Odile Shahrizai de Cantacuzène
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Fullname: |
Anthémis Vespertine Odile Shahrizai de Cantacuzène |
Played by: |
Gal Gadot |
Gender: |
Female |
Age: |
36 |
Birthdate: |
May 11, 1276 |
Class: |
Noble |
House: |
Kantakouzenos |
Occupation: |
Lady Refugee |
Province: |
None |
Country: |
Hellas (or Terre d'Ange?) |
Parents: |
The late duc Shahrizai and his duchesse |
Siblings: |
An elder brother, the present duc Shahrizai; possibly some younger ones as yet undefined |
Marital Status: |
Married to Ioannis Kantakouzenos |
Children: |
Three |
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Known Information
Odile is the daughter of one Shahrizai duc and the nearest sister of another.
At the age of nineteen she was married to a prominent Hellenic nobleman, Ioannis Kantakouzenos. The heir to his own ancient line, whose members boast descent from great rulers of the past, he was also via his royal mother the first cousin once removed of the Princess Penelope of Hellas, who had a year before become the Dauphine of Terre d’Ange and who reigns now alongside King Léopold Ganelon de la Courcel as his anointed Queen. This match arranged for long-term Shahrizai advantage was by all accounts a successful one, producing three children along with a gratifying increase in the wealth of the families it joined. The Kantakouzenoi in particular grew from strength to strength and reaffirmed their place as the leading noble family of Hellas, controlling an extensive network of power and patronage and trade with tendrils extending throughout the court and over the middle sea.
Then, in the spring of 1312, they met the eventual fate of all vassals who wax too powerful: their old rivals, the Phokas, who had long desired to take them down a peg or two, persuaded a newer, younger King of Hellas to break the power of the Kantakouzenoi and confiscate their assets. Ioannis Kantakouzenos was seized, and all three children. His wife narrowly escaped the same fate, being warned just in time to flee aboard her personal yacht to her family in Terre d’Ange.
Odile spent several months in the City of Elua, where she was joyously reunited with her brother Gauvain after seventeen years apart.
With his aid she began to petition Queen Penelope to ply her influence for the freedom of her unfortunate cousins: a man whose only crimes were to love his family too much and to be rewarded too well for his service to the crown, and his three children too young even to understand what had befallen their family, let alone to be culpable in it.
Then, leaving the Elua side of the matter in the duc's capable hands, she came south to Marsilikos, from where she can better monitor the situation in Hellas — and be all the sooner reunited with her husband and children when (if) they should be free.
Background
Inspiration
In the sleek, square-shouldered frame of Odile Shahrizai de Cantacuzène, the athleticism of a lifelong horsewoman and occasional sailor is mellowed by feminine softness and grace. Her lovely face has still the rounded cheeks and the dewy complexion of youth, with only the self-possession in her sapphire eyes (and the faint creases beneath them) betraying the maturity of a woman in her fourth decade of life. Her blue-black hair falls halfway down her back when it isn’t put up, either simply in the moment with pins from her pocket, or laboriously by her maid in a formal Hellenic style. Her particular angelic lineage is unmistakable to the initiated; but she seems to have seen more sunshine than others of that ancient and storied clan, and to have captured some of it in her smile.
Quirks:
- Charming Chameleon: To be at ease and to seduce one’s company is no more than one would expect of a Shahrizai and a scion of Kushiel; but Odile possesses also a gift for reinvention and rebirth, and for adapting herself intuitively to the changes of circumstances she has faced in her life. Indeed, she has a suitable exterior ready for any occasion.
- Political Refugee: And she’ll surely need a new one now, as she leaves behind the life, the family, the luxury, and the power she enjoyed in Hellas, to return to the land of her birth in a haste and a poverty diametrically opposed to the splendour of her bridal journey. Is she home now? Or is home a place to which she can never return? What of her Hellene family’s assets can she claim? When can she hope to see her children again? The situation is murky; until petitions at two courts should chance to bear fruit, it will remain so.
- Internal Clock: Odile’s acute native sense of the passage of time has been burnished by a lifelong habit of counting up and down in the back of her mind, and paying close attention to marked candles and water-clocks to compare how time passes with how it feels passing, till she’s one of those infuriating people who can say to herself, “I’ll go to sleep and wake up in six hours,” or “I’ll wait for a quarter of an hour and no more,” and carry out her wishes precisely. She has views on how long things should take, and she’s endlessly patient after the Shahrizai way with anything that is proceeding on her timetable— but something taking overly long, is one of the few circumstances which can cause this calm, composed, and collected creature to lose the temper most people never even find out that she possesses.
- Kahve Addict: In Hellas, good Ephesian kahve is more readily procurable; Odile picked up the habit there and will surely pursue it in Terre d’Ange as well.
- Shahrizai: Though Odile has been absent from Terre d’Ange for many years, nothing truly attenuates the bonds between the members of that famously insular and clannish house.
- Hellas: For a decade and a half she lived in Hellas and ornamented its royal court; her husband and children are Hellenes; she is well-versed in Hellenic culture and customs, and even now she is not without certain useful contacts in that land.
- Riding: Like most Kusheline nobles, she’s a keen horsewoman.
- Kahve: She can easily be run across at La Perle Noire.
Contacts
Logs