Hildegarde Vauquelin

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**Hildegarde Vauquelin** 「ヒルデガルド・ヴォークラン *Hirudegarudo Vōkerin*」 is a noblewoman (albeit her status is up in the air) of the Clover Kingdom's House Vauquelin, one of its royal families, and is the captain of the Coral Peacock squad of the Magic Knights.

## Background

Born of House Vauquelin, Hildegarde is the second child and the first and only daughter of Laurentius and Amarante Vauquelin. Her family is one of three royal houses that lead the Clover Kingdom with the other two royal houses being House Silvamillion and House Gloucester. Despite her family not being human as they were of the Cait Sith race, they were widely accepted by the Clover Kingdom for their loyalty to their country and their amicable relationship with the humans. This integration is what allowed her mother to be directly related to the current Wizard Emperor and the King of the Clover Kingdom, Lumiére Silvamillion Clover. As his niece, this one relationship serves as the one saving grace in Hildegarde’s life.

Hildegarde began displaying her strange magic when she reached the age of four. A far more evil and sinister variant of the well-known Dream Magic, Hildegarde's '*Nightmare Magic*' boasts higher potency than Dream Magic and is known to have the ability to easily kill, or at least, reduce those hit with it into eternally comatose patients. As such, this magic garnered her derogative nicknames, the most prominent being **Devil Spawn** 「悪魔の子 *Akuma no Ko*」. While her family would've loved ejecting her from the house, they couldn't do so because she was their only daughter and their (to put it bluntly) breeding sow, that is, she must give birth to a child in order to continue the Vauquelin lineage.

The mental torture continued throughout Hildegarde's childhood. She had no time for happiness and this, along with her unique magic, developed into dissociative identity disorder. Inside of Hildegarde's head, a second personality, housing her unbridled fury and desire for vengeance, evolved into existence. '*She*' called herself, '**Nightmare**' 「ナイトメア *Naitomea*」, and consistently attempts to take over Hildegarde's body. However, she had a brand of mental strength that allowed her to mostly control that personality in public. Nonetheless, she couldn’t hide '**Nightmare**' from neither her uncle, Lumiére, her aunt, Tetia, nor her uncle-in-law, Licht; they all bore witness to Hildegarde's sufferings and apologized profusely for being unable to help.

Upon turning eleven, Hildegarde was taken to the great library where the grimoires are stored, ready to meet their one and only master. However, even with her explosive magical reserves dwarfing even those of her older brother, she did not receive a grimoire. To further deprecate her, her older brother was revered in the ceremony as he had obtained a rare four-leaf grimoire. Smiling evilly, he insulted his own blood sibling in public for everyone to hear while Hildegarde herself fought back tears as she tried to keep the fake smile from slipping from her face. Later that evening, her older brother came with a small group of four other male noble children before telling them to wait outside. Hearing this, Hildegarde shrunk away into the darkness but was caught and bound by her older brother's Dark Restraining Magic. Silencing her with a magical gag, he stripped her of her clothing and began assaulting her, not caring of the blood escaping as he did so, however, he was suddenly blown back by a burst of mana as a grimoire, as black as a starless night, fell into her lap. Her older brother's eyes widened as he saw the number of leaves on the grimoire before his face twisted into an eviller smile. Swiping the five-leaf grimoire, he returned to assaulting her, yelling at his friends outside of the door to come inside. While they were at first apprehensive, they were unable to escape the temptation of the sweet poison and joined in assaulting Hildegarde, her screams that night remaining trapped in that room.

The next morning, her older brother gathered his friends and dragged the darkness-bound Hildegarde to court where they accused her of promiscuousness; her most heinous '*crime*' was that she gave up her purity to a peasant child before indulging in carnal pleasures with a large group of peasants. They also further ousted her as a devil, with the proof being the five-leaf grimoire that Hildegarde had received; thanks to this, House Vauquelin finally made the decision to exile her from the house, removing her name from their records. In silent rage at the injustice she was suffering, Lumiére sent his niece to live with the elves, away from the corrupt human society that he strived to fix. In the elf village, she was Welcomed with open arms by Licht who passionately comforts Hildegarde; she also gets along rather well with Olivier Silvamillion and Florianne Silvamillion, Licht's twin children and the first half-elves. Three months later, Fana reveals that Hildegarde is pregnant forcing her to elaborate on the story of her rape. Outraged at this crime, the elves made full preparations to take up arms against the Vauquelins but were pacified by Hildegarde who expressed that she had already forgiven her brother. Even if the child within her was a reminder of painful memories, she was insistent on carrying the child to term.

