Grand Archduchess Brendolyn Donahue-Nightsinger

### Weapons

Her words are all she has, very dependable on others for protection

## Appearance

Brenda is a remarkably beautiful girl, although not quite a legendary beauty or cause for epic ballads written by lovesick bards and minstrels. She has the trademark purple eyes of a descendant of Electra, alabaster pale skin, and straight midnight-black hair that falls to the middle of her back. She’s short and slender and soft, having inherited Lihua’s delicate build, and only just 5’0. When she smiles, she has dimples.

## Personality

Brenda is charming, vain, somewhat air-headed, friendly, rather spoilt, and extravagant. She loves fashion and shopping and chatting with friends and parties and all the other things a frivolous young teenaged girl would love, though she hasn’t been able to do much of that since being imprisoned within the mirror. She’s spoiled rotten, yes, but still has a relatively good heart and she’s very friendly and, before the mirror years, very popular. You can’t help but love her, she has an inexplicably irresistible aura to her.

Brenda dearly loves her family and friends, and since being trapped within the magic mirror, holds tightly onto friends. She’s a bit starved for social interaction and the company of other people. The millennia of infrequent visits from various guardians of her mirror, who were her only friends, were hard for a social butterfly and extrovert like her.

She’ll be devastated when she discovers how much time has passed since her friends and family’s deaths. When she’s first freed, she’ll be spoilt and rude and miserable and complain just about everything, delighting only in Snowangel’s company. Eventually, though, she’ll grow into a good-hearted, enthusiastic, loving, and bold girl who takes the reins of her own destiny and carves out a place for herself in this strange new world.

Unfortunately, due to her privileged and pampered upbringing, and many years of solitude without having to share or compete for attention, Brenda can be somewhat jealous if people try take what she deems as “hers,” whether that be anything from friends to jewels to boys. She can also be rather petty at times. Vindictive, even. She’s used to getting her own way with little to no fuss, and does not take kindly to being told no or having others tell her what to do. She’s surprisingly stubborn, and can be rather bullheaded at times.

While she’s perfectly delightful and charming and lovely to those she likes, she can be rather haughty and even rude to those she dislikes. In fact, she has an unfortunate past of engaging in gossiping about others behind their backs, spreading rumours, and mocking and/or mercilessly teasing people she doesn’t like.

Brenda can also hold grudges and sometimes struggles to forgive others, though it often depends on her mood that day and their transgression, whether real or perceived, against her and her loved ones.

She has a deep love of romance novels, and often dreams of having a dashing prince or brave knight-in-shining-armour come sweep her off into a life of epic romance and daring adventure and, in the end, a magnificent fairytale wedding and into a blissful Happily Ever After. Her perceptions on certain things in life are somewhat skewed or misguided, or even downright wrong.

She is generally well-intentioned, but her cluelessness on practical matters and sheltered, pampered upbringing within the lap of luxury has left her woefully unprepared for life outside the enchanted mirror and the “real world.” She can be naive and rather oblivious at times. Brenda often views the world through rose-coloured glasses, and can be entirely too trusting. Gullible, even. She has been known to be somewhat ditzy and silly and shallow at times.

Due to the ancient, divine magic fuelling the enchantment of the mirror dimension, where one cannot age or be injured or die, Brenda’s memory is foggy and confused. She has completely lost sense of time. Over the centuries, she slowly lost her grasp of her mind, and her memories slowly started to fade and blur, becoming harder and harder to remember. Because of this, when asked to recall a simple memory or answer a basic question, like what year it is or what was the colour of her adoptive mother’s eyes, she is slow to respond and confused and easily distracted. She has been lulled into the serenity of her peaceful prison, happy and healthy and compliant. Safely tucked away from the rest of the world, unaware of the many changes outside her idyllic paradise…

### Powers/Limitations

Brenda isn’t magical, just a normal human who has a bit of charmspeak, thanks to Electra being her grandmother and having such an illustrious heritage of powerful Thystical family members. All this charmspeak does is contribute to her charming and likeable aura, and makes her very, very good at persuading people to do things for her. She herself is entirely unaware of said charmspeak, and chalks it up to her personal virtues.

