Post by Hiraos Fonfala on Aug 29, 2008 14:51:26 GMT -5
Hiraos Osei Fonfala
[-Undisputed and Unfaltering King of Glendenvale-][/center]
He looks only in his early forties, you know, seeming frozen in the grievances of our tragedies; King of the Graveyard, His Majesty has become the incarnation of its keeper. Like Death, he has become unchanging, but already he was relentless, quiet, and gentle in his smile. He pries you away from life in the quietest, most subtle of ways and in the beginning he fools you; however. Though he is sixty, the iron grip of his hand on your arm cannot be escaped from once it is achieved so that when the brain begins to panic the body cannot run from him.
“Adrian, my boy! Speak like a civil and coherent man… I am Glendenvale. Surely you know what a dangerous opponent that makes me?”
Yes, the King of our Graveyard – but the first King who could last so long after a succession of monarchs who could be stolen by a breath of wind, never to return.
***
His Majesty King Hiraos IV was, in fact, a Duke nineteen years ago. The previous line of Kings, the Tsuguyya monarchy, had a tendency to vanish in the simple pulse of a heartbeat; an event some years back ensured that an entire family was slaughtered by the infamous Scorch Murderer, leaving only King Malaki X behind. He, too, liked to vanish – just as his predecessors had – but his was more in search and adventure, and he was a dangerous sort of youth to maintain as King. The regents he left behind created a bloody legacy for themselves – and for Duke Fonfala.
He had originally been married to a woman named Sharon – Eleanor was her christened name, but he much preferred Sharon – and they were wedded for nine years. She was not a perfect noblewoman and was a bit lower-class but was exceptionally kind of heart and sweet of demeanor and they would have had many children together had cold and illness not stolen some of their young during the stages of infantry. By the time of his wife’s death, the Duke had a son and daughter – the daughter being Chantessa – left from their dalliance. He then wedded a low-class smith-mage named Tasandrae who he later broke off with cleanly; some of the gossips of the court whisper that she used to beat his daughter and so was sent off in disgrace.
He married his daughter twice, the first time to a man ailing of flesh-eating disease who was an uncle of King Malaki that escaped the killings and was, technically, a Prince; it was more of a transfer of wealth and status between friends and left Chantessa a Princess dowager with exceptional court training. The second time she was given more selection and he cleared her to marry the Count Palentine, an ice-mage by the name of Marius DéClaude, but was forced to kill him on their wedding day. The then-regent of Glendenvale had accused the mages of the Kingdom to be treacherous and willed them all to be purged and the Duke, as always, followed what the Crown willed him to despite any personal reservations. He had only gotten word after his daughter had given her vows.
Though it had appeared he killed Marius the man was secretly permitted to escape where he rose a rebellion; the Duke counterbalanced his disobedience by leading his own crusades against mages in his territories. He cleansed Glendenvale, very rarely making exceptions based on split-second evaluations, but did not maintain any prejudice in massacring child, woman or man, though he came back expressive in the wasting of his soul. It is said he went into vampire territory, too, but he returned from his battles early with one of his units entirely wiped out and his men fearing; he came back with a child he claimed was his from the smith-mage he had divorced and now executed. Her name was Emeiyenae Medea Fonfala.
***
Perhaps some of you know the story therein, but I shall tell it for you anyways. He went along down the border, hacking off heads and burning residences as though mage-craft was a plague. There were a number of Converteds slain as well, faces even the common folk recognized. It was a brush up against a pureblood which resulted in his son’s death, though that is a matter neither here nor there.
When he met violent Tasandrae – a smith mage who had come to terms with the border vampires – he pursued her personally; whether it was emotional need or sadism, hardly anyone could guess. His efforts to track her proved fruitless as her vampire allies rebounded from their reserves, and the Duke was caught up slaying the Undead as opposed to the necessary kill.
Attempting to track her in the aftermath provided little fruit for Hiraos and his men; they did, however, find a suitable mage-house in which targets were situated. They were being hidden by oblivious humans and were separated from their protectors; the house would be burned, though Hiraos’s men took to raiding the house of its necessities.
Waste not, want not.
The Duke required an examination to ensure that there was no last being trying to chance an escape; he found two children cowering in a chest. The first was obvious for his magic – a telepath, potentially a demon in disguise but truly only a boy old enough to be afraid. Hiraos killed him without doubt. It was his fellow that caught his attention – a little, pretty girl of about four or five, with eyes that were not quite amber – they looked almost like parchment to be honest, and if he gazed carefully… The fire of his torchlight provided words written within her eyes.
Still. With innocence, she reached for the blade he held, point-down, beside himself, kneeling to examine her with greater care; the joy portrayed by the small child as she touched her fingers against cold steel and black blood contrived some thoughts within the Duke, before she looked up and inquired, “Father?”
It was from there that the moment came to its halt...
