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2030-05-10 11:45 pm
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BASIC INFO

NAME: Bitterblue of Monsea
A.K.A.: Queen
CANON: The Graceling Realm
HOMECOUNTRY: Monsea
AGE: 18
GENDER: Female - she/her
SPECIES: Human
ABILITIES: N/A

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PLAYER INFO

NAME: Ryah
PRONOUNS: she/her
JOURNAL: whoiamwithoutyou
PLURK: [plurk.com profile] whoiamwithoutyou
DISCORD: whoiamwithoutyou#4048
E-MAIL: whoiamwithoutyou83@gmail.com
TIMEZONE: PST
The more I see and hear
the more I realize how much I don't know


PERSONALITY
Bitterblue's first wholly positive, complete memory was the moment her father was killed and she knew with all her being that she was now the Queen of Monsea. She was ten at that time. Her heart has never changed from that moment, even at the age of 18 she is dedicated to serving the people of Monsea the way they need her to. To say the least, she is determined and driven. The people of Monsea went through hell when her father was their king, she only hopes that she can correct some of what he'd done.

To this end, Bitterblue is greatly self-sacrificing - she puts the needs of her people above her own. Even when it breaks her heart on a personal level, she knows that being a Queen comes with certain responsibilities and obligations. She struggles with seeing the progress she's making for Monsea or how well she's doing as a Queen - which is understandable, she did not have a good example in her father, and she remembers so little of her mother. And she is sometimes gripped by the fear that she'll never be strong enough. But her determination to do right for the people keeps her trying to get find it in her to be a good leader.

Her strong will can be a double-edged sword and venture often over to stubbornness. And her impatience can manifest in cruel ways when mixed with her naivety - before she understood that asking her advisors about Leck would trigger them in painful ways, she would use that to get them to leave her alone.

Her naturally curious serves her well both in her personal life and in her desire to be a good Queen. When she sees there is a problem0, she is not content to sit around and do nothing (another manifestation of her impatience). Instead, she sets about using all her resources to find a solution. She also has a deep thirst for knowledge. When she learned that her father had destroyed many books, her heart ached for all that lost knowledge, in her opinion, books should never be destroyed.

Bitterblue is quite tactile, she needs human contact - hugs, holding hands, shoulder squeezes. It's a subconscious coping mechanism that she uses to combat her holey childhood memory. A hug from a friend is a solid confirmation that her friend is still real - still there. Her father has taken so many people from her, it's hard to hold onto the thought that she still has people she cares about in her life. She is drawn towards surrounding herself with her friends and chosen family.

And finally, she does not like to be trifled with (another manifestation of her impatience). And if you have upset her, she is not shy about letting you know.

Strengths
She is actually a very judicious queen, and is willing to put her people's needs before her own. She's excellent with maths and ciphers and codes - she can pick out patterns easily, her mother taught her how to do this. Bitterblue is very willing to try new things. She's not anywhere near her friend Katsa's ability to wield a sword, but Bitterblue knows enough to handle the weapon.

Weaknesses
Heights - she's terrified of heights, just thinking about going up someplace high (especially without safety railings) makes her stomach flip. She's rather short and small, so in any fight where someone is bigger than her, she is at a grave disadvantage. Bitterblue is young and can be naive. She needs lots of affirmation and reassurance regarding her place in her friends' lives. She tends to go too far in putting her people's needs before her own.

HISTORY
To understand the Bitterblue's world, there are a few terms that need to be defined.

Graceling: Gracelings are individuals born with a special ability at which they excel. For example: A fighting grace, a cooking grace, a dancing grace, a mind reading grace. They can be unusual - one individual's grace was the ability to open his mouth much like a snake. And they can very powerful, like the grace Bitterblue's father had - the grace to make people believe/do whatever he said/commanded. An individual who is grace is known by their different colored eyes. They are born with eyes of a singular color, but during their youth, their grace sets and their eyes will change to two different colors. Bitterblue's father's eyes were grey and blood red.

Monster: Monsters are a mutation of a living thing - there are cat monsters, horse monsters, raptor monsters, and so on, and there human monsters. They have powerful mind control abilities, and can take over an individual's mind completely. They are distinguished by their unusual coloration - they are often brilliantly colored, exhibiting colors not found on non-monster versions. For example, a sapphire blue cat, an emerald green horse, etc.

