Octavia Primus

Name:
Octavia Lunara Primus

Birthplace:
Corvin Castle, city of Ravenfel, country of Corvallis

Gender:
Female

Species/Origin:
Human

Social Standing:
Royal princess, theoretically in line for the throne

Nicknames:
Tavi, Mouse, Little Moon, Princess, her Highness, Finch (formerly)

Language:
Corvallian (Other languages added as needed per RP)

Family:
King Marius Primus (Father)
Crown Prince Marcus Primus (Brother, oldest)
Prince Marius Primus II (Brother, middle child)
Queen Mother Ophelia Primus (Grandmother)

Height:
5'2"

Weight:
7.5 stone

Hair:
Raven-black, long

Eyes:
Left eye is midnight blue, right eye is violet but with a blown pupil

Limb Dexterity:
Very quick and dexterous with her fingers, but a little clumsy with her body

Complexion:
Blue-blooded pale

Typical Clothing/Equipment:
Almost always clothed in chin-to-wrist-to-floor Corvallian courtly dress, on the Primus royal colors

Personality/Attitude:
Soft spoken, fearful, anxious, but also fiery, stubborn, and willful when put under pressure. Two sets of rumors swirl about her, including a singular event in her past

Skills/Talents:
Sewing, reading, writing, languages, cartography, drawing, book learning

Favorites/Likes:
Quiet, music, tea, books, lemons, roses, new foods, spiced cakes and cookies, sunset, late nights, sunrise, and the moon, her grandmother

Most Hated/Dislikes:
Her father and brothers, violence, loud noises, wine, horses, "heavy" foods, crowds, heat, bright sun

Goals/Ambitions:
Surviving, protecting and providing for the Corvallian people, learning to garden well

Strengths:
Strong willed, clever, stubborn, quiet and soft spoken, a peaceful voice, intelligent, good at standing her ground even when terrified, surprisingly sneaky, well educated

Weaknesses:
Anxious, fearful, naïve, physically small and weak, partial deafness and poor vision on the right side, borderline frail, has trouble making herself heard, doesn't eat enough, sunburns easily, low iron.

Fears:
Men, especially large men, angry men, violence, upset animals, sexual violence

Hobbies/Interests:
Reading, gardening, learning

Regular Routine:
Left to her own devices, Octavia will wake up before well dawn, sleep from late morning to mid-afternoon, wake again until early evening, sleep a few more hours, then spend the late night hours awake. She rarely gets her way, however.

Philosophy of Life:
Do what you can, do your best.

Attitude Toward Death:
Is afraid of death, but not terrified of it as she is other things

Religion/Beliefs:
Devout to the Corvallian religion

Fetishes/Strange Behaviors:
Will wring her hands when nervous or anxious, known to turn the left side of her face to see or hear better, or squint her right eye, will chew her hair if it's not kept out of her face. Will sing to herself, but only if completely alone and only late at night

Most Instructive/Painful/Memorable Experience:
She doesn't like to talk about it

Sexual Preference/Experience/Values:
Virgin and almost painfully naive about it all.

Education/Special Training:
Extensively: reading, writing, manners, economics, languages, music, singing (abandoned)
Less extensively: agriculture, botany, medicine, cooking, cartography, and engineering

Place/Type of Residence:
Corvin Castle in Ravenfel, capital city of Corvallis

Occupation:
Princess, political chess piece

Place of Work:
Corvin Castle and sometimes out in the city

Work-related Skills:
Observant, oft-overlooked, has good deductive reasoning, genuinely loves her people

In most cases, the presence of Princess Octavia Primus was almost an afterthought. So short that she usually was only taller than children, and sometimes not even then, she was also thin to the point of being frail. Clearly physically weak and so porcelain-pale that the blue veins of her neck and cheeks could be seen, garbed in stifling dresses usually very quiet and consigning herself to the background when in public, it was easy to overlook her meek and modest personage. If one truly looked at her, however, Octavia could be found to be an unusual beauty.
Raven-dark hair so black that it was almost blue would have fallen to her waist or beyond if not tightly bound up in complex and severe braids and buns designed to keep it very strictly in line with the exacting demands of her appearances in the royal court, but also very oddly coiffed to ensure that her entire right ear and the area around it were hidden.
Possessing a 'dainty' nose and sharp chin with a surprisingly strong jawline from the combined inheritance of both her father and late mother, the two most striking features on her face were inherited individually from her parents. Her full lips were almost as if they'd been copied straight from King Primus's face, but where his were hard and twisted to the point of cruelness, Octavia's were softer and stood out in crimson against her pale skin, although almost fixed into a dour frown.
Her other feature, and easily the most outstanding and potentially captivating, were her eyes. Large and incredibly expressive, the Princess's eyes spoke volumes about Octavia herself. Midnight blue eyes were the hallmark of the Primus royal family, and at first glance hers appeared to conform with her father and brothers. If anyone was able to get near enough to actually look closely, however, it would be revealed that her eyes were actually heterochromatic, the right one had turned violet at some point, a fact that inadvertently hidden by the fact that the pupil was permanently dilated particularly wide, confining the deviating purple hue to a thin ring that resisted discovery by most scrutiny.
Very proper and courtly dresses covering her from her chin to her wrists and all the way to the floor are the only things that Octavia has been seen in public wearing, and always in the dark colors of the royal family, combined with her almost ghostly skin, a perpetual frown that turned politely pleasant at best, and her large eyes that only ever seemed to show fear, anxiety, or sadness, it was very easy to see how the princess had earned the cruelly given nickname of 'Mouse', appearing as if a hard look would bruise her and send her running.

