Fiona of Amber (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
shadowsteps) wrote2012-06-17 04:44 pm
shadowsteps) wrote2012-06-17 04:44 pm
Entry tags:
Character Info
Character name: Fiona
Age: Unknown (A few centuries at the very least, though it's more likely into millenia.)
Canon: The Chronicles of Amber
Canon point: Post book ten, Prince of Chaos
Abilities/powers: Fiona's proprietary ability is Shadow-walking--because of her relation to her father and her walk of the Pattern, she is capable of manipulating reality around her to find what she wants. Essentially, she imagines a place and walks until she finds it. Any not of Amber's blood who attempt the Pattern are killed in the effort, so there is little chance that anyone else would have such an ability, though with her father's proclivities, undiscovered half-siblings aren't unheard of.*
Additionally, Fiona applied herself to learning sorcery from her grandfather, Dworkin. She is capable, because of her study, to employ the Pattern to cast spells and defend herself--more so than her siblings. She is on a comparable level to Brand (who is shown to have extensive knowledge of the inner-workings of the Pattern and how to erase it entirely to be recreated), though she is often cited as the better, making her the most skilled in Pattern-magic of all her siblings. All of Oberon's children have at least received rudimentary training, but Fiona's is extensive.
Another skill she learned from Dworkin is the ability to create Trumps--tarots with certain supernatural abilities. A Trump is, basically, a means of communication and travel between Shadows. By focusing on the person or place pictured on the card, Fiona is able to communicate or travel. She is only able to see or hear what a person is doing or say (or writing) and there is no way to read another's mind using the Trumps.
As all her siblings, Fiona was born with an innate regenerative ability beyond that defined as normal. She is hardly invincible, though she heals quickly. A minor cut may vanish in two or three days, a deep gash or a broken bone in two or three weeks, where nerve tissue will take years (Corwin has regenerated his eyes in the past, though it took roughly four years to do so, and a past spinal injury that left him paralyzed was gone in just over a decade). Severe injuries are still severe and she is very much capable of dying just the same as anyone else. She requires medical attention like any other human being, but as long as she is stabilized, she gets over it a little faster.
Again, due to her unique blood, Fiona is physically stronger than most "normal" humans. This is not anything that she particularly uses all that often because of her preference for magic and background play rather than anything physical.
Despite not having the same combat training from her brother (and Amber's armsmaster) Benedict, Fiona is still very adept with a dagger. Still, it is her last resort, so she isn't quite as good as she might be with it, but she is still at a level far beyond "proficient--"she has had centuries to practice, after all.
Personality: The first thing that one might notice in interacting with Fiona is a silky sweetness with the feel of the genuine about it. She is headstrong and confident, usually getting what she wants. However, more perceptive conversation partners will eventually discover that it has been practiced to that point, and is more a cover for other, less savory aspects of her personality. She was raised playing The Game, and she plays it well--perhaps better than her other sisters.
As a princess, Fiona received the best education growing up and continued that education in both sorcery and more mundane temporal knowledge. She is intelligent and isn't afraid to show it, especially if she is mistaken at first for nothing more than an ornamental beauty. She takes a particular delight in vindication for those mistakes. Because of her level of knowledge (and her origin in the "real world,") she tends to be somewhat snobbish and always aloof, holding herself above the "Shadow-creatures" of other places.
Just as her appearance suggests (rather stereotypically), Fiona is somewhat quick to anger, though she tends to smolder and dwell on it, rather than bursting outright--though such outbursts are certainly not unheard of. Even angry, she takes the time to plot revenge, and she has a very long memory. She often bides her time and retribution can come days, months, or even years later. When she needs to be, she is very patient, willing to wait as long as it takes.
The bottom line is that Fiona is manipulative and always scheming. More a background player than anything, she is sneaky and has no qualms about encouraging, convincing, or blackmailing others into doing things for her. She prefers to be a driving force behind action, rather than performing action. She is calculating and often cold, and every action she takes is very deliberate, and usually thought out, though her quick mind makes it seem sometimes that she hasn't paused to think--which only works out even better for her.
This isn't to say that she is entirely without more positive atrributes. Fiona is both charming and witty, very capable of making friends (she is, in fact, one of her nephew Merlin's favorite people). She can care when she puts her mind to it, though it sometimes take a lot of effort on the part of others to make them worth her while. She is fiercely loyal to her home, devoted to its safety, even if she disagrees from time to time as to what exactly the kingdom needs to stay safe. Additionally, she is headstrong and confident--the only of the girls in her family willing to play the boys' games for the throne.
