Miranda

Dame Miranda Essex Liliburne Lockwood, 8th Viscountess Wildemere of Lyonesse

Miranda
agathe-lg.jpg
Portrayed By Agathe de la Boulaye and/or Agyness Deyn
Gender Female
Date of Birth Unknown
Apparent Age Early twenties (when female), mid-teens (when male)
Aliases Robin of Lyonesse; Mira Essex; Amara Adderstone; Andrew Blackhill; Randall Marwood; Lord Barrington; Amanda, Marchioness of Blackhill; Viola Fiorini; William Allerston
Place of Birth New Lyonesse
Occupation Woman of Independent Means
Known Relatives Miriam Essex Lockwood, 4th Countess of Brightmoor (mother, deceased)
Marital Status Presently unmarried
Website In the Interest of Propriety

History

Although rumor has it that she has lived in the city for much longer, the young woman now known as Miranda first became notable shortly after the crowning of Corwin as King of Amber. Posing as "Robin of Lyonesse", a young boy of precise, archaic manners, she claimed to have come to the city from the now-downfallen realm to honor a request from her mother. "Robin" soon found himself taken into the home of Sarafina d'Avonna, Principessa di Calestrina, the better to ornament her Highness' social gatherings.

During the siege of Amber City by the Black Road, the theretofore almost entirely decorative "Robin" took up arms and donned a suit of white armor in order to fight in defense of the city, participating in the battle of the Eastgate as well as that of the Northgate. During the invasion of insects that immediately followed the breaking of the siege, the white-armored youth became a common sight in Lower City: squashing bugs, fighting Gate Fishers, and helping refugees escape the devastation. Although the incident was never widely publicized, "Robin" was also part of the small group that ventured into the city's sewers and defeated the Portafada who had masterminded the entire invasion.

In the wake of the invasion, "Robin" contrived to be taken under the proverbial wing of the then-Prince Marshal, Benedict, and his wife Lady Beatrice Solaris. Eventually divining "his" true gender, the two took Miranda into their home, and she fought under the Prince Marshal's command in Ghenesh, Weirmonken, Pathi, and even Cibola. After recovering from injuries sustained in the latter engagements, she departed the city for a time in order to study in Montevalno.

Since her return, she has been named the most recent knight of his Majesty King Benedict (something she is at pains not to appear to boast about), and devotes much of her time to the creation of Marazion, a realm for the landless refugees of New Lyonesse. As a result of her defeat of a fearsome Black Knight at the Dunst Tourney, Miranda was named Champion and temporarily became the bearer of the Graal, which, much to her embarrassment, she has since lost.

Friends and Allies

Enemies

  • The Graal Knights are rather unhappy with Miranda, as she refused several times to return the Graal to them, and then had it stolen out from under her nose before she could follow through on her promise to take it back to Monsalvat.

