The peace that formerly reigned in Terra Nova has eroded, now little more than a memory. War ravages the continent. Disputes divide kingdoms; ideals divide families. The quest for power consumes absolutely and indiscriminately. None are immune to its allure.
Who will rise and who will fall? Only time—and ambition—will tell.
UPDATES
05.26.2023
2 month character creation hold for all existing members begins 6/5/2023. Ended 8/5/2023.
10.29.2023
Change in how times flows. Was 4 IC seasons, now only 2 IC seasons per 1 OOC year.
5 whole years of Heir Apparent goodness! When I started the site, I knew I was hunkering down for the long haul, but I never could have predicted the numerous twists and turns this roleplay site has seen. Hundreds of plots, characters, and members have come and gone, all leaving marks on the site. I am so very thankful for those who have invested. Because you keep coming back, keep getting on, and keep writing, Heir Apparent has the legacy it does today. Three cheers to us!
Post by Ophelia Rainecourt on Nov 7, 2022 18:37:49 GMT -5
[ For @alinore ]
She couldn’t breathe.
After leaving open court, Ophelia hastened to her room. She kept a smile on her lips, pulled in a wavering line across uncertain lips. Her eyes darted this way and that, her hands gripped white-knuckled in front of her. The bitter acid of paranoia nibbled at the edges of her mind, eating and eating away, getting ever closer.
No chair. No place for her on the pedestal.
Surely Cassian couldn’t have forgotten her. It wasn’t like him to overlook such details—Ophelia knew her brother well enough to say that with confidence. So an intentional decision, then. Made by who, and why?
There was one obvious candidate. The woman who had Cassian’s ear in this and all matters:
Kennet.
Ophelia could taste the sour jealousy on her tongue. But the more powerful taste was bitter, metallic fear. So Kennet was displeased with her return. That much she could believe. She’d always lived in the shadow of her half-sister, and no doubt Kennet had been glad to be rid of the nuisance of her presence. Perhaps she’d gotten used to her role as Cassian’s one and only sister. Perhaps her return was more of a threat than Ophelia realized. Maybe she…no…surely not.
Ophelia brushed the red mark on her face.
Surely not.
Ophelia entered her room and let the guard click the door behind her. As soon as the door was closed her smile fell. She started to hyperventilate in earnest, dropping against the wall in the corner and pulling her knees up to her chest. Tears would fall as her eyes darted around the room. After a while, Ophelia’s breathing slowed, but she remained in the place, paralyzed with fear.
From her position atop the dais, Alinore watched as Ophelia entered the room, lingered uncertainly for a moment, and then retreated without comment. Open court carried on uninterrupted before spilling into the typical mingling that occurred at a gathering of Nevermere’s nobility, and though the minister of foreign affairs took the time to make her circuits of the room, she did not forget the lone royal who had vanished before proceedings had even finished. Having extricated herself from the rest of court, at least for the time being, she considered where the wayward princess might have gone before directing her steps down the familiar halls toward the rooms that the royal family claimed as their own.
After a brief exchange with the guard, she knocked gently on the door to Ophelia’s room. “Your Highness?” A pause. “May I come in?” If bid to enter - or after waiting a reasonable amount of time for a negative response and choosing to accept a non-answer as tacit permission - Alinore quietly opened the door and stepped across the threshold, letting it close softly behind her. “Your Highness, I—“ She had not seen the other woman since before the princess had all but fled Arynn Frey, leaving only her children and a note to her husband in her wake. While she wasn’t quite sure what she would find upon entering Ophelia’s room, a wide-eyed, tear-stricken wreck of the woman she had come to consider something of a friend was not it. “Ophelia?” Laced with concern, the name drifted through the silence as the speaker crossed the room and knelt by the figure curled up in the corner. “What’s happened?”
