards and knights and the like are for, thank you very much), though she is quite skilled with her hairpin-daggers (and more so with her words and her poisons; her "words like poison". But shh. Nobody's supposed to know about that!) 

—Weaknesses | Raerinne has a lack of brute physical strength (it's not /proper/ for young noblewomen to be strong like that, apparently), and an inability to trust others that could very much cost her her life one day. Raerinne has a rather cynical and bitter view of the world (she doesn't believe in true love, for example), and she has a tendency to be very judgmental of others. She burns with a need for vengeance against her first husband for what he did to her and what he did to her /daughter/, even though he's already dead and gone by Raerinne's own hand (but she will destroy his entire /house/ one day, just you wait). She believes that people are not inherently good nor evil, but that it is easier to be evil in difficult situations, so people tend to be selfish and greedy-Raerinne herself included.

Raerinne is ruthless and amoral. She can be extremely cold and callous, especially if she does not view somebody as "important". Raerinne will literally do /anything/-lie, cheat, steal, murder, blackmail, manipulate, whatever-to get what she wants. She is the literal embodiment of a backstabbing-bi.tch. 

On the inside, Raerinne is a mess of sorrow and fury and ambition that have combined to create the woman she is now. Raerinne is obsessively chasing after a crown, in the hopes that it will help fill the hole left inside her after what her first husband /did/. 

(She knows that it won't).

✦ 𝐀𝐏𝐏𝐄𝐀𝐑𝐀𝐍𝐂𝐄 ✦ 
—Gender | Female 
—Hair | Raerinne has brown hair so dark that it's almost black. It is thick and wavy and falls to somewhere around halfway down her back. Raerinne prefers to either arrange her hair in elaborate formations, adorned with jewels and tiaras and hairpins, or let it hang loose and free. 

—Eyes | Raerinne's eyes are a dark brown color, and most people who have met her say that there's something undeniably alluring yet utterly terrifying about those eyes. Raerinne has mastered the art of staring someone down while fluttering her eyelashes in a scandalously flirtatious way; her eyes change to fit whatever expression she needs at the moment. The one constant, however, is the sharp, piercing edge to them that hasn't gone away ever since her first husband did what he did.

—Height | Five feet and nine inches

—Remarkable Features | Her piercing eyes (they miss /nothing/ and they're kinda freaky but you know what's a girl gonna do), her high cheekbones and the shape of her jaw (her face literally screams "rich snooty aristocrat!!!"), her height (she's rather tall) and the way she's built in general (Raerinne is all sharp edges and long, lean lines; there is nothing "womanly" at all about her figure-which is remarkable in that it's rather unusual since she's, you know, a woman) 

—Style/Aesthetic | Raerinne favors gowns of crimson and black and gold with plunging necklines and bold accents; coquettish and domineering all at once. Raerinne likes sleek, streamlined silhouettes and ensembles dripping with jewels that scream "I'm more important than you are!!!" in the most discreet way possible. 

Raerinne is scandalously dark lip tints and rubies glittering at her throat; she is a set of razor-sharp hairpins with ornate onyx hilts shimmering in the dim candlelight. She is heady wine and sickly-sweet poison; she is the blood speckled across a diamond-studded dagger.

(And the gods know that she won't let /anyone/ forget it)

—Model | Gizele Oliveira

✦ 𝐁𝐀𝐂𝐊𝐆𝐑𝐎𝐔𝐍𝐃 ✦ 
—Biography | Princess Consort Raerinne, the Princess of Roses-

Beautiful. Brutal.

Nobody can dispute the fact that Raerinne is as lovely as any rose. With her high cheekbones and slender frame and elegant features, Raerinne is classically beautiful in the most aristocratic sense of the word.

But all roses have thorns, they say, and what makes you think that Raerinne is any different?

Raerinne wants the throne. And why not? Her ancestors were kings and queens, once upon a time. And House Sadelyn has always been close to the royal family. Rumors whisper that her grandfather was a dead queen's lover, aye, and they say that her great-great-great-aunt was a queen in her own right. 

The second and youngest child of Lord Tomas and Lady Cerise Sadelyn of Rose Point, Raerinne was destined for a betrothal from the moment that she was born. She was, after all, a girl, and in this world, all girls are good for is marriage.

Or so they would have you think, anyway.