Chronology

  • April 20, 2008: This is the first extant logfile for Robin (as Miranda was then known). In an amusing coincidence, his very first IC meeting was with Emma Feldane.
  • April 22, 2008: Robin meets Benedict. Benedict gives him pocket money.
  • May 7, 2008: The first time Robin is shown with a weapon. Lilith proves to be a much, much better fighter than he is, fortunately for both of them.
  • May 10, 2008: Having been advised to consult Addison Feldane and bring scotch, Robin meets him socially, and asks his advice on what sort of scotch to bring to officials of the kingdom. At no point does he mention who the scotch is going to. This becomes amusing when …
  • May 11, 2008: Robin reduces Addison to momentary speechlessness by giving him scotch and then explaining the above process.
  • May 14, 2008: Random tricks Robin into revealing the "message" he had supposedly come to Amber with.
  • May 20, 2008: Sarafina encounters Robin, and immediately kidnaps him as a decorative addition to her household. Since Robin has almost no money, this is fine with him.
  • May 24, 2008: Sara throws a party. Assassination attempts occur. Robin is dressed in white chiffon and pink ribbon, which is somewhat less fine with him, but still. No money.
  • June 26, 2008: Robin manages to get himself invited to the Baths in the Rebman Embassy. He avoids exposure as a woman by the expedient of being a total prude and remaining fully clothed.
  • July 1, 2008: Tir-na Nog'th appears at midday, on fire. Alternate futures collide in the streets of Amber, producing violence and destruction. Robin sensibly runs away from a gang of street urchins with sharp claws and pointed teeth. Then everything goes back to normal and no one remembers anything.
  • July 3, 2008: The first person fits the pieces together and deduces Robin's actual gender IC.
  • July 10, 2008: Martin drags Addison and Robin out to fight brigands and a giant segmented worm. This is both the first appearance of Robin's eye-stabbingly white plate armor, and also the first time Robin has looked remotely effective in a fight.
  • July 12, 2008: Robin intentionally reveals her actual gender to someone for the first time.
  • August 5, 2008: Black Road forces attack the city docks, and an entire army comes up the Road to besiege Amber.
  • August 6, 2008: Someone Robin has never met before or since attempts to assassinate him "for things you have not yet done"; Robin barely manages to escape. Robin draws a probably incorrect conclusion about who's behind this and why. OOC, I'm still wondering. Later the same day, the Black Road forces assault the Eastgate.
  • August 7, 2008: The Black Road assaults the Northgate. Robin assists Valentine de'Mandrake in dispatching a sort of giant toad/worm creature. The creature's tongue makes several appearances over the next few days as a stretchy flexible bludgeon. Meanwhile, the entire Lower City is overrun by carnivorous bugs of up to fist-size, who start building a giant termite mound in the harbor.
  • August 21, 2008: Gate Fisher warrior drones (pony-sized giant spiders) attack the Great Lift, resulting in a chaotic moving-platform fight. Navarre, Beatrice, Heulwen, Taleyn, and Robin just barely manage to repel them. Once the battle is over, Petrus and Robin are able to divine that the spiders seem to have come from the sewers.
  • August 22, 2008: During a massive assault on the giant insect mound in the harbor, Tally, Navarre, Haley, and Robin go into the sewers along with some redshirts. Several hours later, many spiders have been diced, just about everyone needs hospitalization, there is one dead purple-haired anime pretty boy of a Portafada, the bugs lose interest in things, and the city is saved.
  • September 3, 2008: Robin spends a great deal of ink and parchment trying to convince someone to take charge of rebuilding the wreckage of Lower City. This works out far better than he has any right to expect. Also, the ghost of the dead Portafada turns up to taunt him, Taleyn, and Beatrice with threateningly vague revelations.
  • September 4, 2008: The Great Lift collapses, thanks to damage sustained in the invasion. Some leftover bugs attack people trying to stop it doing so.
  • September 11, 2008: Robin has absolutely nothing to do with the sudden upswing in arguments among the city's young gentlemen over whether Emma or Taleyn is the more beautiful lady and the more skilled blade.
  • September 21-23, 2008: Kincaid brings a supply train back to aid in the rebuilding of Lower City. Robin fights giants, sorcerers, and even gets to order some knights around.
  • October 4, 2008: Emma, Molly, and Robin rescue Gil Karm from the clutches of a living island of zombie sirines. Or something. FOR SOME REASON, Robin is the only member of the otherwise all-male crew not to be hypnotized. Imagine that!
  • October 9, 2008: Robin asks Benedict to find a place in Shadow for the New Lyonesse refugees to settle. Improbably, Benedict agrees.
  • October 23-24, 2008: Beatrice goes to Jade to look for Information, and brings Eva, Addison, Quina, and Robin along with her. Robin gets to be Polite at people a lot. He also displays a startling degree of expertise in improvisational pretense for someone who is ostensibly a properly brought-up lad of noble birth.
  • November 6, 2008: Valentine's expedition to Cibola runs into some trouble involving hostile natives and giant snake-spider monsters. Emma, Cyrus, Molly, and Addison all get into some of same. Robin acts so knightly-ish that two separate people remark on it in two separate incidents.
  • I took a break from playing RtA in mid-November 2008 that lasted roughly through early January of 2009. IC, Robin is off exploring the Shadow that would eventually become known as Marazion during this time.
  • January 19-30, 2009: Benedict leads a modest collection of volunteers, which include Beatrice, Bleys, Kincaid, Mero, Lucius, Robin, and a cast of thousands against plague-carrying Gheneshi. There are fights against raptor-riding scouts; dinosaur cavalry; Bleys engaging in raptor rodeo; an attempt to distract a raging war-brontosaurus; and Kincaid failing to teach Robin how to refuse a Trump contact. Hilarity ensues.
  • January 26, 2009: Benedict and Beatrice, having learnt her secret, invite Robin into their home. Since everyone involved is still at war, they don't actually visit the place, but it's the thought that counts.
  • January 27, 2009: The Big Reveal, as Robin divulges her proper gender publicly. No one flips out at her for this, possibly because it happens immediately before a massive battle.