Still, she is selfish and egotistical, power-hungry and out to help herself. Nearly every move she makes has some reason behind it, something that will move her forward. She has settled somewhat, now, with her brother safely crowned, but old habits do tend to die hard. She still plays with caution and planning, despite the relative safety and stability of things.
History: Amber has been described as the Eternal City, the One True City, and the like. It is, essentially, the city that stands at the center of every universe. It casts what are called Shadows- essentially infinite variations of universes. Every city in every universe is a reflection of Amber at some point in its past or future development. Everything one can imagine exists somewhere in Shadow. Children of Amber's regent, Oberon, are gifted with the ability to traverse these realities after they have walked the Pattern- an artifact inscribed on the floor in one of the dungeons that the family is tasked with guarding.
Fiona is one of 13 surviving children of Oberon over a course of several marriages and affairs. Fiona is, herself, the first of three children resulting from King Oberon's third marriage to Clarissa. Growing up, their father was distant but fair--most of the time. He tended not to grow too attached to his children and at times would even play favorites and play his children off of each other. Thus, there is little love lost between Fiona and her siblings and father. Almost from the time they were small, alliances were being forged, broken, recreated, and betrayed as they vied for their father’s attention and affection for the time being. Fiona dove readily into the game--the only girl to do so--and learned quickly.
Fiona eventually formed an alliance with her two full brothers that would depose their father and let the three of them rule Amber jointly. As Fiona was not a man, she could not hold the throne herself, and she was reluctantly forced to agree to the alliance. However, the youngest, Brand, betrayed them and made a greater deal with the dark forces that were involved in the success of their plan and she and Bleys were forced to imprison him.
They continued with their secret coup on their own, though encountered problems when, after their father left to handle the attacks of strange creatures, Eric--the second-eldest, though with disputed legitimacy--took the throne. He sat in regency for what is equivalent to centuries on Earth (from about the time of London's Great Plague) while Fiona and Bleys plotted.
Eventually, roughly 400 years later, Corwin--the only truly legitimate son of King Oberon--reappeared after centuries of living in Shadow with amnesia and helped Bleys to assault Amber. If successful, he would have deposed Eric and ruled as Fiona and Bleys' puppet king.
The assault, however, ended in disaster. Bleys was thrown from the side of Kolvir--the mountain on top of which Amber sits--during the fight up it and Corwin was taken prisoner, having only breached the city gates with a few hundred of his soldiers. He was forced to crown Eric as King of Amber, and subsequently blinded and imprisoned beneath the palace.
He escaped, eventually, and took the throne from Eric with modified firearms--which, traditionally, ceased to function in proximity to Amber. Now sitting in regency, Corwin was summoned to meet with another brother, Caine, and, finding him dead, he was attacked. Random recognized the creature as one of those that had been pursuing him when he appeared at Florimel's house in New York and revealed that they had been guards surrounding the tower wherein their brother Brand had been trapped; Random had been summoned to rescue him and had failed. Corwin then proposed another attempt be made and summoned all of his siblings that remained among the living to assist. Brand was stabbed in the effort, however, and the rest of the family adjourned to another room to assign blame. Though no satisfactory answer was achieved, the conference was broken up to allow for sleep.
Fiona fled that night, as did her half-brother Julian--Fiona because she had been the one to stab Brand in an attempt to keep him from freedom and Julian because he was the last one left of the alliance that had countered Fiona's and put Eric on the throne. Corwin himself was stabbed that night and fled into Shadow where he stayed for only a few days to heal. Fiona eventually contacted him after he spoke to Brand and he had revealed that Fiona had been his attacker. She countered with him being the entire cause for their father's absence and that he had stolen a particular gem with powers granted to Amber's Kings and was attempting to use its power to begin a war between Amber and Chaos. From there, he would erase the Pattern and remake the universe to be subservient to him. Brand made several attempts to attune himself to the Jewel using the Pattern, but was thwarted each time. After one attempt that Corwin and Benedict were successful in stopping, Corwin suggested they attempt to contact their father, despite that no one had been able to for years. They made contact, only to discover that he was disguising himself as Ganelon--a close fiend of Corwin's.
