Liberty Tezeru Mežkiel 4

"I have stated before that I do not seek that kind of power. Had my coup of Xin-Moxige truly been a power-grab, I would still be sitting on the throne today." ~Liberty Tezeru Mežkiel 4~

Liberty Tezeru Mežkiel 4 was a Zaderic Komera known for being a powerful Lakamaté of Earth and an adamant Krippan national. She became particularly notorious after her coup and defense of the Krippan State of Xin-Moxige. She gained international recognition after she emerged victorious from the Siege of Shangda-Fei. Despite her young age, she was a powerful and intelligent warrior and military expert, and her accomplishments earned her titles such as "Divine Empress" and "Mother of the Krippan Empire."

Early Life
Liberty was the 4th of 5 children born to Reyson Ilah Mežkiel and Liberty Tezeru Mežkiel 3 in Shangda-Fei in the Krippan State of Xin-Moxige. As a Zaderei, she and her family were unlikely to be welcomed in very many other places, and thus her family remained in Krippa for most of their lives. However, from childhood Liberty's life was fraught with wars and bloodshed, most notably the Krawvill-Krippa War that begun in the 5th year of her life. Like many children, however, Liberty joined one of the military academies at the age of 4, which shaped her into a powerful and disciplined young woman who advanced swiftly through the ranks.

Her status as a Lakamaté made her a target throughout her youth, and part of why her family and state were such heavy targets during the war. She lost her mother and three of her siblings by the time she was 12, and by her 15th birthday only she and her father remained. She was, by all means, a child born of war.

Military Activity
Military had been a central and integral aspect of Liberty's life from the time she was able to walk, talk, and draw a bow. It was responsible for shaping her during her teenage and adolescent years, up and into her adulthood and prime. While it helped her acquire many notable and honourable traits, it, like any time spent in the depths of war, also took its toll on her mental and emotional stability.

Seeds of the Krippan Empire
Liberty's fierce discipline and leadership skills caused her to swiftly move up the ranks and soon she was granted leadership of the 251st Division, a platoon of 1,938 child soldiers between the ages of 4-25 from the academies that Liberty had risen through the ranks of by the time she was 14. With the war raging around them to the north and east, however, many of the other regiments were deployed from Xin-Moxige, leaving the already sparsely populated state even emptier and more vulnerable to attack. However, Liberty vowed that she would not allow that to happen. She spent the next two years organizing forces and visiting cities near the state's borders to analyze security. She knew she could not protect all 38 states of Krippa with her little army on her own, but she could protect the one she lived in, at the very least. Shortly after her 16th birthday, Liberty returned to Shangda-Fei and appealed to the state's governor for stronger support on the border cities, particularly as states around them began falling to the Krippan Rebellion or to the warmongering Shinzoka from the north. After four denied requests, she took matters into her own hands and with the help of her little army, organized a coup against the government, effectively taking over the entire state. This incident is considered the founding moment of the 79th Krippan Empire, and the movement that would later grant Liberty her title and nickname: "Mother of the Krippan Empire".

However, despite all of this, Liberty had no desire to rule a country. She made a Solemn Oath that she would step down as soon as the war was over, vowing that she would only rule with her iron fist as long as was necessary to preserve her state and her people from the throes of war. Her desire to see peace and to relieve herself of this political position became some of her many drives to succeed. Despite these claims, however, Liberty became unprecedentedly popular as a leader and soon was also colloquially referred to as "Divine Empress Liberty". Whether this was a joke or some sort of social meme was unclear, although Liberty usually reacted negatively to being called or considered a goddess.

Turning the Tide
By Mzani 4675 of the 182nd Age, the Republic of Krippa had fallen, with Krawvill and the Rebellion having divided the nation in two. The north and west portions of the country were controlled by the Shinzoka, while the south and east regions were controlled by the anarchists, who had also successfully overrun the capitol state of Fujin-Îa. While resistance movements attempting to restore order existed across the war-torn state, they had little luck in attempting to revive the fallen republic.