  • February 2, 2009: The character object's name changes from "Robin" to "Miranda".
  • February 16, 2009: Miranda meets Lucius Karm. In what will become a pattern, they spend the entire encounter trying to out-polite each other.
  • February 22, 2009: Benedict, Malachi, Beatrice, and Miranda visit The Shadow Soon To Be Known As Marazion and investigate some curious matters.
  • March 6th, 2009: Aislin does something that really ticks Benedict off. Addison and Miranda are detailed to fetch her back to the house so that she can explain her reasoning.
  • March 11, 2009: Julian summons Miranda, for reasons of his own. By virtue of being straightforward and unsentimental, he learns more about her in the space of an hour than some people have in a year.
  • My ISP decided that I didn't really need connectivity, starting on March 14th and running through the middle of April. Then, after three glorious days, my computer died and I missed another week.
  • April 28-30, 2009: The Black Road stirs again. Hillocks dance. Mysterious women try to convince Miranda to help them.
  • May 1, 2009: Julian becomes King of Amber.
  • May 26-27, 2009: Kincaid brings Miranda to Pathi to join the forces fighting against the Road and its agents. Blinded in the course of killing Pliny, he then delegates command to Miranda, much to her shock, and she leads the Oisen Knights to try and distract a thirty-story fire monster long enough for it to be defeated. Alas, she is full of fail.
  • May 28, 2009: Horrifically burnt Miranda gets up and fights the undead anyway. This involves bleeding through gaps in her armor when the fresh burns break open.
  • June 22-28, 2009: After several painful weeks of recuperation, Miranda promptly heads off to Cibola to assist the Prince Marshal and his cohorts in finding a necropolis. This involves impromptu etiquette education and quite a bit of marching through the jungle.
  • June 24, 2009: The expedition defeats a band of howling, drugged cannibals and at least one minor god. Miranda then suffers heatstroke, because she hasn't yet realized how problematic it is to be able to perspire only though the 15% of your skin that hasn't been turned to lovely scar tissue.
  • June 28, 2009: Brand kills himself, in the interest of providing an excuse to get into the necropolis. This puts rather a lot of stress on Taleyn. But it does work. Then a gang of priests assault everyone.
  • June 29, 2009: Benedict and Beatrice get married, at long last!
  • July 2-6, 2009: Taleyn leads an expedition back to Cibola to capture Finndo's Tomb. Molly and Miranda wrangle a giant snake.
  • July 5, 2009: Open warfare breaks out in the Cibolan necropolis between Taleyn's forces and those of the high priests. Miranda is assigned to lead the covert operations team that's supposed to assassinate the later, and proves to be shockingly good at it. Unfortunately, not quite good enough to keep herself from being cursed by a desperate Head Priest right before she kills him.
  • July 7, 2009: Miranda wakes up in the hospital (again!), feeling sleepy and vague and thinking she's somewhere else, and also possibly someone else. She spends almost two weeks confusing people, herself most of all.
  • July 21, 2009: The expedition into Finndo's Tomb finds a treatment that brings Miranda back to her senses. She promptly straps on her armor and answers the call for volunteers to fight the Road in Weirmonken.
  • July 22-28, 2009: The battle for Weirmonken rages. Misenschloss is recaptured, an assault on Silverspire is repelled, the Road's creatures are rooted out of the Spire, and, in the end, the good guys win and the Forest King is crowned anew.
  • From early August through about mid-November, I was too busy with real life to play very much. Miranda spent the time studying in Montevalno, having learnt something of the place in her time with Sarafina.
  • November 19, 2009: At a party thrown by Mandrake, Miranda makes her return to the city, without fanfare.
  • November 20, 2009: Much to her surprise, Miranda becomes Benedict's newest knight.
  • November 23, 2009: Benedict tells everyone he's going to crown himself King. Miranda keeps her mouth shut around a lot of people who way far outrank her.
  • November 24, 2009: Sure enough, Amber gets a new King. As for Miranda, see above.
  • December 2, 2009: The point where the scars from getting burnt alive have more or less regenerated away at this point.
  • December 7, 2009: White's burns to the ground, and Vosah Karm puts Caine in chains. Rose House being right across the street, Miranda has an excellent view of things. She gives Caine a blanket, since it is winter.
  • December 15, 2009: Bleys and Lilith are married. Everyone who's anyone attends.
  • December 16, 2009: The Great Dunst Tourney. This is Miranda's best showing in memory, as she defeats Dame Blackmoor in the lists, and then, when the Black Knights attack, manages to best their leader. This gets her awarded the Graal, which she is not at all happy about.
  • December 26, 2009: A Graal Knight shows up at Rose House and asks Miranda to give the Graal back. She agrees to do so as soon as her duties permit.
  • December 30, 2009: Miranda goes to Kitezh to join the Amber Expeditionary Force there. She has a look round with the Lost Boys, in the middle of which Brand shows up, demonstrates a complete lack of concern for the idea of camoflauge, and then instructs them to kill everyone.
  • December 31, 2010: While investigating an acidic vent in the ice sheet, Miranda gets some lovely facial burns. Rupert of the Lost Boys loses a finger. It's hard to say which of them feels worse about the latter injury.
  • January 5, 2010: Rupert and Miranda meet Loki, who sets a forest on fire. Miranda has no idea who he is, and fighting fire-creatures with a sword does her hand No Good Whatsoever.
  • January 6, 2010: Another Graal Knight shows up while Miranda is having her newly roasted hand treated. This one is rather less polite than the last about demanding the Graal back right this instant. Miranda throws him out of the tent. Not literally, but this does not keep her from being declared an Enemy of the Graal.
  • January 10, 2010: The Graal Knights smarten up enough to ask Benedict for help. Miranda agrees to take the Graal back to Monsalvat with them the very next day. Of course, that night she has it stolen out from under her nose. The Knights are Unhappy.
  • I will place additional important dates here as I have time to go through the remainder of my exhaustive collection of logfiles (and as things come out into the open enough to be posted publicly).