Raerinne learned from an early age that marrying a man that she'd never met would not be the end of the world. "You may not love your husband, but you will love your children," her mother used to tell her as she brushed out her hair and deftly braided it into an appropriately elaborate arrangement for whatever banquet or ball that they were about to attend. Raerinne was confused by these words, at first, until she saw the same truth in her mother-

-her mother, who felt nothing for Raerinne's father, but would have burned the world for her children.

Ever since Raerinne was officially considered fit to be wedded and bedded by some lord or the other, Lord Tomas had been looking for a suitable husband. One suitor after another came and went, and Raerinne was paraded before them like a horse at an auction, albeit a very /valuable/ horse. Her brother, Gabriel, was the heir to Rose Point, while Raerinne was to be sold to some stranger like the aforementioned horse, to be ridden whenever her new owner liked, beaten whenever he liked, and cast aside in time for a younger filly. Gabriel's future was glory and wealth and power, while Raerinne's was childbirth and moonblood and obedience. 

Or so she thought, anyway.

Raerinne's mother taught her of petticoats and propriety-the only things that a woman ought to know, they said.

But when Lord Tomas was gone, off to some corner of the kingdom or another in service of the king, and when Gabriel and the servants were all in bed...

...Lady Cerise would show Raerinne her /poisons/. 

Nobody is entirely sure of Lady Cerise's ancestry; some whisper that comes from a line of high priestesses that can raise the dead, some whisper that she hails from a kingdom beyond the sea, and still others whisper that she is an impostor-that she killed the true Lady Cerise and took on her guise in order to become a lady of Rose Point.

None of this was true, Raerinne knew. Lady Cerise was no sorceress or witch; she was a normal woman of flesh and bone who just happened to be good with everything that a normal woman wasn't supposed to be good with.

Lady Cerise showed her daughter her poisons, just like her mother had done for her and her grandmother had done for Raerinne's grandmother. Poisons that could stun; poisons that could kill. Poisons that could cause the victim to break out into warts; poisons that could cause the victim to suffocate to death. Lady Cerise showed Raerinne everything she knew, and Raerinne knows it all by heart, for one day, she would pass this knowledge on to /her/ daughter. 

Lady Cerise knew more than poison, though. She knew how to flatter and flirt; how to manipulate. How to say exactly what she meant without saying anything at all. How to say nothing yet everything all at once. 

How to decapitate a foe with nothing but an excessively ornate hairpin.

And now, Raerinne knows too.

Lord Tomas Sadelyn died from a mysterious illness that left his tongue too swollen for speech and his body too feeble to even stand when Raerinne was fourteen. There was no doubt in her mind that this was the work of her mother; it was not a terribly exotic poison, really, made from a plant with leaves shaped like stars. 

Star-shaped leaves. Did you know that star-shaped leaves even existed? Raerinne didn't.

With Lord Tomas gone, Lady Cerise could take control. And she did exactly that, dismissing all of her father's old advisers all at once. She quickly replaced them with her own men and women, who hailed from strange lands that Raerinne had never heard of. The servants called them witches and sorcerers, but Raerinne could see their power. Their wisdom.

When Raerinne was sixteen, she married Lord Devran of House Vaele. The two had been betrothed for three years, and yet their wedding was the first time that they had ever even laid eyes on each other. 

Lord Devran was tall and sinewy, with cold, sharp eyes. At twenty-five years of age, the common folk were already whispering of his strength, of his cruelty. Of his ambition. 

Oh, the irony of it all! Raerinne and Devran were more alike than anyone knew.

When Raerinne was seventeen, she gave birth to her daughter-her precious, beloved daughter. She named her Cecile, after her mother (much to the chagrin of Lady Phillipa, her mother-in-law). 

After Cecile, it didn't matter so much that Devran came to bed every night drunk on some strange concoction from faraway lands. It didn't matter so much that Raerinne missed her mother and her brother; it didn't matter so much that the snowy domain of House Vaele was a far cry from the lush, manicured gardens of Rose Point. Raerinne would go through the motions with her lord husband at night, and in the morning, she would have Cecile.

Raerinne was happy, when she was with Cecile. She would forget all her ploys and plots and schemes, and allow herself to just...exist, with her daughter. And for those all-too-brief years, Raerinne was /happy/.

That all came crashing down when Cecile was murdered.

