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| | '''1) Why are you more loyal to the Empress and/or the Realm than the average Dynast?''' | | '''1) Why are you more loyal to the Empress and/or the Realm than the average Dynast?''' |
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| − | Quite simply, because she is the Ideal, the personification of everything that Sesus Sikandi strives to be. She saved the Dragonblooded Host and built a new empire through sheer guts, smarts and determination - she defied fate, refused to let go and remade the world in her own image. It is this ideal of being a true Prince of the Earth that spurs Sikandi on - in this, she´s a Scion of the Empress.
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| | '''2) Who do you serve, apart from the Empress? Who else constitutes a superior?''' | | '''2) Who do you serve, apart from the Empress? Who else constitutes a superior?''' |
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| − | Sikandi serves the head of her family - being of the Alon line, she is a granddaughter of Sesus Alon, in turn the granddaughter of Sesus herself, accounting for her high Breeding. The daughter of two Exalts - Sesus Ryak Eijin (mother) and Mnemon Eleisos (father), she has a lot of respect for her elders but also a hard time fitting in with a family so focused on political acumen.
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| | '''3) What did you openly achieve in the past century that makes you a worthy subject for historians of the next Age to investigate thoroughly?''' | | '''3) What did you openly achieve in the past century that makes you a worthy subject for historians of the next Age to investigate thoroughly?''' |
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| − | Well, what hasn´t she done? Sikandi has travelled the Treshold and the countries beyond having fabulous adventures, warstrider duels at dawn, slayed great beasts, waged war against the Raqksha and bedded feather-haired princes on beds of leaves. As the game starts, she has just arrived back to the Blessed Isle with the enormous head of the behemoth-like Coral Harrower, its´ once-living mineral hide still glistening with the jewels and precious metals of a thousand sunk ships over the course of centuries, tethered to the front of her sky-ship Black Crow King as a tribute to the Empress.
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| − | A lot of her adventures has been chronicled and distributed in pulp-romance novel form by the incomparable pen of [[Leedal Catala Cordelia]], who also minted some of Sikandi´s aliases - the Argent Blade and the Incomparable Crimson Captain being two of them. This has only sparked her fame even further, and her personal mythology is even grander and more spectacular than the woman herself.
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| | '''4) What weaknesses do you possess that aren't just personal failings, but could be exploited by your enemies to cost you the Game of Thrones? What are the fields of engagement where you can't just apply Game Theory analysis, but instead will act against your interests?''' | | '''4) What weaknesses do you possess that aren't just personal failings, but could be exploited by your enemies to cost you the Game of Thrones? What are the fields of engagement where you can't just apply Game Theory analysis, but instead will act against your interests?''' |
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| − | This where things get interesting, of course. The earlier idea of Skandi being a hidden blade/operator for the Empress was stricken both because it interferred with the whole "glorious hero" deal unfavorably and because it stepped on some other character´s schticks, and they do that stuff better than Sikandi.
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| − | So what do we have under the surface? Well, on an obvious level she is a fish out of water in the higher political reaches - she has few if any true allies and a lot of petty enemies to go with her larger-than-even-Host-life lifestyle; some because they got whipped in some spur-of-the-moment duel or other, some because they envy her prowess and wish to make a name for themselves, some because they fear that someone else will pick her up and use her as a figurehead for their cause.
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| − | There´s also the matter of family - Sikandi´s first husband was Cynis Raiekh, a relatively mild-mannered Exalt of the Cynis household picked out as much for the excellent political alliance and high breeding as the favorable astronomical match and the fact that they were both born on the very same day. The pair had three children in a rather rapid - some would say hurried - succession, after which Sikandi left for the tempting horizon and a life of adventure. Raiekh stayed at home, minding his own business - and if there is truth to the rumor that the resentment that their three children feels for their mother mirrors his own, it is only they who can reveal it.
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| − | Raiekh died during what should have been a standard journey-by-sea to the satrapy of An-Teng where he would both act in the capacity of a bureaucrat of the Thousand Scales and greet his wife, who was a guest in the area at the time. The details are sparse, but the annals note him dying in a sudden storm - and it is the truth that there was a storm, both strong and unforeseen. Beyond that, people can only speculate. Sikandi was not overly heart-broken when she recieved the news, but she did send him off with dignity and poise before leaving yet again.
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| − | There are other things as well.
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| − | There are dark flipsides to every glorious, shiny story - and Sikandi carries a lot with her of which the stories keep their silence. "Gone native", people whisper. "Un-Dynastlike mannerisms." And it is a truth that she has picked up a lot on her travels, on the dark places beyond the Treshold. She carries with her nightmares and horrible memories, scars from her confrontations with monstrosities and forgotten tombs and things that feed on your fears and that can assume the mantle of horrors thought long forgotten.
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| − | Yes, Sesus Sikandi carries a heavy burden within - scars that she suffered on her very first travels, when she battled the Grey Eyes Prince, and who have only become deeper and more numerous since. She cannot allow herself to settle down. She is not sure if she recognizes herself in the mirror anymore. Looking at the faces of her children only strives to make this worse, and so she avoids it whenever possible.
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| − | Her wounds are always bleeding, and it is all that she can do to not have them stain the floor for everyone to see. Leedal Catala Cordelia knows more about this than anyone else, and she is a very personal weakness to Sikandi - because that knowledge might possibly not only hurt but destroy her, should it fall into the wrong hands.
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| | ==Backstory== | | ==Backstory== |
| | Backstory | | Backstory |