Bitterblue is the only daughter born to King Leck of Monsea and his wife, Ashen, a Lienid Princess. She does not remember very much from the time before her father was killed when she was ten years old, because her father destroyed her mind. King Leck was a graceling with a terrible power that he abused every chance he got - he had the ability to make people believe what he said - even lies - and obey his command. When he used his power, his thoughts and will would swell up like a balloon pushing out a person's own thoughts and will. Because of this, Bitterblue's memory of her childhood is full of dark holes of her father's abuse. Occasionally those holes will burst and a memory will come pouring out, but more often than not, her memory of her childhood remains incomplete.

She does remember her father teaching her how to read. She remembers her mother teaching her how to communicate with ciphers and that her mother would embroider sheets and pillow case with a cipher. And she remembers her mother trying to teach her how to fight back against King Leck's power, by using multiplication and long division of random numbers. She also has some clear memories of her father's abuse. One memory sticks out in particular, because it set in motion events that would lead to King Leck's death.

Bitterblue was nine, almost ten. Her father had just taken her mother and his foremost advisor, Thiel down to his private rooms to torture them. He'd used his power to make Bitterblue believe they were leaving for a joyful activity. But as she worked clear her memory of what had just happened, she screamed. She grabbed her father's journal - he kept a meticulous record of very year of his 35 year reign - and threw it into the fireplace. When the commotion had brought her father up to investigate he scolded Bitterblue and commanded her to tell him she loved him. For once, Bitterblue was able to break Leck's power - she refused and told him she hated him. And that when she was bigger, she would kill him.

Leck was surprised by this turn of events, and told Ashen that it was time for Bitterblue to start having special sessions with him down in his private chambers. Ashen, now back in the room, was the second person to break Leck's spell that day - like Bitterblue, her anger fueled her ability to fight Leck's command. She told Leck that he would never have Bitterblue and she locked herself and Bitterblue in her rooms.

Without his ability to compel Ashen to hand over Bitterblue, Leck tried all sorts of things to persuade his wife - including torturing the Ashen's personal maids. When he was out of options, he compelled the king of a neighboring country to kidnap her father - Prince Tealiff of Lienid. But by this time, Ashen had completed her plans for escape, she knew now that Leck had set his mind on Bitterblue, he would not stop.

With Thiel's assistance - he gave Ashen a long knife and helped reorder the guards to clear a path for Ashen and Bitterblue's escape. They tied together Ashen's sheets and dropped to the courtyard below. There was one guard that Ashen had to kill in order to leave the castle grounds. From there they ran north and west towards the only passage way through the western mountain range.

It did not take Leck long to realize they had escaped. Ashen knew of this eventuality, so she gave Bitterblue the knife and sent her to run ahead and hide in the forest while she traveled along another direction to misdirect Leck. This was the last time Bitterblue saw her mother, she did as she as told and found a hollow log to hide in.

Later that day she was found by her graceling cousin - Prince Po of Lienid, and his companion, another graceling named Katsa. At first Bitterblue was very wary of the both of them - her experience with her graceling father still so fresh in her mind. But they were able to coax her out when they assured her they knew her father was evil and that he was using his grace to control people.

Because Po seemed to be immune to Leck's grace (because of Po's particular grace - which was the ability to sense the truth of the world around him as it pertained to him) but Katsa was not, Po left them to try to kill Leck. But he was unsuccessful, and on his way back to where Katsa and Bitterblue were hidden, he suffered a head injury. Though he initially proved to survive his accident, it soon became apparent that he could not continue on with them. His recovery meant they would have to move at a slow pace, but they needed to move quickly to out run Leck.

The only safe passage over the mountains was blocked by Leck's men, so Katsa devised a plan to cross the mountains at what was known as Grella's Pass - not named because it was a safe place to cross the mountains, but for the Monsean explorer who died trying to find another passageway over the mountains at this very spot. Winter was just days away, so Bitterblue was reasonably skeptical of this plan. But Katsa was graced with a peculiar ability - survival. She predicted that as long as she did everything to keep Bitterblue alive, they would make it because her grace would keep her alive.

And despite the odds - it worked!

They crossed over the mountains into the neighboring country and then made their way to a port city, from there they secured passage on a Lienid ship to the island nation of Lienid.