The servants had been whispering of Lord Devran's increasingly erratic habits for some time. Raerinne herself was also aware that he was dabbling in dangerous things. He would come back to their bedchamber, runes and sigils carved into his flesh, or maybe he wouldn't come back at all, and Raerinne wouldn't see him until supper the next day. Lord Devran grew increasingly irritable and short-tempered, and although Raerinne tried to keep calm...

...one time, the ba.stard /slapped/ her, as if she were nothing more than a servant, and it was all Raerinne could do from ripping his throat out right then and there. 

Raerinne saw what her husband was doing. He was playing with black magic; he always had a small crowd of pet sorcerers and wizards and mages following his every move. Lord Devran wanted immortality. Why, Raerinne could not say. She didn't really care, because the more distracted her husband was, the more power /she/ had-

-at least, she didn't care until he had Cecile sacrificed for the ritual that was to grant him immortality.

Raerinne doesn't know the specifics. She doesn't /care/. All she knows is that it felt /so/ good to stab out her husband's eyes after he gave her daughter to one of his pet sorcerers, who presumed to think that he would be able to escape from everything unscathed.

He was a fool. Raerinne killed him, too, and she /laughed/ when she felt his blood running through her fingers.

Raerinne left for Rose Point, after that. She wanted nothing to do with House Vaele /ever/ again. When she got back, she met a witch from some distant and exotic land who told her of spells and incantations that corresponded to the poisons Raerinne knew so well. The witch said that she could teach her how to literally make her words like poison, if Raerinne gave her the souls of all her unborn children.

Raerinne accepted. She didn't want anymore children. Not after Cecile.

A year after returning to Rose Point, Raerinne set her eyes on the crown. When she was queen, she reasoned, she would be able to bring her daughter the justice she deserved, for Raerinne was not so much of a fool as to think that House Vaele and allies of that /filthy/ sorcerer would not be back for vengeance. When she was queen, she would have the armies of the entire kingdom to hunt down the cursed fool who created that damned immortality ritual. 

When she was queen, nobody would /dare/ to cross her ever again. Not even dearest, deadest Devran's annoying mother.

Raerinne traveled to the royal palace, where she married [big bad wolf]. She doesn't love him, not really, but the two of them have similar aspirations. And they /do/ make a wonderfully diabolical team.

And so Raerinne plots and schemes and plans, hoping that a throne and a crown of her own will help fill the hole that used to be Cecile.

(She knows that it won't).

No matter, though. She is Princess Consort Raerinne, the Queen of Thorns-

-and she is deadly. She is /dangerous/.

✦ 𝐑𝐄𝐋𝐀𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍𝐒𝐇𝐈𝐏𝐒 ✦ 
—Family | (Note: I only included Raerinne's immediate family, since I know that most of her other family members are actual characters!) 

*Father (deceased): Raerinne had always liked her father. Lord Tomas of House Sadelyn was kind and amicable and cheerful; more suited to being a court musician or an actor than the lord of a noble house. Indeed, although he ruled to the best of his ability, Raerinne could tell that his heart wasn't in it. He was simply doing it out of a duty that he owned to his family, to his house. Raerinne's father loved her and her older brother with all his heart, she knew. She also knew that he knew what she wanted-to /rule/ in her own right, even if she was a woman. She knew that he saw the steel in her; she knew that he saw in her brother what he saw in himself. And yet, he did nothing. 

Raerinne used to be angry about the fact that her father didn't do a single thing, but now that he's dead and gone, she supposes that she can't blame him. He was only doing his duty.

*Mother (Zoe Saldana-I wanted somebody older, and HF models are mostly <30, so I hope an actress is okay!): Lady Cerise of House Sadelyn is a force to be reckoned with. 

Twenty years younger than her dead husband, people whispered that when Lord Tomas died, Lady Cerise came to life. Before Tomas passed away, Cerise was seemingly timid and as quiet as a mouse and almost invisible, but after his untimely demise-

-Cerise has had his brothers exiled, his captains and generals dismissed, and his armies disbanded. 

Raerinne was not surprised, if she was being perfectly honest with herself. Ever since she was a young child, she'd known of her mother's domineering nature-she'd known that the quiet and meek facade was just that: a facade. 

And Raerinne is fairly certain that it was her mother who killed her father.

Raerinne doesn't know what to think. She knows that their marriage was a loveless one; Lady Cerise was never /happy/. She was restless and anxious, and Raerinne now knows why-she wanted to rule. She wanted /power/. And to do that, she poisoned Raerinne's father, who Raerinne had loved with all her heart and whose presence she knows she still misses, no matter how many times she tells herself that he's dead, that he's /gone/.

