Queen Nakhta de Renaud
Backstory

Species: Red fox (vulpes vulpes)
Sex: ♀
Age: 20
Height: 5ft 4in
Weight: 140lbs
Siblings: Absarren (8 years older, male), Bilba and Vilgem (twins, female and male respectively, 5 years older), and Berehn (3 years older, male); all deceased

Species and Cultural Notes

Anthro foxes in this world are born deaf and blind, although they tend to gain these senses after a couple of days.

The common folk of Vulland are relatively conservative in their political beliefs at the time of Nakhta’s life. They prefer political stability, especially so long as the taxes don’t get too high and the wars don’t go on for too long, and the de Renauds have provided that. 

They are generally aware that royal life can have its dangers, and true to their overall wish for stability, have greater respect for a monarch who has been on the throne for long enough to prove their ability to survive. However, they can be sensitive to scandals, or perceived scandals, where the monarch of the day may not have earned their position. They also prefer long reigns as these tend to mean that national policies do not tend to change very much. 

The nobles and clergy are just as prone to vying for power as the royals, and some of them do this by keeping up with the tastes and preferences of the current monarch. 

Queen Nakhta is an original character from the story Songs of Vulland (working title). [I will finalise your character's summary after everything below is completed, checked, and confirmed to be correct by you.]

Trust & Confidence
(newborn)

Nakhta was the fifth child born to King Gattrem IV and Queen Velise. Given the time period they lacked reliable means of birth control so Nakhta’s conception was unplanned, though not entirely unexpected. 

Nakhta’s mother had ever been a maternal type, but she had paid the most attention to her first-born, Absarren. Indeed, her sense of duty extended further back even than that: she hadn’t wanted to marry into the direct moral line but had also not wanted to pass up the opportunity once it had arisen, for lack of attractive alternative options. She found motherhood exhausting, and by the time Nakhta was born she had run out of patience with the experience of motherhood. As far as she was concerned she had already produced several heirs to the throne so her job was done, and she looked forward to the permanent birth control that would come with menopause. 

Nakhta’s father felt much the same way. 

The birth went as uneventfully as may be expected, although it was noticed from the day Nakhta was born that she had a slight malformation of her muzzle. This was noticeable on close inspection of the infant but not to a casual observer.

Nakhta would not be aware of this, of course, but her parents made a grand announcement to their subjects of her birth. After this she was handed to a small group of wet-nurses and nannies to be raised almost entirely without input from her mother.

These women were older, experienced mothers, and provided Nakhta were highly skilled at providing the type of infant care that the royal family wished for. That is not to say that the care was particularly tender and warm, but that it was efficient and competent. Nakhta was kept clean and fed, and spent much of her time as an infant being held and looked at so that she had somebody with whom to make eye contact, and a friendly face to associate with her care. It would be partially truthful to say that she was held and paid attention to as much as she was so that the nurses could justify their salaries, but the effect for Nakhta was that she did not feel isolated, and received interpersonal stimulation. There was just a reserved quality to the love she felt from them.

Nakhta opened her eyes a little earlier than most newborn fox cubs, within 24 hours of her birth. This may have been due to her being able to smell that something wasn’t right. While she would not have been able to see or hear her caregivers during her first day of life she was able to smell them, which meant that she learned to recognise the scent of her mother immediately after her birth. When she did, she noticed the absence of that smell when she was passed to her first wet nurse, and the subsequent presence of the scent of that individual. 

In addition to this, Nakhta’s mother had had elevated cortisol levels during her pregnancy with Nakhta due to her lack of willingness to be pregnant, which Nakhta herself had detected in utero. This had given her a heightened sensitivity to the hormone. After she was born and noticed that the scent of her caregiver wasn’t right, her cortisol levels had risen – and with it, her stress – which had boosted her development and caused her to open her eyes earlier than an equivalent, more relaxed cub. This reaction to stress became a long-term detail of Nakhta’s life, and she became known among the nurses and other staff for being a fussy baby.

Objectively the nurses’ care of Nakhta was very good: consistent and attentive, but Nakhta had already realised that something was not right, that these women were not her true mother. Occasionally her mother would show up and check on her, and she would reach out eagerly for her, but her mother would not return the gesture. Nakhta would cry, and her nannies would walk back and forth with her telling her that there was nothing for her to cry about. However, she realised that they were not her mother and she often rejected their sentiment that everything was fine. Before long, Nakhta stopped reaching out to her mother when she came all together. She reluctantly learned to accept her vulpine nurses. She felt more distress around those of her nurses who were not foxes as they really did seem very alien to her at that point. 

