Post by Teller on Sept 8, 2016 21:50:07 GMT -4
Name: Formal: Her Majesty Miskiminalatallia Serys Atil Panagiotis
Acquaintance: Lady Miskimina
Friend: Miskim, or Mina
Age: Thirty-Four
Race: Human
Physical Description: Miskim has a sharp gaze that gives the impression of one who never misunderstands or misses a beat, but she’s engineered it that way from a young age, being a noble whose family is heavily invested in the trade business. Her dark hair naturally curls around a face with narrow, carved features. She’s more apt to raise a single eyebrow than any other response, but she’s quicker to smile or smirk than to frown. She has a slim figure but some definition to her arms proving she can take care of herself in the average squabble, but she prefers a more typically ‘ladylike’ lifestyle. While she doesn’t typically wear a great deal of jewelry, her dresses and gowns typically have swaths of embroidery, as she’s talented with needle and thread.
Personality: Miskiminalatallia has a name that forces others to grant her their time just to say hello, but Miskimina can be very particular about how her own time is spent, especially since she became queen. While she is always willing to listen to friends, enemies and strangers alike, if she believes you to be wasting her time she’ll dismiss you without regret, and if she believes you’ve done it willingly, you’ll face a calm tongue-lashing at best and be ‘asked’ to count the nails in the castle stables at worst. She knows how many there are—on bad days she counts them herself. In fact it’s not uncommon to see the queen in a leather apron or wearing knee pads as she scrubs tiles or cleans hooves, as her most efficient way of ridding herself of her own bad mood is through strenuous work.
Between herself and her husband, she’s not entirely sure who’s the more serious, though she’s the one more likely to simply raise an eyebrow and hint at a smile, and he’s the one more likely to laugh. Her humor tends to be dry and clear-cut, a phrase stated in a deadpan that all she’s in the company of may not understand, though Matthias generally will, as he knows her best. Miskimina is also very comfortable giving orders and exerting her will upon others, and generally does so for a good cause, but that cause isn’t always visible to those she’s commanding.
History:
Miskimina’s family has been heavily invested in trade for generations, and as such she was raised to understand and investigate everything that could be comprehended about people and what they want, the varying histories and customs of the races and regions, the geography, fluctuations in trade, what each port has access to and how hard it is to get things to each city and town, and many other things. By the time she was eleven Miskimina was lending her opinion to her parents’ business affairs, and her parents were often in agreement with her.
What she and her parents were consistently in disagreement about were the fighting lessons her father insisted she have. Miskimina found the lessons abrupt and unsettling, and thoroughly disliked wearing trousers and other men’s clothes, not to mention handling weaponry. She could, and she learned quickly because that meant her lessons were over sooner, but her mother unfortunately agreed that a woman could not always rely on a man to help her, and Miskimina must then be able to at least defend herself adequately, if nothing else. And she learned, but she despised every minute of it, even if the skills later, occasionally, came in handy.
The matter of Matthias Panagiotis was another over which Miskimina and her family argued, but only superficially, so to speak. The Panagiotis family had been ‘neighbors’ to the Atil family for centuries, and their children grew up together. Miskimina had nearly always been friends with Matthias and his siblings, except when they refused to do as she told them to and she left them to their own devices, which happened regularly in their youth.
But no, it was what Matthias Panagiotis had the potential to someday become which frightened Miskimina. Her family was ambitions—she was as well—but they were ambitious in a way that unsettled her, and always had. She loved her family, but she knew that any connection she had with a Councilmember’s family was one they would use in whatever way they could, in whichever way benefitted them most. So when the handsome Matthias stopped by one day after a long absence, when Miskimina was embroidering a tapestry—embroidery being one of her favorite pastime, and one of her strongest skills—and her mother told her to come down and speak with him, Miskimina calmly refused.
”And whyever not?” her mother had demanded, throwing her hands up. ”Miskimina, go down and greet him this instant. He is your friend.”
”No.”
”And just why not?”
”No.” She’d been planning for years to let their friendship die, knowing what it could cost him if her family got too heavily involved, dug their fingers in too deep. Trading was in their blood—they couldn’t help it. Not even if they traded their own daughter.
”Miskiminalatallia.”
”No.” Another imperceptible stitch.
”Miskiminalatallia, I’ll tell him you don’t want to see him.”
Miskimina plunged her needle through the fabric and stood, irritable. She couldn’t have that—if she was to cut him out of her life, she had to do it in person, not through her mother’s uninformed opinions.
And she’d meant to. To be distant, and cool, like she was with anybody else she didn’t necessarily like or dislike, she just didn’t feel the need to have them in her presence. But with Matthias such a thing simply wasn’t possible, and it was too soon when he gave the wildest hope to her family’s grasping dreams, and Miskimina accepted him, and accepted that she would have to fight them off and still love them for the rest of her life.