Also, regarding the enchanted mirror, whoever is the current guardian of both the mirror and Brenda has the ability to freely pass in and out of the mirror, bringing both objects and people back and forth through the mirror. Up until the Vampires permanently imprisoning Brenda within the mirror dimension, her various guardians would’ve even have had the ability to free Brenda from the mirror if they chose to, though few did as the instructions and duties handed down to them had so fervently and sternly ordered that she never be permitted to leave the mirror, for both her own safety and the safety of others. Every guardian had carefully obeyed these commands up until Eponine, who made the fatal mistake of freeing Brenda from the mirror and bringing her back into the outside world.

Brenda herself never realized that her guardians preceding Eponine had even had the power to free her until much later, during her time with Orpheus and the Vampires. This was a cause of great betrayal and resentment for her, though the magic of the mirror would muddle and suppress such thoughts and questions while within the mirror.

Following her permanent imprisonment within the mirror by vengeful Vampires following Orpheus’s murder, any future guardians of the mirror lost the ability to bring Brenda out of the mirror. They hoped to both prevent her from ever escaping her gilded prison as a form of punishment for allegedly “corrupting” their Prince, as during Orpheus’s term as guardian he brought her outside the mirror and therefore caused so much trouble, as well as to prevent anyone else from bringing her out of the mirror themselves, a way of dealing away the last remnants of the Nightsinger dynasty.

This, of course, prevents Eir herself from freeing Brenda from the mirror, much as she’d like to. The reason any guardians lost such an ability was because the Vampires who sealed her away had a powerful witch-priestess place additional dark enchantments and curses on the mirror preventing Brenda from ever potentially escaping herself or any guardian of the mirror bringing her back into the real world.

### Flaws/Weaknesses

Vain, jealous, petty, vindictive at times, can hold a grudge, highly susceptible to flattery, spoiled rotten, rather silly and shallow and simpleminded at times, a damsel-in-distress, naive, overly trusting, confused, oblivious, ditzy, extravagant, gullible, overly pigheaded and stubborn, likes getting her own way, dislikes being told what to do, hasn’t been told no nearly enough, possessive, touch-starved, people-starved, overly fond of gossip, can be mean or rude. Has unrealistic views and perceptions of the world around her. Has a rather inflated sense of herself. Can be haughty, conceited, and selfish. Spends far too much money. Sometimes has feelings of superiority towards other given her highborn status and illustrious heritage.

## History

Brenda is the last-surviving full-blooded member of House Nightsinger, being recorded as the great-great-great-great-great-something greats niece of Grand Archduchess Isolabella Donahue-Nightsinger, the mysterious, non-Thystical younger sister of Cato Nightsinger.

Her biological mother, Lihua, gave birth to Brenda in secret, but her sister-in-law, Isolabella, fell pregnant at the same time and suffered a miscarriage, but nobody besides the midwife and a few of Isolabella’s trusted ladies-in-waiting knew this.

 So, Lihua, who was hiding at Isolabella's villa and gave birth in secret there, gives up her healthy baby girl to Isolabella to raise as her own. She stays long enough to name the infant and recover from the ordeal of childbirth before Lihua herself leaves and returns to the politics and dangers of the War of Frost and Flame.

And hence, nobody besides Lihua, Isolabella, the midwife, and the few trusted ladies-in-waiting are none the wiser regarding the true parentage of little Brendolyn.

Lihua believes that the father of Brenda was Angus, given their brief and secret affair, and that Brenda is their secret love child. Fearing what Cato might do if he ever discovers Brenda’s existence, she was careful to hide the existence of Brenda from everyone, even Angus, whom she believes is the father of the baby.

