Age; 37
Affiliation: Silver / House Golden
Likes; chess/puzzles, House Fannar/his sister, chivalry, winter, dragons, swordplay, honesty
Dislikes; geneva’s senseless torture, arsen, infidelity, gossip, his kids (sort of, it’s complicated)
Other Info; Errol is not a generous or kind man, but he is a Saint compared to Geneva. He will never openly question Geneva or her decisions – unless it is about battle, war, or politics. However, he has concerns about how she treats her servants and residents of Platina, preferring to take a milder approach. When she is away on business trips or meetings, he is known to give mercy to anyone summoned to House Golden during that time. The servants all like him much better than Geneva and will often go to him if some error or mistake has happened, for even if they are imprisoned or punished in some way, Geneva finding out is a fate worse than death.
As their marriage contract typically confines him to Golden grounds, he summons the best and brightest of Silver to House Golden to either play him in chess, or duel him in swordfighting. Errol is always wearing some sort of cloak to cover his missing arm. He’s also known to uphold chivalry and won’t let women be tortured or cruelly punished where he can see or hear.
Bio; Grew up in Ceriasus as a member of House Fannar. Fannar is a matriarchal House, so although he’s Ryulia’s older brother, he was never considered for succession once she was born. That fact made him self-consciously protective of his masculinity, always trying to prove he was ‘worthy’ and a ‘real man’ by being a model gentleman to women, despite not being able to take over House Fannar. However, that inherent resentment didn’t bleed over into his relationship with his sister; he played chess with her often, and he held his own whenever it came to anything with a strategy. Even as a teenager, he helped Ryulia make several strategic moves to boost House Fannar’s status and quash some of House Delgado’s advances in their historic rivalry.
When Geneva became of courting age, he aggressively pursued her, though he wasn’t the first man to gain her attention and it took quite some time to get her to even consider him. Fortunately, the other men Geneva considered met mysterious fates due to their wavering loyalty. Errol was honest with Geneva in that while he wanted to marry her to raise the status of House Fannar, he would not ever question Geneva or House Golden unless it was in terms of war strategies. And he proved that he was the most loyal bachelor by passing a variety of loyalty and capability tests.
Their marriage was a carefully thought out contract and had various conditions written into it; all favoring House Golden. The only net benefit for Errol is that the marriage overall would boost House Fannar’s reputation. After they’d gotten married and he knew that he was safe from death, Errol tried to get rid of Arsen as he felt that having him around was a slight against Errol as a man - he heard servants gossip about how Errol must not be good enough at protecting her, or good enough in bed, if Geneva kept Arsen around all the time. He’d grown sick and shameful of these rumors, and though he had severely punished the servants who had spread them and thus put an end to them, they still haunted him. Unfortunately, Errol’s attempt at removing the problem didn’t go over so well. Arsen ended up cutting off Errol’s left arm and transmutated it into a sword. In a sick twist of fate, he handed it back to Errol and told him to try again any time.
Later, when he and Geneva had children, Errol at first was a surprisingly involved father. Since his marriage wasn’t great and he didn’t like Platina, he devoted his time to his children. He would speak to them patiently in Ceriasi and tell them all about dragons and stories from his homeland, all while teaching them chess. But then, he discovered that while he’d made major concessions to prove his loyalty to Geneva, that loyalty was one way. Errol discovered she wasn’t always faithful to him, and to be honest while he despised that fact, he didn’t blame her – it was a loveless and relatively sexless marriage. But to be so careless once children were involved?
Starting to doubt if the children were all his, he pulled back, starting to grow disgusted at them as reflections of his own failures as a man and husband. He’s only still involved with the kids who show any kind of blatant Fannar characteristics. The others? He’s left those… things… to the nannies and instead focused on helping Geneva with her war strategies.
He may not love Geneva, but the survivability of House Fannar depends on her success, so he has become a critical and dependable resource for her battle plans. And it’s that which makes him so loyal.
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