Corwin then took several days to breathe- and swear- in the castle library and, after a conversation with Random, he was called downstairs where he witnessed what he had seen in Tir-na Nog'th (a ghost-reflection of Amber and where Brand had last tried to attune himself to the Jewel): Dara (a demon from the Courts of Chaos, Amber's traditional enemy) and Benedict (the oldest of Oberon's children and armsmaster of Amber) sitting in Amber's palace proper. A barrier prevented entry into the room during their conversation, but once it had concluded, the barrier was lifted and Corwin entered the room and confronted Dara, who proceeded to inform him that she had borne his son, Merlin. With Benedict's backing, Dara explained that the Amberites had descended from the Courts of Chaos- Dworkin was Oberon's father and they had both rebelled, forming Amber and the Pattern with the Jewel of Judgment.
Continuing, Dara informed them that their father had orders for them, and had Oberon's signet ring to prove it. They were to attack Chaos at once. Corwin was able to contact Fiona who was with their father at the Primal Pattern to verify the orders he had given, and he came to them where he snatched the jewel from his father who was considering how best to repair the Pattern as it would cost him his life and made a dash to repair it himself, but he was stopped by Oberon. Corwin was then offered the throne he had so desperately fought for, and he turned it down, saying that he no longer wanted it. Corwin was then given orders to ride to the Courts of Chaos and that the Jewel of Judgment would come to him along the way.
Fiona continued to the Courts of Chaos--Amber's polar opposite-- and fought there in a battle that would later be called the Patternfall War while Corwin transported the Jewel of Judgment to the battleground after Oberon's attempt at repairing the Pattern--which had been damaged as part of Brand's scheme. Unsure of Oberon's success, Corwin drafted his own Pattern, and continued to the Courts.
Brand was killed in the battle, and Corwin fell unconscious, waking to Fiona's face. After they both realized that they didn't actually hate each other as much as they had thought, Corwin recounted his story to Merlin, his son, who he was introduced to.
Fiona continued, after Corwin's disappearance in the Courts, to be a tutor to Merlin, taking him to the Pattern in Amber, and was even allowed to witness his walk of the Logrus--Chaos' equvalent of the Pattern. She most often wanders in Shadow trying to judge and analyze the repurcussions of Corwin's second Pattern, even trying to blame Shadow-storms on its existence. When Merlin refused to walk Corwin's Pattern, she teamed with his cousin, Mandor, to determine what was causing them. She still plays guardian to Merlin, occasionally, though she has for the most part stopped now that he has been crowned King in the Courts of Chaos.
Age: Unknown (A few centuries at the very least, though it's more likely into millenia.)
Canon: The Chronicles of Amber
Canon point: Post book ten, Prince of Chaos
Abilities/powers: Fiona's proprietary ability is Shadow-walking--because of her relation to her father and her walk of the Pattern, she is capable of manipulating reality around her to find what she wants. Essentially, she imagines a place and walks until she finds it. Any not of Amber's blood who attempt the Pattern are killed in the effort, so there is little chance that anyone else would have such an ability, though with her father's proclivities, undiscovered half-siblings aren't unheard of.*
Additionally, Fiona applied herself to learning sorcery from her grandfather, Dworkin. She is capable, because of her study, to employ the Pattern to cast spells and defend herself--more so than her siblings. She is on a comparable level to Brand (who is shown to have extensive knowledge of the inner-workings of the Pattern and how to erase it entirely to be recreated), though she is often cited as the better, making her the most skilled in Pattern-magic of all her siblings. All of Oberon's children have at least received rudimentary training, but Fiona's is extensive.
Another skill she learned from Dworkin is the ability to create Trumps--tarots with certain supernatural abilities. A Trump is, basically, a means of communication and travel between Shadows. By focusing on the person or place pictured on the card, Fiona is able to communicate or travel. She is only able to see or hear what a person is doing or say (or writing) and there is no way to read another's mind using the Trumps.
As all her siblings, Fiona was born with an innate regenerative ability beyond that defined as normal. She is hardly invincible, though she heals quickly. A minor cut may vanish in two or three days, a deep gash or a broken bone in two or three weeks, where nerve tissue will take years (Corwin has regenerated his eyes in the past, though it took roughly four years to do so, and a past spinal injury that left him paralyzed was gone in just over a decade). Severe injuries are still severe and she is very much capable of dying just the same as anyone else. She requires medical attention like any other human being, but as long as she is stabilized, she gets over it a little faster.
Again, due to her unique blood, Fiona is physically stronger than most "normal" humans. This is not anything that she particularly uses all that often because of her preference for magic and background play rather than anything physical.