Quotes

  • <Lyonesse> Robin is highly unlikely to be anyone's daddy.
  • On his willingness to engage in combat without training: Robin says, sounding, perhaps, slightly offended, "I admit I had not expected it to come to that, but one way or the other, I am no coward, my lady. Besides, it is well known that high birth means more in combat than something so prosaic as training."
  • To Niklas: Robin says, somewhat dismayed still, "Soldiering is one thing, my lord Argus. Being a victim of cannibalism is another." Which only goes to show just how much he has to learn about soldiering.
  • Robin suggests, to Niklas, "Whenever someone from Begma begins to describe the process by which their devices operate, I find it useful to replace any words I do not understand with 'Sorcery'."
  • To Random: Robin says, with a small shrug, "We must all meet the world as seems good to us, your Highness. Elsewise how shall we not be kept awake by our actions? I should never criticize the methods of a man who can sleep soundly."
  • On pretending to be zombified: Robin butchers his first target with an absence of grace or elegance that mirrors the undead creature's own. "It hardly seems entirely chivalrous," he remarks, "but then when one deals with the walking dead one need not adhere to all the niceties."
  • Regarding the imminent attack of Cibolan natives:

"I think perhaps that we ought to avoid engaging with them, if possible, my lord," Robin says, glancing back behind them toward the foliage. "Perhaps your lordship might care to proceed toward the bridge and across it at whatsoever pace seems good to your lordship, whilst I ensure the security of our trail?"

Cyrus shrugs. "Fair enough. Awfully sporting of you." He turns toward the bridge but does not yet step onto it.

Robin casts a last glance down toward the bottom of the ravine, where an alligator takes this opportunity to roll over, gape its jaws, and then snap them shut with a sound like a gunshot. "Not at all, my lord," Robin says cheerfully.

  • On tactics: "'When Outnumbered and Pursued,'" Robin quotes, "'a Knight is Obliged to Move to the Attack, so as to Prevent his Foes from Preying Upon the Remainder of his Party." And, so saying, he actually charges the front rank of the Cibolans, sword raised. At least this might give the blowgun user pause. It certainly gives pause to the lead attacker, who apparently was not expecting that someone quite so small in stature would be so able to place a length of steel through his left lung with such efficiency.
  • Trying to get a monstrous beast to let go of Emma:

Robin eyes the snake-spider. He essays a polite, respectful (but loud enough to be audible), "Perhaps you might be good enough to release her ladyship? Otherwise, we shall be forced to do so in despite of your resistance, and I do not think she will be at all pleased by her imprisonment, if I know anything of her ladyship."

Cyrus looks to Robin. "Does that ever work?"

Valentine gives Robin an impressed look, which is only barely distinguishable from a "you must be crazy" look, and waits for an answer on that question.

Robin asides, to Cyrus, "Very rarely, my lord, but it would be unchivalrous not to offer it the opportunity to surrender."

  • In the aftermath of Addison being appointed Mayor of Lower City:

Nearby, Addison says, "Robin."

