Isabella Kalirion

The Lady Isabella Simrani-Kalirion.

The Lady Isabella Simrani-Kalirion (born 1603 in Ribat al-Eluinshahr), also known as Isabella bint Dâniyal Umra Suleiman Simrâni-Kâlirion ibn al-Majeed bin Sathrati, is a member of the Imperial Bloodline of Ayreon-Kalirion and the House of the same name. She also is the Patroness of Kalir.

Biography

Childhood

Isabella Simrani-Kalirion was born from the marriage between Daniel Simrani-Kalirion and Esmeralda Erinamor. As a daughter of the Conducător and Prince, Isabella enjoyed a privileged upbringing during her early years.

1st Exile

After the fall of the Coordinated State in 1612, the Simrani sisters were placed under the care of separate warders loyal to the old regime who took them into quiet exile in Goldshire. Isabella, at the age of nine, was left in the care of Dr Ernst Cryptsinger, the former Associate Instructing Justice for Elwynn Proper.

2nd Exile

The House of Ayreon-Kalirion was gravely affected by the scandal of Miranda Simrani-Kalirion being seen to marry beneath herself to Frederik Anders, the UDF Brigadgeneral from the Western Marches, inspired her sister, Isabella, to a cold fury. This, combined with a desire to escape from a marriage match with the House of Ettlingar Freyu, inspired her to take a dozen of the family's retainers, a portion of the Simrani treasure-horde and a liberated main battle tank and to set off to Fiorecittá in pursuit of vengeance. The departure took place on Izillare 14 Vixaslaa, 1632, the date of a left behind for the attention of her step-sister Noor expressing, amongst other things, disapproval of conjugal relations with the Elfinshi.

Brushing past a weakly manned Tellian border post, Isabella swept into Fiorecittá and took the family of the city Burgomaster hostage demanding in return for their release the handing over of Frederik Anders and his family. After a tense stand-off, the Tellian state capitulated agreed to the hostage exchange which took place at an abandoned Ashkenatzim shtetl in the Green. After leaving her sister and nephews in the care of her faithful retainers, Isabella - with a kitchen knife in one hand - dragged Anders into a ruined barn. He was never seen alive again. The so-called Bloody Barn has become a scene of pilgrimage amongst the more morbidly inclined partisans of the House of Kalirion.

The severed head of Frederik Anders was sent to Noor as a gift and a symbol of reconciliation and the restoration of family honour on Izillare 20 Qinamu, 1632.

Isabella then took it upon herself to raise Miranda's children in the hope that they would become faithful servants of the family.

In 1634 the Patroness of Kalir reached an accommodation with erstwhile Steward of Elwynn and paramilitary warlord Tokaray al-Osman whereby she acquired provisions, a cache of weapons, laboratory equipment, forty Land Cruisers and pick-up trucks, and an entourage of one-hundred and fifty paramilitaries from the Dark Orchid Society. The security detail was intended to provide protection against brigands such as Sighvat the Yardistani who are active in the Vale of Angularis.

The price for this munificence was her younger sister, Miranda, who was given in marriage to Tokaray.

Isabella is reported to have the ashes of her father along with certain other genetic samples, into exile with her.

In late summer of 1634, Isabella and her companions took over an ethnic Ashkenatzim village in the western districts of the Vale known as šiqqǔṣ Mišômēm, and having cleansed the populace established a headquarters and base for the mobile laboratory. In Nomeziooqu 1635, Isabella's purpose for doing so became apparent when she impregnated herself with a fertilised embryo made of genetic material cloned from her father.

Her second exile came to an end, unexpectedly, in 1635/1636 when her party was captured by Elw partisans in the employ of the ESB-Jörmungandr Group.

Rehabilitation

• Countess of Amity, Miriroth & So-Sara

Return to Amity

Following the defeat of the Dark Orchid Society in the Angularis War, Isabella cemented the marriage alliance between the House of Simrani-Kalirion and the House of Osman by marrying Tokaray al-Osman and pledging her son Daniyel, himself a clone of her late father Daniel Simrani-Kalirion in betrothal to Tokaray's and Miranda's daughter Azardokht al-Osman.

This alliance receiving the blessing of the Arandur, Thorgils Tarjeisson, who had been their warden for the duration of the hostilities, the Simrani Sisters and the Osmanids were permitted to return to Amity. On their return Isabella discovered that her half-sister, Queen Noor, had granted certain rights and privileges to the Iron Company providing them with certain monopolies and a role in the government of the city of Erudition. It might be said that Isabella, now styling herself as Emira of the Isles, was not best pleased with this latest development. It certainly added to her overall doubts about her sister's fitness to rule Goldshire, particularly in light of subsequent events.

