{ reference } thoughtful girls married to notaries
Petrana was born the only daughter of Elenian nobility in a family estate in the countryside, outside of Demos. Her father was a Pandion knight, albeit one mostly retired from duties more strenuous than acting as a form of diplomatic liason between the knighthood and whoever it was they needed to deal with without attacking with an axe, and her mother was a Cimmuran courtier who'd been previously widowed in a childless marriage to one of Petra's father's late comrades-in-arms. She grew up accustomed to regular trips to Cimmura by carriage - her requests to ride alongside her father denied even once she was old enough that she was asking for something she could do - and close friends with the only son of her father's close friend Lord Romiar, one Martel who was being groomed for the knighthood himself. Preferring to live mostly outside the capital city, Petra was partially shielded from the worsening political situation in Cimmura as the weak reign of King Aldreas forced Elenia into a difficult period that seemed prime for civil war. The knighthood to which she was connected by family and the expectation that her friendship with Martel would eventually become a marriage was weakening with it, as Preceptor Vanion did his level best to circumvent the King's wishes.
Learning to navigate Elene court during Aldreas's reign would serve her well in later years; in a period where what was going on was essentially civil war as played out by the scheming and machinations of courtiers, one learned how to survive or one did not survive. This was especially true when one was linked by blood to a faction that the King himself was set against and determined to force either to bow to him or be plowed under.
Having no particular competition for Sir Martel's affections - Petra was accustomed to his arrogant temper and dubious charms, and with all the good judgement of a high-bred young lady with a willful streak she'd set her cap for him a long time ago - she was quite comfortable entering a slightly clandestine relationship with her childhood friend, under the (correct) impression that he would court her properly and ask for her hand in due time. Which he did, proving that although she had very poor taste in men she wasn't all bad at reading them. They became engaged to be married shortly before the deaths of Lord Romiar and Lady Veleda - an accident that threw Petra's life briefly into a tailspin as her wedding was indefinitely postponed in the grieving aftermath, and a short engagement became a somewhat longer one. It seemed things were beginning to get back to what approached normal in Elenia, and Petra put Martel's slow withdrawal and partial isolation, his distraction, down to his typical difficulty with emotion and the sharp pain of losing both of his parents in one blow. This was a mistake.
It turned out, she would discover, that Martel had disobeyed his tutor and his preceptor, sought out forbidden instruction, and then disobeyed again when he refused to cease and repent. About three knights died in the struggle to subdue him, and he betrayed the Order once again before he was cast out, stripped significantly of his powers of sorcery, and banished. He went weeping, and Petra - foolishly - went after him as far as the woods outside Demos. They had a brief spat - in which Martel stood there and took it while she verbally abused him, until she went so far as to strike him and take a chunk of hair in the process and he caught her by the wrist. The expression on his face and the fact she would later have a ring of bruises was enough to jolt her out of her indignant fury and all the way into fear (he'd made her nervous, over the years, but she'd never been afraid of him hurting her) and when he released her she almost fell over herself in her haste to flee. She threw her ring away, as she went, and from that day mourned him as if he were dead. The hair she took from him went into a jet mourning locket, out of something she would later call spite; whatever the motivation, it remained after that a standard feature in her wardrobe, worn often.
Martel's disgrace became the albatross around her neck. That kind of gossip didn't die, and long after he was gone Petra was still the traitor's woman (the kindest of appellations on that theme, and the most suitable for mixed company); when Sir Davidias of the Deiran Alciones came courting, she was more than happy to accept his hand and take up a quieter life as the Countess of Gatas, in Deira. Their marriage would be a loving one, even through the frequent separations caused by his position in the Alcione Order; the conceptions of both of their daughters coincided rather neatly with two of Davidias's homecomings, and not altogether very far apart. Iola was the firstborn, and Isaune roughly two years younger. Petra devoted herself to her home and family, was delighted by Davidias's willingness to give her an art studio in their home and indulge her hobby, and set to creating a life for herself that was as far from the public eye as she could get herself. She became much more careful to avoid anything with so much as a hint of scandal - though she could never bring herself to burn certain portraits of her former lover that would, suffice it to say, utterly ruin her if they were ever made public - and spent little time at court, or in Elenia. She passed through her homeland periodically, to visit friends or family or present something necessary at what was eventually Queen Ehlana's court, and joined her husband at the Deiran court as was sometimes required of them, but as her own history tended to be dredged up every time her peers ran out of anything more recent to titter about, she preferred to largely stay out of the way.
Petra was always the sort of woman who got away with an awful lot simply because she was so quiet, so polite and so sweet-tempered that she couldn't possibly be doing anything very interesting. Martel's very public downfall only partially ruined that, and she still managed to get away with some of her less traditional habits and attitudes, so long as she was careful. That marrying her was considered, in some places, to be a mark against her husband - who she viewed as one of the best men she'd ever known, and the least deserving of the kind of cruel gossip they were sometimes subjected to - was something she found endlessly frustrating. It would also be a point of contention with her sister-in-law, who couldn't be persuaded to see the Countess as anything other than an immoral strumpet who would lead her sainted brother into sinful temptation.
("Well, sometimes-" "Davidias, that isn't funny.")
Petra's children were only toddling when the letter came from Prince Sparhawk - the Queen's Consort - that Martel had perished at his hands in the fall of Zemoch. Presently, about eight years later, Petra is becoming interested in the upswing of diplomatic relations with the Tamul Empire and busying herself with two girls approaching the verge of adolescence while they wait for Davidias's return from the Daresian continent since the war's end.