Another detail Nakhta could not have known at this point but is worth establishing here is the opinions of her siblings about her. Her oldest sibling, Absarren, was 8 at the time of her birth and had already developed a firm tendency for cruelty, including towards his siblings. He didn’t consider Nakhta a threat due to her position so far down the sibling order. He absently decided that he would be able to outsmart and emotionally exploit her, whenever needed.

Bilba and Vilgem were only 5 when Nakhta was born, but Bilba understood her own world enough to recognise that having a sister would lessen pressure on her to be girly: she had already spent much of her life trying to live up to the values of her brothers and be a tomboy. Vilgem had similar feelings; while he was a boy, he had observed the court’s behaviour around Berehn and understood that a new baby meant less attention for him, and he was relieved that something (or indeed, somebody) else would distract the often-overbearing royal attention away from him. 

Berehn was the tender age of three, and was not yet clued-in enough about the workings of his world to feel anything other than curious about his new sister. 

Freedom & Self-Determination
(toddlerhood)

Nakhta’s main take-away from her infanthood was that she would be paid attention to after a fashion, but that love was not really “a thing”. As much as she, as a completely naive infant, would have liked to have been loved, she quickly learned that there was an unspoken sense of ‘emotions are silly’, which meant that she had to put away her desire for tenderness. 

She didn’t take long to develop a strong relationship with her anger, especially as her sensitivity to stress meant that she felt afraid easily. She sensed the emotional coldness and hostility of several of the people around her even before she could speak, and certainly before she could speak fluently. 

Even her nurses didn’t fully inoculate her against this. They were there as employees to the royal family and understood that the king and queen would not be best pleased if they raised the new princess to be too soft and gentle. Indeed, only her wet nurses – those who had looked after her during her infanthood – were soft and motherly. After Nakhta was weaned off of those, her care was delegated to other caregivers who were far more stern and matronly.

She had a team of three primary matrons working on a shift basis looking after her. There was a fox named Diora, an extremely dour and fierce badger named Hyacinth, and an otter named Abigail. All three had served the royalty and other members of the nobility for many years before Nakhta was born, and understood the kind of resilient, strong young child the royal family wanted. 

Nakhta’s team included other nurses too, but these were the main three.

There were a few reasons for the austere atmosphere of Nakhta’s upbringing. Chief among these was that Nakhta was a princess, so as such her carers were forbidden from punishing her physically. They had to find other ways of making their point, and these matrons found that giving Nakhta (and the other princes and princesses) ‘the eye’ if they did something wrong, or using a warning tone of voice that left the consequences to Nakhta’s already stressed and childishly exaggerated imagination, were more acceptable to the king and queen. These matrons also understood that Nakhta would live in a harsh world and needed to become familiar with it sooner rather than later; therefore they would not coddle her ‘for her own good’. The third reason for may or may not have been intentional, but if it was, then the royal family had hand-picked these matrons to set Nakhta the challenge of learning how to bend the rules subtly to get what she wanted, if she was going to try to break them at all. 

As Nakhta began to learn how to talk, her matrons and family members noticed that she had a lisp, thanks to her malformed muzzle. This became something of a focal point among her siblings, who Nakhta began to notice and recognise as their own distinct entities. Later in life, Nakhta would remember several times when her siblings used it to embarrass her into compliance. Nakhta herself hadn’t paid her own speech much attention until she began to be humiliated for it, but once the humiliation began, she started to feel the shame acutely herself. Even her parents made it clear they were displeased with the presence of her speech impediment. 

The other members of her family were in perfect physical shape, and while Nakhta took a little while to realise that this was so, once she did, she felt it to be unfair.

Despite this, once Nakhta learned to speak she talked a lot, partly due to her tendency to feel agitated easily. As a result of this she resorted to denying the existence of her speech impediment, as denying it was easier than remembering to keep quiet or obeying the implied rule of “don’t talk”.  

Control became a hot-button issue for Nakhta, although as a toddler she could not have articulated this. Instead it became a recurring issue that she was often coerced by circumstance to act in this way or not act in that way, and this made her angry. 

Her over-sensitivity to cortisol worked against her in this respect, as whenever she became stressed she felt that her body was out of control, so obeying the matrons’ rules often felt impossible. The matrons themselves were too experienced to stick to the same strategies and simply be frustrated by Nakhta’s tantrums; they found ways to make her calm down. Often these involved giving her time-out, which effectively isolated her so that there wasn’t anybody around to control her any more. So long as there was something in the room with her that she might take an interest in, she would eventually find it and distract herself. 