But at the same time, Lady Cerise was the one who taught her how to use her beloved stiletto daggers. Lady Cerise was the one who taught her everything she knows about poisons. Lady Cerise was the one who taught her how to flatter and insult in the same breath; how to say everything and nothing all at once. Lady Cerise has been through more pain than Raerinne could ever imagine, if the rumors surrounding her are true. 

Lady Cerise loves Raerinne, even if she didn't love her husband.

And, despite it all...

...Lady Cerise is her /mother/.

*Brother (Reece King): Lord Gabriel of House Sadelyn was destined to rule from the moment that he was born.

The oldest son of Lord Tomas and Lady Cerise Sadelyn, it was understood that Gabriel would be the one inheriting Rose Point and all the surrounding lands. And, indeed, Gabriel is a good ruler-he was barely a man when Lord Tomas died, but in the couple of years that he has ruled, he has matured greatly.

Raerinne has always loved her older brother, and she knows that he is a brilliant ruler.

But still-even now, she can't help but to be jealous.

Why did /he/ get to inherit Rose Point, just because he is a son and she is a daughter? 

*Daughter (deceased): Lady Cecile of House Vaele was only six when she was murdered.

Raerinne adored her daughter, the way that her mother said she would. With her daughter, she forgot about her grand schemes for power and her goals and ambitions; all that mattered was Cecile. Cecile was always a lady-she was kind and soft-spoken, but there was an undeniable charm about her that Raerinne knew would serve her well, once she was old enough to understand what Raerinne understood.

That, of course, never came to be. Raerinne is /furious/ about what her husband did to her daughter, and every time she thinks about Cecile, a volatile mixture of sorrow and rage threatens to claw its way up her throat and spill out of her mouth all at once. 

So Raerinne tries not to think about her. Instead, she thinks about the crown, and not how much she misses her dead daughter.

That's totally healthy, right?

*Husbands (Big Bad Wolf, Lord Devran Vaele-deceased): see "foes" for Devran; BBW to be determined during plotting

—Friends | Friends? What are friends? Raerinne has many, but she also has none.
(Oh okay, this part is /required/? Well, I suppose she's got a few that she would consider /real/ friends...ish...)

*LADY SERENEI of House Farwynd (Ming Xi): Serenei. Ah, Serenei. Sweet, giggly Serenei. Pretty Serenei. /Stupid/ Serenei. 

Raerinne and Serenei were like sisters, growing up. Serenei's father and Raerinne's father were close friends, and as such, so were Serenei and Raerinne. They had much in common; Serenei was the only daughter in her family (and the youngest one, at that), just like Raerinne. Serenei liked pretty gowns and glittering jewels and adorning her hair with ornate hairpins stolen from her mother's jewelry box when she was bored-just like Raerinne. 

But as they grew older, the differences emerged. There was a rage, a /fury/, in Raerinne that wasn't in Serenei. There was an unrelenting thirst for power in Raerinne that wasn't in Serenei. There was a bitterness and an anger in Raerinne that Serenei could never understand. Serenei was content with her lot in life; she was content with marrying some suitably rich and powerful lord or and she still delighted in pretty gowns and sparkly jewelry when Raerinne had cast those things aside for her larger, and more /important/, ambitions. And Serenei saw this anger and darkness and bitterness in Raerinne, and she was frightened.

After Raerinne's first marriage, the two fell out of touch. However, four years ago (just after the untimely demise of Raerinne's first husband, Lord Devran), they unexpectedly encountered each other at court. They also discovered that they were after the same man: (insert name of Big Bad Wolf here). Serenei's father wanted Serenei to marry (Big Bad Wolf) in order to get closer to the throne; Raerinne wanted to marry BBW for that exact same reason. 

Well. Raerinne was /not/ about to just sit down and play nice. Who do you think she is?

One of Serenei's brothers, Clarrik Farwynd, got into a little /accident/ while on a hunting trip. He died from his injuries a month later. The entire kingdom mourned the passing of such a promising young man, and the squire that Raerinne bribed kept his mouth shut about the whole small-dose-of-potentially-lethal-poison-in-wine thing.

Serenei knew it was her. Raerinne knew that Serenei knew. Raerinne hadn't meant to kill Clarrik, if you can believe it, but rather to...impede his senses and maybe just /cripple/ him. As a warning. Obviously, /that/ backfired.

