![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Synodiporia + Cursed Kingdom + Backstory
Jun. 2nd, 2014 11:55 amSomewhere in the Throneless Keep is a portrait of a seated regal woman. Her hair is gray but her chin is held high, she is both proud and powerful. Standing behind her is a young man with dark curls and sharp eyes. His bearing is also proud, his chest puffed otu to best display the realm's arms on his livery uniform: two purple gryphons rampant.
The woman was the young queen’s great-grandmother who died fifty years ago. The young man was her personal attendant and sometimes adviser. He was a low-born wizard from Hedgerow with a large repertoire of charms and glamours at his disposal, talents he used to win a place at the royal court and then Queen's side. She praised his skills perhaps beyond their merit, and he employed them - discretely - to ensure that she looked her best. One must always keep up appearances, after all.
The few records that mention him say he was dismissed from the Keep after her death, but what they don’t show is that he was driven away by grief for his monarch’s passing. He traveled south to his old home in Hedgerow in the hope of finding some way to be relieved of his heartbreak. He spoke to several lesser witches and wizards, but all they could offer were snake oil potions and, occasionally, their beds for comfort.
One night whilst deep in his cups at the tavern he once again lamented that he wished he could forget his pain, forget all of it. An elegant blonde woman with a sprig of lilac in her hair (not an Illuminant herself,merely a more powerful witch)approached him, placed her amethyst-jeweled hand upon his brow, and hissed done.
The next - the first - thing he knew was waking in the Thicket with no knowledge of his previous life and no notion of what had happened to him. The only clues to his identity were the silvery scar atop his head and the well-tailored garments he wore. Hopelessly lost, he wandered deeper and deeper into the forest where brambles caught at him and tore his finery to rags, until he was trapped in a tangle of thorny vines.
He's never spoken of, nor does he care to think about, what happened next.
When he next emerged from the Thicket it was the day after the Westgard Rebellion when the young queen's power was at its height. He'd accompanied her on her tour of the realm and gained access to her inner circle, though not the place at her right hand he clearly sought.
Once she and the throne vanished it seemed the Violet Illuminant had gone as well. For a time he did retreat to his home in the Thicket to recover from the brutal blow to his power and obsess over finding a way to get it back.
Some months after the disappearance a young lady called Ginger arrived in Hedgerow asking for tutelage, though she already seemed rather adept with several spells. Six week after that a youth named Edward was found playing a lute at a woman's graveside in Rivergard, promising his late mother he'd continue her legacy. A year later a lady with an infectious laugh and a lilac sprig in her golden hair began gathering attention in Postern.
Five years ago the Illuminant himself began making appearances at festivals and tournaments, sometimes accompanied by his knight and always leaving a longing for the crown's restoration in his wake.
The woman was the young queen’s great-grandmother who died fifty years ago. The young man was her personal attendant and sometimes adviser. He was a low-born wizard from Hedgerow with a large repertoire of charms and glamours at his disposal, talents he used to win a place at the royal court and then Queen's side. She praised his skills perhaps beyond their merit, and he employed them - discretely - to ensure that she looked her best. One must always keep up appearances, after all.
The few records that mention him say he was dismissed from the Keep after her death, but what they don’t show is that he was driven away by grief for his monarch’s passing. He traveled south to his old home in Hedgerow in the hope of finding some way to be relieved of his heartbreak. He spoke to several lesser witches and wizards, but all they could offer were snake oil potions and, occasionally, their beds for comfort.
One night whilst deep in his cups at the tavern he once again lamented that he wished he could forget his pain, forget all of it. An elegant blonde woman with a sprig of lilac in her hair (not an Illuminant herself,merely a more powerful witch)approached him, placed her amethyst-jeweled hand upon his brow, and hissed done.
The next - the first - thing he knew was waking in the Thicket with no knowledge of his previous life and no notion of what had happened to him. The only clues to his identity were the silvery scar atop his head and the well-tailored garments he wore. Hopelessly lost, he wandered deeper and deeper into the forest where brambles caught at him and tore his finery to rags, until he was trapped in a tangle of thorny vines.
He's never spoken of, nor does he care to think about, what happened next.
When he next emerged from the Thicket it was the day after the Westgard Rebellion when the young queen's power was at its height. He'd accompanied her on her tour of the realm and gained access to her inner circle, though not the place at her right hand he clearly sought.
Once she and the throne vanished it seemed the Violet Illuminant had gone as well. For a time he did retreat to his home in the Thicket to recover from the brutal blow to his power and obsess over finding a way to get it back.
Some months after the disappearance a young lady called Ginger arrived in Hedgerow asking for tutelage, though she already seemed rather adept with several spells. Six week after that a youth named Edward was found playing a lute at a woman's graveside in Rivergard, promising his late mother he'd continue her legacy. A year later a lady with an infectious laugh and a lilac sprig in her golden hair began gathering attention in Postern.
Five years ago the Illuminant himself began making appearances at festivals and tournaments, sometimes accompanied by his knight and always leaving a longing for the crown's restoration in his wake.