If the matrons expected this to teach Nakhta a lesson and make her learn to self-moderate, then they would be disappointed. However, they didn’t put too much stock in this yet, as they understood that she was a toddler and too young to be expected to be perfectly self-moderate yet. They did however keep the pressure up and not give her an easy time when she had another tantrum, as they ultimately believed that her over-reactions were learned, not inherited. 

One of the most frustrating elements of all of this for Nakhta was the way her body (at least as she saw it) betrayed her. Her matrons, mother, and siblings repeatedly tried to get her to pronounce her Ss so that she would stop lisping, but she couldn’t do it. 

Her timetable was quite rigid, but as a toddler she was not equipped to understand the concept of schedules. What she was aware of was the experience of constantly being told to “hurry up!” or that she couldn’t have a treat or meal or play-time yet, for apparently arbitrary reasons.

Ultimately, Nakhta didn’t understand why the grown-ups around her wanted to the impossible, nor why they made the demands they did. That, combined with the boogeyman that her matrons put into her head with their ‘eye’ and warning tones, made her feel afraid. If she had been asked and been able to put her fear into words then she would not have said that it was a fear of death, but of something unspoken. Unspeakable, perhaps, and all the more terrifying for it.

One element of her royal upbringing she did like, even at this age, was the clothing. As a princess, even a very young one, her clothing was lavish, and she enjoyed ‘playing’ at dress-up every day.

She cried a few times, but was quickly taught that tears were not acceptable. Diora, Hyacinth, and Abigail didn’t necessarily make her feel afraid to cry – at least, not intentionally – but they did have a few stock responses for this, including the rhyme, “Stain not your cheeks with tears of the weak”. 

Nakhta began to develop a stronger rapport with Abigail. She certainly wouldn’t have been able to articulate what it was about Abigail she liked, but Abigail ‘got’ her more than the other two. She found Diora a little more difficult to relate to: Diora was the same species as herself, and that made Nakhta feel as if she was under scrutiny with Diora that she didn’t feel with the other two matrons. She didn’t develop a particularly special bond with Hyacinth, she was just ‘there’. 

One of the reasons that the matrons imposed this ‘no tears’ rule was that this family in particular had white facial fur, which made tear-streaks more obvious than for regular foxes. To be seen in public or by one’s political enemies to have cried at an ‘inappropriate’ time (that was, any time that was not one of mourning) could be political suicide.

Ambition
(young childhood)

[Note to self: Absarren was 11 by this point; Bilba and Vilgem 8; and Berehn 6.]

Between them, the oldest siblings thought their youngest sister posed little threat to them or their career prospects. They were aware that she would probably try to build a spy network to help herself get ahead, but they didn’t think she would be effective in this and decided not to prevent this. 

This was mocked enough by the older siblings, especially Absarren, that the idea of having a spy network stuck for Nakhta. She fantasised about having one. At this stage of her life her spy network was made up entirely of imaginary friends, all of whom were deferential and completely loyal. 

The first – indeed, for a very long time, the only – real member of Nakhta’s spy network (such as it was) was Frederick, a 5 year old commoner boy. He was level-headed and polite. They first met when Frederick’s father, a banker, visited the castle. Thankfully for Nakhta, this was for regular business so his visits – and tendency to bring his son along – became a regular occurrence. 

Nakhta quickly realised that Frederick was a good listener, and came to enjoy the fact that she could do most of the talking. He was also acquiescent whenever she wanted to play. During one of these impromptu play-dates she told him about her plans for a spy-network, and she may have also acted out how she imagined that it would work while he rather sheepishly just nodded along. 

One detail that Nakhta particularly liked about Frederick was that he never told anybody about her spy-network. Of course, she couldn’t know for sure, but he (and his quietness) had made an impression on her. It didn’t hurt that she also told him not to tell anyone about her network “’cos it’s a secret”.

Other members of the royal household did not approve of this play however, so when they were caught playing they were separated, but they had enough contact that Nakhta considered Frederick a friend. Overall, Frederick felt out of his depth with her, but after a few months of this and of maturing somewhat himself, he realised that Nakhta was lonely and felt bad for her. 

Indeed, Absarren’s bullying encouraged Nakhta to think about how to get what she wanted without directly opposing him. Despite her young age she found it quite easy to come up with ideas, even if she lacked the resources to make them happen. 

By this time Nakhta had also developed a fairly firm sense of her own status. As far as she was concerned she was the most important member of the family. 