On the other hand, Liberty had managed to successfully secure the borders of Xin-Moxige and had declared it as "the new Krippan Empire". Her powers as a Lakamaté helped get her point across further, and she used these talents as well as her own military prowess and supporters to keep her state safe as the war raged around them. At certain points during the war she was fighting a two-pronged attack, but regardless of how much or how little the rebels and Shinzoka threw at her, Xin-Moxige did not capitulate. It was around early Bidas 4677 that Liberty and her army began to test the waters, and analyzed neighbouring states to see how likely they would join her cause.

Liberty was 19 when she finished her glorious conquest: The entire western half of the former Republic of Krippa was under her control, as well as three southwestern provinces of Krawvill. by this time, the eastern half of Krippa had re-established a shaky republic, and due to her Solemn Oath, Liberty swore that she would help unite the country, even to the point of making peace with the Shinzoka Grandmaster Council.

These talks and political discourses were lengthy and tumultuous, but when all was said and done, 37 states had returned to the Republic of Krippa, and Liberty had successfully ceded the three captured Krawvillzé provinces back to their home country. The conflict now was to try and convince the people of Xin-Moxige to return to Krippa. Years of powerful leadership under Liberty's guiding hand had hardened many of them into staunch Krippan Empire supporters, and thus it took a great deal of time for Liberty to manage to convince the state to return peacefully.

After the War
19 years of war took a devastating toll on Liberty Tezeru Mežkiel 4. Losing her mother and all of her siblings had hurt, but the stress of fighting and killing and watching people die around her had left her a shaken shell of a woman who no longer knew what to do with herself once the need for warriors and military officers had ended. She was offered a position in the Krippan government over the military branch, which she only took after a great deal of convincing, but even then, Liberty was still not herself. She spent most of her time trying to find a suitable replacement for herself, wanting to alleviate that responsibility from her own shoulders, but refusing to let a weak leader or no leader at all take her place. When she finally succeeded on this front, she moved north to Meng-Dana with several other Lakamaté and disappeared from the public for a while.

Appearance
Like most Komera, Liberty had darker skin and a shorter, more robust build than the average Serenza. Her Zaderism caused her to exhibit the three major traits of her condition, as well as 1,700 other much more subtle traits, many of which she and most Zaderei are not even aware of.

Physical Appearance
While Liberty naturally grew over the remaining years of her adolescence, it is believed that the Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder she acquired from her many wars and conflicts had stunted her emotionally as well as physically. As such, she ended up with a final height of 4'11" and weighed 99 lbs. Despite her small size, Liberty was a robust individual whose powerful elemental attacks were backed by enough physical strength and dexterity to swiftly pull back the string of her heavy bow.

Liberty's luminescent red eyes are commonplace on every Zaderei, and while green hues are not uncommon among dryad hair colors, her vivid green hair was almost more in line with Serenghe, suggesting that one or more of her ancestors may have been a Serenghe that passed the trait down. Her dark skin was common among her people, and like most Komera and many Zaderei, she was described as having a hostile resting face that did not always accurately reflect her emotions.

Like all Lakamaté, Liberty bears an Essence Crest on her right hand, with hers naturally being a Crest of Earth in correlation to her abilities.

Dryad Form
Like any Vartiz, Liberty possessed the ability to transform, with her specialties being dryads, golems, or other lifeforms comprised of wood or stone. Like many Lakamaté, however, she preferred to remain in her humanoid form, saving her energy for powerful elemental attacks. On occasion, she hardened her skin or morphed wings onto her form to fly short distances, but most of the time she remained untransformed. The few times she manifested her fully transformed shape she only stood at about three times her normal size, but commanded a powerful defensive fighting style that was one of the contributing factors to her nickname and one of her titles.

