Arminia

Formally "Princess Arminia Caliak, Sovereign of the Astarian Principality, Duchess of Karavak," Princess Arminia is a major character in Trenchbreaker and its planned companion novels. Noted for her skills in swordsmanship and her military state of mind, Arminia's story is central to that of the Former Aquilonese Empire

Biography

Early Life

Arminia was born in the year 154 to Queen Sayphay. Her father was a royal consort, officially anonymous and with no legal claim to her, and he left before Arminia was born. Her mother did her best to juggle her responsibilities as monarch with those of a mother, but knew she had to place the nation first in most respects, so Arminia grew up raised by her nurses and tutors as much as her mother. Surrounded from birth by the highest level of Astaria's politics, Arminia was deliberately taught a deep respect for her subjects and title. Due to their similar lots in life, and Varangia's alliance with Astaria, Arminia's closest friend, despite the long distance and rare meetings, was then-Princess Jannel of Varangia. The two met whenever the affairs of statecraft allowed, and corresponded regularly.

Military

At sixteen years old, Queen Sayphay decided that her daughter needed to develop the skills of leadership and warfare so essential to a monarch. Accordingly, Arminia was sent to the Sky Force Academy. Arminia did well on account of her education having prepared her surprisingly well for a life in the military, and she graduated twelfth in her year. Surprising very few people, Arminia received accelerated promotion on account of her birth, and made first lieutenant by the time she was twenty two, at which point she was assigned to the Sky Force light cruiser HMS Hailstorm. On Arminia's first cruise, her ship's exec and captain were both killed in action against a Shoshkepali privateer, forcing Arminia to take command of the Hailstorm. With her ship damaged, she was unable to outfight the Shoshkepali privateer, but used her existing knowledge of the Fleet's maneuver schedule to lead her own ship and its convoy directly into the friendly arms of a heavy cruiser squadron.

Year 178

As war loomed with Shoshkepal, Arminia was in a militarily awkward spot; while she was commanding officer of HMS Hailstorm she was also only a lieutenant commander by this point, incredibly junior for her rank and too inexperienced to be left in a command spot. Arminia was recalled to shoreside service on the Strategy Board, where she learned the shape of the war against Shoshkepal. At the same time, Sayphay's health was failing, and she had been diagnosed with tuberculosis. Faced with less than seven months to learn the lessons of statecraft she had expected thirty years to learn, Arminia stayed at her mother's elbow through her final months of life, and when her mother died two months before the beginning of the year 179, Arminia threw herself into her work on the strategy board; even then, the work was all but done, and in fact the war was won within a month of Sayphay's death, the island of Alihass conquered by her nation.

But as Kiserre turns a fearful eye on Astaria's conquests, Arminia finds a few months to grieve before a new war begins.

Family and Personal Life

Being Sayphay's daughter, Arminia has an extensive array of distant cousins, extending to most of the Astarian peerage, but no close family beyond her mother; whoever her genetic father is, she has no legal ties to his family, and of course, has no siblings.

Arminia's hobbies include fencing, in which she uses a greatsword, and marine biology, on account of the coral tank gifted to her by the Royal Gallitea Museum of Science.