This was a self-preservation strategy on her part. She found the feeling that she was the smallest, youngest, the only member of the family to be deformed, and apparently the only one not to be able to follow orders, unbearable, so instead she convinced herself that she was special, even among the royals. This idea appealed to her and she adopted it in the long-term. Indeed, she connected this idea of importance with the regal clothing she liked so much, and began to relish the feeling of wearing her best clothes as a sort of armour.

Sometimes she would ask her matrons to prepare one of her state function dress to wear when there was no state function. 

Absarren wasn’t the only family member she began to develop a relationship with. Bilba and Vilgem also both wanted to rule, but were prone to exclusive allyship with one another. They took their cue to do this from a historical precedent of sibling co-monarchs. Bilba, despite being female, was brawny while Vilgem had a keen intelligence, especially for numbers. However, despite their action plan, they never explicitly stated between themselves that they would share power if anything happened to Absarren. 

From Nakhta’s perspective, the relationship between herself and the twins was frustrating. They were generally less interested in her than they were with each other and tended to see her as an annoying younger sister, but every now and again they would feel generous enough to be nice to her. However, Nakhta was still young enough to hold onto the hope that she would find a loving relative, and the kindness, gentleness, and patience they showed her was tantalising yet never enough, and too sporadic for her needs. 

Nakhta’s relationship with Berehn was the best out of all of her sibling relationships. He was only around six at this time but she sensed that he was quiet and thoughtful, at least compared with the others. However, he seemed to feel awkward about talking so as such she was unable to connect particularly well with him. 

All of the children, with the most frequent omission of Absarren who was being groomed for leadership even at the age of 11, liked to play ‘house’ once in a while together. It was their best bonding time, but Nakhta often found that as the youngest, she was given the least ‘important’ role.

Nakhta may have still been very young, but she was just about old enough by this time to recognise who and what she was, and to get a sense of the grandiosity of it. Her matrons and parents drew her attention to artefacts of their thousand-year long history to inspire her – or to instil in her the importance of acting like a princess. They told her about how their family hadn’t allowed any other to take their reign away from them for that long. They told her about her ancestor, Reynard, who had driven out the previous occupying empire and about the family’s greatest achievements since. Even the castle itself had been built by her ancestors and added to by them over the centuries. They had the intended impact and Nahkta came to feel the history of her family as if it leaked in through the very walls. 

For almost any other child this would be maladaptive conditioning. Certainly it began to press on her once she was aware of it, and at this age, her mind was too young to put it all into perspective. However for her, this was her situation, and the more keenly she felt the weight of her family’s history, she better she would comply. 

The stories they told her were not always sweet stories. Many involved assassinations, betrayals, and back-stabbing – sometimes literally. Because of this, not only did Nakhta come to feel burdened by her history, she began to see the potential for betrayal everywhere, including – especially – among her own family. 

Abigail helped her to regain a sense of perspective about this, at least to a point. It was not in Abigail’s interest to undo the sense of importance Nakhta had for her family, but she was able to demonstrate to Nakhta that her family was not all there was, that there were non-family members who had things to do that didn’t relate to the royal ancestry.

The matron’s fulfilment of this need meant that the king and queen kept her in their employ for a little longer. They noticed Nakhta exhibiting symptoms of anxiety and, while they didn’t particularly recognise this for what it was (and even if they did, it was not in their interest to relieve Nakhta of it entirely), they did realise that it was impacting negatively, not positively, on Nakhta. They decided to resolve this by keeping Abigail around until Nakhta began to draw strength instead of weakness from her regal station in life. Any other of the siblings may have felt humiliated to still have their nanny around, but Nakhta only felt relief to have Abigail’s support for a little bit longer.  

Abigail was kind to her but recognised that Nakhta had been groomed to feel this burdened and who was required to feel this way by her family. Indeed, she judged that it was better for Nakhta herself if she was aware of the treachery that may surround her if she were to betray or otherwise hobble her siblings, deliberately or unintentionally. For this reason, she balanced the support she provided to Nakhta carefully against the princess’ genuine need to watch her back.

One of the unspoken messages of all this was that Nakhta was not a baby any more – or at least, she wouldn’t be one for much longer and needed to prepare to leave that part of her life behind. She accepted this as it implied a level of power, which she felt she needed in order to defend herself.

The relationship that Abigail provided to Nakhta conferred several deeply important interpersonal benefits. The first was a sense of security. She made it clear she was very much above the act of ridiculing Nakhta for her lisp. She referred to it whenever necessary but never framed it as a shameful thing, only a flaw, no more, no less. Nakhta also learned that Abigail wasn’t above having small, harmless secrets that only the two of them knew. 

