literature

STARLESS Character Profiles: The Tyrant Empress

Deviation Actions

A-viewer's avatar
By
Published:
400 Views

Literature Text

Grand Empress Miura l’Veir

 

Gender: Female

Race: Aija

Height: 5’9”

Weight: 130

Hair Color/Type: Silver-white/Straight, extends to mid-back

Eye Color: Jade green

Skin Tone/Features: Pale

Handedness: Right

Age: 347

Nationality: Altair

Occupation: Enchantrix, Grand Empress of Altair

Languages: Altairian

Magic Type: Innate (Enchantrix)

 

The l’Veir royal family has a very long history—existing before the formation of the Empire itself and rising to prominence well over a thousand years ago, they have ruled the territory virtually unopposed. Miura’s ancestors were all known for their innate magical proficiency, particularly in the realm of mental control and illusions, and she was no exception. Born over three hundred years ago to previous Empress Nirva l’Veir, Miura was quickly spotlighted as an enchantrix of incredible might and eventually became the longest-ruling Empress in Altairian history. 

Uncomfortable with being stuck in her mother’s shadow, Miura even in her childhood lusted for rule. A near perfect sociopath, her coldly self-absorbed personality was bred by a combination of Altair’s eugenic philosophy and royal entitlement; she had complete disdain for slaves, the Imperial Guard and even some members of her own family including her five half-sisters. At the age of eight, she thought nothing of mentally forcing slaves to kill themselves if they displeased her, or even for her own amusement. She secretly hated her mother, hiding her feelings and superlative ability behind a thin layer of feigned deference.

For her part Nirva was emotionally hardened and condescending to her children, disappointed by the fact that in over eighty years of life, she was unable to produce a daughter that was capable of surpassing her level. She grossly underestimated Miura until young adulthood—then eventually realized that the murderous scion saw her merely as an obstacle to power. Nirva recognized that her youngest daughter’s loyalty was a façade and secretly tried to kill her with poison before Miura got to her first. As Miura’s powers were so great that almost none of her mother’s thoughts could be safely concealed from her, these efforts failed.

Finally having had enough of her meddling Miura turned Nirva’s own Imperial Guard against her. Imprisoning and torturing the aged regent for several months until she complied with her daughter’s will, Miura allowed her mother to return to the throne a scarred and brutalized husk of her former self. Broken in both body and mind, Nirva died three years later and Miura at age thirty-four wrested the crown from her still warm hands. Once firmly in control of the Empire, she had all of her half-sisters rounded up, brought before her and brutally executed one by one to prevent further attempts on her life and savor the pain of her hated relations in the process.

With the rest of her potential competition out of the way and her future as Empress permanently secured, Miura wielded her dominus on a virtually unprecedented scale. No previous human regent had ever directly exerted their authority over more of their own populace, and on such a comprehensive level. Every male subject—already reduced to involuntary servitude due to the authoritarian nature of Altair’s culture—was rendered a near-mindless slave with no sense of self, and even lesser enchantrix with their substantial mental defenses were still compelled to obey her whims. The slave revolts once fairly commonplace under previous rulers were made almost nonexistent, and as Miura’s grip tightened even further Altairians would develop a level of fanatical devotion to the youngest l’Veir. Though a few pockets of ambivalence towards her rule remained, a cult of personality gradually replaced Altair’s extreme nationalism and commitment to empire.

But the Grand Empress was not satisfied with this. Now that she had conquered all in her wake, Miura realized that she was alone at the top, with no one to succeed her. For over thirty years she sought out many mating partners within the Imperial Guard and elsewhere to provide her with offspring, yet every attempt was unsuccessful. Believing she was infertile, Miura began to feel despair and loneliness gnawing at her mind for the first time in her life.

At the age of seventy-eight and after numerous tries Miura was finally bearing child. Giving birth to a single boy she named Vailes, the Empress enthusiastically took to nurturing her offspring. Ignoring the decades of anti-male sentiment instilled in her, she saw the new child as a flawless outgrowth of her royal lineage and spent countless hours with him—the first and last person Miura ever truly loved. However her son did not share that adoration. Unbeknownst to Miura, below his innocent face and scrawny frame laid a burning hatred for all—the Empire, his mother, even himself.

This deep loathing would not come to the surface until nearly thirty years after his birth. Taking advantage of Miura’s affections and her seeming inability to read his true nature, Vailes quietly engineered a coup. He managed to convince several high-ranking mages he had carnal relations with to form a murder pact, with the eventual goal of installing himself as Altair’s first Emperor. Finally springing the trap at the Empress’ centennial ceremony in the streets of the capital city, the cabal of mages attacked only to be instantly brought to heel and murdered at the hands of an infuriated Miura. Fearing retribution for his betrayal Vailes fled the Empire in great haste, setting off for the wastelands to the north. Miura ordered the Guard to scour the Empire for months looking for her runaway son, to no avail.

Driven to the brink of insanity with anguish and fury from her son’s treason, Miura became even more horrifying in her tyranny. Over the course of the next decade she ordered numerous inquisitions within the ranks of her highest mages, weeding out and neutralizing anyone she doubted the loyalty of—even close friends of the l’Veir family. She did this while marshalling even greater concentration of her magic, controlling her subjects’ daily lives—hundreds of thousands in number—to the minutest degree. Even the mere thought of dissent would trigger a horribly painful demise.

Eventually this level of exertion would prove to be too much even for her, and after temporarily burning out her faculties Miura withdrew. Encircled by various mental barriers and her own Imperial Guard, she could afford the years of solitude without fearing for her rule. In isolation Miura spent much time poring over the translated histories of ancient ashenaja society. Her mind still unstable and twisted beyond even its normal state, drawing reference to the various esoteric accounts the Empress deluded herself into believing that she would usher in the final era of humanity—the so-called Starless Aeon—in which she would eclipse the world with her power for all eternity. Immortal reign became Miura’s sole destiny and birthright.