Serenei had no evidence that it was Raerinne, and neither did anybody else (not even that squire). Devastated, Serenei threw herself out of her tower bedroom not a year later, leaving Raerinne to claim BBW for herself.

Raerinne feels no remorse. Serenei and her father should have /never/ crossed her. The fact that Clarrik died-Clarrik, who she'd known her entire /life/ and who had teased her and Serenei and snuck them delectable raspberry tartlets from the kitchens-the fact that Serenei soon followed-those are just...unfortunate consequences in Raerinne's pursuit of something more grand. Something more /important/.

Right?

*LADY MARLEYA of House Ilyana (Anna Selezneva): Raerinne's current BFF. Lady Marleya has a string of dead husbands and stillborn children, but more importantly, she has a knowledge of arcane spells and incantations that she is more than willing to put to use for Raerinne's purposes. Lady Marleya is the last of her house-most of her family was killed a generation ago, after House Ilyana rose up in rebellion against the current ruling family-and Marleya is angry and bitter and vengeful...just like Raerinne. 

Lovely and lethal, Lady Marleya and Raerinne are startlingly similar. Marleya is a sorceress of some sort (she won't divulge the specifics), and she keeps her true identity a secret. Raerinne, however, was able to deduce who she truly was when she first arrived in the capital, and she agreed to help her keep her secret, in exchange for her loyalty. It was through this alliance that the two formed a strange but very real bond. Raerinne told Marleya of her deepest fears and her deepest regrets, and Marleya did the same, and Raerinne /does/ love Marleya's sharp wit and scathing sense of humor. 

But at the end of the day, Raerinne still doesn't know if she should completely trust her. Because Raerinne knows herself enough to know that she will stop at /nothing/ for the crown-and if she and Lady Marleya are so similar, then why should it be any different with her?

—Foes | (Okay, /now/ we're talking!)
*LORD DEVRAN of House Vaele (Arthur Gosse; deceased): Lord Devran Vaele was Raerinne's first husband. The two were married when Raerinne was sixteen, and from the start, Raerinne could see that she and her husband were extremely similar. Both of them had an insatiable ambition that consumed their every thought.

Raerinne initially married Lord Devran in order to bring House Sadelyn closer to the throne (the Vaeles were slightly less distantly related to the royal family than the Sadelyns, you see), but she quickly grew to resent his domineering ways. Even so, she kept quiet, and she bided her time. 

Lord Devran was infamous for his interest in the "dark arts", as the commoners would call it, and Raerinne was always aware of the sorcerers and wizards that passed through his castle. Even so, the fact that he would sacrifice Cecile-that he would sacrifice their /daughter/-for his deluded dreams of immortality shocked and infuriated Raerinne. 

Of course, she wasn't about to let him sit back and just /get away/ with it. She killed him. 

But what's new?

*LADY PHILLIPA of House Vaele: The mother of dearest, deadest Devran, Lady Phillipa is a force to be reckoned with. Known throughout the kingdom for her fiery hair and her temper to match, Phillipa puts up with no bullshi.t whatsoever. Lady Phillipa strongly suspects that Raerinne was involved with the murder of her son, but she has no evidence. Still, Raerinne keeps an eye on her-she knows that Lady Phillipa will act, one day, and Raerinne intends on being fully prepared for when she does.

+various other people she's probably pi.ssed off in her bid for the throne (tbd during plotting)

—Romances | What is /romance/???? -Raerinne, probably
*Big Bad Wolf: tbd (headcanon is that although Raerinne doesn’t truly love him, she and BBW get along swellingly and work together /very/ well)

*LORD DEVRAN of House Vaele (deceased): see "foes"

*Various men that she’s probably teased, flirted with, etc in order to get them to do what she wants 

(Do any of these even count as romances if Raerinne doesn't actually love them? Whoops!)