On April 10, 28 NE, Hildegarde gave birth to a daughter, naming her Arielle, becoming a mother two months before her twelfth birthday. While the elves she lived with did not particularly approve of her decision, they were forced to bredgudgingly accept it as Hildegarde herself was determined to raise the child. However, on the orders of her uncle (as well as her uncle-in-law), she was returned to the Royal Capital a month after welcoming her daughter into the world. Lumiére, much to the dismay of almost everyone, used his executive authority to Hildegarde into a Magic Knight, a member of her uncle-in-law's Golden Dawn squad. As a member of that squad, her powerful magic allowed her to build a large number of merits, and not even thirteen months after becoming a Magic Knight, Lumiére permitted her the ability to create her own Magic Knight Squad. As such, Hildegarde founded the **Coral Peacocks** 「珊瑚の孔雀[団] *Sango no Kujaku[-dan]*」 and serves as its captain.

## Personality

Hildegarde is a highly shy girl who has trouble speaking her mind. Despite her hellish upbringing, she has a set of manners that the real-world Japanese ideal of a perfect woman, a '*Yamato Nadeshiko*', has. She is humble, patient, virtuous, and benevolent. She is, unfortunately, shy and unconfident (due to her upbringing), the sole minus preventing her from being an ideal woman, but is definitively not arrogant. She is also kind and uncruel while being proper and unspiteful, despite her misfortunate childhood.

However, when “*Nightmare*” enters the equation, all bets are off. As a side effect of both her upbringing and her Nightmare Magic, she developed an alternate personality that houses her inner feelings of unbridled fury and desire for vengeance. “*Nightmare*” is the largest reason for her monstrous alias, **Nightmare World War Princess**. She is completely merciless and unfeeling, killing indiscriminately no matter if whoever she’s fighting is ally or foe.

## Appearance

Hildegarde possesses waist-length platinum blonde hair and complete heterochromia. Her left eye is amber-gold while her right eye is deep blue. She also possesses a pair of cat ears growing out of her crown, replacing human ears, and a tail peeking out of under her skirt.

## Abilities

As a pureblood member of the Cait Sith race, Hildegarde has explosive amounts of mana rivaling that of even the elves. Both Licht and Lumiere were amazed at the amount of mana she displayed. On top of having absurd mana reserves, she also has an extremely keen sense of controlling her mana. This was to the point where she had already achieved the high-level '*Mana Skin*' by age eight and the highest level mana control ability, '*Mana Zone*', while a member of the Golden Dawn when she was twelve, surprising both Lumiere and Licht at her skill.

She also has an agile constitution thanks to her feline traits. She is small and fast, able to realize speeds normal humans would need to use Reinforcement Magic so as to achieve a similar effect. When utilizing Reinforcement Magic herself, she can easily fight on equal grounds and at equal speeds with Vetto whose speed and agility are considered the swiftest of the elves. Her speed is further augmented through the use of her special staff which serves as her “wand”, allowing her to cast complicated spells quicker.

### Grimoire

Unlike her older brother, Hildegarde did not receive a grimoire during the awarding ceremony. She was heavily ridiculed for this fact as since she was from a famous and honored lineage. However, her grimoire indeed came to her when her older brother raped her, and ever since then, she had kept that five-leaf grimoire in her possession. Inscribed within is an assortment of “Nightmare Magic”-based spells and due to her innate talent and absurd mana, she can utilize a variety of “pseudo-elements” that pertain to her “Nightmare Magic” but are actually their own magic attribute. She can utilize almost all of the basic elements because her magic allows her to conjure images of said magic and utilize it to her advantage. Of course, her variants of these elemental attributes are *far weaker* than those who actually possess said magic attributes although this is somewhat compensated for by her abnormally high mana reserves.

### Magic

*Main article - Nightmare Magic*

As previously mentioned, Hildegarde Vauquelin wields a unique brand of Dream Magic, **Nightmare Magic** 「悪夢魔法 *Akumu Mahō*」. According to “Nightmare”, this magic attribute normally only allows for its user to perform at the equivalent level of Dream Magic wielders but due to her magical abilities far surpassing and dwarfing that of any human, Hildegarde can draw out the power of Nightmare Magic to its maximum.

* Black Plane
* Black Plane — Bounded Field

*Main article - Creation Magic*

Hildegarde can use this magic to create objects out of her Nightmare Magic.

* Black and White Rain
* Coat of Midnight
* Sword of Heavenly Gathering Trepidations

*Main article - Restraining Magic*

Hildegarde can use this magic to restrain her opponents with nightmares.

* Black Plane — Cloak of Twilight

*Main article - Healing Magic*

Hildegarde can use this magic to heal allies and herself using nightmares.

* Corrupting Regeneration
* Corrupting Regeneration — Shock Front
* Corrupting Regeneration — Wave