Post by Ophelia Rainecourt on Nov 9, 2022 21:52:22 GMT -5
Ophelia didn’t hear Alinore knock. She’d slipped somewhere outside time and space, her perception of reality twisted beyond recognition. The room seemed vast and endless, and then suddenly so small. Ophelia could feel her chest tighten, her breaths still coming in spasms before—
“Ophelia?”
Her name was enough to break through. Ophelia’s tearful eyes snapped to Alinore. She wouldn’t quite call Alinore a friend. Then again, who did she really have to number among her friends? A princess was warm and hospitable yet never let people close enough to gain confidence. That was how Julius had taught her.
But now, Ophelia looked at Alinore like a sailor sighting land on a stormy sea. “Alinore…” She let go of her knees but didn’t stand. Instead, she just looked up at Alinore, begging for her to take the lead. She was tired. So very, very tired.
Alinore, by nature, was not a soft woman. Pressure had turned her into diamond, and she had spent a lifetime cultivating a disdain toward those it shattered like an egg. Were Ophelia almost any other woman, she would have turned around and closed the door on the pathetic display, but the figure curled up in the corner was the king’s beloved sister. And the court games did not end just because one had left the court behind.
With Ophelia looking at her like a child seeking her parents after a nightmare, kindness would serve Alinore better than contempt. “Come here, Ophelia.” Reaching out to take the princess’s hands, she tried to guide her to her feet and then to the furniture that had been ignored in favor of the floor. Honestly. They were not animals, so neither of them ought to sit on the ground like one. “The couch is a far more comfortable place for a cry.” If they made it there, Alinore would sit beside the princess, as dignified as her companion was distraught. She produced a handkerchief and placed it in one of Ophelia’s hands, folding the other woman’s fingers over it if she would let her. “Here, Ophelia. Wipe your eyes with this, and if you tell me what has upset you so deeply, perhaps we will find a way to remedy the problem.”
Post by Ophelia Rainecourt on Nov 13, 2022 20:30:51 GMT -5
Ophelia gripped Alinore’s hands and rose with her. She let Alinore guide her to the sofa where she perched nervously. She looked at the walls as if at any moment they’d fall in. The curtains as if they’d reach out to snatch her.
Breathe, Felita.
Ophelia managed an apologetic smile and brushed her tears from her face with the handkerchief. “It’s nothing,” She started, the statement sounding just as silly as Ophelia felt. “I’m just feeling a little—” She stopped, stunned as if she’d forgotten how to speak fore completing her sentence. “Out of sorts.”
Clearly, if Ophelia had collapsed in the corner as lost and impotent as a puppet with its strings cut, whatever had affected her so deeply was not nothing. Alinore did not grace the Princess’s dismissal of the matter with a response, instead letting silent skepticism hang in the air for a moment. Then she leaned back slightly, hands folded neatly in her lap, and said, “I won’t pry if you don’t wish to talk about it.”
The odd hitch in the other woman’s voice caught her attention. Alinore briefly studied Ophelia as if she might find the answer to her question - what was that - written across her face. After a heartbeat, she began, concern in her voice, “I worry, Ophelia. You seem a little—“ a slight pause as she borrowed the Princess’s phrase— “out of sorts. When you left Arynn Frey, I had hoped that returning to Nevermere would help you. Has it not?”
Post by Ophelia Rainecourt on Nov 27, 2022 16:40:19 GMT -5
“I—” Ophelia started, but again found herself losing her sentence as soon as the first word hit the air. She puzzled for a moment, pulling on her sleeve nervously before she whispered: “I have no purpose here. No purpose anywhere.”
That was it: the dreaded reality she now feared had come to pass. Ophelia had been a good wife to Akagi, but she would bear him no more children. Of that she was sure. Or at least, none that she’d survive. She had servants and nannies to do all the childrearing—and all of them did a better job than she could herself. Ophelia had no place. No calling. Nothing.