Natopia

Isabella Simrani-Kalirion attending the Natopian-Alexandrian Friendship Ball in her capacity as Secretary of Defence for the Bovic Empire. (1646 AN)

After being restored to her sister Noor's good graces through support offered in the acquisition of Goldshire, Isabella received recognition as Patroness of Kalir and head of the Simrani-Kalirion branch of the House of Ayreon-Kalirion. Amongst the perks of this new standing, foremost was the right to attend meetings of the Council of Elders in the palace of the Ribat Ayreon-Kalirion in Lindström and to enjoy the accommodation and amenities offered there. As a regular visitor Isabella eventually deemed it prudent to acquire Natopian citizenship as an insurance policy, which she did in the year 1637.6147 AN.ASC.

Through a discrete exercise in patient lobbying, on the same day as her investiture as a citizen of the Empire, Isabella received an appointment as Minister of State, answering to the Chancellor, Lord Erion, for the condition of the Natopian Defense Force. The manoeuvres that brought Isabella to office in Natopia were quite closely related to the international situation in 1637, which saw the Euran War at its height. The ESB Group, with which Isabella was now thoroughly entangled, had obtained a lease on Natopian shuttle craft and acquired an outpost on Ura'Bos to serve as a conduit for the smuggling of arms and advisers into the beleaguered Kingdom of Constancia.

In the previous year, the fighting in the war head threatened to become more globalised after an ESB Barque, the Seahawk, mounted an ill-disguised raid on Walstadt which provoked an armed confrontation and a night of violence that had culminated in the sinking of the barque, the burning of several government buildings and, most strikingly of all, the capture and decapitation of the Kattei Emperor of Jingdao.

The raid had prompted a crisis between Natopia and Jingdao and within the House of Ayreon-Kalirion itself. The self-styled Great Enlightened King of Walstadt, Welf Blutwasser-Ayreon-Kalirion, was a member of the House by virtue of the adoption of Ludwig Blutwasser-Ayreon-Kalirion by Jonathan Ayreon-Kalirion, an apparent and misguided attempt to reconcile the descendants of Sisera and Elijah, in the preceding decade. Welf was also the father of Heinrich Rasmus, otherwise known as the Kattei Emperor.

Furious that the Natopians had considered the raid and the murder of his estranged father to be an isolated criminal act, rather than an act of war, and one for which the Walstadters themselves were not entirely blameless, Welf had begun a process of agitation that might, if left unchecked, have led to the Demesne of Walstadt breaking away and falling into the Jingdaoese sphere of influence, an especially acute risk since the Empire of Jingdao had deployed the 2nd Battle Fleet to menace Natopia with the prospect of a direct intervention in Walstadt.

As Isabella moved to establish her presence in the Council of Elders, the Natopian Defence Force and the Frenzy (the parliament), the Natopian response was decisive. After Welf declared Walstadt would conduct itself as a sovereign nation and proposed an amendment to the Caprine Code in the Frenzy to enable demesnes to be granted independence, the attitude of the Natopian Empire had hardened, with Jingdaoese "aid" to Walstadt being pointedly returned in an inferior condition[1] whilst, simultaneously, "An Act for the Restoration of Order" was put before the Frenzy by Isabella to proscribe Welf von Walstadt, Theodor von Walstadt and Angela von Walstadt as Category B Protected Persons. The same act also provided for the demotion of Walstadt to a subdemesne of Thalassa and opened the door for the colonisation of that territory by Tapferite migrants in order to end the separatist tendencies of that overseas territory. It was also at Isabella's instigation that the territory known as Highfields was evacuated and a land corridor gifted to the Empire of Minarboria to allow the connection of its Volksburg enclave to the remainder of its Southern Cibolan territories.

While this was being debated in the Frenzy, the Council of Elders of the House of Ayreon-Kalirion bestirred themselves to follow Isabella's recommendation that Welf of Walstadt and his descendants and the line of the Blutwasser branch be excluded from the Ayreon-Kalirion dynasty[2]. It transpired that the most elegant and straightforward way to achieve this was via the retrospective revocation of the adoption of Ludwig Blutwasser in the first instance, delegitimising not only Welf but the entire Blutwasser achievement in Walstadt.

At Isabella's direction, in accordance with the command of Emperor Nain, the Natopian Navy had also adopted a more robust posture, with the 4th Exploratory Fleet redeployed to counter the presence of the "Batavian" 2nd Fleet. The Jingdaoese were subsequently prevailed upon to withdraw their capital ships from Natopian waters after the NDF began scheduling live-firing exercises, including a planned orbital bombardment, in grid-coordinates adjacent to their last known position.[3]

The effect of this rebuke proved to be calamitous, setting in motion the train of events that would ultimately result in the famous train-wreck that was "Jexit" and the subsequent struggle for Jingdao to re-establish itself.