Nearby, Robin says, "M'lord?"

Nearby, Addison says, "I can never tell if you are happy, unhappy, or indifferent to Yet Another Political Change."

Nearby, Robin does, at least, look pleased by /that/. "Indeed, my lord? Why, then I am behaving as is proper for a person of my present rank. Your lordship is most generous in saying so."

Nearby, Addison goes ahead and takes the bait. "And your present rank is what, precisely?"

Nearby, Robin says, "Why, none, my lord, at least so far as the Crown and the Government are concerned. The Crown and the Government are what they are; I should do myself no more good to be pleased or displeased by them than to be pleased or displeased by the tides."

Nearby, Addison just stares.

Nearby, Addison says, "That non-answer is so very marvelous, young Robin, that someone should hand you a proper law degree."

Nearby, Robin does produce a very fetching blush at this compliment. "Oh, hardly, my lord. I am sure that I have not a tithe of the proper learning for such a distinction. Rather, so saying merely marks out further your lordship's natural generosity of spirit."

Nearby, Addison says, "Or maybe it is simply an acknowledgement that you have raised evasiveness and the non-answer to a ritualized high art hardly ever seen outside a proper courtroom."

Nearby, Robin affects, very well, to be somewhat hurt by that statement. "I am sorry to hear that I seem to cultivate evasiveness, my lord; I shall have to address that fault in the immediate future."

  • On propriety:

[War] Miranda says, "In the coming Miranda Hegemony, all persons will be equal before the law, everyone will behave with impeccable manners, Ladies will be Proper Ladies, and Gentlemen will be Proper Gentlemen."

[War] Miranda says, "It'll be like living with a particularly strict maiden aunt."

  • To Giacomo, after returning from Pathi: "Your homeland's attitude toward me, my lord," Miranda says, after a momentary pause for surprise, "is of no importance in this matter. Persons unable to defend themselves were endangered. Any chivalrous person would have acted as I did. To protect the defenseless is its own reward, and it would be churlish and unknightly in the extreme to fail in so doing through greedy desire for approbation or accolade."
  • "It is very difficult, my lady," Miranda says, quiet and thoughtful, "to be so often denied; and yet it seems to me that your actions have not been so ill. When one wishes with all one's heart to be valued — to be loved — for whom one *is*, and not merely what others believe one to be — no one could fail to be dismayed, to find one's amour thinking so. For such people one is not truly a partner, only an ornament to place upon the mantel, so that all may admire their good taste and good fortune."
  • Miranda says, slightly puzzled, "But surely, if they are placed because of their blood, then they cannot but be competent rulers? One who is of royal blood must surely be so. If they seem otherwise, then perhaps it is we who fail to properly understand their intentions."
  • Miranda catches Taleyn's look, and holds her gaze just long enough to nod. It's a nod that could say many things. If it were the sort of thing Miranda said, "I told you so" might be one of them.
  • "One cannot go through one's life without erring," Miranda says, without rancor. "Particularly when one is unfamiliar with one's surroundings. A Gentleman apologizes for his mistakes and strives not to repeat them; but does not dwell on them otherwise." She sounds as if she's quoting from some book or other.
  • On snakes in Taleyn's boots: "Just so, Knight-Captain," Miranda agrees. "A Lady's boots are sacrosanct. Even uneducated wildlife ought to respect such things! I am told that in the desert there are poisonous insects that are equally disrespectful."

List of Major Injuries

  • May 16, 2008: Black eye, cracked ribs, courtesy of Alys.
  • August 6, 2008: Sword wounds to face and shoulder.
  • August 7, 2008: Something torn in the left shoulder, from catching a giant toad-worm's tongue.
  • August 8, 2008: Burnt by an expanding sphere of flame.
  • August 21, 2008: Badly slashed leg at the hands, or rather forelimbs, of a giant spider.
  • August 22, 2008: Multiple clavicle fractures, a broken rib or two, and a concussion to boot.
  • January 25, 2009: Concussed after being headbutted by a velociraptor.
  • May 4, 2009: Left hand mangled after grabbing hold of a dismayingly animate thornbush.
  • May 27, 2009: Set alight and burnt over 85%-plus of her body by the breath of a titanic fire-monster. If you're wondering why Miranda has such good skin, it's because most of it's freshly regrown!
  • June 24, 2009: Heatstroke.
  • July 5th, 2009: Cursed by a Cibolan high priest.
  • July 28th, 2009: Gored in hip and thigh by a diseased, rotting stag.

Trivia

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