Zinnia (NPC, dead)

Birthday
June 26th (ages up one year every June and January 26th)
Name origin
A type of flower
Sexuality
Straight
Gender
Hen
Sex
AFAB
Plot death
Completed :)

Purchased traits
Two old scars on her left shoulder
Size class
Medium
Weight class
Bulky
Appearance
Zinnia is a stocky dromeus; what she lacks in size she makes up for in weight, muscle and vicious claws. Her wings are short and broad; and her tail, while compact by dromaeus standards, is wide and long to compensate for her short wings. Her fur, once thick and soft, is beginning to get scruffy and coarse with age. She has two old scars on her left shoulder from wounds deep enough to leave the area permanently bald. Her pelt and plumage are ginger, her underparts are paler, her wings are barred and she has a few yellow accents on her feathers. While her demeanor is always composed, her gaze is ever sharp and rather severe, as if perpetually looking for reason to strike.

Hatchling-Juvenile
0-1
Born in the esteemed city of Preyma to its ruling monarch, Zinnia was set on the path to glory from day one. Acacia, her mother and queen, named her after a flower common in the plains kingdom. Named her as a promise that her soldiers would take the mountains to the east of Hippus territory. From day one Zinnia accompanied her mother through most of her work. From day one she was preparing for the day she would take the throne.

Sub-adult
1-2
Throughout her schooling, Zinnia still followed her parents' work as often as she could, drinking in the art of a ruler and a general. Receiving many candid talks about the reality of war. As the dromeus were already feeling the losses of war, Zinnia went through the generalized schooling system most avetherians go through today. While she had little interest in home skills and brought in shockingly poor results- inconsequential, in her mind; she was going to be QUEEN why on EARTH would she need to know how to tan hides and cultivate crops?- she excelled at combat. Despite being smaller than most dromeus, her early exposure to the tactics of war had given her an edge on the competition. She had learned to think outside the box. She had learned to use everything in her power to her advantage. While she couldn’t soar, she could maneuver through dense scrub. While she wasn’t huge, she could drop from the sky like a boulder, battering and bruising and have her claws at your vitals in seconds. She wasn’t imposing, and that’s exactly why she was dangerous.

Despite Zinnia’s heritage, none of the other students seemed to have more than a shallow respect for her. She was smart enough to recognize that they would do only what they thought she wanted. She didn’t mind the fact that everyone would simply agree with her and do as ordered, but as her mother had pointed out: fear of consequence was not real strength of leadership. People had to believe her cause was just. People had to want to do what she wanted.

That’s when Woodsorrel came to her attention.
“You’re too brash,” he had said one day after another she had been ordering her tanning assignment off onto another student. “No one cares if you’re going to be Queen. You’re not Queen.”
She’d almost torn his face off. Only her mother could speak to her like that. But, enraged as she was, she had let him speak. He was the son of the general, he probably knew a thing or two. And he did. He taught her to spot what people wanted. Taught her how to speak ‘more amiably’. Finally, she had the pieces she needed for her mother’s teachings to fall in place. Finally she knew how to twist people into doing her bidding willingly.

Adult
2-20
After completing her general education, Zinnia continued to accompany her parents through their rule of the kingdom, even joining them in a few battles before she finally decided on a path of her own. Satisfied with her ability to be a ruler, Zinnia set her sights on working her way up the ranks of the soldiers, eager to gain a deeper understanding of the battlefield. She was never a common foot soldier on the front lines, of course; her life was too valuable for that, but she did work her way up the commanding ranks. Woodsorrel’s insight proved invaluable in this and she quickly began to hone her ability to read and direct those under her control.

Woodsorrel, however, was also beginning to worry her. The dromeus was growing steadily quieter and more submissive. His presence on trips outside of the capital dwindled and then disappeared altogether. She missed his former insolence. She missed his company. Finally, after the umpteenth cancellation on plans to join her squadron on a routine guard shift at the border, she asked what the problem was. Did he not support the kingdom’s cause? Had he grown cowardly?
“No, but I think my father might be.”
Zinnia was outraged. His father was the general. There was no place for cowardice in that dromeus’ heart. Woodsorrel’s explanation fell on deaf ears. She didn’t care how many squadrons he had lost, how many family members he’d seen die. Woodsorrel was not his life to dictate, he had no right to keep him in the capital and he had no right to let his losses rule his life. She brought her concerns of the general’s performance to her mother at once but ‘I am aware of his situation, I’m monitoring it’ wasn’t the answer she was after. Finally aware of all the restrictions he was placing on Woodsorrel, ‘monitoring it’ absolutely wasn’t going to cut it. She was going to have to take matters into her own hands.

Zinnia threw herself into her climb up the commanding ranks with renewed vigour, winning battle after battle until finally all that stood above her was the general and the queen herself. Fortunately, she didn’t have to wait long. During yet another skirmish defending the mountains in the plains kingdom they sought to occupy, the Hippus soldiers sought to cut the head off the snake. They ambushed the camp in the dead of one winter night, slaughtering the watch before they could so much as squeak. When the dromeus finally realized what was happening, it was chaos. Zinnia herself earned deep wounds in that fight. No one would blame her for prioritizing rallying the remaining soldiers over aiding the cornered general. She was so small, afterall, what could she have done against the burly hippus warriors? Come dawn, she had secured her position as general. She had secured Woodsorrel’s autonomy. He mourned, but he was free.

As general, there wasn’t much more for Zinnia to do but continue to aid and learn from her parents. She began to think about more than what she wanted to be as a ruler. She began to think about her feelings for Woodsorrel. Previously, she’d been far too busy to chase any of the fleeting crushes she’d had on others. She had too much else to strive for, they weren’t compatible, they weren’t a respectable enough partner for a monarch, the list went on. But now she was at the top. She enjoyed his company. Their views on most things were aligned, and where they weren’t they helped each other grow. Also she’d realized a few things when she kinda killed his father through inaction.
“I thought you’d never ask.”
The little bastard had cottoned on to her feelings years ago and never said anything. They kept their relationship quiet for a year, wanting to ensure they were, in fact, functional, before they went public. They were, of course, and after a year they were officially partnered.

