Svetlikin | Stag | Lord - Deceased

Kin is delicate; so very delicate in fact that you might believe a strong wind would blow him over. He has some strength to him, although not much, but he is fast and has a decent level of stamina - not that he’s ever had to run from anything, that is. He is quick and nimble and actually delights in dancing and performing small feats of acrobatics when with his commoner friends.

His face is narrow, with large soft ears and extremely large, extremely pale blue eyes - probably as a result of the inbreeding on his mother’s side. His expression is most normally a slight frown of annoyance and his mouth seems to be permanently slightly turned down in disappointment or frustration.

He has an elegant neck that arches prettily coming down to a narrow, lightly muscled chest. He does not have much of the depth of chest commonly associated with Glenmore Royal stags, nor does he have quite as dramatic a ‘tuck’ behind his ribcage as some of his more masculine cousins.  Through work running and walking his has managed to stop his behind being quite so soft and round as it would, by nature, be, and instead he has a fairly strong backside. His tail is of medium length and finely tufted with soft, white hair.

Naturally he has fairly long hair in his mane and tail, as well as a respectable amount of hair on his chest and belly - perhaps the only thing that belies his Princess-like appearance. He occasionally has fits of frustration - normally after seeing his now elderly father - and will rub his neck against a tree or rock to wear his long mane down to a fluffy stub, but the hair grows quickly and within a year it is usually down to the floor again. He rarely does this with his tail, so the hair there is always long and often slightly stained with mud. Unlike a true Princess, he does not care terribly for keeping himself looking pristine.

Personality

Kin is, as long as he is not in the company of the Royals (particularly Princesses), a jovial, quick-witted stag. He prefers to be the centre of attention and normally gets there by telling jokes at the expense of the Royal stags and does or impersonating Princesses. He loves to dance and play-fight, and can often be found ‘sparring’ with any number of commoner stags and does; during the rut he rarely fights for partners but simply lets whichever does want him to have him. He might not be the King, but he is a cousin, so he rarely has to wait for too long. He is somewhat arrogant, but not usually unpleasantly so, and a gentle telling off from a commoner is infinitely preferable to any kind of conversation with a Royal.

Among his family, however, he is a completely different stag. Not so openly mocked now that most of the involved parties are elderly or dead, he nonetheless harbours a fierce resentment of the way he was treated as a youth. If a Princess attempts to speak to him she will be thoroughly abused verbally, normally being instructed on how completely vain, inbred and stupid she is. Any Princes or Royal stags will be ignored if at all possible and if they don’t go away they are treated with contempt and fury.

Despite this, Kin would never leave Glenmore. He knows, for one thing, that he would be killed by anything that could see; and for another, although he is extremely unwiling to admit it, he actually rather likes being a Lord. He has respect and companionship from common fawnlings - the odd Royal Guard isn’t too bad either, provided they don’t fawn stupidly over Princesses like some of them do (not looking at you Captain, no, not at all) - and he has a duty to keep the bloodline going. He is extremely Royal, if only by the process of inbreeding and his mother’s ‘good fortune’ to be mated to a King’s son; though he hates the Royals if he were not one of them he would probably be dead.

History

"A new Princess has been born!  Ennera has birthed a Princess!”

The whispers ran through the herd like wildfire. A Princess, a new Princess! That was a third this year, Áillte had truly blessed the herd this year with daughters. Even before the mother was recovered from the birth there were nosy royal does keen to see their new Princess and Princes eager to see who might be betrothed to them - when she was of age, of course.

When they came, theywere to be disappointed.

Ennera had never been the brightest doe. The unkind might say it was because her mother and father were cousins, and her mother’s parents were cousins too. But, of course, she had no need for intelligence - she was a Princess doe, daughter of Áillte and bringer of light and strength to the herd. All she needed to do was stand next to her Prince when required and provide him with little Lords and Princesses, little grandprinces and grandprincesses for the King.

When she had seen her baby’s creamy coat and bright blue eyes, she had seen a tiny, perfect mirror of herself. Of course she had assumed the baby was a doe, why wouldn’t she? She was no midwife, she was not obliged to learn silly things like herblore and telling the difference between a male and female when they didn’t have their antlers on.

She had even named her Svetlika for her perfectly pale coat.

When, at last, her mate arrived - back from gossiping by the Royal Oak with some rather pretty commoner does - swelling with pride at his first Princess daughter, and the tiny, perfectly formed creature stood… well, his face fell rather.

So the fawn’s name was changed to Svetlikin, but rumours were not so easy to alter. Until he was perhaps a year old the common fawnlings were convinced he was a Princess, rather than a little Lord.

He was finely built, with large, clear blue eyes and long, downy eyelashes. His mane and tail were soft as silk and his nose and hooves a delicate pink. Svetlikin - or Kin, as he came to prefer, trying to avoid all memory of his ‘original’ name - was, by far, the prettiest Princess in all the herd, and he was not allowed to forget it.

Even after Ennera had her longed-for Princess daughter she still called him ‘my first little Princess’. Even when he grew his first set of antlers the elders in the herd called him ‘the Princess-that-wasn’t’. Even the year he had rubbed his mane down to a stub on a stone his father the Prince always called him Svetlika.

Oh, he wasn’t teased by his friends and the fawnlings his own age - they knew well enough how badly that would go for  them - and he even attracted a fair amount of attention from the does. But his stupid mother’s love for her little Princess stained what would have been a jovial, playful character with bitterness and frustration.

Kin was offered a Princess doe of his own, being of high royal birth. He refused her at the Promise Ceremony, leaving the stupid creature in floods of tears. Apparently she had been looking forward to having  a mate that was smaller, paler and more delicate than she was.  He preferred the common does, does that would never dare compare his white mane to Áillte or his blue eyes to whichever damned moron Princess was mated to the Crown Prince.

The only thing his stupid, stupid mother successfully taught him before he died was this: