Maharaishala Sonorie

In full regalia with Council of Four

Maha in her royal kennel

**Maharaishala Sonorie** is the current reigning Queen of Cresce.

## Appearance

An aging tall woman with high cheekbones who is usually seen wearing her tall white crown or a red cap ringed with a golden wreath of gilded plants and fruit.

## Background

> Maha was among two dozen adopted grandchildren and almost fifty adopted children in the keeping of her grandmother, Queen Ephilasia Sonorie. She and her sister were orphaned after their parents - both officers in her Majesty’s navy - were killed in a pirate attack while escorting high profile merchantmen to Sharteshane.
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> Maha was only “Maha” then (and her sister was only “Rila”) and they spent their formative years traveling Kasslyne together, receiving educations at its finest institutions. Maha was always the more cerebral one, quickly developing a love of history and biology. She spent two years as a nurse in the Crescian Army while Rilursa trained as an artificer. Then grandma called them home to the palace to see how they’d respond to life in the capital. Rilursa threw herself into politics perhaps a little too eagerly for the Queen, but she had eyes on the Crown. Maha wanted nothing to do with this and tried to fly under the radar, spending most of her time in the library or riding hounds. As an older teen she began a relationship with one of the palace’s resident portrait artists. That ended poorly and, hurt, she asked grandma if she could work in the royal kennels across the city, freeing her from the palace (and her uncomfortable ex). The Queen offered to fire the portrait painter and have him ejected from the palace, but Maha declined, feeling it was unfair. Something about this conversation pleased her Majesty, and she granted Maha’s request to work in the kennels - and insisted she begin tutelage under the Queen’s friend Dina. Dina was out to secretly gauge a selection of a few of the young Sonories who’d caught the Queen’s eye as possible successors.
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> Maha learned a lot from Dina about Crescian state matters typically hidden from public knowledge, and she responded to accounts of atrocities with particular horror. Dina discovered a strength in her too, and a problem-solver’s instinct.
> Dina liked her. The Queen liked her. And all of Cresce was shocked when Maha - a girl no one had ever really heard of - was chosen as successor. Rilursa was pretty salty about it but it was her own ruthless nature and love of her sister that would wind up keeping Maha safe from a Queen’s myriad enemies.
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> Incidentally, ten years after grandma died and Maha was crowned, she hooked back up with the portrait painter and took him as her first husband.
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> Ashley Cope, ["Maha's Childhood?"]

Maharaishala expected her sister to be the next Queen Sonorie and was surprised to learn she had been named Ephilasia's heir. She detested the idea that she would be forced to kill and have other cruelties carried out in her name, and plot such things, if she were to take the throne. Prior to ascending the throne Maha served as a military construct pilot. She's been at the throne for decades now and still tries to avoid unnecessary bloodshed, though she and her Wrights have been at work plotting the destruction of Alderode's Dammakhert and have done a good number of unsavory and horrific things in her name. She admires Queen Crescia.

She has married at least three Crescian noblemen, whom she chose as her husbands for their having hobbies and pursuits with which they could distract her when she needs a break from the demands of politics. Maha has eight children but has never been pregnant, with all her children being adopted or born using surrogates for conception.

## Relationships

### Rilursa Sonorie

Maharaishala's sister and heir. Rilursa is more harsh and ambitious than her sister and sees herself as the realist to Maharaishala's idealist.

### Roger Foi-Hellick

The most recent addition to Sonorie's group of husbands, theirs is a loveless marriage as Roger is gay and has never been interested in any woman, but they married to explain away what he was doing with her all the time as they plotted the destruction of Alderode's modified khert. Maharaishala and he are close friends and confidants, but their entire relationship is built around Roger's mind being slowly, tortuously and eventually fatally taken apart as a cypher for the Dammakhert.

### Hanst Mikharhuk Ruckmearkha

Maharaishala despises Ruck, his attitude, history and even what she's had him dug up to accomplish. She knows well that he'll kill her if given half a chance and that he's aware that she plans to kill him once she no longer needs him. She is the only character yet introduced who can get under Ruck's scales and make him snap when he doesn't want to, while he in turn upsets her easily since he's taking apart one of her dearest friends and allies, even if it was Roger who volunteered for the horrifying process.

## Recent Events (Spoilers)

### Book I

Maharaishala knows of Kima Bell's plot against her but cannot yet act on it. She also realizes that her sister's assassination by Inak was likely planned by him or his allies in order to cause retaliation against the surviving Inak in Cresce and prohibits the details of Rilursa's assassination from being published. When it gets published anyway she is furious, and her fears realized as Inak are forced from their homes into internment camps by the military under Bell's command, and slaughtered in the streets with their homes and possessions stolen and burned.

1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 https://unsoundedcomic.tumblr.com/post/110554371450/tell-us-about-more-of-sonories-hubbies-are-they
2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 https://unsoundedcomic.tumblr.com/post/149722895665/how-big-is-the-crecen-royal-family-also-what
3. ↑ https://unsoundedcomic.tumblr.com/post/110570166515/she-was-a-military-construct-pilot-in-her-youth
4. ↑ https://unsoundedcomic.tumblr.com/post/110554371450/tell-us-about-more-of-sonories-hubbies-are-they
5. ↑ https://unsoundedcomic.tumblr.com/post/149722895665/how-big-is-the-crecen-royal-family-also-what