Unfortunately, Leck predicted their plan and was already waiting for them in Lienid. Bitterblue was distraught at the sight of her father, surrounded by Po's family, under Leck's spell. And worse, Katsa was affected by him, too. However, Katsa and Po's mother knew a secret about Po - the rest of the world thought Po's grace was a fighting grace, rather than a mind reading grace. If others new his grace, at best he would be exploited by those closest to him. And now Leck knew Po's grace as well and threatened to reveal it. He had commanded Katsa to stay where she was and that he was harmless so that she wouldn't attack him, but Katsa was able to remember that the truth of Po's grace should not be revealed, and to silence Leck, she threw a knife at his throat.

The moment her father died, Bitterblue assumed the role of Queen of Monsea.

Back in Monsea, they located Po, learning that his head injury had resulted in him going blind. But he was alive, and to Katsa and Bitterblue that was the best news. Bitterblue was crowned Queen at the young age of ten. King Ror - Po's father - visited Monsea to help Bitterblue establish a new government.

Bitterblue took to learning how to be queen like a fish to water - this was her birthright and she devoted herself to correcting what her father had done to Monsea. King Ror selected her advisors from Leck's former advisors with the understanding that they had been under Leck's spell the last 35 years. Thiel was among Bitterblue's new advisors.

As one of her first acts as Queen, Bitterblue pardoned all crimes committed during Leck's reign because no one knew for sure if the crime had been committed at Leck's orders or not. The next was to start making reparations for what Leck had done to the people of Monsea.

For eight years Bitterblue learned matters of state and the roles of being a Queen, trusting her advisors to handle the things she was too young to manage on her own. However, there came a time when she started to notice discrepancies between what her advisors told her and showed her and what was really happening in her city. It all came to a head with the curious case of Ivan the builder and a prank he played on his two neighbors. One neighbor grew watermelons, the other carved gravestones. Somehow, in one night, Ivan managed to trade every watermelon in the patch with gravestones, and every gravestones in the carver's lot with watermelons. And as strange as that was, Ivan then wrote cryptic notes to each neighbor with the intention of sending each on a scavenger hunt. However, the watermelon grower could not read and the carver could plainly see all her gravestones in the watermelon patch. This came to Bitterblue's attention by accident, she happened to be overseeing court the day Ivan's case came before the Judges.

But the curious part amongst all the oddities here that stood out to Bitterblue was that the grower was illiterate. In fact, the whole street, aside from Ivan, was illiterate - the carver only knew enough to manage the gravestones.

Bitterblue's advisors presented her every year with census records that tracked such things like professions and population growth and school attendance and literacy rates - and all previous records indicated that everyone had access to public schools and that illiteracy percentages was in the low single digits - so how could a whole street be illiterate?

Bitterblue's advisors obfuscated and redirected Bitterblue's attention back to boring matters such as signing charters for towns.

But Bitterblue was not satisfied. And in a fit of recklessness she snuck out of the castle that night in disguise - always before, when she left the castle to see her kingdom, her route was planned by her advisors. She wanted to see Monsea as it was, not through the carefully constructed lens held up by her advisors.

Her eyes were opened to a very different world than the one her advisors let her see. During her nightly excursions (from the first night she snuck out, she made a habit of sneaking out to see her city) she learned that people were gathering, almost secretively, to share stories about their experiences under Leck's rule, or the experiences of people they knew - people who King Leck had taken and tortured and killed. There were vast stretches of her city that were shoddily repaired, but then painted over as if nothing was wrong with the repairs. She learned about the sad reality of the schools in her kingdom - most were run down, underfunded, and understaffed. Some areas of the city did not even have schools at all. And then she learned about the Truth Seekers, an undergrounds, loosely organized group of people who were trying to bring to light the continued misfortunes of her city - but who also faced deadly opposition from powerful people. Unfortunately, Bitterblue couldn't figure out who was killing the Truth Seekers or destroying their homes and possessions. During these excursions she met two young men, Teddy and Saf. She kept seeing them in the story rooms. Teddy took a liking to her straight away, and he trusted her. Saf, however, did not. He was very wary of Bitterblue because she refused to tell them her name, and only said she was a baker in the castle kitchens. To fix this, Teddy gave her a nickname: Sparks. And Bitterblue was wary of Saf. Both were Truth Seekers, and both had experienced threats from their unknown opposition. At one point, Teddy was stabbed, and only lived because Bitterblue was able to get her own personal healer to attend to Teddy's wounds.

As the false understanding of her city unraveled, so too did her understanding of the people she could trust. It was clear that her advisors were lying to her, but the reasons why remained elusive.