Later, though, both Lihua and Isolabella come to question whether or not Angus really is the father, as little baby Brenda seems perfectly human and does have the trademark purple eyes of House Nightsinger and descendants of Electra, which she couldn’t have gotten from Lihua or Angus, since neither had the blood of Electra in their veins, leaving the question of maybe Cato being Brenda’s biological father.

Unfortunately, the War ends and Lihua dies before they can unravel that particular mystery. In truth, Angus is not the father of Brenda, but Cato is, making Brenda the last-surviving, full-blooded member of House Nightsinger. Though these truths are largely unknown to both Brenda herself and mainly lost to history (for now).

Tragically, all Brenda ever knew of her biological mother was a few fleeting memories of a beautiful but sad woman, since Lihua would have stolen away from the War to visit her secret daughter at Isolabella’s tranquil estate in the last few years of the War.

Because nobody outside the small circle of Isolabella, Lihua, the midwife, and the trusted ladies-in-waiting knew Lihua was pregnant or that Isolabella had had a miscarriage, Brenda grows up as Isolabella's beloved only daughter and child, leaving Brenda growing up believing her actual biological parents, by now both dead or presumed dead, are her late aunt and uncle, and her surviving siblings to be her cousins.

Rydia, Lei-Lei, Krysta, and Pandora would probably have met their little “cousin” a few times in the years after the War, but Isolabella was careful to keep Brenda far, far away from her siblings as much as possible, lest somebody remark on the striking resemblance between them or starts connecting the scattered pieces of the puzzle.

As time passes and Brenda grows up into a lively, vivacious young teenaged girl, Isolabella grows increasingly desperate to protect her adopted daughter and her late sister-in-law’s secret, especially as a few people start asking questions and getting a little too close to the truth. That, and Pandora’s mad reign as the Autumn Queen grows darker and bloodier.

In order to protect Brenda, Isolabella throws herself at the feet of the gods and begs them to help her protect her adopted daughter. For once, they answer and guide her to an ancient enchanted mirror, containing a pocket dimension out of space and time that can a t as both sanctuary and a prison. A place where time does not pass, a place where her

daughter can be safe.   Once she’s obtained the enchanted mirror, she lures Brenda into the space and then traps her there. When this happens, Brenda is about thirteen or fourteen.

Isolabella visits Brenda there for the rest of her life, but upon her death, the caretaking of Brenda and the guardianship of the secret of the enchanted mirror falls to the most trusted and beloved of her ladies-in-waiting, High Lady Amalia Donahue. Amalia was her other sister-in-law, the younger sister of Isolabella’s husband, Grand Archduke Valentin Donahue. He was never aware of Brenda’s true parentage, and was an indulgent, loving, though somewhat distant father to her. He was often away at the Autumn royal court, serving King Coriakin and Queen Pandora, with infrequent visits back home to see his wife, daughter, and sister. His imprisonment and later execution on Pandora’s orders was the catalyst that pushed Isolabella to seek out safety and sanctuary for Brenda.

Amalia had been widowed many years previously, and had several sons and daughters who’d been Brenda’s playmates growing up. After Isolabella’s death, rather elderly by then herself, she faithfully guarded the secret of the mirror dimension until her own death, passing off the duties and guardianship of the mirror and Brenda to one of her daughters.   And so, this becomes a secret duty passed down along a long line of Donahue women.

Preserved within the timeless pocket dimension, Brenda does not age. That, and her memory is perpetually foggy, thanks to the mirror’s magic, so she doesn't ever think to question the string of changing women who visit and befriend her.

To the outside world, Brenda’s disappearance is chalked up to be at the hands of Pandora, and many believe the mad queen ordered her kidnapping so she could either be killed, in order to ensure none of her family members survived to become a possible threat to her, or she was whisked away in the night to be experimented on with dark magics in the Queen’s tower lair. Soon, the young Grand Archduchess Brendolyn Donahue becomes a historical footnote, largely forgotten to time and her mysterious vanishing greatly overshadowed by the dark and major historical events that would soon come.