Another benefit was that of being accepted as she was. The business of being a princess meant that Nakhta often had to be performative for the people around her, even at this young age. Abigail saw Nakhta when the was tired, hungry, frustrated, trying and failing to deal with her lisp, and so much more, and she accepted all of it. Simply put, if Nakhta failed to look and act like a princess in front of Abigail, then there were no consequences. That isn’t to say that they didn’t practice things together, such as working on overcoming Nakhta’s lisp, but Nakhta learned that there were ‘on-duty’ hours and ‘off-duty’ hours, and during those off-duty hours, if she was with Abigail, then she could just be, rather than do.

Abigail understood that her role came with an unspoken agreement: “I am only here because your parents are paying me. I’m an adult so I am important in ways you don’t yet understand, so you do not approach me unless I’m on duty”. She understood that this had the potential to get in the way of a genuine relationship with Nakhta, so she sometimes initiated contact with Nakhta when she wasn’t at work. She would seek Nakhta out with something new and interesting – a jay’s feather, perhaps – or invite her to buy her weekly supplies. This had a dual benefit of sending Nakhta the message that their relationship was more than just transactional, she genuinely enjoyed Nakhta’s company, and of giving Nakhta more of a sense of perspective for her royal role. It got her out of the castle where she could see what life looked like outside. Nakhta loved these trips!

Abigail also found ways to express love to Nakhta. Florid expressions of love were rare in the de Renaud household and she had a professional image to maintain. However, the occasional compliment, a gentle pat on the head, a well-timed smile, and a variety of other expressions of warmth and care let Nakhta know that Abigail loved her. 

Abigail was eventually discharged from the royal employ when the king and queen decided that she was no longer needed to give Nakhta the sense of security she had been craving. Understandably, Nakhta was heart-broken, but Abigail had taught her what true personal warmth felt like, and that remained with Nakhta for the rest of her life.

Productivity
(older childhood)

[Note to self: Absarren was 14 by this point; Bilba and Vilgem 11; and Berehn 9.]

As Nakhta reached the age of 7, the rest of the household began to treat her differently. She changed too as her cognitive function began to work much more like that of an adult. From age 7 onwards they expected more of her and were prepared to push her not just to conform, but to perform. 

A few things didn’t change however. Her siblings – Absarren mostly – tested her mettle by talking down to her to see how she would react. Often enough he did this in front of other people to make it all the more humiliating for her, to goad her all the harder into reacting. Nakhta didn’t like to directly oppose anyone, not even him, and Absarren and several other members of the family and court considered this an indication of cowardice on her part.

Nakhta took comfort in her spy network, and even though it was still imaginary, imagining how she would use it to teach them a lesson was the only way she could retaliate. She made the most of this and imagined manoeuvring herself into a position of power and influence using just her network so that she wouldn’t need to directly oppose anyone.

She also liked the idea of ruling without the stresses that would go along with that. She imagined the main stresses of being queen to include the incredible number and range of details that she would need to keep track of, along with the idea of not being able to trust the nobles around her. She understood very well that being queen was like painting a target on one’s back, and she found the idea of having to constantly be on-guard stressful too. The common thread in all of this was a fear of failure.

With all of these stresses in mind, Nakhta found herself wishing for something she never had before: to be invisible. Or rather, to not be the visible one and to control all of the different things she would need to control from the anonymity of the shadows. That way, if her attempts to keep control failed then nobody would be able to see her – least of all Absarren. 

Despite all of the animosity between the siblings, Nakhta didn’t like the idea of hurting her siblings. She had learned much about love from Abigail, and plotting and backstabbing had developed a bitter taste, to her. That isn’t to say that she couldn’t see the benefit of it in a power-driven family, and she still had very strong ideas about who deserved to come to harm or even to die, but she no longer considered everybody to require suppressing by default.

When Nakhta was 10 she and her siblings were taken to watch a public hanging. Her parents did this to acclimatise them all to the idea of execution, on the basis that they would need to learn not to be squeamish about ordering executions in the future. This was a step beyond what several members of the court felt comfortable with, but Nakhta’s father insisted that it would be a growthful experience for his children on the basis that he and his brother had been take to witness executions as children, themselves. 

