Sirelle Weiroon de Saubonne
"What sort of world is it when monster judges man?"
Appearance
As a result, so too did the second youngest daughter share the same vaguely pugnacious, self-important mien that neither age nor worldly experience ever seemed to dull.
What else was there to say? Sirelle de Saubonne was every bit her mother, and her mother before her.
There were few surprises to be found in the matter of scions born in particularly old and well-to-do dynasties, in all honesty. Her face was perhaps still a tad bit round, but that was a trait she was certain to grow out of as the years passed and she too inherited the more pronounced cheekbones and sharper lines that expressed itself throughout her family line.
Many portraits and paintings lining the walls of her ancestral estate testified to as much; one could look for themselves and presume with near-certainty as to how she might turn out. She was a de Saubonne, through and through. That much was obvious.
No more than that - and certainly no less.
There would come a day where her image would also adorn that hall; to contribute to the likeness that her ancestors helped shape.
All except for the dreadful acne that still occasionally flared up on the young woman's complexion as proof of her penchant for sweetmeats, but that could easily be rectified with a stroke of an artist's brush.
They had a legacy to maintain, after all.
But for now, those differences actually worked somewhat in her favour. The lack of the harsher, more defined angles in her features, as well as the evidence of her dietary excesses did a great deal in softening the girl's expression from what was typically expected of a proud de Saubonne matriarch. It was something she found to be an advantage, and a useful tool, in the social whirlpool that was the Academy.
When one put aside the advantages that came as a result of her privilege, wealth and familial genetics, she was otherwise not so different from her peers. Or, at least, she pretended not to be - however successful that effort might have been.
And unlike the portraits in her family estate, her expression was yet unmarred by the responsibilities of adulthood and the duties of her station.
The glacial eyes found in canvas - who appeared accustomed to power and overt cruelty - were notably absent in the young girl's gaze. And while it was true that you might find subtle mischief and no small amount of haughty arrogance in its stead, there was no evidence of the same hard edge that spoke of coldness or deliberate malice.
Not yet, anyway.
She did share the same ridiculously blonde hair of her predecessors, however. Her head was crowned by its loose cascade, which was permitted to fall past her shoulders and nearly to the small of her back whenever the tresses were left unbound and unchecked by styling or ponytails. It was an unapologetic golden hue that lent well and complimented the pallor of her skin; the latter being considered just shy of being a tad too pale for someone destined for military service.
Fortunately, it seemed to be speak more of her breeding than it did any personal failings, so it was forgiven.
Skills and Abilities
LOOK, IT'S COMING. I PROMISE IT'LL BE REALLY, REALLY COOL.
Personality
An amalgamation of two extremes would've been the best way to describe Sirelle; the frivolousness of youth and her personal character - untempered by the expectations that plagued many of her siblings - was now sharply contrasted against the transformation she'd undertaken after having been accepted as an initiate into the Dreadlords, in her younger sister's stead.
The young noble scion had always been an outsider to a family of ambition, since she had none of her own. No real passion drove her. Nor was she ever inspired by the values that her parents had attempted to instill in all their children.
She was nothing more than a creature of indulgent apathy, more than content in merely enjoying all the luxuries that her family's wealth and station had provided her.
A life she was perfectly happy with.
Their family was one of many children, so she was never more than a spare in the event that another daughter was needed to further the ambitions of House de Saubonne. There was no higher calling in mind for the young Sirelle; no prospect greater than an advantageous marriage alliance, or perhaps an excursion into Vel Anirian politics.
So in a sense, she was always the ideal replacement for the shattered dreams of her sister, Linede. The perfect contingency for one who could no longer shoulder the burden her parents had in mind for her.
Before that fateful day in question, Sirelle de Saubonne had been the quintessential example of a noble scion whose future amounted to nothing more than becoming a socialite in the upper strata of Anirian society. It was an existence that welcomed mediocrity, and spurned any sense of work ethic.
Even from the age of eleven, she demonstrated all the obvious signs; arrogant, proud, entitled, and endlessly consumed with her own vain sense of self-importance.
Not that any of those traits ever truly vanished during military service, mind you.
But after having arrived at the academy, she soon learned how to hide them beneath a layer of discipline and newly discovered purpose. It was a mask that served her well, and had helped disguise the truth of her nature from even the most discerning proctor.
Yet it was not enough to merely pretend.
Not in the academy, and so she found herself eventually being shaped by this facade she played; molded into someone nearly unrecognizable from the girl that initially took up the mantle of her sister. She became a stranger to herself in so many ways, and at the same time she also became an object of pride to her parents, and a figure of envy to her siblings.
Therefore, she lived with a foot in both extremes. Never truly comfortable in either.
It was true there were still glimmers of her old self, from time to time, leaking out from beneath the stoic mask whenever she thought herself safe from the watchful eyes of an authority figure. The same haughtiness and penchant for mischief of her past would end up earning her no small amount of conflict with her peers and reprimands from the proctors, and endeared her to very few people.