Finally, several centuries or so later, the current Donahue matriarch in charge of guarding Brenda and her secret, named Grand Archduchess Eponine Donahue, desperately wants a child to love and adore. And she already adores Brenda, hating how the poor girl is kept trapped within a mirror. So she lets Brenda out of her mirror prison, and presents her to the world as her daughter.

Already childless and widowed several years prior, Eponine concocts a story about how she had Brenda in her youth, with her husband, before they were married. Fearing the scandal, Eponine claimed she sent the baby to be raised in one of her countryside estates. For Brenda, who had spent so much time already in the idyllic pastoral mirror prison, this aligns and she happily accepts this story as truth. Eponine claimed that she’d finally sent for Brenda to be reunited with her, and truly join her family. She keeps her name, as by now so much time has passed nobody would think to connect Eponine’s secret daughter with some long-dead little archduchess who disappeared centuries ago.

Henceforth, she is passed off as Eponine’s daughter and, as a result, Isolabella’s great-great-great-great-many greats niece.   And due to the memory-affecting magic of the mirror prison, Brenda doesn't remember much about her past and accepts Eponine’s concocted story and little white lies as truth. That, and Eponine subtly drugged her again over the next few years with memory-altering and memory-erasing drugs as an extra precaution to ensure that Brenda wouldn’t remember the truth.

But then, when she’s just turned sixteen, tragedy strikes again. Eponine, somewhat careless with her tongue after a few too many glasses of wine at a party, accidentally reveals the truth of Brenda’s origins to a human who is under the thrall of a Vampire Whisper. After hearing this report from their human thrall, the Whisper reports their findings to the current reigning Vampire prince, Prince Orpheus, and the Council.

Upon hearing that there is one last full-blooded and surviving Nightsinger, they act swiftly and manage to kidnap both Brenda and her enchanted mirror prison. Until they can decide what to do with her, they trap her once again within the mirror dimension and place the mirror under heavy guard.

Eponine is heartbroken and devastated at Brenda’s loss, and horrified at her slip-up in revealing the secret of Brenda and the mirror. Drowning in grief and guilt, she soon turns to alcohol in order to numb the pain. Sadly, she takes her own life about a year later.

Back in the Vampire Kingdom, over time, Brenda is allowed to occasionally leave the mirror and as the memory potions Eponine dosed her with wear off, Brenda starts to remember the truth and her past in bits and pieces. Prince Orpheus takes a special interest in her, and gradually the two fall in love. He was the one who ordered her kidnapping so she could be used as a bargaining chip or hostage or maybe just simply killed for revenge, becomes her devoted lover.

In her time outside of the mirror and amongst the Vampires, which was about a year, Brenda turned seventeen and recovered many of her memories, though this left her very confused about what was real and what was fake. Orpheus grew closer to her when he started helping her untangle all the secrets and lies. He also became the next official guardian of the enchanted mirror and Brenda, albeit unknowingly at first, which gave him to pass in and out of the mirror freely.

Their relationship, unfortunately, was doomed from the start. Orpheus’s Council strongly disapproved of him loving a human girl, let alone a relative of their archenemy The Hunter. So, when he refused both to break off their relationship or to Turn Brenda or to kill her, they overthrow him in a coup and had him murdered before Brenda’s eyes.   After Orpheus is killed and replaced with a colder, crueller Prince, the new Vampire Prince decides to take advantage of the mirror prison and tosses her in there again, and the mirror is locked away in some vault or dungeon,buried and hidden far, far away from the Vampire Kingdom, is eventually forgotten about by the Vampires. The entire disgraceful chapter, and the reign of Prince Orpheus, is largely preferred to be forgotten about, and most records and remnants of his rule were destroyed… any memory of Brenda’s existence and her mirror along with it.