The next few years of the war blurred together. Zinnia excelled as a general, her strategies winning battles and reducing losses. Then one day her parents were cornered and slewn in yet another battle over the very mountains they sought to claim. The mountains they had very nearly gained control of. Zinnia was devastated. The whole kingdom was devastated. But she had been training for this all her life. Greif wasn’t going to keep the kingdom down for long. They threw themselves back into the war with renewed vigour.

Shortly after her parents death, she and Woodsorrel had their first and only clutch, birthing their daughter. Like her mother had named her, Zinnia named her daughter as a vow. A recurrence of action, a renewal of a failed attack, a taking by way of retaliation. Reprise. Zinnia didn’t carry the clutch, of course, she had little interest in passing on her small stature to the next in line for the throne, nor did she want to be pregnant on a battlefield. She was a busy mother, Woodsorrel spent the most time with Reprise, but she made sure she spared as much time as she could to bond with her daughter. To teach her as her mother had taught her.

Elder
20+
Zinnia led her kingdom through a decade of bloody battles. Their losses always hit hard, and their ranks were always slow to refill. Despite all her cunning and her tactics that got them through battles where they were outnumbered dozens to one, their numbers dwindled lower and lower. Even her dear Woodsorrel was lost to the war, marching off to battle with his battalion and never returning.

When the offer for peace talks came, she thought long and hard. She didn’t want to give up her foothold in the territory she had been striving her entire life to take, but their numbers were so low… her partner and best advisor was gone, but she knew him well enough to know how he would have challenged her clinging bitterly to those bloodstained mountains while her people were wiped out.

Battered and bloodied, the mountain kingdom was finally ready to talk of peace

In group activity
In the years following the war, the population of her kingdom boomed, as much as was possible for a people with dangerously low numbers and long childhoods could, anyway. With citizens finally home from the war, many sought to raise families they'd never get the chance to. Her own daughter, Reprise, turned out to be one of them, hatching her first and only grandson, Vengeance. Though she never did find out who had sired him, nor did she particularly care, she had her suspicions. Regardless, Vengeance was a delightful child, and brought ample joy to the small family.

With her battered kingdom growing for the first time in decades, Zinnia knew she had to get to work quickly, for their sake. Low on numbers and resources after the war, Mountain Kingdom had a dangerously weak economy, so even during an unprecedented time of peace, her citizens were at risk of being wiped out. So much as single bad season could wipe a town off the map.
It was tricky business, setting up trade routes with other kingdoms. The Mountains produced invaluable metals, but giving up too much hard metal- or worse giving away the recipe for bronze- could backfire. Weapons and armour needed to remain strictly regulated, lest their former enemies come for their blood once more.
 
In the end, it was her ally, Inula, that gave her the idea: gold. The metal was plentiful enough, but useless. Weak and soft, it was completely unusable for tools, and largely regarded as scrap metal in the Mountains. In other kingdoms, however, it fetched a high price. The gaudy gryphus Queen, Inula, had quite the taste for frivolous things like gems and gold. So why not give the other kingdoms a hunger for the stuff too? The material was all but useless to them, and if they kept their talons tight around the flow of goods, they could sell gaudy trinkets at high prices.
With this plan, Zinnia got to work. She ensured her miners, smiths and jewlers were well supplied, and upped 'trinket production' as she called it. The other kingdoms, particularly the wealthy gryphus of the north, ate it up. Her kingdom was still poor, but they were beginning to crawl out of the mire.

With their coffers slowly being filled by the north, Zinnia looked east, towards her former enemies. It was be a daunting task, but if she could build strong trade with the Plains, and by extension the Rainforest, their economy could potentially flourish. Mercifully, it didn't take long. The hippus monarch, Wolfsbane, was perhaps as eager to secure peace and trade with their former enemies as she was. The two quickly came to an agreement, and a market was hosted in the heart of Mountain territory, as a show of good faith (and good wares you want to spend a lot of copper on, please). It almost surprised her how agreeable the monarch was. She would never say so publicly, but she enjoyed her dealings with the sensible old hippus far more than those with her cold-hearted ally, Inula. This was a monarch who truly cared about the welfare of their citizens. 

With budding trade routes secured, the only thing left was to make the final push for peace. It was the next logical step. Her kingdom could gain nothing from rekindling the fighting. In fact, it was far more likely to loose everything it had managed to gain since the end of the war. She and Wolfsbane did much of the legwork with the arrangements, they both knew their younger allies were wary. All they had known was war, but they hadn't known it so long to learn it was futile, apparently. It took the good part of a year, but finally, at long last, a date and place was set for an official treaty signing.
Finally, her kingdom had a chance to flourish.
Finally, children would grow up with ample food and families unbroken by war.

On the day of the signing, Zinnia died with that hope in her heart.
She hoped she had raised her daughter and grandson well enough to follow through.

KIN:

OTHER:

Likes

• Winning
• People underestimating her. All the better to surprise them when they least expect it.

Dislikes

• Losing

Trivia

• Has a rather extensive seashell collection.
• Like the only cis/het character I have but will 100% mince homophobes/transphobes bc she loves and supports her family uvu

Songs

• For the widows in paradise, for the fatherless in ypsilanti - Sufjan Stevens
• Have it out - Mother Mother
• Falling - Florence + the Machine
• Wolf Slaying as a Hobby - Stepdad
• The Angel of Death came to David's room - mewithoutYou