Enya!

Name: Eithne Clary, better known as Enya for the benefit of English speakers unfamiliar with Irish naming conventions, Lady Knight, Marchioness of Kildare, and sole inheritor to the Dukedom of Leinster
Age: 25
Gender: Cis female

Appearance: With a stature that would give most men a fright, Eithne stands at an impressive 6'2" in height, her build less willowy and graceful and more stocky. Her broad shoulders and the well-defined muscle of her arms and thighs make it instantly apparent that she's built with solidity in mind, used to strenuous activity far beyond the approved exertions of a typical noblewoman. Though other women of her status might try to conceal these traits as much as possible, shrinking in on themselves in an effort to appear small, Eithne owns every inch of her bearing and wholly rejects the image of a demure and dainty lady. Her skin, while fair, has been weathered by long hours spent in the sun, accompanied by a smattering of freckles that cover her face, chest, and back. Though she takes care to bind her hair up when anticipating a skirmish or formal occasions, she uses the soonest possible opportunity to set it free, allowing it to reach just past her shoulders and reveal the strands of blonde that turns its typical color golden in the sunlight. Equally as warm are her eyes, a honey brown that light up with a challenge, and a wide mouth often given to smiling. Fashion sense is best described as "eclectic," given that she... has none, just as happy to don breeches fit for a stablehand as she is all the dresses and finery permitted to her station. Taste? Who's she?

Personality: One thing is for certain, when she walks into a room, everyone looks up and takes notice. Hers is presence born and bred to lead, but far from being gruff and unapproachable, it's her easygoing charm and infectious cheer that inspires those around her to follow suit. Boisterous, vibrant, completely unapologetic about who and what she is, Eithne is often likened to that of an overgrown golden retriever pup. Her loyalty knows no bounds, and while eloquence and razor-sharp wit is not her specialty, to put it mildly, she makes up for it through sheer enthusiasm. There's no easy way to say this, folks, she's dumb as a box of rocks, but rather than pretend to be something she isn't, her strength lies in emotional intelligence rather than academic aptitude, and she has unwavering trust in those that have spent their lives honing their minds, listening to their input with keen interest instead of assuming she knows better.
More than anything, Eithne strives to understand how people work, and her simplicity and straightforwardness is a welcome change from the backstabbing doublespeak of most nobility, throwing would-be acquaintances off their rhythm as she lacks all pretense or instinct for deception. This isn't to say that being upbeat is all there is to her, far from it. Before anything else, Eithne is a knight of the realm, a soldier, and a commander in her own right, and she's just as capable of stone-faced seriousness as any of her comrades. Her good-natured attitude, while not a lie, does stretch itself very thin at times in her attempts to put on a brave face. The lives she's taken in her path haunt her, and she feels it's her duty to remain resolute, even if it leaves her no one to depend on but herself. Despite initial assumptions that she rejects any and all things feminine out of hand, she's far from just a rough-and-tumble tomboy, finding comfort in some expressions of "traditional" womanhood if not others.

History: The result of a waspish union between an English father with vast wealth but no title to speak of and an Irish mother with a noble title but an estate in ruins that threatened to beggar them, Eithne was not unexpected but unwanted all the same. It was a marriage built of convenience and opportunity, no genuine fond feeling beyond the satisfaction of a contract negotiated, and the sole child conceived (a daughter, no less!) lacked for nothing materially but everything emotionally. Having gained the status he desired, her Duke father cared nothing for the family he'd married into, furious at his new wife's inability to give him a son, half-convinced she had worked some fae spell to deprive him of a rightful heir.
Eithne was allowed to grow largely unsupervised so long as she was out of the public eye, wild and part fae herself in the way she handled animals and brought back gifts of berries and branches with skinned knees and torn skirts. What she lacked in love given by her parents was showered by the maids, cooks, stablehands, and kennelmaster. The servants of the duchy's estate tempered their scoldings with plenty of praise, making them a stark contrast to the litany of tutors and governesses quick with their reprimands but even quicker with a switch. It wasn't long before she began to ignore her studies entirely, find the best hideyholes and incur the wrath of her mother whose anger wasn't explosive like that of her father's, but cold and purposeful. She impressed on her daughter that their role was survival, nothing more and nothing less. It was a mirror of the relationship between their respective motherlands, fraught with tension and struggles for independence, but where Eithne's mother had given up and let her resentment breed in silence, she herself was motivated to reach further, an utter refusal to be a content, pretty centerpiece.
Now, her excursions were filled with determination, driven to learn as much as she could about the life she'd been denied, what a highborn son would have been passed down, even if it had to be on her own. She learned to ride, hunt, and fish, she slept in the stables and huddled in a heap with the hounds, all with the support of keen-eyed retainers and grizzled men at arms willing to teach an eager and unusual pupil, a dozen fathers instead of just one. Always, she was spurred on by tales of lady knights and warrior queens that had come before her hundreds of years ago, myth and legend, perhaps, but real enough to her child's mind that when the time came to smuggle swords from the armory, she used them as shadow sparring partners, scoring marks into trees and imagining their grins of approval, teeth bared, eyes bright.
As she grew bigger, stronger, and larger, it was hard to miss the fact that she'd failed to bloom into a graceful young woman suitable for marrying off. If her looks weren't enough to ward off potential suitors, her blunt, direct form of conversation that addressed men as equals instead of remaining soft-spoken and deferential certainly did the job. Or so her father bemoaned. If his only daughter was of no use to him as a bargaining chip to obtain more social capital, then he began to entertain thoughts of taking the Dukedom and finding another wife more amenable to begetting heirs. This necessitated that he find some way to free himself from the two thorns in his side. Quick to assume that Eithne were simply a slow, dull-witted oaf, he soon found out the hard way that an attempt on his lady-wife's life would only result in being pummeled half to death himself with the point of his own sword aimed squarely at his throat.
Eithne gave him a choice. All would be forgiven, the attempt to murder the very woman he'd strongarmed into marrying him kept a family secret, so long as he fled the estate and named her as his true and legitimate successor despite her gender. She and her mother would have the security to live in comfort even after his death, and he could live out his life free of all contact. Or else die a disgrace, a coward with every horror exposed in sharp relief, and take the whole of her family legacy along with it. She didn't fancy herself a murderer, but in that moment, Eithne would have happily butchered him if it meant serving justice. As a man concerned with himself before all, the threat of his safety meant he would have agreed to anything. And so she was named Marchioness of Kildare, granted a company of soldiers alongside her lands, and vowed never to allow herself the feeling of taking pleasure in a kill. It took time to gain the respect of her men that a title alone simply couldn't force, but once they were trained, outfitted, and shown proper care rather than the bored disinterest of a commander that came before them, she would find none others more loyal.
So loyal, in fact, that they balked at the thought of her entering English society alone, but upon summons from the Queen herself owing to the curious circumstances of her station, Eithne found herself wanting to see the land that had birthed and shaped her father. A land that could be hers, if she wanted it. She arrived in London with little more than the clothes on her back, her horse, and a few servants from her childhood to see to her needs, but she would make certain that would be enough.

Other notes: Women born after 1863 don't embroider, all they know is fight, rip they dress, dance, be bisexual, eat jellied eel, and lie. The living embodiment of a horse girl in middle school; she loves riding and cares for her steed, Bluebell, as tenderly as she would her own child. If you read all this, I'm proud of you.