Thus convinced of her own supremacy, Miura returned to the light of day thirty years after her cloistering a changed ruler. Still oppressive but not nearly as invasive, the Empress could afford to keep vigil over her people with a lighter touch. Instead of seeing any power besides her own as a threat, she chose to consolidate and place it under her own command. Using the enchantrix, illusionists and pyromancers in the land as her instruments, she assembled an elite order that would be solely dedicated to her while seeking out and training acolytes in the advanced development of their aptitudes. It would also reach outside the realm of Altair to undermine and disrupt the city-states that lay beyond its mountains, the eventual goal being the collapse of all other human societies into a single totalitarian state ruled solely by magic. 

So was the way of the Empire for nearly two centuries. The Grand Empress continued her reign unopposed while the nascent Order of the Starless Aeon loosed its increasingly potent mages upon the world. The last century saw the birth of the most powerful human beings in history, and they only grew stronger with time. Miura herself masterminded a number of conspiracies within the nations of Rigel and Porrima, reaching out to her agents telepathically. Once completely isolated from any news of foreign powers, Altair was steadily gaining knowledge and striking out at any weak points it could ascertain, its enemies blissfully unaware of its presence. 

But its ruler was also oblivious to the shadow that was approaching. During the period of open conflict between Tyl and Rigel, a new threat was making itself known to the most perceptive members of the Order—a silent, crushing weight bearing down on them. Yet the Empress was too involved with ruling her vast domain to be bothered with ephemeral notions of doom, and dismissed these reports out of hand. By the time she could sense the vaguely familiar presence that brought terror and death to Altair it was too late.

As the tremendously powerful figure descended from the mountains, endlessly muttering dark incantations that twisted Miura’s loyal subjects into its own abominable army of fiends and slaves, the once-unflappable Empress entered a state of panic. Throwing every mage in the Order at the new foe, Miura soon found her forces completely overwhelmed. Her grasp of military strategy was enfeebled by her Empire’s centuries of stagnant isolation, and in the face of the new threat only the most committed of her followers were able to muster any kind of offense. Though many ranks of monsters fell to the high mages, their numbers seemed inexhaustible and as the Imperial Guard stood in a final defense of the Empress, the Order’s few survivors fled into the wilderness with the beastmen closely trailing. 

Crazed as she become slowly aware of the dark mage’s true identity, Miura herself confronted the being as it entered the palace, covered head to toe in the blood of the dead sentries. The subsequent attack saw Miura’s aged body quickly rendered useless by the intruder’s magic and her latent potency completely severed from her. Finally meeting an ignominious death after more than three hundred years, the fallen Empress’ last thoughts were of her traitorous son’s long awaited return—and how she still loved him.

An enchantrix like no other, Miura’s feats largely speak for themselves. She could compel virtually anyone to do her bidding without saying a word—though some wills took slightly more focus than others. Not even the mental defenses of the strongest mages in the Order were enough to hold her influence completely at bay. In addition, she could exert that sway over any given number of subjects in a very wide area of effect—some estimates put the radius at over three hundred miles—with minimal strain. She could maintain this dominus field indefinitely while simultaneously using her numerous other abilities, including acts of telepathy with a defined range well outside her empire (as long as the other participants had a direct link to her).

Miura’s powers both offensive and defensive were no less refined. She could temporarily sever other mages from their own latent potency by utilizing a mental block; torture and kill by causing seizures, constricting windpipes and even stopping hearts; wipe victims’ memories and create new ones; understand any spoken aija language through simple mind-reading; and even predict the future actions of others down to the smallest details, albeit only in the very short term. Unlike other mages of the l’Veir family, Miura had no particular aptitude for glamours or similar trickery; but this did not stop her from dispelling even the most convincing illusions virtually at will.

As with many advanced mages of her line and others, Miura had great command over restorative magic though she almost never needed to use it. She was developed enough in the skill that by age fifty not even the poisons popularly used for assassination would be able to kill her outright; though it would require altered mental focus in order to purge the toxins from her blood. Along with sheer force of will Miura had a vast resistance to pain and was almost completely immune to any forms of interrogation or torture. Most injuries inflicted would begin to repair themselves straightaway, but as she aged the process of healing fully took longer.

Despite a lifespan several times greater than a normal human’s, Miura’s physical aging was slowed in the extreme thanks to her immense latent potency. At the time of Vailes’ birth, she appeared to be only approaching her late thirties; and while her hair was completely white by the end of her reign, she had no obvious signs of decrepitude. Her ears adopted their pointed appearance sometime after her forty-third birthday; and her glowing jade-green eyes and permanent silvery aura both manifested approximately a century after that. When at the peak of her power, the aura became nearly blinding in its intensity. Typical of Altairian high mages Miura prided herself in her youthful appearance and elegant dress, and often attenuated her more exotic features with jewelry—a rare luxury in Altair.   

Miura’s true legacy was one of narcissism, distrust, cruelty and mania; yet even after her fall she still had followers within the dissolved Order who preferred to recall her unsurpassed might, poise, wisdom and dignity. For better or worse Miura did unite her people under one banner; and any crime and social upheaval was nearly eliminated during her reign (the nations that Altair tampered with obviously cannot say the same). Nonetheless, Miura’s rule ended in the complete destruction of the Altairian Empire and was a direct factor in the filling of its destabilizing power vacuum with something far more odious and destructive.

Comments0
Join the community to add your comment. Already a deviant? Log In