Queen Elenora Grace – Steal this Enemy

Queen Elenora Grace Karstark-Greatjon-Dunman, widow of Price Geoffrey Eddard Greatjon the fifth, Wife of the Rotten King, Queen of the Red Kingdoms

Cinderella

Description: Short, no more than five feet tall. Her light brown hair is corded and braided, pinned up in an elaborate way. She wears a small circlet of red gold with fire opals all around a yellow-gold eagle’s head on the front with garnet eyes and a silver fish in its beak. She doesn’t wear make-up but she’s immensely beautiful. Her skin is pale and fairly unblemished aside from deep frown-lines. She looks to be in her late twenties/early thirties. Her brown eyes are almost black, and she never smiles. She wears simple but elegant gowns in the colors of fire and soot: Reds, oranges, yellows and blacks, belted with chains of yellow and red gold medallions marked with fire opals, citrine, and garnets.

Always with her are her three servants, gifts from the Rotten King, Humpty-Dumpty. All three are completely haggard.

The youngest is a girl a few years younger than Cinderella. She is the only one who can walk upright. Her feet are bound into a pair of iron and leather shoes. Iron soles sewn to leather sides with a leather tongue.  She’s taller than Cinderella and her special shoes emphasize that her feet are deformed, missing chunks of her heels. Her head is shaved and she wears rags and an iron collar.

The next youngest is a woman slightly older than Cinderella. She cannot walk upright because of the iron shoes clad to her feet. Iron soles and tongues with leather sides. The shoes show off the fact she is missing both of her big toes. Her head is also shaved and she wears the same rags and iron collar as her younger sister.

The eldest is a woman well older than Cinderella, some say old enough to be her mother, others say old enough to be her grandmother. She wears a short leather dress and her feet have been poured over with molten iron. She is gagged and wears an iron collar with spikes that dig into her neck and shoulders if she does not keep her head completely bowed. Her hair is a tangled gray mass that is visibly crawling with lice and other vermin.

Back-story/Motivation:
Everyone thinks they know the story of Cinderella, the poor downtrodden daughter of a loving father who was tortured at the hands of her evil step mother and step sisters. This is not the case.

When Cinderella was still young, no older than six years old, her mother left in the middle of the night leaving her to the will of her sadistic father who used her to his own whims. She was old enough to know that she’d been abandoned. Her father claimed his beloved wife had died and even went through the ritual to have a funeral for her before he chose another wife.

Her father’s new wife brought with her two daughters that were close to Cinderella’s own age. She did not take to her new family though and felt even more isolated as she noticed that the presence of more women under the roof did not lessen the extent of her abuse any. Her stepmother took no pity on her and never stopped her father from laying his hands on her.

After her father’s death, her Stepmother kept her under her roof but, having grown accustomed to ordering her like a servant continued to do so, though actually paying her for her trouble. The stepsisters never grew close to the strange and isolated Cinderella and they followed their mother’s example.

When the Prince held his ball Cinderella saw it as her way to a better life that she might find her mother. She took her pay she had been saving from her Step-mother and bought herself a beautiful dress and matching pair of slippers made of glass and fur. She did not let her step-family know she was attending the ball and the rest follows the ‘official’ story fairly closely.  Her step-sisters cut of parts of their feet in turn to fit her tiny slippers and each time she told the prince’s servants to check the shoes for blood.

After she married the prince she wanted nothing to do with him. He humored her shyness in the bedchamber for a while but eventually grew fed up with this game and tried to force himself upon her. She managed to push him over the railing of their bedroom balcony to his death.

His kingdom was in uproar so she left quietly in the night. The Rotten King found her on the road and proposed a marriage simply in name. He expected nothing of her (other than for her to take his name) and in exchange he would deliver her wicked step-family and help her in any way she needed to find her real mother.

Other Notes: After years of being treated as she was, she didn’t believe there was any other way to elevate herself than marriage. She’s never considered other people to be as complex as herself. She doesn’t understand kindness – after years of being defensive she only sees a trap in it…. It’s not about eliminating kindness. It’s about making those who stood by and let her be hurt and such over and over again pay for not stopping it. Particularly her real mother whom she is convinced is still in hiding, now from her instead of her father. Once she realizes someone isn’t/doesn’t know her mother she has no use for them.

She is particularly suspicious of strangers, they’re the most likely people her mother would have fled to, those who know nothing about the kingdoms. She dislikes heroes because nobody ever saved her, she will make your life a living hell until you can find her proof that you have not a connection to her mother.