Despite the fact that Abigail had not been family, nor even a member of the same species as Nakhta – or perhaps because of it – at some point Nakhta made a decision that it would never be okay to hurt a member of her biological family. [I wonder if her reasoning for this was that she can see that her family could absolutely devolve into a fury of mutual betrayal and backstabbing with little provocation, and she just wishes it didn’t have to be like that. Surely she must wish that she could have had more of the kind of ‘family’ she had with Abigail? One way of creating that for herself is to refuse to continue the dynamic in her family, and ideally to encourage the others to turn their backs on it too. Reckon I’m near the mark, here?] That sounds like it, absolutely – she could easily see the cycle she’d learned about repeating itself, siblings turning on each other in a massive power squabble that left everyone dead or isolated from each other. Pointless tragedy, no matter how you looked at it, and she longed for a family group that actually expressed love for each other and didn’t need to undermine each other’s efforts at every turn. That didn’t mean she was going to take bullying lying down, as noted below, but she’d much rather try and encourage nonviolent solutions. (If that made her appear weaker still and less of a threat, well, that wasn’t totally a bad thing – they’d still underestimate her and be less likely to initiate said fury of violence with her, at least.)

However, Nakhta was still in a rather powerless position when it came to enforcing the kind of safety and security Abigail had impressed on her, so she used (or more often, imagined using) the tools at her disposal. Her (still almost entirely imagined) spy-network was such a tool. With that, she imagined she would be able to quell rebellions and learn of strikes against her before they could happen, and when she thought that, she felt safer. In her mind, she would quell acts against her, not by killing her family, not by hurting them, but by taking them down a peg or two. Or three.

Nakhta continued to believe that she was the most important one in the household, and that becoming an influential figure would prove that. Growing into an older child added a new dimension to this: she wanted to be active and to prove her superiority by doing something. However, being the youngest of so many siblings and with roles assigned to everyone but her – Absarren was the future king, the twins were probably going to fight oversees (and who knows, become generals?), and Berehn had an affinity for religious studies that made their parents joke that perhaps he would enter the clergy. Nakhta had no such role assigned to her, and that gave her no way of proving herself. 

She found this so unbearable that she created her own belief that she had no role because her importance was self-evident.

Nakhta may have had no royal role but she was educated in a few skills that would be considered appropriate for her: sewing, dance, etiquette, calligraphy, and history. 

She was required to read long and complex histories and genealogies of the rulers of various kingdoms. This quickly became boring to her and she hated having to recite her own and her siblings’ history, and that of the other important folk around her. 

Thankfully for Nakhta, not all of the reading was dull. A few of those figures in her history books had been written about in more exciting terms. Whenever she got fed up of reading the dustier material, or became too anxious about the judgement she imagined from all of those high-achieving ancestors of hers, she would turn to these stories instead. 

She enjoyed reading about Markrin II, who had defeated a foreign invasion that had briefly occupied Vulland’s eastern shores. She also enjoyed Queen Aalredta, who had held the kingdom together during a civil war. 

From here, Nakhta developed a passion for fictional works. Most of these consisted of song cycles, but during this time of Vulland’s history a new type of work called the ‘novel’ had begun to develop popularity. She began to read novels, which were generally above the reading level usually prescribed to somebody of her age. She developed a broader vocabulary thanks to these. 

The novels also left her with a tendency to think in terms of narratives, and of the cause and effect that moved narratives along. This combined with her paranoia about her family and encouraged her to reinforce and further develop her unhealthy preoccupation with who was doing – or planning – what behind her back.

Child to Adult Transition
(adolescence)

[Note to self: Absarren was 21 by this point; Bilba and Vilgem 18; and Berehn 16.]

[You said, “It was hard for Nakhta to leave behind childhood, admittedly. She still hasn’t completely to the present day, tending to prefer old habits and companions to anything new.” It sounds like she hasn’t resolved something in childhood. I’ll watch out for clues about what, and will keep this comment in situ as a reminder to myself to make a point of this.]

and to put Berehn into the clergy to thus remove him from succession.  Berehn actually took to religious studies at a young age, becoming very zealous and renouncing political struggles, which unfortunately alienated him from Nakhta, despite her attempts to get close to him as the closest in age. (The religious structure of Anochism is similar to that of Roman Catholicism, though the actual religion is different in tenets.) 

