Queen Cara
OOOH YAY SHE'S FUN
1. Hazel to brownish.
2. Late forties, early fifties.
3. She's pretty short. So was her sister. She's not as graceful as her children, either, mostly because she hates martial arts.
4. Snark. Oh, lord and lady, the snark. Put her and her children in a room and you get a snarkfest unlike any other. She's just as bad on the world stage too.
5. Arranged marriage between royalty. Her father and mother liked each other well enough, but her father wasn't very interested in politics, so he faded out of the royal life pretty quickly.
6. Oh, dear...well, he was some sort of traveler with red hair and green eyes, and he promised her the world, and they had a quick affair, and then he left, and Annalise was born, tall and redheaded like her father and with power that came from neither of them. (Neither of them knew that the traveler was descended from an ancient Celtic royal line, and the genes for red hair was as likely to be expressed as the borderline sociopathic traits were.)
7. Well, Queen Ophelia was the mother of Xatan, Nira, and X-Man, but she died giving birth to her twins. Someone had to rule Alvinia in her stead...and Alvinians tend to have big families. (Actually, the Avrisa haln is unusual in that there were only two children of that one generation, Ophelia and Cara. But then, it was also the sixties, and the whole world was in revolution.)
8. No one that I know of, but Alvinians take lovers whenever the hell they feel like it, and it's not really anyone's business unless they have kids. Since this is all from her children's POV (neices\nephews of the sister are considered kids in Alvinia), they don't want to know.
9. Jaguar, same as Xatan. I think the Avrisas have pet jaguars. (They really really want to, anyway.)
10. Two question of your choice – anything you want!
Gah, you didn't give me any questions! :p That's fine, I'll make some up:
A) What is her role in the story? Cara is the mother figure, not just for the children--they might be in their late teens\early twenties, but they'll always be her children--but for all of Alvinia. It's her job to help mediate the councils of grandmothers, to keep the government running, to serve as the face of Alvinia, and to try to keep a lid on Ilenthya until a Leader can be found. She's always in the background, keeping the home base safe and secure--and woe to the one who threatens that work. A queen is not a woman to cross lightly!
B) What's the craziest thing she's done? Mostly she left the crazy to her sister growing up, but she's not above going and hanging out in a nightclub every now and again. No one really recognizes her, and if they do, they don't really care.