In the wake of her success in helping to end the Walstadt Crisis in a very satisfactory manner, Isabella was rewarded by nomination to the post of President of the Board of the Saint Andre Trading Company (SATCo.) a patronage post vacated by Welf in his unceremonious exit.[4]

More controversial was her involvement in the suppression of the Leonid Guards in Natopia, as part of a wider crackdown on the Babkhi trained and officered corps of bodyguards for the House of Ayreon-Kalirion. Although subsequently exposed as a plot by Isabella's nephew, Lord Adam, to murder his brothers and secure the succession to the Emirate of Sathrati, the deaths by poisoning of Arn and Rostam, tipped Noor over the edge into insane and resulted in the conduct of a murderous purge throughout Goldshire and the domains of the Emirate. In spite of this, the only opposition to the arrest of the Leonid Guards garrisoned in Lindström and Walstadt was procedural rather than ethical.

Those procedural objections nonetheless proved to be time consuming, with a back and forth between the Frenzy, the Courts, the Ministry of Security and the national police force. During this time the Leonid Guards remained at liberty, a condition that Isabella could not abide.

On 6.XI.1639 AN a modified Dingo Class Shuttle, a 24-seater variant leased to the ESB-Jörmungandr Group during the Euran War, piloted by Flight Lieutenant Cathay Miéville was employed to mount an airborne assault on the Ribat of Ayreon-Kalirion, deploying a commando team from the Aurochssturm Division into the courtyard of the ribat to assault the barracks of the Leonid Guard. The Guard had however been expecting some kind of assault and crippled the hovering shuttle with a volley of rocket propelled grenades. This success backfired for them somewhat as the mortally wounded Flt Lt Miéville was able to hold position with her burning craft long enough for the last commandos to rappel to safety before crashing her craft into the barracks building itself, resulting in a vast conflagration and the scattering of radioactive material from the wrecked shuttle's fusion impulse drive over a wide area. The stranded and isolated commando team now found itself beseiged by the enraged Leonid Guards and had to be rescued by the 3rd Naval Infantry Brigade, who suffered severe casualties in assaulting the compound. In the end, 110 officers and men of the Aurochssturm Division were killed along with 25 Leonid Guardsmen. The catastrophic incident was explained away officially as an aviation disaster.[5][6]

The 245 surviving Leonid Guards of the Lindström detachment were held illegally by the Defence Force[7] whilst discussions in the Supreme Court continued regarding their eventual fate.

Nonetheless on 11.XIII.1639 AN the Frenzy passed the resolution authorising the extradition of the Leonid Guard and on the following day the Supreme Court issued a formal warrant for the arrest of all Leonid Guardsmen in the empire.[8] However, the process was subject to challenge by the office of the Chancellor[9], yet that not withstanding, the NDF was able to quietly transfer its prisoners into the custody of the constabulary, ending Isabella's immediate involvement with the problem. It only remains to note that the ultimate fate of the extradited Leonid Guards was not a happy one.[10]

Titles

With the death of her father from hemlock poisoning Isabella inherited the title of Patroness of Kalir and has been acknowledged as Elder of the Simrani branch of the House of Ayreon-Kalirion.

Isabella was at one time the named heir to the Emirate of Sathrati and legal guardian of Noor Bint Simrani-Kalirion's children in the event of her death. Noor's husband pressed for the terms of the will to be revised in his favour. Instead the inheritance passed, on Noor's death, to Vidar Salim Livarson.

1631–the present: Patroness of Kalir
1650–the present: Emira of Jadid Khaz Modan.

Personality

Isabella is generally considered to be more ruthless and calculating in her temperament than her half-sister Noor but also to be of a fundamentally calmer disposition. She does however possess a keen sense of family honour and dignity and can be moved to perform extreme acts when she perceives those to be threatened; as can be seen in the alacrity with which she escaped from Elwynn when the prospect of marriage to Noah was first mooted, the remorselessness with which she hunted down and dispatched her sister's first husband and the direct assault mounted on the Leonid Guard when she considered them culpable for the murder of two of her nephews.

The purity of the Kalirion bloodline is something of a fixation for her, and it is known that she openly despises those who trace their lineage and legitimacy to Nathaniel, a Jingdaoese slave adopted by Elijah Ayreon and Nathan Waffel-Paine. In this she clearly inherited and maintained the uncompromising attitude of her father who had Nathaniel marginalised, attainted and finally murdered (the plot contrivances by which Nathaniel supposedly survived being thrown into the waters off the Aryashti coast lend credence to the supposition that the Nathaniel who subsequently returned to Elwynn was an impostor).

She is known to put her long term, and those of her son, interests ahead of more immediate concerns and the ties of kinship. She showed no hesitation in disassociating herself from her husband's impetuous coup attempt, which had endangered her work on the Western Alliance and which quickly proved to be futile and doomed. Indeed, it was perhaps as a demonstration of the degree of separation that she sanctioned the surgical strike by the Natopian Aerospace Command which destroyed the MoMA building in Shirekeep.[11]

She has not been known to show any particular sign of distress of grief at her present state of presumed widowhood.