More family/friends/foes/romances here: [insert plotting set link] 

✦ 𝐎𝐏𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍𝐀𝐋 ✦ 
—Quotes/Random Facts | 
—Collection | 
—Moodboard | https://www.polyvore.com/cgi/set?id=234952727 
https://www.polyvore.com/cgi/set?id=235376458
—Playlist | https://www.polyvore.com/make_me_their_queen-raerinne_playlist/set?id=235395334#fans
—Camera Roll | https://www.polyvore.com/cgi/set?id=235380478 

♔ 𝐒𝐓𝐎𝐑𝐘 
https://www.polyvore.com/theres_an_old_man_sittin/set?id=235344835

[/hider]

THE HOLLOWS 

(originally in The Hollows, on RP Nation)

[hider=Lady Ariella von Brendt]
[b]Full name:[/b] Ariella von Brendt (the name she goes by now, in any case. She's changed her names dozens of times)
[b]Nicknames:[/b] Just Lady von Brendt, please and thank you. Call her Ari or something equally as stupid and she’ll have you poisoned in your sleep.
(Though she is secretly quite fond of one of her current nicknames-the Princess of Roses, for her penchant for the color red and the estate she and her husband own, Rose Point. And she is quite aware that people called her the Queen of Thorns behind her back, thank you very much)
[b]Age:[/b] Somewhere upwards of 2,000 (2,135, to be exact). Appears to be around 30
[b]Gender:[/b] Female 
[b]Sexual Orientation:[/b] Asexual, probably. But Ariella hasn't thought about love, much less her sexuality, in a long, long time

[b]Species:[/b] Vampire

[b]Personality:[/b] Ariella is very practical and has both feet planted firmly on the ground. She is capable of saying exactly what she means without saying anything at all, as well as flattering and insulting someone in the same breath. Ariella is more than capable of bandying words about all day long, and she is extremely perceptive when it comes to what others are thinking or feeling. She has almost all the vampires in London afraid of her and her husband-and the ones who are not afraid of her will learn to fear her, or they will die.

Ariella is observant and analytical; calm and collected under even the most trying of circumstances. She is logical and rational and constantly aware of her surroundings (she misses [i]nothing[/i]), and her sly, shrewd intelligence allows her to pick up even the slightest of cues. Ariella is more “terrifying” than “charming”, but she [i]is[/i] able to be charismatic-albeit in a vaguely terrifying sort of way. She is meticulous and thorough in everything she does (whether it’s plotting an assassination or planning a ball), and she knows the ins and outs of two thousand years of court etiquette like the back of her hand. She tends to think things through before she acts, and rarely lets her temper get the best of her-though when she is well and truly angry, Ariella is completely blinded by her emotions.

If information is the game, then Ariella is a merchant of great renown. Capable of lying, manipulating, seducing, or blackmailing her way to someone's secrets, Ariella will have what she wants out of someone before they even realize she has her sights set on them. Ariella is a coolly charismatic seductress who will play with her victim like a cat plays with a mouse, torturing them with frostily polite words and coy looks-all the while teasingly wrapping her arms around her husband.

Ariella is very haughty and aloof (she can be shortsightedly disparaging) and she has an inability to trust others that could very much cost her her life one day. She has a rather cynical and bitter view of the world (she doesn't believe in true love, for example), and she has a tendency to be very judgmental of others. At first, she burned with a need for vengeance against her first husband for what he [i]did[/i] to her daughter, even though he was already dead and gone by Ariella's own hand (and she killed the rest of his family too, in fact), but now that it’s been so long and so many centuries have passed, Ariella finds that she just doesn’t know a life without this rage that lives inside her, this [i]cruelty[/i]. She believes that people are not inherently good nor evil, but that it is easier to be evil in difficult situations, so people tend to be selfish and greedy-Ariella herself included.

Ariella is ruthless and amoral. She can be extremely cold and callous, especially if she does not view somebody as "important". Ariella will literally do [i]anything[/i]-lie, cheat, steal, murder, blackmail, manipulate, whatever-to get what she wants. 

But on the inside, past the millennia of rage and regret, Ariella is a mess of sorrow and fury and ambition that have combined to create the woman, the [i]vampire[/i], that she is now. Ariella is obsessively power-hungry chasing after control of all vampires in London (at the present, at least. She’s had many similar schemes in the past), in the hopes that it will help fill the hole left inside her after what her first husband did-the hole that still persists, despite all the time that has passed, despite all the bloodshed and destruction and glory that she has left in her wake.

(She knows that it won't).

[b]Description of Character:[/b]

[img]https://i.pinimg.com/564x/48/32/17/4832173bbb935d5facf62381f2ae9a38.jpg[/img]

Ariella has brown hair so dark that it's almost black. It is thick and wavy and falls to somewhere around halfway down her back. Ariella prefers to either arrange her hair in elaborate formations, adorned with jewels and ornate hairpins, or let it hang loose and free. She's not big on the hats that are fashionable nowadays, but she [i]will[/i] admit that they're useful for protection against the sun. God bless those rich English ladies and their obsession with pale skin.