Alinore may have been many things in her life, but aimless, purposeless, was not one of them. Even if she wanted to, the noblewoman could not relate to Ophelia’s admission of feeling lost and adrift. Quietly, she asked, “Nowhere?” Then, with concern still lacing her words: “Ophelia, you are a mother, a wife, a sister, and, a friend – if I may be so bold, my friend. Please, if you cannot find meaning in any of this on your own, will you let me help you search for it?”
Post by Ophelia Rainecourt on Dec 12, 2022 23:09:24 GMT -5
A mother. A wife. A sister. A friend. All roles Ophelia had played almost to perfection. Almost—for the more she’d poured herself into each one, the more the well of her soul had started to empty. It was the role of mother that had broken her, just as it had broken Malthace before her.
She looked up at Alinore, eyes wide as if the woman were her only lifeline on an endless, stormy sea. Ophelia nodded with all the fragile innocence of a child who’d just woken from a nightmare.
To have an individual of such power and influence turning to her with childlike vulnerability and, dare she say, desperation for stability - she couldn’t help but to drink in the heady sight. Not for long, however, for she had a princess to assist. “Thank you,” Alinore said softly, allowing relief to color her words. “You are surrounded by people who care for you, Ophelia, and none of us want you to feel so lost, least of all myself.”
A purpose. If she wanted a purpose and was willing to listen, then Alinore was more than willing to give her one. “I consider you to be a good listener and a good friend, and I find it rewarding to help friends as I am helping you. Wouldn’t you agree?” It was rewarding, in a way.
After a pause, Alinore continued, “Now, I will be returning to Arynn Frey tomorrow, and it is quite exhausting asking after recent events in Nevermere every time I return. If you are amenable, I would greatly appreciate it if you could keep me appraised of what’s happening in court - and of your own well-being - while I am away. It would mean a lot to me. Do you think you could help me with that, Ophelia?”
Post by Ophelia Rainecourt on Jan 13, 2023 12:56:07 GMT -5
Ophelia knew what Alinore was doing. The princess was like a child standing on a stool in her mother’s kitchen, being offered a spoon and an empty bowl so that she might feel useful as her mother cooked. Ophelia knew this, but still, she was grateful. Still, she looked up at Alinore as that child might, broken and needy and clinging to the morsel of meaning she was being offered.
Ophelia steadied her breathing. She nodded again, this time with greater confidence. “I can. I will.” After a moment, she reached out her hand to Alinore, hoping that she’d take it. “Thank you.” She’d whisper, clinging for dear life.
Being handed a purpose seemed to soothe Ophelia, and Alinore allowed a pleased smile to grace her features. “Thank you,” She said, taking the princess’s hand when she offered it and holding it in a firm but gentle grasp. “After all, you are the one performing a favor for me, Ophelia. I wonder, however…” Her voice trailed off. “Writing letters is quite slow. Is there, by chance, a faster way we could communicate?” Alinore has been in Arynn Frey as long as Ophelia; she knew the Llewellyn family all possessed speakstones, and it was one of these that she sought.
Post by Ophelia Rainecourt on Feb 1, 2023 19:47:39 GMT -5
Ophelia felt warmer than before, as if Alinore had lit a fire inside her that, though weak, was enough to thaw her eyes. In that moment, she would have given Alinore anything she asked for. Her question had Ophelia smile. Speakstones. Akagi hardly denied her anything. Why would he deny her this? It was practical after all.
“I’ll see what I can do,” Ophelia responded, pleased to have something to offer.
Alinore smiled as well, even as her thoughts began to turn toward the twisting mire of possibilities and plans. “Thank you, Ophelia,” She said with another nod. The Minister of Foreign Affairs would stay with the princess as long as she was welcome, playing the part of a friend and perhaps confidante. It was more genuine than it would have been for most people. Though they were cut from different cloth, the two women had effectively spent years in each other’s company, and when one woman was a fragile princess and the other sought power and control - well, it was only natural that some sort of friendship would form. Wasn’t it?