Cordelia Cecile Ximene

"You can never become happy by trying to become happy. The idea is that prioritizing happiness would give the motivation and focus to become successful, right? But that's just an excuse. Motivation does not come from happiness. It comes from grit. It causes happiness, not vice versa. Prioritizing success should give a person happiness. Happiness is a feeling, a vulnerable feeling that can quickly vanish no matter how long it is sustained for, how hard one tries to maintain it. It can always be changed. Replaced. Practicing the control over it is a waste of time. But success? Success is stable. Success can last for a lifetime."

# Cordelia Cecile Ximene

Cordelia Cecile Ximene is an enby and a 22-year-old secretary who works for a local duchess whom she doesn't like. She's the one who posted that letter which caught attention from the rebellion against the monarchy.

## Personality

In Cordelia's home, everyone was always yelling. Cordelia wanted to much to have the amount of support that her cousin Felicity's parents gave her professionally, as someone who relies on music, even if the pair was a bit emotional; they were passionate, and that was always what Cordelia looked for. Cordelia's parents are really common-place people and boastful and rude at times, definitely a very selfish air. And honestly just in general--obstinate jerks. Cordelia herself is kind of dry and straightforward and such.

Cordelia's parents... don't at all care about her, and have never bothered to explain the concept of irony to her then get furious at her for not understanding it as a young child. Cordelia could murder someone or drop a plate, and her parents would be the same kind of mad; they'd never taken any guilt in trying to help her in all the wrong ways, in hitting her and even now, making her flinch just by walking past with an arm above her head, never mind what it was actually doing.

They thought that they got to decide what was right and wrong for her, even if they were wrong; that she should be like every impressive kid they'd ever seen, never mind that they would never be able to raise and develop a kid with such balanced principles. Never the first to talk, Cordelia is one who values time no matter how sparse its energy can seem. Always keeping a low profile, Cordelia finds her own ways to make use of what she has and she can hardly keep a balance from it. But she's proud of not what she's able to do but the fact that she has the intent towards it at all, and that much is enough to keep it going. Even when her reputation was refuted into anything that could claim her socially worthy, even when her friends left her behind, Cordelia was always focused on her writing and works. It seemed like the one thing she could always depend on. Cordelia isn't petty; she's so remote that she doesn't seem to care much about anything at all, except her academics and music. And her writing.

Oh, how she loved her writing. Cordelia was really cruel to one of her old friends, so demanding even when it was against her deportment. She'd been going through a difficult time, and it wasn't until she spent an entire year avoiding her entire friend group and that she realized her friend had done nothing wrong and had only ever been kind and inspiring with her; that this freedom from how nonsensical her home life was caused her to trust and be happy, truly happy for once, a feeling that she hadn't trusted until it spiraled out. When she got back with that friend, the friend lifted her out of deep depression.

But, just as she came back different, so did the friend, and it was then that Cordelia realized her feelings for her. Always one to step back, Cordelia lets herself become abandoned by the future as she traps herself in this cage of the past that only writing has the key to, but she's too frail these days to pick up a pen and write anything but sorrow. It still helps her clear her mind, though, and it reminds her of the friend because that was their thing.

It was through their relationship that she realized how important writing was to her in the first place. Cordelia's close friend Britta essentially abandoned her, in her eyes, and she wonders why. Cordelia worries that, with August sent to music school, she'll have no one to depend on, because in the one year that she did have no friends, she developed a memory loss condition and depression, and had terrible grades despite being a pretty hard-working child.

## Trivia

* Cordie's boss works for the Ellens, and is affiliated with them in business