Ariella's eyes are a dark brown color, and most people who have met her say that there's something undeniably alluring yet utterly terrifying about those eyes. Ariella has mastered the art of staring someone down while fluttering her eyelashes in a scandalously flirtatious way; her eyes change to fit whatever expression she needs at the moment. The one constant, however, is the sharp, piercing edge to them that hasn't gone away ever since her first husband did what he did, all those centuries ago.

Ariella has high cheekbones and a delicately curved jawline-her face practically screams "snooty rich aristocrat". Ariella is rather tall, and she is definitely on the slender side. In fact, there is nothing "womanly" at all about her figure-she is all sharp edges and long, lean lines and angular limbs. There is no softness to her whatsoever, be it in her eyes or her fingers or simply the way that she holds herself.

Ariella favors gowns of crimson and black and gold with plunging necklines and bold accents; coquettish and domineering all at once. Ariella likes sleek, streamlined silhouettes (she is so thankful that the wide skirts of the decades past have gone out of fashion, although she didn't mind the bustle all that much) and ensembles dripping with jewels that scream "I'm more important than you are!!!" in the most discreet way possible. She [i]adores[/i] scandalously dark lip tints, and she's always loved rubies and onyx and everything elegant but expensive.

[b]Backstory:[/b] Lady Ariella von Brendt, the Princess of Roses-

Beautiful. Brutal.

Nobody can dispute the fact that Ariella is as lovely as any rose. With her high cheekbones and slender frame and elegant features, Ariella is classically beautiful in the most aristocratic sense of the word.

But all roses have thorns, they say, and what makes you think that Ariella is any different?

Ariella once wanted a throne. And why not? Her family had quite the prestigious pedigree. But as the fifth and youngest child of two Egyptian nobles, Ariella was destined for a betrothal from the moment that she was born. She was, after all, a girl, and in this world, all girls are good for is marriage.

Or so they would have you think, anyway.

Ariella learned from an early age that marrying a man that she'd never met would not be the end of the world. "You may not love your husband, but you will love your children," her mother used to tell her as she brushed out her hair and deftly braided it into an appropriately elaborate arrangement for whatever banquet or ball that they were about to attend. Ariella was confused by these words, at first, until she saw the same truth in her mother-

-her mother, who felt nothing for Ariella's father, but would have burned the world for her children.

Ever since Ariella was officially considered fit to be wedded and bedded by some lord or the other, her father had been looking for a suitable husband. One suitor after another came and went, and Ariella was paraded before them like a horse at an auction, albeit a very valuable horse. Her brothers were destined for riches and glory, while Ariella was to be sold to some stranger like the aforementioned horse, to be ridden whenever her new owner liked, beaten whenever he liked, and cast aside in time for a younger filly. 

Or so she thought, anyway.

Ariella's mother taught her of manners and how to be a good wife-the only things that a woman ought to know, they said.

But when her father and her brothers and the servants were all in bed...

...Ariella’s mother would show her the [i]poisons[/i].

Nobody was entirely sure of her mother’s ancestry, only that she knew things that a woman of her position and standing, well, shouldn’t. Ariella’s mother showed her the poisons, just like her mother had done for her and her grandmother had done for Ariella’s grandmother. Poisons that could stun; poisons that could kill. Poisons that could cause the victim to break out into warts; poisons that could cause the victim to suffocate to death. Ariella’s mother showed Ariella everything she knew, and Ariella knew it all by heart (she still does, in fact), for one day, she would pass this knowledge on to [i]her[/i] daughter.

Her mother knew more than poison, though. She knew how to flatter and flirt; how to manipulate. How to say exactly what she meant without saying anything at all. How to say nothing yet everything all at once.

How to decapitate a foe with nothing but an excessively ornate hairpin.

And Ariella knows, too.

Her father died from a mysterious illness that left his tongue too swollen for speech and his body too feeble to even stand when Ariella was fourteen. There was no doubt in her mind that this was the work of her mother; it was not a terribly exotic poison, really, made from a relatively common plant.

With her father gone, her mother could take control. And she did exactly that, dismissing all of her father's old advisers all at once. She quickly replaced them with her own men and women, who hailed from strange lands that Ariella had never heard of. The servants called them witches and sorcerers, but Ariella could see their power. Their wisdom.