[I’m interested in your comment here: “The nobles and others she mingled with seemed to accept her as at least a functional and reasonable member of the royal family, too childish and petty to be a ruler but at least not embarrassing herself in public too often.” Especially in light of the previous comment about her feeling she hasn’t finished her childhood properly yet. I’d expect someone who isn’t done with being a child to be insecure, and therefore to appear fickle or over-reactive to real or imagined slights, which is in sharp contrast to being reasonable. Would you say that she mostly absorbed her angry feelings and did her best to appear mature and level-headed, or was she unreasonable but also appeared to lack the power to do anybody any real damage?] Oh, she was certainly insecure and bristled quite a bit if insulted, but given how overwhelmed she was emotionally and obviously unprepared, the nobles thought she was (as they preferred) mostly a danger to herself. This was someone who they thought could be used, possibly by feeding her false information through the network of informants she was continuing to try and cultivate—her “special diplomatic service”, as she liked to refer to it. “Teasonable” I meant here meaning “unlikely to destabilize the kingdom”. Not that she wasn’t trying to be a good queen, to be fair and regal, it was just that her emotions tended to get the better of her at least initially. (The story of how she overcame that is going to be a major part of what I end up writing. It’ll involve a major crisis and those nobles and their scheming.)

[What does she admire about her father? Same question for her opinion of her siblings.] Aside from more frequently making time for her and seeming willingness to actually listen, Gattrem was a man who knew how to make tough choices and did so without hesitation or regret. He was decisive, in other words, and even if unexpected consequences reared their heads he was able to pivot and take advantage of the situation, being flexible. (What Nakhta doesn’t know, or at least doesn’t believe, is that he also arranged the murder of his elder brother when he first came to the throne, much earlier [he had children late in life], but this was to prevent said brother from launching an ill-advised war. People eventually got over their dislike of the deed, but they believe, like father, like daughter.) Her siblings all make her angry in their own way despite her love for them. Absarren never lets her forget her place as the youngest, and mocks her for her lisp, her size, her bookishness, her need for praise—really, anything to remind her how they’re not on equal footing, and so she’s stopped trying to impress him. Instead, she’s thought of him as someone she has to be as good as even if she won’t be the queen…while secretly hoping that he’d come to her to repent everything and they’d make up. Bilba, a big sister and possible feminine role model, instead chose to be physical and strong, not unheard of in Vulland but uncommon among the noble class. Still Nakhta admires her strength and sheer determination, though her more forthright bluntness contrasts with Nakhta’s preferred manipulation and verbal self-glorification. Vilgem is careful and diligent with money and keeping accountable, but she’s unimpressed with his flip-flopping of allegiances at the first sign of danger. Both of them also regularly join in taunting her. Berehn is an especially frustrating case, because she tried multiple times to bond with him, only to get mostly ignored; not taunted or warned, like the others, but given the cold shoulder by someone who’s channelling youthful energy into intense religious study.

[You mentioned that she’s intelligent, which admittedly isn’t the same as knowledgeable, but can you tell me what she did to impress people with her intelligence?] Most people don’t doubt that she’s sharp, only whether she’s stable. Just for a couple of examples… She’s actually written a fair amount of commentary on histories in the course of her studies, but more dramatically she would often be with her father when he presided at trials on special judgement days in the capital (a Vullish tradition). Also by tradition, the royals are allowed, if not entirely encouraged, to chime in with their own opinions to try and sway the king, and she was often quick to spot lies based on factual errors. Kind of a petty thing to do, but she was also hoping to impress her father as usual, hoping to get an acknowledgement of how bright she was to have noticed these things. (Also, it was a chance to get outside the castle, which she didn’t often do.)

[You mentioned that Nakhta feels overwhelmed by the thought of running a whole country. She ends up having to do that anyway of course, but I wonder whether there’s anything more to explore about her feelings of overwhelm. Was she not given the same grooming for the role as her older siblings (perhaps just Absarren), or did she get the same grooming but got the occasional talking-to from one or another of her siblings to damage her self-confidence and convince her not to want the role? This sounds like something a competitive older sibling might do.] It was always assumed that she would at most be marrying the younger sibling of a noble or someone similar and at most managing that household. She was never properly groomed, no, that went to primarily Absarren and to some extent Vilgem as the ‘spare to the throne’. They still liked to encourage her to remember her place—above everyone else, but least among equals, so to speak, and to not think of ever trying to become the sole ruler. The death of her family, aside from the sheer grief, also left her in a panic realizing that she was now responsible for everything else with only advisors around to help – and who knew if she could trust them?

