Lord Charlemagne Bellerive
Faithless is he that says farewell when the road darkens.
Description: Gentle of movement and generously proportioned, Charlemagne's muscular silhouette is accented by an appealing layer softness that lingers both in winter and summer months. With a pallid complexion and dark hair bleached by the sun, his light skin is occasionally brought to life by an odd constellation of freckles. He speaks with a melodious Oathlands accent not always guaranteed to earn him many fans in the North, where fresh evidence of ancient crusades continues to be recovered with each spring thaw.
Personality: Although Charlemagne did consider his former match with the Countess a kindness, the fact remains that he and Magaen were hardly very well acquainted until relatively recently. Warm and nurturing with a temper only when the right buttons are pushed, it's Charlemagne's fear that he will be regarded in House Charon as the lingering unwelcome reminder of the familial feud that his arrival coincided with.
A proud Lord of the Oathlands standing tall against a backdrop of wild-willed northerners, Charlemagne is consistently having his sensibilities tested. That his new family is now to play guardian to a shamanistic religious site is of particular concern to the orthodox knight. It's for the sake of his family's position that he perseveres to embody patience and the greatest chivalrous tact in the face of this, the f***ing unthinkable.
Background: Lord Charlemagne, a Silent War widow, first married into House Threerivers by way of House Bellerive, their chief military rival and a direct vassal of House Blackram. The politically motivated pairing was understood as pivotal to a swift and much-needed brokerage of peace, its urgency quite enough to disregard the rumors of infertility stirred up by gossips keeping eye over Charlemagne's previous match. By agreeing to the terms, House Bellerive was setting aside the atrocities of their war with House Threerivers and gaining an important local ally in the new Countess of Highrock.
Although symbolically stabilizing, few have been historically successful in managing to reduce Charlemagne to a mere political prop. During the early days of his marriage when his wife's condition became clear, Charlemagne spent an egregious amount of his own personal fortune hiring northern members of the Courtier's Guild. The resulting social campaign epically shifted public sentiment in their region and beyond, forcing Charlemagne's sister-in-law to legitimize Magaen's bastard son if she had any desire to retain the Compact's goodwill. It also had the added benefit of contributing to what would ultimately be Charlemagne's brief stint as Count-Consort. Very brief.
See, the Seraph of Last Bridge was furious by the end of the war and rather predictably for a man of his prejudices, treachery seeped into his work. The overzealous priest was heard wishing aloud for the next generation of Bellerive children to rise up and cut out that cancer that is Shamanism in the north, and put all of the northlanders to the sword, and that they should even slaughter them under guest right since they don't respect the Pantheon, anyway! Defrocked for his heretical statements, the noble marriage he negotiated in bad faith was nullified and the pact left unraveled.
Awkwardly enough, it's Charlemagne's continued presence in House Charon that seems to be keeping the peace while the families involved remain hands off until all else is settled. No pressure! Why the pair did not immediately remarry under their new circumstances is a question that, well, they have yet to answer.
| Name | Summary |
| Sabella | I hope that he finds comfort in something in these dark times, it does no good to give in to the darker feelings. |