However, it sometimes worked in her favour; she was an aspiring Dreadlord, after all, and those vices of childhood could now be spun as virtues in an environment rampant with conceit and untethered ambition.
Oh, and the self-importance. Lots of that.
Biography & Lore
The third child of a relatively prosperous noble house, Sirelle was raised wanting for very little in her life. She was given a proper education, as well as access to the finest of pedagogues that her family's wealth could afford. Her material wants never went ignored for long, and she grew up in an environment that had catered to every one of her whims. If there was a silver spoon in their household, her parents ensured that it was a gilded one.
To put it plainly: she had been provided an upbringing that was unapologetically privileged.
The de Saubonne family was one of humble beginnings, little more than minor nobility for so many years. Their house was not a name that would be mentioned in the same breath as any of the great houses, aside from the fact that they were a distantly related cadet branch of House Weiroon, but they had flourished all the same.
The result of an expansive mercantile network and a quirk of fate following the shakeup of the Anirian revolution that had left many older dynasties in disarray, or bankruptcy. It was a family that had been forged through opportunism and ruthless ambition, and had only recently begun to enjoy the fruits of what their meticulous planning had afforded them.
No surprise then that they desired only the best for their children, now. Even when their parenting was of the absentee sort, and nobody could point to the elder de Saubonne as an exemplar of parental responsibility or affection.
That wasn't what mattered in the end; what was most important were the opportunities that were available, and the luxuries they could now afford to provide to their offspring.
The spoiling of one's children was seen as a symbol of status and abundance, and the promise of the first Dreadlord in their family for so many generations was seen in much the same light.
When such coddling was done for the sole purpose of displaying their prestige and wealth to their social peers, it should've come as no surprise when most their children developed into the self-absorbed caricatures of noble privilege and cutthroat opportunists that had pervaded Vel Anirian society for so many years.
Sirelle was certainly no exception.
The second youngest of the de Saubonne children was, in many ways, a reflection of everything that was both wrong and right in their household. She had the ambition and the personality to take her far in a world that abhorred weakness, but she was also helplessly hedonistic and possessed the same vein of haughty arrogance that characterized many of her predecessors.
And despite her laziness, she was always given the luxury of falling upwards; she was never allowed to fail.
There were too many advantages of birth preventing that, and too many tutors with the patience of saints to permit even the most frivolous of the de Saubonne children to suffer the consequences of mediocrity or incompetence.
But in all honesty, it still seemed like a pointless endeavor to even bother endowing the girl with the same opportunities as the rest of her family.
That was, until an accident that left her youngest sister and their family's dream for a member amongst the Dreadlords crippled for life, and her prospect for a military career nothing more than a distant and unattainable fantasy. It was an unfortunate reality, but one that could not be changed.
Linede was always the one meant for greater things, but it seemed that fate was now determined to replace her with another.
It was how the youngest daughter became an afterthought, and Sirelle her replacement.
At the age of eleven, she was perhaps a little older than the other children that were brought forth as candidates to the Academy, but a volunteer of noble blood was a rather prized commodity. It didn't take all that much convincing for the proctors to agree to the young girl's enrollment into the Dreadlords.
Linede de Saubonne was as much of an investment as she was an individual.
Whereas others may have had the opportunity to explore all the dreams and aspirations of their individuality, she was never permitted such a luxury.
Her fate would have never allowed it, for it instead lay entwined with that of her family's reputation, and she was therefore groomed since birth with the singular goal of counting a de Saubonne amongst the fabled Dreadlords of Vel Anir.
Since her calling was never her own, it should not come as a surprise that the young Linede's formative years were carefully sculpted and curated to this end; her pedagogues, her tutoring and even her social spheres were chosen and determined with this sole purpose in mind. The idea of treating the youngest child of the de Saubonne family as an individual was, at best, an afterthought when weighed against the ambitions of the minor noble house.
An irony that their youngest child was the soul least suited to this role.
Not that she didn't try her utmost to live up to these lofty expectations; she was first and foremost a loyal daughter, and took to her duty with the same eagerness to please as she did with everything else in her life. Nobody could say that she was a slow learner, or that she was afraid of confronting any challenges laid before her.
The issue lay not with her enthusiasm or loyalty, but with the girl's natural temperament. Linede was always eager to please - that much was true - but that was a product of a hopeless naivete rather than any nascent ambition that would've been more befitting of a Dreadlord.
Linede, the individual, was too timid, too meek and far too appalled by the realities of what would be asked of her to have ever flourished in the vocation that was chosen for her.
The second youngest shared no such shortcomings.
So perhaps it was kinder, in a way? More merciful for someone so innocent to be spared the horror of becoming a monster. Linede was far too fragile of a soul to weather the onus of her family's aspirations, and would have broken before she ever learned how to grow fangs.