On the day that Crown Prince Marcus Primus was born, bells were rung all throughout the kingdom of Corvallis.
On the day the Prince Marius Primus II was born, even more bells were rung, having been commissioned the day that it was determined that Queen Aurelia was pregnant.
On the day that Princess Octavia Primus was born, no bells were rung, because she was born a girl, and King Marius had no time or interest in a daughter.

Despite such a cool reception into the world, Octavia (or Tavi as she was affectionately known as by her mother and grandmother) grew up bright, charming, beautiful, and most of all willful. She travelled the kingdom with Queen Aurelia and sometimes the former Queen Ophelia as they did their duties, learning from her mother, learning sewing and embroidery and arts and sciences and what Court would be like, but she also learned the land, her land, the people inside of it, her people, and most importantly she learned to love them. She helped farmers bring in their fields on the sunny plains, had ate lunch on the ground with the hardscrabble miners in the frigid mountains, packed barrels with fishermen, and even helped birth a calf.
The adventures of her youth came to an end the winter after she turned nine. In the dark hours of the night, one of her maidservants woke her with terrible news: According to the King, Queen Aurelia had drank too much wine and fallen down the spiral staircase within her private tower. No one contradicted him, for the staircase was steep and tricky to navigate if one had had too much to drink, and because his word was law.
From then on Ophelia, the queen dowager and King Marius's own mother, stepped in. Rather than traveling the countryside, the vast majority of Octavia's time was spent in Covin Castle and the capital city of Ravenfel. Her studies became more cerebral than practical, her grandmother reasoning that Octavia had already learned the value of the physical lessons and now focused on honing the young princess's mind. Music, math, economics, trade, the sciences behind the agriculture and engineering she'd seen in her youth, and geography became the daily de regueur. It was during this time that it was discovered that Octavia had a very particular talent with languages, learning them so quickly that she could become conversant in weeks and fluent within months of being exposed to a new language.
Octavia also started attending Court once she was old enough, getting to know the nobles that called her father their liege, meeting the lords and merchants that owned the lands and ships she'd spent time around as a child. She learned of the relationships that Corvallis had with its neighbors, how friendly the borders were, and who the generals were that protected those borders. And over time, Octavia learned that her mother hadn't spent so much time traveling with her just to teach her about the kingdom. The princess learned that her father was a tyrant, cold and cruel, and that she had been protected during her youth. She even learned a rumor that her father had been present in the tower with her mother the night of that fatal fall, and that they'd been arguing. Octavia was still her mother's daughter. She still remembered the lessons and love she'd learned from and for her people, and that being silent for the moment didn't mean being silent forever. And one day when she was sixteen the petite princess, known for being as willful and wild as she was beautiful and clever, had heard enough and stood up an roared to protect her people.
Very little known fact was known for about the aftermath of her public defiance. In the silence follower her declaration, the exact words of which are now long lost to history and rumor, King Marius commanded that everyone who was not his child vacate the throne room, from guard to servant to the most senior nobleman. Left alone with her father and brothers, all imposing men and Marcus being truly enormous, little Octavia stood her ground, digging her heels in stubbornly when her father demanded that she recant her words and apologize. With arctic callousness, Marius instructed his oldest child to teach his youngest what he though of such defiance and disrespect coming from a woman, even his own daughter. With a single blow, the hulking Crown Prince backhanded Octavia, his mailed fist striking the right side of the princess's head like a mace.

By some divine miracle, Octavia woke up some weeks later, but quickly became apparent that she had changed. Her body had wasted to waifishness, her vision had changed and bright lights hurt her right eye which had also turned colors, and her right ear had been all but obliterated by the blow, but mourned most by those who knew her well was what had changed to the once wild princess. Fear cowered and anxiety trembled where once naïve bravery had stood. Violence, or even the implication of it, was enough to start her shaking. It was eventually revealed that the princess held a phobia of men, almost any man but especially large men, and most especially of her family. Her dress and demeanor changed to avoid attention, and she wore her hair to cover her ruined ear and the scars around it. Her education continued, albeit quietly, and she quickly grew pale from avoiding the sun.
Not all was lost from Aurelia's daughter, however. Despite being called "Mouse" by her father and brothers for her newfound behaviors, the princess was still willful, still stubborn, and still held a deeply abiding love for her people. Although she never again whispered a word to her family about their tyranny, she still did what she could to help, using every bit of limited access she had to beg for tax reprieves when she heard they were needed, or to lighten levies so that families could raise their children better, or even just to keep soldiers in line when they were not on duty. She was often ignored outright and usually scoffed at for her tremulous pleas, but every once in a while she was able to do some measure of good.