Amélie de Rovaigne

Amélie de Rovaigne, fencing lesson

Amélie de Rovaigne was born as the unblooded youngest daughter of the Duke of Bretagne, one of the leading figures in the French navy. While raised in the traditional manner of noble ladies, Amélie sought to escape these formalities by venturing into an adventuring 'Grand Tour' before being summoned back home by a demanding father.

## Early life & Education

There is a certain typical way young ladies are raised, and it is self-evident that ducal daughters do not escape this fate. There was only one problem with this for Amélie : she much prefered the things her brother was doing. Instead of embroidery, he studied fencing and instead of learning to walk in hoop dresses, he learned to stand on ocean ships. In secret, she listened in and tried to educate herself in all things 'boylike' , at least during the time she still lived at home in Bretagne. After tragedy struck and her brother died, the Bretagne household became dark and depressed, and Amélie's intents of 'doing like her brother did' even intensified. Father may have lost his son and heir, but Amélie felt that it was up to her to now somehow step in his shoes.

Needless to say, none of this fit her father's designs, so at about age twelve, she was sent to the proper preparatory school for noble ladies, the Lycée in Reims. Despite her education in 'womanly' ways, Amélie did not stop her adventurous dreaming and excelled at every physical subject on the curriculum. This combined with her natural social graces could have allowed her to easily keep her grades up, were it not for her dyslexia and lack of academic interest. In every academic field, from mathematics to history, Amélie was always teetering on the brink of failing, and might well not have graduated if not for the friendship she struck up with Justine de Leronge. Justine had problems of her own at school, predominantly of a social nature. This made these room-mates natural allies and they found an equilibrium where Justine helped Amélie with her homework and courses, and Amélie stuck up for Justine in the unpleasantly cruel young-noble-ladies social scene.

## Grand Escape

Once graduated from the Lycée, Amélie dreaded above all being summoned back to the noble-lady-lifestyle, dreaming of adventure instead. The ideal opportunity seemed to present itself in Justine's journey for academic enrollment. Though at this point it was abundently clear to her educators that academic life would be nothing for Amélie, she did manage to convince her father and that's really all that mattered. Granted license, she joined her friend and the Angelite chaperon, and made ready to tour the world and see the wonderful sight Terredei would have to offer. She was given two servants to attend to her needs, René and Robert, but Amélie never managed to remember their names, despite years of loyal service. They rather served as a repository for blame when things went wrong.

Much to Abbé Agathon's distress and despite his many efforts, 'touring academia' would not become the running theme of these adventures as ever more often, the fellowship found itself in the strangest of places, surrounded by fairtyale creatures and locations that were not supposed to exist. Blundering blindly into adventure, the young friends often came out on top, but it was not without inherent risks of its own.

### Dark Dreams

It is during one of these journeys into places not meant for ordinary mortals that they awakened something unknown, something troubling. This phenomenon somehow attached itself to Amélie's uncertain psyche and slowly started using her own fears against her. Being forever burdened by the loss of her brother and by her intention to 'fill his shoes' , she saw her dark dreams become reality. A dire event would soon change everything as Amélie found herself face to face with her deceased brother in the clearest and most 'real' dream she ever experienced. Here the elder brother made his intention plain : he would seize Amélie's living form, for him to walk the Earth again. Though she drew her rapier and attempted to fight him off, to her despair she soon noticed that her fencing was yet nothing like her brother's level of skill in the dueling art. As he loomed over her in her dark dream and made ready to finish the job, the scene was interrupted by an unexpected visitor. The power of Oneiromancy (dream magic) is exceedlingy rare, but it is one that belong within the domain of Queen Mab's powers, being lady of magic and night after all. Mab had bestowed this power on her protegée Justine and, distressed by her inability to wake her thresing friend clearly having the worst nightmare of her life, had taken it upon herself to 'jump into' Amélie's dream and as such soon found herself in between the fighting dream-siblings.

Not wasting any time, Justine used her dream magic in an attempt to bind the brother, so he could not do Amélie harm. And though at first the spells seemed to be working, it would be far to soon to write the grim brother off. As he cursed and scowled, he turned toward Justine and raised a dark, cold iron dagger. He raised the dagger, plunged it down just at the moment when Justine grabbed Amélie to escape the dreamscape again. The girls manage to escape and find themselves in their bedroom once again. In her left hand, however, Amélie -already partially controlled by her brother- saw, to her horror, that same dark dagger now plunged in Justine's side, a dream no longer, with her blood gushing over Amélie left hand.

### Denial

This event would be a turning point for everyone except Amélie. While Abbé Agathon, Bonifaas and -after her recovery- Justine considered the looming dreamspirit of her brother a dire threat, Amélie flatout refused to acknowledge this ever happened, as doing so would make her sad. As such, much of the dynamic of future adventuring consists of abbé Agathon attempting to arrange for fencing masters in an attempt to make Amélie more capable in the art, should her dream-brother return again, and Amélie attempting to elude these lessons, as 'she was already the greatest swordsman on Earth'. From this point on she consequently loses her interest in fencing, and throws herself on seamanship, claiming the captain position of the 'Coup de Foudre' be insisting to be called 'Commodore' , as she is 'the greatest seaman in the world'. Seeing her lingering Leviathan blood offered her enough naval intuition to not damage the ship in the process, the party indulges her as they take more than one ocean journey. This naval fascination persists until the Coup de Foudre gets caught in a nasty storm of the coast of Greece and is dragged down toward the in-between again, where the party has to engage in a strange remnant of antediluvian culture. Again, Amélie refuses to consider the impact of this development on the world and their place within it, denies the possibility of overtly perilous seas, and insists they adventure on like on the very first day, where everything seemed fine. Seeing that Europe has become laden, she makes her desires know to travel to the Caribbean instead, an idea horrifying abbé Agathon and mr. Bonifaas alike.

## Bretagne's Will

The Caribbean plan, however, turned out to be one bridge too far. Soon, despite her attempts to deny unpleasant things, there was to be one reality check that could not be avoided. Failing to secure academic scholarship (by not once attempting to get one) for over a year, the Duke of Bretagne decided he had indulged his daughter more than enough and after one failed attempt to bring her home (due to Wyld intervention), he simply sent his men again and Amélie's adventures were brought to a forceful halt. She now finds herself in Brest, under her father's watchful gaze, where she is to engage with social life to find a decent husband fast. Though the Mellieurs Amis objected to this course of events, they found themselves utterly powerless to contradict a Duke of France, certainly when it comes to running his own family.