One night she was out with Saf, she literally ran into him. Or rather, he ran into her. He was being chased by a group of men. Bitterblue ran with him, following where he led. Which happened to be onto the rooftops of the city buildings. Bitterblue revealed that she was afraid of heights and Saf comforted her. She was starting to realize she had feelings for him. Midnight struck on the city clock while they were out on the roof tops.

She saw Saf the next night and was surprised to learn the people of her city were celebrating an old Monsean tradition of the autumnal equinox, where everyone dressed in their finest, painted their faces with glitter, and hosted parties were all in attendance kissed one another. She and Saf kissed for the first time at the party Teddy and his sister were hosting. And then again outside the party, when Bitterblue was going home.

She decided then that she needed to stop seeing Saf and Teddy - they only knew her as Sparks, not as Queen Bitterblue. What she was doing was lying to them, even though this had all started innocently enough, and all she'd wanted was to know what was happening in her city. But she needed to stop lying.

However, the next day proved that was harder to do than she expected.

Saf was arrested and brought before the court on fabricated charges, he was charged with killing Ivan the builder. When Bitterblue entered the court to officiate, Saf recognized her and was very angry, believing he'd been set up. The judges read the charges, explaining that a witness had seen Saf kill Ivan the Builder two nights previously at midnight. Bitterblue knew that was a falsehood - she'd been with Saf that very evening at midnight. However, she couldn't reveal this information, given that she as Queen. Queens are supposed to sneak out at night to frolic with commoners.

Bitterblue mentally called for Po, who was currently visiting and who heard her due to his grace. He came, and mentally she relayed the details of her night spent on the rooftops with Saf. Po claimed to be the friend who'd been with Saf during the night in question. And Saf was just smart enough to go along with the ruse, despite how angry he was. Saf was found innocent and let go.

Once they had privacy, she tried to speak with Saf. But he was furious to learn Bitterblue had been lying to him. Bitterblue tried to explain that her reasons for sneaking out at night were to gain a better understanding of her people. But Saf was not placated. In a fit of stupidity and a desire to get back at her for her lies, he stole her crown. Bitterblue did not realize what he'd done until after he'd left, and by then Saf had given it to a known thief for 'safe keeping'. Bitterblue was angry with Saf and also devastated - stealing the crown was considered treason, and the punishment for treason was death.

It was two weeks before Bitterblue visited Teddy and Saf, to apologize for lying to them. Teddy forgave Bitterblue, Saf did not. Saf revealed that the thief he'd given the crown to had sold it to his grandson, so there was no easy way to get the crown back. Bitterblue was undeterred, she would find a way to get the crown back before anyone noticed it was missing.

On her way home that evening, she was attacked. This person tried to kill her, but was thwarted by Saf, Holt - one of Bitterblue's guard, and a girl named Hava (Holt's niece - Bitterblue would later learn she was her half-sister – they shared the same father), they were later joined by more of Bitterblue's guard. The attacker managed to break Bitterblue's arm before being stopped.

It turned out that the attacker was hired by one of Bitterblue's advisors - Runnemood - because Bitterblue was trying to investigate what was going on in her kingdom. It turned out that Bitterblue's four top advisors (Thiel, Runnemood, Darby, and Rood) had devised a plan just after Leck's death to never talk of what Leck had done to anyone, it was a deliberate philosophy of forward-thinkingness. Partially because it was too painful for them as they were all favorites of Leck and were tortured frequently, and partially because of the methods Leck had used to torture them. Leck's favorite form of torture was to command an innocent person to torture Leck's current victim with Leck's grace controlling them, they were powerless against the compulsion. And in addition to this, Leck would use his power to make them believe they were enjoying it. Bitterblue's advisors, along with many others in Bitterblue's administration, didn't want this detail being discovered - these men were deeply ashamed of the things Leck had forced them to do and feel. Their plan was to destroy all evidence of what Leck had done, but the country did not want to forget. People wanted to talk about what had been done to them, they wanted to address their pain.

It was Bitterblue's advisors who were attacking the Truth Seekers and hindering the healing of the people of Monsea.

Thiel learned of Runnemood's actions against Bitterblue first, and being horrified by them, killed Runnemood, making it look as if he'd run away. Though it could be said that Thiel and Runnemood were the leaders behind those hindering her kingdom, Thiel was driven also by the desire to make this world a better place for Bitterblue. Attacking her was never his plan.

Thiel's secrets revealed, he went to the top of one of the bridges in the city to kill himself. Bitterblue tried to stop him, but couldn't reach him in time.

