Name: Maržena Mirėlis Šaltis
(aka: Marzanna, Morė, Morana, Morena, Marzannie, Marmora, Mara) Race: Unidentified
(Yukionna Mother + Nightmare Father + Complex Fae Genetics = Marzanna) Position: Queen of the Unseelie Winter Court.
Age: Around 3,500 years
Personality: Marzanna can seem a little cold at first,
especially to those she dislikes; however, she is extremely loyal and protective of those she loves and puts her trust in. She has difficulty at times handling and accepting certain emotions.
Some would describe her personality in a matter of ways: Intelligent, Remorseless, Stoic, Articulate, Calm, Secretive, Authoritative, and Perceptive, being just a few choice words. She can be rather selfish when it comes to self preservation.
She does not trust or forgive easily, and betraying her is the worst possible thing, as she very rarely has tolerance for those who brake their words to her. She also has no tolerance for those that disrespect her. She has been known to go to great lengths to make those that betray her suffer. As she has no qualms about revenge or getting even. She will hit you where it hurts most, and can be very merciless. Overall she is nether good or evil, but mainly self-serving.
Appearance: She has pointed ears, and angular facial features. Marzanna has a dark olive complexion, with golden undertones. Her hair is black. But like a ravens feather, her hair can, in different light, appear to have a blue, dark red, purple, or green tints. Her eyes are a warm honey color, and have a metallic sheen to them under moonlight. She stands at 5'11", with a willowy elegant build.
She has a wide range of glamours. Different ages and ethnicity. Usually she takes the form of a beautiful human female, but on other occasions she might take the appearance of a black stallion, cat, or angelic child. Depending on the time period and place, she adapts a glamour to fit her needs. Over the last 800 years she has accumulated a handful favorites that she typically sticks to.
Her main Glamour is the same as the first one she ever dawned over 4,000 years ago, aka her original Glimmer. A pretty human version of herself. Sporting less angular features, natural human colorings, no pointy ears, gentler expressions, and standing around 5'6" in height.
Background: Marzanna's parents were in many ways star-crossed. Her father,
Keonhir, was an old Fall Court noble, who came from a very influential family of dream controlling fae, and was already engaged to someone else. Her mother,
Bothilda, was a young Yukionna fae of the Winter Court, who was without titles or any prestige. They met during a winter festival, and fell in
lust at first sight. Infatuation and passion was mistaken for love, and they ran off together. Keonhir thus leaving behind his enraged fiance, and oppressive family.
Three years later Marzanna was born into the Winter Court. She was a odd mix of her parents. Physically she resembled her father more, with the dark skin and angular features of the Nightmare fae. But Marzanna also took after her mother, when it came to her black hair and yellowish eyes. As far as her fae abilities went, she was a odd, weaker combination, of both Yukionna and Nightmare fae. She could make things colder, make it snow around her, freeze things into ice, turn dreams into nightmares, and she intuitively knew peoples fears.
Interestingly enough both her parents, though completely different races of Fae, were both of the same
'bringer of human death' type. As Yukionna freeze and suck the life out of humans, Nightmares terrify and scare the life force out of mortals. So with all the complexities that are Fae genetics, Marzanna had unique abilities of her own, pertaining to death. She could see/talk to human spirits, not unlike the Psychopomps fae, and she could also sense when someone would soon die, from untreated/terminal illness, diseases, or wounds, all she had to do was touch your skin.
When she was 50 years old (
equivalent - 5 year old human) her parents passion died out, and they went their separate ways. Keonhir returned back to his bitter family, with hope of redeeming his position in the Fall court. Bothilda found herself popular among the Winter court, and sought enjoyment in collecting peoples 'true' names. Marzanna in the end chose to go live with her father, on his family estate. Even though she was not apart of the Fall Court, she was still welcomed. For a short time she was considered quite a spectacle, as mixed race Fae were extremely more rare in that time.
Time went on she grew older, and as a fae teenager she joined her mother in Winter Court. Her father had become known as the Casanova of the Fall Court, so needless to say her early upbringing was...nontraditional. Her time in Winter Court, with her mother, was more enjoyable then she expected it to be. She made friends with quite a few nobles, and more importantly with Bramden, the young winter king in that time. She would go on to gain the title of countess.
Her first time in the human world was memorable. Putting on a simple Glimmer and wondering around a human village, she met a boy named Odis, who would later become a
Winter-Born fae under her guidance. She became well known in the human world, worshiped as a deity in parts of eastern Europe, and later in parts of southern america. The goddess Marzanna, they called her among many other names.
