Krystanya II Shiroko

Krystanya II was born in 928 to Liliya I Shiroko. During her teen years, she began hearing voices and developed a tea to help decrease them. Through the years of her reign, she focused on improving conditions for current and former slaves, leading to a decrease in the restrictions instituted by Olha I Shiroko. In her later years she continued to work on treatments, along with her son, Dmitri, who shared her condition.

Mental characteristics

Personal history

Born in 928, Krystanya II was the third child of Liliya I Shiroko. Her two older siblings were miscarriages and both Liliya and her husband became extremely protective of her. It was not until twelve years later that a sibling was born. During her childhood, she spent most of her time with her mother and learned much about what would be necessary for when she became the baejan (emperor/empress). These included military strategy, history, politics, and international law. During her Attunement Test it was discovered that she was a pyr-esh and she was also taught to create the Ilyannoi. However, her interest was in domestic affairs, particularly the conditions of slaves and free people.
After the slave rebellion under Olha I Shiroko in 872 current and former slaves saw a severe increase in the restrictions on their lives. These included harsher punishments for crimes than a free-person and the introduction of the Eyudzeni Biiame to mark former slaves apart from those who had never been in service. These restrictions and punishments were intended to deter slaves from revolting and keep them under control.
Krystanya II became interested in the conditions of the slaves. In speaking to the slaves around the palace, she learned about where they had come from and how their lives compared to those of previous generations. She also, through the travels that all tajanji (high prince/princess) were required to do, saw the conditions in which slaves were trained and the cruel treatment some masters used with their property. This had a deep effect on her and she decided that she would work with the former slaves upon her ascension to the throne. Her mother wanted her to continue her work on the infrastructure and leave the slaves alone. However, Krystanya only hid her interest, biding her time until she was given authority.
During her teen years, she began to hear voices berating her and commenting on what she was doing. At first, she was able to ignore them, but they became progressively louder, causing her to react and lose focus. Liliya I was worried that her daughter was going mad and would cause problems for the empire. With the next heir twelve years younger, it would be a long time before another baejan could be found. Instead of trying to circumvent her daughter, Liliya and Krystanya worked together to seek a treatment.
Using the book of treatments that had been passed down in the family, Krystanya and her family created a tea that was able to temporarily dull the voices she heard, thus allowing her to go through her future reign without the use of the Induced Regency doctrine. Sadly, later in her life, the tea lost its efficacy and she was left to battle her symptoms without that assistance in her final years.
In 950, Liliya I retired and Kystanya II took the throne at twenty-two. Rather than wait another decade for her younger brother to come of age, she married one of her cousins. This union was slightly odd in that most of her ancestors had married siblings. Not since Zora III Shiroko had a baejan married anyone other than a brother or sister. Through her reign, she had a total of five children: Ilya VIII Shiroko (961), Kariin and Dmitri (963), Svante (966), and Laada (967).
Her main goal in her reign was to improve the conditions of the slaves. Unlike her ancestors, she believed that the path to stability was not through the slaves' fear of citizens, but through their contentment. If a slave was happy, there was no reason for them to want to change their station. Those who tried would be deemed ungrateful and shunned by the others. To that end, she decided to use a two pronged strategy that would work with both the current slaves and those who had already become free.
First, she brought the punishments on freed people in line with those of citizens for various crimes in the hopes of creating a more equal playing field and encouraging the former slaves to behave. If they were treated fairly, they had no reason to ally with disgruntled current slaves. While she kept the Eyudzeni Biiame, they were changed to be less obvious and often of much higher quality as a show of respect for the slaves' prior service. Along with this, she increased the taxes on slave owners and slave sales. This was to inflate the value of each slave. With the slaves being worth more to the owners, her theory was that the owners would treat their property better as it would be more expensive to replace them.
The results of these efforts were mixed. Resentment built in the population due to the lowering of punishments as the citizens felt disrespected and Krystanya II was forced to increase them again, although not to the levels seen under her ancestor. On the other hand, the increased taxes led to greater prices and the incidents of abused slaves dropped as owners tried to keep slaves in working order as long as possible.
She worked with the tea through her entire reign, along with creating other treatments to help dull the voices. These were added to the book and used on herself and her son, Dmitri, when he began showing similar symptoms. When her own symptoms began to respond less and less to the treatments, she decided to retire in 991 and leave the empire in the care of her oldest son, Ilya VIII, who was thirty at the time.
After retiring, she remained on the grounds of the Gandenye and she and Dmitri continued to make improvements to the treatment book through the rest of her life. Near the end, the voices became extremely severe and she retreated into her chambers often, with only her children and husband seeing her. She died in 1001 of kidney failure brought on by the flu, which weakened her significantly in her advanced age. After her death, she was buried in the family mausoleum in the Gandenye.

Life

928 1001 73 years old

Birthplace

Gandenye

Place of Death

Gandenye

Parents

Liliya I Shiroko

Children

• Ilya VIII Shiroko

Gender

female

Eyes

large, dark violet

Hair

bright white, braided, long

Skin Tone/Pigmentation

pale

Height

5'7"