[So how were things between Nakhta and the twins. From this, I’m guessing that they felt invincible since they both share an implied belief that each has the other’s back, and Absarren seems to be more bullish. While I may be wrong about this, I’m sensing that the twins’ response to Nakhta would be cool and perhaps aloof, as they may not feel a need to worry about her. One reason I may be wrong about this – at least for now – is that they’re only between the ages of 8 and 11, so they may not be particularly ‘into’ their role as monarchs-to-be yet and may be more inclined to play and be friendly. What are your thoughts?] At this young of an age, there wasn’t quite the divide between the younger siblings that there would be when they were all older, but they still paid less attention to the annoying little sister than to each other. Not a hostile relationship, and they actually did manage to find time now and then to be nice to her, but the kind of emotional closeness Nakhta’s always seeking wasn’t really there. It seems like her complicated relationship of love/frustration would make sense if it was partly born of such mixed signals.

Absarren, who had a high degree of charm, tried more than once to suggest that Bilba should be sent to the continent to strengthen diplomacy there [I can work this in, but it sounds like something that may happen later, given everyone’s ages at this time. Would you say it’s something that happens later, or are the siblings generally already quite aware of their mutual politics?], Yeah, you may be right that this goes into the wrong section – Absarren was always thinking ahead, but perhaps not THAT far ahead in practical terms. The king probably wouldn’t tolerate interference at that point anyway; an 11-14-year-old he could still keep firmly controlled.  For his part Vilgem vacillated on his attempts to muscle into the throne, all but saying he would accept Absarren’s primacy whenever things looked difficult for him, much to the aggravation of the aggressive Bilba. 

Closeness in Relationships
(young adulthood)

[Note to self: Absarren was 27 by this point; Bilba and Vilgem 24; and Berehn 22.]

[Note to self: Nakhta kills her siblings at age 20 when Absarren was 29 by this point; Bilba and Vilgem 26; and Berehn 24.]

Abigail was still alive, and one of Nakhta’s first actions as queen was to provide her favourite matron with economic assistance – and only her, several people noticed. However, Nakhta couldn’t quite bear to invite Abigail to visit her. She feared that Abigail would suspect her of terrible deeds, and she did not want to taint the warm memories she had of Abigail with that.

[the matrons] did tell her moralistic fairy tales when the king and queen weren’t watching, but observation of actions spoke louder than her nurses’ words, and either way she was keen to not be seen as a baby anymore. (As queen, if any of them [the matrons] are still alive, she intends to reward them for their efforts, though, because she has a sense of loyalty to anyone she thinks really meant her well.)

[Re: stresses of ruling: when she got older she fleshed these opinions out to having to try and decide which of various competing and difficult options for trade, government, military activity etc. (if any) were the best…and as mentioned below, there was the nagging sensation that she might just fail if she tried. Fail, and let down her country and her family and her bloodline. But she’s also, she thinks, at her best when she’s not visible as the one giving the orders and just pulling the social strings to achieve the desired result, which leaves her more or less free to sit back and enjoy a royal life while having a lot of political capital and not directly acting against theoretical King Absarren. A power behind, or adjacent to, the throne.

Passing on Responsibilities
(older adulthood)
Sooner or later (the specifics have yet to be worked out), Nakhta did become a parent despite her multiple misgivings on the subject of romance. She could have remained a virgin and let overseas relatives continue the dynasty from their own distant branches, but becoming a mother appealed to her – mostly because she got the opportunity to do things right, spending equal time, love and praise on her own children and making sure they didn’t fight. Most who saw this were amazed that she actually could love someone other than herself so purely.

End of Life
(old age)
By the time she reached old age, it was all but certain that her reign would be one that would be vividly remembered for a very long time afterward, and nothing could please her more. Not that she was ever extremely restrained in humility, but she in old age became a grande dame who had no misgivings about taking credit for many of the great events of the decades she ruled, while downplaying the dangers and threats to her rule. Surrounded at last by family who would pay attention to her and love her, she was as satisfied as she could possibly be.

Credits

Based on theory by: 
Erikson, E., (1951) 'Childhood and Society', W.W. Norton & Company, Inc. chapter 7. 

Nakhta de Renaud is © Occam
Artwork by Jamilsart and badroy and used with their kind permission. Sounds good, but if it’s specifically a headshot you want, here’s an additional one that might work (by AustinPikachao on Twitter)! https://www.furaffinity.net/view/34884707/ [Thanks for pointing this one out! The issue with that is that my headshots are circular so if an anthro character’s ear-tips are right at the top of the image (like Nakhta’s is in that picture) then I have to choose between having a colourless section at the top or cropping the tips of her ears, neither of which look great. I usually pick an image to make into a headshot based on how flattering the image is and how many Faves it got, so I know people already like it.] That’s a fair point! Hmm, I’m not sure I have any good ones for headshots that don’t end at her ear tips…
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