She was young in fae terms. Naively, she fell in love with a fae man named Daxbore. Unfortunately he was of the Summer court, and her complete opposite. She hated herself for loving him, even when it was apparent that he did not see her the same way. The century long friendship didn't end well, as Daxbore's ex-wife, Zaltina, tried to poison Marzanna, thinking she was the reason for their divorce. And after much more drama, and confusion Doxbore blamed Marzanna for all his misfortunes. Thus there friendship ended, and she grew to dislike him for the summer idiot he was.
Around 8th century BC, her good friend the Winter King Bramden told her of his plan to dethrone the old winter queen, and have Marzanna take her place. She was against it, having never wanted the position, but who was she to deny a king. She had the majority of the Unseelie Fae's support, as she was quite the hostess, her title of countess, and her notoreity in the human world was ever growing. So began the two century long
campaign. The inner turmoil of the winter court was something for the history books. In 6th century BC, Marzanna became Queen of the winter court, ruling beside her
good friend King Bramden.
She took the position of Queen quite seriously, and was a rather popular ruler. King Bramden later reveled to her that he had wished to be the only ruler of the Winter Court. That he had used Marzanna's favor among the Unseelie, since he needed the support in order to dethrone the last queen. Support that he did not have on his own. So he had thought that using Marzanna's esteem, would gain him more power and favor, and he had thought to make her abdicate once they won. Learning that she had been used, she was pissed, and so ended that friendship. Feeling betrayed she began planing her revenge. Taking away what he wanted most, seemed appealing. Killing him was to merciful. What Bramden really wanted was the throne to himself, so she was going to take it away from him.
In summery she was able to take him down completely by 2nd century BC. With decades of planning, she ruined his reputation, destroyed his political power, turned his friends against him, took over as the predominate leader, and overthrew his military strength with her own, without practically any bloodshed. Marzanna then was the sole ruler of the winter court for the next 500 years. This period of time would be considered the height of her reign, as she took it upon herself to be the best Winter Queen possible. Over time she came to learn that being Queen was not her thing, as the stress, responsibility, and restrictions didn't mesh well with who she was. But she could not just abandoned the throne, so she sought out a partner, a King to rule beside her. It had to be someone she trusted, which narrowed her choices to less then a handful of people.
Odis the Winter-born fae, would do well. He was like a brother to her. And so in the the 3rd century AC, she used her power as Queen to make Odis her king. It was not a popular move, to have a winter-born on the throne, someone who was once human, but it was done. Marzanna quickly shoved all the responsibility onto Odis, and happily basked in her new freedoms. Her appearances became less and less at court, until she altogether stopped going, only showing up to official meetings once in awhile.
In the 9th century AC, an Earl named Übel was able to trick Marzanna into reveling her 'true' Name to him. She would later find out that Übel had help from the vengeful Bramden (who she later killed). With control over Marzanna, Übel effectively became King, after killing Odis. He was considered mighty during the early decades of his reign. The winter court preferred him over the late king Odis. Marzanna was queen only in name, as Übel used his control over her to his liking. This would be her life for the next 300 years until, a Wendigo called Vetis, started moving his way up in the world, becoming a Baron. She liked him right off the bat. He served the king methodically.
Though she was still under Übel control, the king had gotten bored with her, so she was left to her own devises. And so began her planning, on a way to get ride of Übel. Her first plan failed, as she underestimated him. She had tried the poison rout, only before he even took a sip of the wine, he smiled maliciously at her, and order the
prisoner to be brought in. The prisoner being Marzanna's own mother Bothilda. He decapitated her right in front of Marzanna, laughed and said that he hoped the queen had learned her lesson, as he pored the poisoned wine onto her mothers body.
Kept confined to her chambers for over a year, all she wanted was Übel to die painfully, and completely. Time went on and in the 1600s, Übel began to show signs of paranoia and weakness befitting of a winter king. She had been doing her best to start rumors, and other more devious things. Secretly messing with Übel mind. His weaknesses and abnormal behavior was becoming more and more apparent to the Winter Courts people, and even to the people of the other courts. Outrage, blame, and anger swept through the palace, all pointed at Übel. Vetis expressed his hatred of the weak King, and Marzanna joined with him. Giving any support needed to kill the king.
By 1734, Vetis had succeeded in cutting down Übel, and claiming the throne for himself. Now its been centuries, and Marzanna and Vetis reign over the winter court together.