Several more centuries later, Eir finally stumbles across Brenda's mirror (she’s somewhat guided there by the gods as her next task), meets Brenda and eventually gets the most of the story explained to her, bits from Brenda (at least the parts she can remember, which are jumbled and confused) with the majority of what she knows explained to her by Nyx. Eir becomes the newest guardian of the mirror and Brenda, and also Brenda’s dearest and closest friend. The first one she’s had in centuries, and certainly one of the closest and longest.   Since time doesn't pass like it does outside the mirror prison, Brenda is largely unaware of just how much time has passed outside her mirror prison and so is delighted when Eir, with an indefinite lifespan herself, remains the same and doesn’t get old and wrinkly like all her previous friends/guardians. Eir will also spend long stretches of time within the mirror with Brenda, when she needs a break from her work or needs to lay low for a while.

The seasons actually change within this pocket dimension, adding to her confusion of time and the “real” world and this lush and gilded prison. She has the last name of Donahue, in order to help protect her identity, since by the time she was born, being a Nightsinger was dangerous since many people held deep-rooted resentment towards them for the War of Frost and Flame. Isolabella did this on purpose, in order to limit people’s association of Brenda with House Nightsinger as little as possible.

Several more centuries later, Eir finally stumbles across Brenda's mirror (she’s somewhat guided there by the gods as her next task), meets Brenda and eventually gets the most of the story explained to her, bits from Brenda (at least the parts she can remember, which are jumbled and confused) with the majority of what she knows explained to her by Nyx. Eir becomes the newest guardian of the mirror and Brenda, and also Brenda’s dearest and closest friend. The first one she’s had in centuries, and certainly one of the closest and longest.   Since time doesn't pass like it does outside the mirror prison, Brenda is largely unaware of just how much time has passed outside her mirror prison and so is delighted when Eir, with an indefinite lifespan herself, remains the same and doesn’t get old and wrinkly like all her previous friends/guardians. Eir will also spend long stretches of time within the mirror with Brenda, when she needs a break from her work or needs to lay low for a while.

The seasons actually change within this pocket dimension, adding to her confusion of time and the “real” world and this lush and gilded prison. She has the last name of Donahue, in order to help protect her identity, since by the time she was born, being a Nightsinger was dangerous since many people held deep-rooted resentment towards them for the War of Frost and Flame. Isolabella did this on purpose, in order to limit people’s association of Brenda with House Nightsinger as little as possible.

Although she is trapped in a pocket dimension where time runs differently and purposely clouds her mind, fading her memories of her past life and why exactly she’s in the paradise world she’s imprisoned in, and exactly how much time has passed, Brenda does recall bits and pieces of her past, usually coming to her in the forms of nightmares or dreams.

By the time the events of the current RP roll around, the vampires who originally kidnapped her and imprisoned her again in this specially-designed prison are long dead, and she’s been forgotten by the Vampire Kingdom. Eir Damaris is her dearest friend, the only person she sees over the centuries who stops by to visit her. Eir will stay for periods of time within this timeless paradise, where one does not age. This heavily contributes to Eir’s longevity. She is able to come and go, as were all of the previous guardians of the mirror, but Brenda is not. And no matter how much Eir tries to explain to Brenda what has happened to her and how much time has passed, Brenda forgets and reverts back into her charming, vain, somewhat air-headed, friendly, and extravagant self. The magic of the mirror purposely keeps her mind and memories muddled.

Brenda will eventually able to contact the outside world through a magic mirror, which someone is eventually finds and communicates with her via the mirror, gradually leading to her freedom. First, though, someone must discover the magical properties of this other, smaller magic mirror that connects to Brenda’s mirror dimension.

While inside the mirror dimension, which was created using ancient, divine magic, one cannot age nor die nor be injured, although you slowly lose grasp of your mind, and your memories slowly start to fade and blur, becoming harder and harder to remember, and your sense of time is majorly skewed. You are lulled into the serenity of this peaceful prison, happy and healthy and compliant. Safely tucked away from the rest of the world.

Perhaps Brenda’s idyllic prison could provide sanctuary for someone else and perhaps her tale holds valuable answers to certain mysteries…

## Character Relationships

**Eir**

Wip