Clothing
Liberty usually donned light attire similar to that of most Zaderei or Kumenza, with loose pants and a short-sleeved shirt, with plated gloves over her hands: all common staples in Krippa and Shahar-Eka. Her favourite colors were shades of green, and like many Komera as well as almost all Zaderei, she was nearly always barefooted. While she was no dancer, she often wore gold-colored bangles around her ankles, and she occasionally wore earrings or other articles decorated with the Komera Emblem.

Personality
Liberty was an uncompromisingly steadfast proponent of order, stability and law, as demonstrated by her unforgiving but effective takeover of Xin-Moxige and the militaristic methods she employed to keep the state under Krippan control. Despite some of her questionable actions in the name of law and order, everything she did was for the betterment of her country, and her actions are attributed to being the primary reason the 79th Krippan Empire went down in history as the most powerful nation in the world.

Many people cited Liberty's uncompromising position as an analogy to her elemental affinity, calling her "as stubborn and uncompromising as the mountains she moves". Most of these claims are true, and Liberty's hardline adherence to law and order earned her many enemies among the Krippan Rebellion, and even against neighboring Krawvill and the Kagero-Kiza, despite their similar adherence to rules and traditions.

Virtues
Liberty was a devout follower of the Vartiz Pantheon, revering the Komera goddesses Victory and Artemis from the Vartiz Pantheon. She held a deep and sincere love for the Krippan people, particularly the people of Xin-Moxige, who she continued to treat as equals even after her coup that essentially turned her into a dictator. Liberty was a very intelligent and cunning individual, whose tacit knowledge of discipline and law have helped her build a stable and functional society out of the ashes of anarchy. Despite all of this. she was also humble enough to know that her accomplishments were not achieved alone, as well as being able to admit times when she was afraid or concerned.

Vices
Liberty's childhood was steeped in military life and discipline, and so she often treated even the most normal of situations as military settings. Her PTSD also caused her to sometimes behave erratically, and she was a very defensive, untrusting individual, with years of warfare dominating her short life that had shaped her into a cautious and distrusting young woman who pried for an ulterior motive in even the most innocent of circumstances. Her social skills outside of the military were minimal, and since only a few of her short childhood years were spent outside of war, she struggled to mingle in a peaceful society for much of her early life. Her best friend (and later husband) Emryk helped her adjust to peaceful life, but even with his charismatic efforts, Liberty still often struggled to properly socialize.

Beliefs & Morality
Liberty believed in law and order above all else, even to the point of becoming a very "means to an end" type of person, such as her infamous Coup of Xin-Moxige. She believed that true great leaders put their people first, and did everything in their power for the betterment of them and their society. She often used laws and customs to explain and justify right and wrong, believing that "right and wrong were flexible if the end result helped maintain order".

While she worshipped the gods of her people and firmly believed in miracles, she viewed them more as 'caring older siblings' rather than spiritual parents or mentors. To her, the gods were just powerful and accomplished individuals, and because of those traits, she believed they deserved her respect. Those were also formidable traits that Liberty looked for in people that she admired, which was why she was even able to admire Zivia's ruthless conquest during the Great Jalenga War, or why despite being something of her antithesis, she had an odd respect for Zulera despite the woman's dangerous chaotic and anarchistic tendencies.

Abilities
As a Lakamaté, Liberty's abilities were vast, with Earthforming abilities that could literally alter the landscape on an enormous level. Despite her age, she was also a proven military leader and plentifully capable fighter who was there on the front lines with her soldiers throughout most of the war.

Elemental Capacity
Like any Serenza, Liberty had abilities among all six elements, but as a Lakamaté of Earth, her abilities as an Earthformer were unrivalled, save by Roza Kielo Izella, Eka-Veryk Sotelo Dragmãr, or Valen Carmona Sakai.

Trivia

 * Liberty's Reference Number is #004, and she is the 4th generation to carry her name.
 * Were Liberty not a Zaderei, her eyes would have been dark green.