Seraphine Valecourt
Seraphine Valecourt was born Poppy Fenwick at Merilrond thirty years ago, the daughter of the Wood-Elven warrior Luin and the human ranger Mara Fenwick. Conceived during the Flowering, she grew up amongst Dîmeril's companions and the small community that developed around the Hall of the Roses. It was a happy childhood. Unfortunately, Poppy eventually concluded that Merilrond was terribly dull. She loved its people, but had considerably less enthusiasm for quiet evenings, woodland contemplation, earnest conversations about duty and the apparent conviction that a pleasant walk beneath the trees constituted adequate entertainment. Poppy wanted music, dancing, cities, beautiful clothes, interesting strangers and somewhere that remained awake after sunset. As soon as she was old enough, she left to find them.
Somewhere during her travels, Poppy Fenwick reinvented herself as Seraphine Valecourt. Seraphine maintains that every serious performer eventually discovers the name by which the world was intended to know them. Her parents continue to call her Poppy. Dîmeril does too, particularly when Seraphine is being difficult. Seraphine spent the following years travelling as a bard and occasional adventurer. She possesses an excellent singing voice, plays the lute beautifully and has the confidence to command almost any common room within moments of entering it. She is charismatic, glamorous, witty and enormously entertaining.
She is also not quite as great a bard as she believes herself to be. This is perhaps true of most bards, with the notable exception of Galsitan. What Seraphine lacks in genuine musical genius she more than compensates for with presence. She understands audiences instinctively, knows when they want laughter and when they want tears, and has an extraordinary talent for making every person in a crowded room feel that she has noticed them. Seraphine was born to perform. She knows this. Frequently.
Seraphine's romantic history is extensive. Her relationships are generally less so. She falls in love easily, enthusiastically and with absolute conviction. She enjoys flirtation, anticipation, secret meetings, dramatic declarations and that wonderful period when another person remains new and mysterious. Unfortunately, Seraphine also becomes bored remarkably easily. She has very high standards. This is entirely reasonable because, as she occasionally points out: “I mean, look at me.” She is not deliberately cruel and rarely sets out to break hearts. Seraphine simply has an unfortunate tendency to believe each new romance is the one, before discovering several months later that her fascinating new lover has inexplicably become familiar. She remains optimistic.
Seraphine is extremely fond of her father. She also believes he has wasted much of his life. Luin is an accomplished Wood-Elven fighter, an experienced adventurer and the bearer of the ancient vorpal blade Calenmegil. Seraphine cannot understand why a man with centuries potentially before him seems perfectly content to remain at Merilrond beside Dîmeril. She would never describe her father as Dîmeril's servant. Privately, however, she sometimes thinks he has spent too long living in Dîmeril's shadow. Luin completely disagrees. The disagreement is made considerably easier by Luin's longstanding ability to listen to his daughter explain something at considerable length before replying: “No.”
Seraphine loves her mother just as fiercely and worries about her considerably more. Mara is a veteran human ranger, now around sixty years old, and unlike the Elves and Half-Elves surrounding her, her age is beginning to show. Seraphine believes Mara should therefore take things easier. Mara does not. Suggestions that she might spend rather less time ranging through the Golden Woods, sleeping outdoors, climbing hills and pursuing dangerous creatures are received with varying degrees of amusement. Seraphine finds her mother's refusal to behave like an elderly woman extremely frustrating. Mara finds her daughter's frustration extremely funny.
Seraphine's feelings towards Dîmeril are more complicated. She genuinely likes her. Dîmeril was part of Poppy's childhood and has always treated her kindly. She never attempted to stop Poppy leaving Merilrond and has never demanded that she become something she did not wish to be. But Seraphine is also just a little jealous of her. Seraphine has spent years learning how to command a room. Dîmeril simply enters one. The Ranger Lord neither seeks nor particularly enjoys adulation, yet the people of the Golden Woods regard her with an affection and reverence that Seraphine cannot help noticing. Dîmeril possesses an aura Seraphine has never quite been able to manufacture. Naturally, Seraphine found a way to get her own back. She writes songs about her.
The Ballads of Dîmeril
Seraphine would never make Dîmeril an object of ridicule. She is too fond of her for that, and openly mocking the beloved Ranger Lord in the Golden Woods would be an exceptionally poor professional decision. Instead, Seraphine makes her legendary. Her songs transform Dîmeril's adventures into sweeping romantic tales of heroism, sacrifice and impossible courage. Among the most popular is The Redcap's Run, an increasingly embellished account of one of Dîmeril's earlier adventures. Dîmeril finds the song excruciating. Consequently, Seraphine considers it one of her finest compositions.
More delicate are Seraphine's romantic ballads, particularly one concerning an unnamed Elven warrior consumed by hopeless love for an unattainable Half-Elven paragon of virtue, condemned forever to remain faithfully at her side while she remains oblivious to his devotion. Seraphine insists the characters are entirely fictional. Nobody believes her. Luin was particularly unhappy with the song.
Unfortunately, complaining publicly would have required explaining precisely why he thought the song was about him. His daughter knew this when she wrote it.