When Ariella was sixteen, she married another noble. The two had been betrothed for three years, and yet their wedding was the first time that they had ever even laid eyes on each other.

When she was seventeen, she gave birth to her daughter-her precious, beloved daughter. She named the girl after her mother, and after that, it didn't matter so much that her husband came to bed every night drunk or that he was cruel and wanted the kind of woman that Ariella just was not. It didn't matter so much that Ariella missed her mother and her brothers and her home. Ariella would go through the motions with her husband at night, and in the morning, she would have her daughter.

Ariella was happy, when she was with her daughter. She would forget all her ploys and plots and schemes, and allow herself to just...exist, with her daughter. And for those all-too-brief years, Ariella was [i]happy[/i].

That all came crashing down when her daughter was murdered.

The servants had been whispering of her husband's increasingly erratic habits for some time. Ariella herself was also aware that he was dabbling in dangerous things. She saw what her husband was doing. He was playing with black magic, and he wanted immortality. Why, Ariella could not say. She didn't really care, because the more distracted her husband was, the more power [i]she[/i] had-

-at least, she didn't care until he had her daughter sacrificed for the ritual that was to grant him this so-called immortality.

Ariella doesn't know the specifics. She doesn't [i]care[/i]. All she knows is that it felt so [i]good[/i] to stab out her husband's eyes as his heart stopped beating.

She went home. And after all the hubbub had died down, she set her eyes on the crown. When she had a throne, she reasoned, she would be able to bring her daughter the justice she deserved, for Ariella was not so much of a fool as to think that her husband’s family would be back for vengeance. When she wore a crown, nobody would dare to [i]touch[/i] her children. Nobody would dare to cross her ever again.

Ariella married the younger brother of the pharaoh-her second husband-who had found true immortality by sacrificing his soul. And on their wedding night, he made her a vampire, too. She doesn't love him, not really, but the two of them have similar aspirations. And they do make a wonderfully diabolical team.

The two of them went from Egypt to Rome, and when Rome fell they stayed in Constantinople for a while before traveling to Germany, France, Spain, Italy, England. And England is where they have remained, for four centuries now. Ariella and her husband (who goes by Phillip, nowadays) are the Father and Mother of one of London’s most powerful vampire clans. They are a duke and a duchess, with all the land and wealth that they could ever need.

And still Ariella plots and schemes and plans, hoping that power will help fill the hole that used to be her daughter, her daughter who died all those years ago in Egypt.

(She knows that it won't).

No matter, though. She is Lady Ariella von Brendt, the Duchess of Rose Point, the Queen of Thorns-

-and she is deadly. She is [i]dangerous[/i].

[b]Weapons of choice:[/b]
*Poison-almost as soon as she became a vampire, Ariella began experimenting with the poison in her saliva. She has come up with many “recipes” through the years, mixing vampire venom with poisonous plants-and more recently, things like chloroform and cyanide. 

*Blades-although Ariella doesn’t wave swords around like a deranged chicken, in a physical altercation (not that she would ever seek one of these out-they're so terribly [i]uncouth[/i]), she would be more than capable of holding her own with her viciously practical stiletto blades (which she dips in lethal poisons of her own creation). She also loves a good bladed fan and/or hatpin/hairstick with an unduly sharp end. Teeny-tiny hairpin daggers with ornate hilts are a good thing, too.

*Firearms-Ariella adores pretty little pistols with mother-of-pearl handles and gilt metalwork, though more often than not, she has a viciously practical revolver hidden in a pocket sewn into her petticoats. Ah, the wonders of voluminous skirts!

*Parasols-perfect for whacking someone upside the head. Ariella will sometimes have them custom-made with blades on the ends, which are concealed by silk bows and satin rosettes and layers and layers of lace.

*Words-Ariella fights with words just as well as she fights with her poison and her daggers. She hates it when things get messy, and she mostly fights with icy looks and coy smiles and threats cleverly disguised as compliments. Ariella would [i]never[/i] be engaged in an all-out fight (especially in a public place!), though she is quite skilled with, well, everything I’ve already listed. 

[b]Preferred abilities/powers:[/b] Like all vampires, Ariella is superhumanly fast and strong, with enhanced senses. Ariella is especially adept at the quasi-mind control that most vampires possess, even if she is not the physically strongest of her kind. [/hider]