goidemar (left) was the third king of temeria. when goidemar was still a prince, he married riannon, who was later kidnapped during the falka rebellion during which she gave birth to twins, fiona and amavet.
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amavet (centre), as the son of goidemar and riannon, was prince of temeria. in his earlier years, amavet gained a reputation for romancing many a woman, including married ones, and when he was seventeen he began a romance with one such married woman, tvilla de vintre, who was ten years older than him. the romance caused a small scandal in court.
after his father removed his lover and his lover’s husband from court, amavet turned his sights on ilona laux-antille, an assistant to the sorceress tissaia de vries. but the dalliance was ruined when ilona used her magic to destroy any hopes of a planned, political marriage between amavet and the princess deirdre of kaedwen. as a result, amavet was sent away to one of the provinces in hopes that he would keep out of trouble.
alas, one of the border commanders was roger kameny, the husband of the beautiful anna kameny, and soon amavet was having an affair with her. when anna’s husband learnt of the affair, he hired bandits to ambush the young prince whilst he was on a hunt, castrating amavet before brutally murdering him. it turns out that anna had gotten pregnant during the affair, and ended up giving birth to twins: a daughter muriel and a son crispin.
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crispin kameny, or crispin aep amavet (right), was the son of countess anna kameny and the temerian prince amavet, but due to how crispin and his twin sister were conceived, nobody knew for certain who their father was. therefore, crispin and muriel kameny weren’t granted the hereditary title of counnt and couldn’t inherit their supposed father, roger kameny’s, estate.
after going through three court trials, however, they were granted the title and estate. but unlike his sister, crispin wanted his connection to the royal family validated and began to wear a coat of arms that combined his supposed father’s with his real father’s, resulting in adding burgundy to the temerian lillies. it caused a scandal which enraged his enemies as well as his family.
eventually, crispin joined a gang of mercenaries, the so-called “free company” and referred to himself as crispin aep amavet, showing his true father was in fact the deceased prince of temeria and that he had elven blood in his veins. he disappeared without leaving a trace in metinna, and many people considered him deceased. the only person who longed to find crispin was king goidemar, who knew that while he was an illegitimate child, crispin was also his grandson.
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spending some time in the plains of mag deira, in metinna, crispin met colette njall, one of the markee people who minded the herds of horses roaming the land, and established expansive ranches raising cattle. they bred the famous metinnese ponies, which are white, extremely hardy, sure footed and intelligent. zelda’s horse, beetroot, is a metinnese pony, though she has no idea that her own birth mother belonged to the very people who bred these talented horses.
metinna is also renowned for its wine, the metinna rosé, which rivals the wine brewed in places such as toussaint.
crispin began a love affair with colette, who fell pregnant with their only daughter, zelda njall / kemany.
after zelda’s birth, crispin persuaded colette to leave her home in the plains of mag deira to travel with him and the rest of the free company. the small family travelled together to nilfgaard but, as it were, crispin was not so different from his real father, and it did not take long for him to abandon a young colette and their newborn daughter in the port city baccalà. zelda was barely three months old and crispin had already tired of the familial life he had painted to colette, who was only seventeen at the time, and who now had an infant to take care of without the aid of the man she thought would marry her, and all in a strange city she had never been to before.
trying to keep her baby alive in the tough streets of nilgaard, as well as herself, colette grew desperate. after several long, hard months trying to get by, she grew sick, and knew that she would not make it through the fast approaching winters. but she did not want her daughter to die with her and was determined to find her a good home.
not longer after, a witcher arrived in the city. when colette learnt of this she tracked him down and asked that he take her child. but as soon as the witcher learnt that the baby was a girl, he declined, and set off. several weeks later, as winter hit nilgaard and its surrounding villages, vesemir discovered colette’s dead, frozen body in an abandoned hut somewhere out in the wilds. all was silent but for the ghostly howls of the storm outside, and then, miraculously, the cries of a living baby desperate to survive. after that, vesemir took zelda with him to kaer morhen...