Despite not having the same combat training from her brother (and Amber's armsmaster) Benedict, Fiona is still very adept with a dagger. Still, it is her last resort, so she isn't quite as good as she might be with it, but she is still at a level far beyond "proficient--"she has had centuries to practice, after all.
Personality: The first thing that one might notice in interacting with Fiona is a silky sweetness with the feel of the genuine about it. She is headstrong and confident, usually getting what she wants. However, more perceptive conversation partners will eventually discover that it has been practiced to that point, and is more a cover for other, less savory aspects of her personality. She was raised playing The Game, and she plays it well--perhaps better than her other sisters.
As a princess, Fiona received the best education growing up and continued that education in both sorcery and more mundane temporal knowledge. She is intelligent and isn't afraid to show it, especially if she is mistaken at first for nothing more than an ornamental beauty. She takes a particular delight in vindication for those mistakes. Because of her level of knowledge (and her origin in the "real world,") she tends to be somewhat snobbish and always aloof, holding herself above the "Shadow-creatures" of other places.
Just as her appearance suggests (rather stereotypically), Fiona is somewhat quick to anger, though she tends to smolder and dwell on it, rather than bursting outright--though such outbursts are certainly not unheard of. Even angry, she takes the time to plot revenge, and she has a very long memory. She often bides her time and retribution can come days, months, or even years later. When she needs to be, she is very patient, willing to wait as long as it takes.
The bottom line is that Fiona is manipulative and always scheming. More a background player than anything, she is sneaky and has no qualms about encouraging, convincing, or blackmailing others into doing things for her. She prefers to be a driving force behind action, rather than performing action. She is calculating and often cold, and every action she takes is very deliberate, and usually thought out, though her quick mind makes it seem sometimes that she hasn't paused to think--which only works out even better for her.
This isn't to say that she is entirely without more positive atrributes. Fiona is both charming and witty, very capable of making friends (she is, in fact, one of her nephew Merlin's favorite people). She can care when she puts her mind to it, though it sometimes take a lot of effort on the part of others to make them worth her while. She is fiercely loyal to her home, devoted to its safety, even if she disagrees from time to time as to what exactly the kingdom needs to stay safe. Additionally, she is headstrong and confident--the only of the girls in her family willing to play the boys' games for the throne.
Still, she is selfish and egotistical, power-hungry and out to help herself. Nearly every move she makes has some reason behind it, something that will move her forward. She has settled somewhat, now, with her brother safely crowned, but old habits do tend to die hard. She still plays with caution and planning, despite the relative safety and stability of things.
History: Amber has been described as the Eternal City, the One True City, and the like. It is, essentially, the city that stands at the center of every universe. It casts what are called Shadows- essentially infinite variations of universes. Every city in every universe is a reflection of Amber at some point in its past or future development. Everything one can imagine exists somewhere in Shadow. Children of Amber's regent, Oberon, are gifted with the ability to traverse these realities after they have walked the Pattern- an artifact inscribed on the floor in one of the dungeons that the family is tasked with guarding.
Fiona is one of 13 surviving children of Oberon over a course of several marriages and affairs. Fiona is, herself, the first of three children resulting from King Oberon's third marriage to Clarissa. Growing up, their father was distant but fair--most of the time. He tended not to grow too attached to his children and at times would even play favorites and play his children off of each other. Thus, there is little love lost between Fiona and her siblings and father. Almost from the time they were small, alliances were being forged, broken, recreated, and betrayed as they vied for their father’s attention and affection for the time being. Fiona dove readily into the game--the only girl to do so--and learned quickly.
Fiona eventually formed an alliance with her two full brothers that would depose their father and let the three of them rule Amber jointly. As Fiona was not a man, she could not hold the throne herself, and she was reluctantly forced to agree to the alliance. However, the youngest, Brand, betrayed them and made a greater deal with the dark forces that were involved in the success of their plan and she and Bleys were forced to imprison him.
They continued with their secret coup on their own, though encountered problems when, after their father left to handle the attacks of strange creatures, Eric--the second-eldest, though with disputed legitimacy--took the throne. He sat in regency for what is equivalent to centuries on Earth (from about the time of London's Great Plague) while Fiona and Bleys plotted.
Eventually, roughly 400 years later, Corwin--the only truly legitimate son of King Oberon--reappeared after centuries of living in Shadow with amnesia and helped Bleys to assault Amber. If successful, he would have deposed Eric and ruled as Fiona and Bleys' puppet king.
