Diff for "PrincessMeredith"

Princess Meredith was the founder and first ruler of Centralia, as well as the first Asterian to come to Earth.

Arrival on Earth

Long before the founding of Centralia, an ethereal being made of pure magic traveled to Earth from the distant planet Asteria. Upon arriving on Earth, the Asterian assumed the form of a human woman--much to her confusion, as she had never seen a human before. The Asterian found herself in the middle of a dense forest, where she wandered for several days, simply taking in the sensations of her new home planet. The sights, the sounds, the smells, even the tastes: The Asterian was in awe of it all.

After a few days in the forest, the Asterian came face-to-face with a human for the first time. While following a creek through the woods, the Asterian stumbled upon a young human woman wading in the creek. The Asterian was absolutely captivated by the sheer grace and elegance of this unfamiliar life form, she asked one simple question: "Are all of this planet's creatures as beautiful as you?" The words came naturally, despite being in a language she had never heard spoken before. The human woman responded simply by thanking the Asterian for the compliment and asking her name. The Asterian, of course did not have a name: the very concept of names was completely foreign to her.

The human woman, who told the Asterian her name was AdorabelleWallace, invited the Asterian inside, offering her food and clothing. The Asterian was unsure of the purpose of food and clothing, but Adorabelle insisted upon giving them to her, so she simply assumed that eating and getting dressed must be important rituals to Earth creatures. Adorabelle then proceeded to patiently explain to her what names were, and eventually the two of them decided the Asterian would adopt the name Meredith.

And thus began a close friendship that would last for centuries to come.

Princess of Centralia

While magic had long existed on Earth before Meredith's arrival--Adorabelle herself was a very powerful mage--the people of Earth quickly found that Meredith's magical abilities far exceeded any of their own, verging on omnipotence. A faction of Earth creatuers thus decided to appoint Meredith as their leader, and The Principality of Centralia was established, with Princess Meredith as their sovereign.

During her reign as princess, Meredith remained close with Adorabelle, even appointing her as her official royal advisor.

Princess Meredith was the first Asterian to migrate to Earth, and as such she initially lacked familiarity with several aspects of Earth life, especially language. She often refers to her surroundings in unconventional ways, for example, calling a bird a "wingbeast" or referring to coffee as "beanwater". During Meredith's early years on Earth, she was often advised on Earth life and human customs by her close friend AdorabelleWallace.

Princess Meredith's true age is not known, even to Meredith herself. Meredith previously kept track of her age by counting the Earth years on a small digital counter, but found the device could only count to 255 before rolling over to zero. The counter's current reading is 9, though nobody quite knows how many times the count has rolled over. "I know it's rolled over at least twice," Meredith said, "but after that I kind of stopped paying attention."¹

Meredith's special magical power is the ability to levitate or fly. Meredith had the PalaceOfSerenity built with trapdoors in most floors, allowing her to float between stories of the building without needing to use stairs. Other palace residents and staff learned very quickly to pay attention to where they were walking, as Meredith often left these trapdoors open. Flight came so naturally to Meredith that she often had difficulty determining what beings or objects could or could not easily fly, leading her to commission the Railroad Track Leading To A Cliff And Nowhere Else as a platform for flying trains. While the track was laid, the flying train project never got off the ground (pun very much intended).

"The Santa Claus Incident" and Abdication

Princess Meredith's unfamiliarity with Earth culture proved problematic at times. The most notable example occurred one December when Meredith became convinced that SantaClaus, of all people, was a pretender to the throne and wished to stage a coup. Meredith responded by attacking Santa during his December 24th rounds. Santa successfully fought off Meredith's assault, and Meredith was eventually subdued by members of the CentraliaHonorGuard, who, after many hours, managed to convince her that she was mistaken in assuming Santa wanted to usurp her.

While Meredith maintained that she had done nothing wrong, she abdicated the throne a week later, on December 31. "I've been doing this whole 'ruling' thing for a long time," Meredith said, "and it's really, really hard sometimes." Meredith's successor, PrincessJeanette, assumed the throne the following day, on January 1.

Miscellaneous

• In 1978, Princess Meredith bought out homes in the Lilith Avenue neighborhood of QueenCity to be demolished to make way for an expansion of PollyannaWhittierMedicalCenter (known, at the time, as Queen City Central Hospital). However, rather than properly notifying the residents in advance, Meredith simply showed up with a bulldozer, gave each resident a sack of money, and called a taxicab to take them to the nearest homeless shelter. Thankfully, members of the CentraliaHonorGuard convinced Meredith to give the dislocated residents more time to get moving arrangements in place. ²

• In the mid-2000s, Princess Meredith briefly operated a DVD rental service known as Meredisc.

• Early on in her reign, Princess Meredith learned about the Earth custom of funerals. She found it grossly unfair, however, that only dead people get to have funerals, and insisted on staging her own "funeral" in the PalaceOfSerenity. However, after lying in the coffin for about half an hour, she got bored, and decided to cancel the rest of the proceedings in favor of taking all her friends out for frozen yogurt. It probably worked out for the best.

• Although Meredith does not know when she was born, she celebrates her "birthday" every March 15 alongside her life partner Dame Adorabelle, after Adorabelle agreed to "share" her birthday with Meredith.

CategoryRoyalty