None of his men would know the reason of the Duke’s actions. The child he retrieved from amidst the now ruined house, the corpse he left. Dead mages were thrown amongst the chaos, though the small girl known as Emeiyenae Medea Le’Feuye would not join them, despite being the worst find of them all. There was a being, after all, in Dustanova – we call him Chronus, in fact; some call him Time.
There were orders a Duke had to obey; above the King was God, or the Gods of nature, or the servants of that Lord which was recognized – he had orders to kill from the King, though a higher power had told him to preserve the single child he had found in a lengthy and thunderous demand that had taken… that had taken no time at all.
His two Lord companions, the later night, discovered Emeiyenae Le’Feuye for what she was – a vampire, a small, ‘innocent’ pureblood that had touched none of them since her taking, clinging to the Duke like his late, youngest daughter. That Night, as more lands burned, Hiraos Fonfala had no regrets about slaying his comrades, and leaving their corpses to burn amidst the flames. After all, he had made a most miraculous discovery of her – that Chronus manifested in this life a godsend of time.
***
Years passed and the precious child grew older and soon Hiraos took the throne, selected as the new regent in face of a new disappearance by Malaki and – with curious haste – being requested to undergo the coronation that would make him lawfully a monarch. He was not the blood-letting man he originally seemed but all those that spoke threateningly against him tended to disappear; when the King, fifteen or so years later, let word of the Thirteen Councillors seep into the world, the reason for this appeared to become clear on reflection. He changed taxes, using a newly introduced percentage style that heightened the burden on the nobility and lowered it on commoners, and proceeded to gather oaths of fealty from his tribesmen. He carefully examined the movements of the other monarchies and the changes made in them and began to politically attend international functions to gain a better grasp on the other members of his stately game of chess. Though the elfin Queen, Oriel Darkshine, seemed concerned about his history and strained with him, the King was able to maintain the negotiations made by the Black Prince with Malaki X and furthered them; he explosively set the elfin-human borders ablaze and encouraged trade an interaction between the races and slowly worked to recreate the bastion of stability that Glendenvale had been so deprived of. Of course, all good things must come with consequential animosities, and King Fonfala found his in the face of Lord Aldrich Boreas.
When the Lord vampire proved insulting to the human King, Hiraos found no qualm in displaying his displeasure with Noctivagus in a secret stroke his Kingdom did not entirely know of. Curiously taking his then six-year-old daughter Emeiyenae along with him, he and a company of skilled men traveled to Noctivagus in low boats and proceeded to burn the trees of the vampiric gentry, letting sunlight pour upon them, and proceeding to massacre them through their own prowess of the sword. Traveling with a fair number of units and only stopping when his own had counted forty-five dead the King began to send out word for the others to withdraw, letting the sun rot the corpses and returning to the forgiving pride of his daughter before going home. Out of spite, Boreas returned the blow, outing the flames and suffering the son to retrieve the corpses but only to ruffle the feathers of the King. He then proceeded to stalk into the King’s palace and silently drain a man for every vampire slain, frightening the human population on what looked like an uncalled for threat.
Challenges were made, and the pair earned each others’ contempt if nothing else – but King Fonfala would never truthfully claim that he has received no humility from the situation, and the vicious look of his aged face in response to the Ardentian noble would be enough to bring silence to any inquiry. What, exactly, Hiraos has gained or lost in the affair has been lost amongst other skirmishes however: he now leads a Graveyard, storming through the losses of his people as he does what he can to prevent the humans and elves from being swallowed alive by the Empire’s thirst.
Ah, but there could be a happy note in the entire affair – Marius returned, reinstated as Count Palentine and, together with his daughter, provided the King three grandchildren. 5”8 and well built but seeming tired in face of his existence, he boasts of straw-colored hair which – strangely enough – has not grayed or lost health, roughly cut around his weathered, well-defined features and his dangle of hair which, while not long in the fashion of elves, is usually rather lengthy for a short cut. His dark eyes are constantly a storm in the calm of his expression and his countenance gentlemanly to grave; while he appears kind-hearted it is always to be remembered that the King is a silent killer, and – having grown passed the age of hot-blooded men – is known for his preference to the gentle and courteous conversation of women and a moments peace to stargaze though (with his dogs having aged far quicker than he, apparently, and time of the essence) he has quietly had to give up hawking and hunting both.
A fantastic marksman in archery but disliking the way of the arrow, the King is paving new advances in projectile technology. He is honored for his exceptional ability with the sword but prefers to take up the war-hammer in combat and lays that weapon upon his royal crest. Riding only the finest remaining of Glendenvale's horseflesh, the King - who in past exhibited only ruthless skill and a lack of fear to the dirtiest of combat tactics despite his own creed of honor - appears to fight with an almost superhuman strength and speed that is unsettling at his piqued but physically unapparent age.[/size][/blockquote]