The assault, however, ended in disaster. Bleys was thrown from the side of Kolvir--the mountain on top of which Amber sits--during the fight up it and Corwin was taken prisoner, having only breached the city gates with a few hundred of his soldiers. He was forced to crown Eric as King of Amber, and subsequently blinded and imprisoned beneath the palace.
He escaped, eventually, and took the throne from Eric with modified firearms--which, traditionally, ceased to function in proximity to Amber. Now sitting in regency, Corwin was summoned to meet with another brother, Caine, and, finding him dead, he was attacked. Random recognized the creature as one of those that had been pursuing him when he appeared at Florimel's house in New York and revealed that they had been guards surrounding the tower wherein their brother Brand had been trapped; Random had been summoned to rescue him and had failed. Corwin then proposed another attempt be made and summoned all of his siblings that remained among the living to assist. Brand was stabbed in the effort, however, and the rest of the family adjourned to another room to assign blame. Though no satisfactory answer was achieved, the conference was broken up to allow for sleep.
Fiona fled that night, as did her half-brother Julian--Fiona because she had been the one to stab Brand in an attempt to keep him from freedom and Julian because he was the last one left of the alliance that had countered Fiona's and put Eric on the throne. Corwin himself was stabbed that night and fled into Shadow where he stayed for only a few days to heal. Fiona eventually contacted him after he spoke to Brand and he had revealed that Fiona had been his attacker. She countered with him being the entire cause for their father's absence and that he had stolen a particular gem with powers granted to Amber's Kings and was attempting to use its power to begin a war between Amber and Chaos. From there, he would erase the Pattern and remake the universe to be subservient to him. Brand made several attempts to attune himself to the Jewel using the Pattern, but was thwarted each time. After one attempt that Corwin and Benedict were successful in stopping, Corwin suggested they attempt to contact their father, despite that no one had been able to for years. They made contact, only to discover that he was disguising himself as Ganelon--a close fiend of Corwin's.
Corwin then took several days to breathe- and swear- in the castle library and, after a conversation with Random, he was called downstairs where he witnessed what he had seen in Tir-na Nog'th (a ghost-reflection of Amber and where Brand had last tried to attune himself to the Jewel): Dara (a demon from the Courts of Chaos, Amber's traditional enemy) and Benedict (the oldest of Oberon's children and armsmaster of Amber) sitting in Amber's palace proper. A barrier prevented entry into the room during their conversation, but once it had concluded, the barrier was lifted and Corwin entered the room and confronted Dara, who proceeded to inform him that she had borne his son, Merlin. With Benedict's backing, Dara explained that the Amberites had descended from the Courts of Chaos- Dworkin was Oberon's father and they had both rebelled, forming Amber and the Pattern with the Jewel of Judgment.
Continuing, Dara informed them that their father had orders for them, and had Oberon's signet ring to prove it. They were to attack Chaos at once. Corwin was able to contact Fiona who was with their father at the Primal Pattern to verify the orders he had given, and he came to them where he snatched the jewel from his father who was considering how best to repair the Pattern as it would cost him his life and made a dash to repair it himself, but he was stopped by Oberon. Corwin was then offered the throne he had so desperately fought for, and he turned it down, saying that he no longer wanted it. Corwin was then given orders to ride to the Courts of Chaos and that the Jewel of Judgment would come to him along the way.
Fiona continued to the Courts of Chaos--Amber's polar opposite-- and fought there in a battle that would later be called the Patternfall War while Corwin transported the Jewel of Judgment to the battleground after Oberon's attempt at repairing the Pattern--which had been damaged as part of Brand's scheme. Unsure of Oberon's success, Corwin drafted his own Pattern, and continued to the Courts.
Brand was killed in the battle, and Corwin fell unconscious, waking to Fiona's face. After they both realized that they didn't actually hate each other as much as they had thought, Corwin recounted his story to Merlin, his son, who he was introduced to.
Fiona continued, after Corwin's disappearance in the Courts, to be a tutor to Merlin, taking him to the Pattern in Amber, and was even allowed to witness his walk of the Logrus--Chaos' equvalent of the Pattern. She most often wanders in Shadow trying to judge and analyze the repurcussions of Corwin's second Pattern, even trying to blame Shadow-storms on its existence. When Merlin refused to walk Corwin's Pattern, she teamed with his cousin, Mandor, to determine what was causing them. She still plays guardian to Merlin, occasionally, though she has for the most part stopped now that he has been crowned King in the Courts of Chaos.