After Thiel's death, Bitterblue changed how reparations would be handled in her administration. She removed her remaining top advisors and chose new ones. She understood why those beneath Thiel and Runnemood had done what they did, and she pardoned as many as she could. She understood they were just as damaged by her father as the rest of the country was. But could not let them continue with Thiel and Runnemood's ideas of 'forward-thinkingness'. She sought out new people to fill the ranks of her administration, new people who were never affected by Leck, who could address her father's wrongs without the risk of triggering the people who were directly affected by Leck. She also set up new ministries: one specifically for education, and one for mental health, to see to the needs of her people's mental wellbeing.

Around this time, delegations from the Dells came to Monsea - Katsa had found an underground passage through the eastern mountains. This was the first time a delegation from the Dells had crossed the eastern mountains. With them was the last living human monster - her name was Fire. Fire had met Leck when he was just a boy. She'd known of his terrible evilness then, and had thought he'd died by falling through a crack in the mountain. Fire's presence also proved to the Monseans that Leck's tales of fantastically colored 'monsters' were truths.

The matter of Bitterblue's crown was resolved. First Saf attempted to steal it back from the thief. But he was chased by the thief's men, and Saf was forced to throw it into the river. Katsa and Po were the ones to dive into the water and retrieve the crown. But even though the threat of a charge of treason was resolved for Saf, he decided to go with the Dellian delegation when they returned to the Dells - to help them explore the lands to the far east. It was with mixed feelings Bitterblue saw him go - she cared about him very much, but it was clear they were not meant to be together.

Bitterblue had her kingdom's needs to see to. And for the first time it felt like they were finally pulling free from Leck's memory.

APPEARANCE
HEIGHT: 5'3"
HAIR COLOR: Black
EYE COLOR: Grey
COMPLEXION: Olive-tan skin

Bitterblue is not very tall (about 5'3"), and has grey eyes and black hair. She's biracial (her mother was Lienid, her father was Monsean) and she has a bit of each of her parents in her - she inherited her mother's olive-tan skin and black hair. As for what her father passed on, Bitterblue has a face and body she struggles to find beautiful, her features are more towards the plain end of the spectrum and she's not model thin or athletic. This usually doesn't bother her. Despite being short she's learned to carry herself well when she needs to, she's poured her heart and soul into being the Queen her country needs.

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2030-05-10 11:30 pm
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2015-10-10 06:11 pm

(no subject)

Who: Bitterblue and Po
What: dealing with nightmares
Rating/Warnings: Maybe some warning for mentions of past abuse

The ashes of his memory )
ashenscipher: (Surprised)
2015-04-26 06:52 pm

(no subject)

Who: Bitterblue and Doctor Alexander Price (scales_and_silence)
What: Bitterblue is out for a midnight walk away from her entourage – to get some peace and quiet – and stumbles across someone dressed rather strange
When: Night
Where: Eastern mountain range of the country of Monsea
Rating/Warnings: Probably low


The royal camp sat at the foot of the mountain, a mile back from the entrance to the under-mountain caves linking the country of Monsea with the country of Dell on the other side of the impassable range.

The receiving party was there to escort the Leinid Prince Skye back to Bitterblue City where his father (King Ror of Leinid) was waiting for him to report his experiences. The past few months Skye had been in the land of their (Monsea and Leinid’s) new allies, the Dellians, serving as the Leinid representative. He would have fantastic stories to tell everyone, Bitterblue was only slightly jealous.

She would travel under the mountains someday.

It was silly for Queen Bitterblue to be there with the receiving party, but with all her friends in the lands to the north or west or east these past months she was desperate to welcome one back into her country. She had insisted on going with And she missed Skye dearly and taking two days away from her tower office and the stacks of paper on her desk would not throw the kingdom into disarray now that her ministries were staffed with trustworthy men and women.

The moon was too new and shy to shine tonight, leaving that duty to the dusting of stars above, and though beautiful, they did not illuminate the way before Bitterblue on her midnight walk. The ground was shrouded in shadows and dark mystery, refrozen due to the early spring cold. But the young queen picked her way carefully, stepping cautiously.

Perhaps she should go back to the camp lights some distance off, but she had her Leinid Guard trailing her (the only reason she was allowed out in the first place), she felt safe in this remote corner of her country.

She paused, looking at the camp, feeling a swell of love for the people that she served and then turned back to her walk.

But as she turned, a large, man-shaped shadow rose up before her and out of shock she called out and stumbled back.