There was no avoiding such a patently obvious truth: it was inevitable that Linede de Saubonne was destined for failure. If her parents did not come to realize this, then the academy would.
Then suddenly, it all changed.
The details of the accident were murky at best, and nobody present seemed willing to shed light on what had happened. But the result was the same regardless of where the fault lay; Linede would never end up enlisting into the academy. Nor would her injury ever truly heal in the aftermath of what had transpired in the months prior to her admittance.
So instead of becoming an investment, Linede became an expense. And all it had taken was one fateful day before her future had been laid to ruin, and she became nothing more than a minor footnote in the story written about her sister.
The story that should've been hers, before it was mercifully snatched away and she was spared from its burden.
The world of monsters was not meant for the meek, nor the timid.
In a sense, Linede de Saubonne was blessed to have been spared; to be a failed prospect meant that she had avoided the shackles of her fate, even if it meant exchanging those shackles for a life of irrelevancy. Where she would only be seen in the shadow to so many giants.
But at least now she was able to write her own story.
Now, she was blissfully, unashamedly free of a biography she did not ask for, and did not covet.
That dubious honour instead went to her sister, Sirelle. Someone who was much more comfortable carrying that burden, and who would not be weighed down by the same limitations that ended up crippling her younger sister - both literally and figuratively.
Still, it was a strange thing.
For the longest time, Sirelle appeared to hold no such convictions when it came to her life's calling. The second youngest daughter of the de Saubonne family seemed more than content with a life of mediocrity and extravagance, unsullied by all the marching and training destined for her in the Academy.
Until one day, that changed.
Whereas others may have had the opportunity to explore all the dreams and aspirations of their individuality, she was never permitted such a luxury.
Her fate would have never allowed it, for it instead lay entwined with that of her family's reputation, and she was therefore groomed since birth with the singular goal of counting a de Saubonne amongst the fabled Dreadlords of Vel Anir.
Since her calling was never her own, it should not come as a surprise that the young Linede's formative years were carefully sculpted and curated to this end; her pedagogues, her tutoring and even her social spheres were chosen and determined with this sole purpose in mind. The idea of treating the youngest child of the de Saubonne family as an individual was, at best, an afterthought when weighed against the ambitions of the minor noble house.
An irony that their youngest child was the soul least suited to this role.
Not that she didn't try her utmost to live up to these lofty expectations; she was first and foremost a loyal daughter, and took to her duty with the same eagerness to please as she did with everything else in her life. Nobody could say that she was a slow learner, or that she was afraid of confronting any challenges laid before her.
The issue lay not with her enthusiasm or loyalty, but with the girl's natural temperament. Linede was always eager to please - that much was true - but that was a product of a hopeless naivete rather than any nascent ambition that would've been more befitting of a Dreadlord.
Linede, the individual, was too timid, too meek and far too appalled by the realities of what would be asked of her to have ever flourished in the vocation that was chosen for her.
The second youngest shared no such shortcomings.
So perhaps it was kinder, in a way? More merciful for someone so innocent to be spared the horror of becoming a monster. Linede was far too fragile of a soul to weather the onus of her family's aspirations, and would have broken before she ever learned how to grow fangs.
There was no avoiding such a patently obvious truth: it was inevitable that Linede de Saubonne was destined for failure. If her parents did not come to realize this, then the academy would.
Then suddenly, it all changed.
The details of the accident were murky at best, and nobody present seemed willing to shed light on what had happened. But the result was the same regardless of where the fault lay; Linede would never end up enlisting into the academy. Nor would her injury ever truly heal in the aftermath of what had transpired in the months prior to her admittance.
So instead of becoming an investment, Linede became an expense. And all it had taken was one fateful day before her future had been laid to ruin, and she became nothing more than a minor footnote in the story written about her sister.
The story that should've been hers, before it was mercifully snatched away and she was spared from its burden.
The world of monsters was not meant for the meek, nor the timid.
In a sense, Linede de Saubonne was blessed to have been spared; to be a failed prospect meant that she had avoided the shackles of her fate, even if it meant exchanging those shackles for a life of irrelevancy. Where she would only be seen in the shadow to so many giants.
But at least now she was able to write her own story.
Now, she was blissfully, unashamedly free of a biography she did not ask for, and did not covet.
That dubious honour instead went to her sister, Sirelle. Someone who was much more comfortable carrying that burden, and who would not be weighed down by the same limitations that ended up crippling her younger sister - both literally and figuratively.
Still, it was a strange thing.
For the longest time, Sirelle appeared to hold no such convictions when it came to her life's calling. The second youngest daughter of the de Saubonne family seemed more than content with a life of mediocrity and extravagance, unsullied by all the marching and training destined for her in the Academy.
Until one day, that changed.
References
HEXCODE:#
-
-
Created by on
-
