headcanon power hour

OCTAVIA

• Former heiress apparent to House Hevring, and Linhardt's mother.
• Octavia was the only child of her father, Bertram, the former head of House Hevring; her father married a young woman named Emery who became Octavia's mother, but said mother died shortly after Octavia was born and thus, wasn't really in Octavia's life all that much. Her father did everything he could to attempt to prepare his daughter for the role she'd be thrust into when she got older, but it was hard on him to attempt to do alone, so he wound up remarrying a year after Emery's death.
• ...Needless to say, this was quite the mistake; Octavia's stepmother, Giselle, was an incredibly greedy, indulgent, and utterly corrupt woman who had every intention on using her newfound ties to ensure that she had almost every bit of power in the Hevring family. It certainly didn't help that Bertram honestly let Giselle run rampant and hid every bit of corruption that he could in order to make her happy.
• But perhaps most importantly, Giselle treated Octavia like garbage; she was incredibly dismissive and downright abusive towards her, doing everything in her power to try and oust Octavia from her position as the heiress, especially when Giselle gave birth to another daughter, Luise, when Octavia was quite young.
• So, what does one do when they're raised to be a perfect wife to strengthen ties with another territory, and yet they're being abused and having someone attempt to strip them of any position in the family at all? Quite simple, really; Octavia became rebellious as hell.
• Octavia basically did everything in her power to make things as hard as possible for Giselle, and she became an openly rebellious, free-spirited young woman who took absolutely no one's shit. It resulted in her getting punished by Giselle often (though Agatha, Octavia's personal maid and eventually the head maid of House Hevring, helped subvert several punishments), but even that wasn't enough to stop Bertram from eventually sending both her and Luise off to the Officer's Academy.
• It's there that Octavia gained a reputation as a very...flighty, unusual woman; she was very friendly and kind, but she marched to the beat of her own drum to the point that it made her come off as an odd woman. It's what led her to befriending and eventually secretly courting Cadmus; a noble from an exceedingly minor territory who was far smarter than she was.
• Her relationship (and eloping) with Cadmus is what allowed them to formulate a plan to expose the corruption within Hevring; though Luise's disappearance caused a stir that Giselle absolutely accused Octavia and Cadmus both of being a part of, it wasn't long before the plan was put into action and Octavia confronted both Bertram and Giselle with the rampant corruption, and with Cadmus's help and knowledge of the nobility, the two of them ousted and exiled both of Octavia's parent from Hevring entirely.
• Octavia never really did gain the ability to properly govern Hevring and properly take over as the Minister of the Interior, however; Octavia was far too much of a bleeding heart even after such things to properly be able to take the position, and thus, she wound up passing it onto Cadmus. With his keen intellect and insight, and her big heart and open-minded approach, they managed to bring Hevring back up from the depths.
• It's what certainly made Octavia able to support Edelgard's rule all too easily; she knew better than anyone that the nobility were a bunch of corrupted dastards, and it didn't take much urging from Linhardt to get her to back the Empress up.

CADMUS

• Cadmus was born as a noble of an extremely minor territory in the Empire, and the youngest of five siblings within the family's lineage.
• He's always known growing up that he couldn't expect anything out of the territory and his parents both, so he took to researching every little thing he could get his grubby hands on. It resulted in him becoming very smart, and were it not for his eldest brother being the heir apparent, Cadmus likely could have amounted to something.
• His parents were rather distant, between him and his two brothers and sisters; it resulted in Cadmus having plenty of time to research law, governing, and everything else he could possibly need to eventually succeed in the world.
• When he became old enough, his parents sent him to the Officer's Academy to become a knight, but he honestly just kinda took it as an opportunity to do More Studying, and thus did so. That's not to say he wasn't looking for a way to get the hell out of his family and escape from the rut they were in, however, because...well, he definitely was.
• He held quite the rivalry with Caspar's father; the two of them butted heads in class quite often, and it led to them becoming very bitter towards one another in the growing years.
• ...Needless to say the very second he saw a pretty green haired woman go from healing their classmates to taking a hand axe and promptly chucking it into a bandit hard enough to embed it into the man, he fell in love. Cadmus had to go through quite a bit of Octavia's eccentricities to properly befriend and court the woman, but they both fell in love with each other all too easily.
• Even after Octavia explained the situation in Hevring, he agreed to stay with her. He's the one who was the primary brains of the operation of getting Bertram and Giselle ousted and exiled, and he even agreed to take on her position as head of House Hevring. It's thanks to his shrewd eye for business and ability to keep calm and stay unbiased under pressure that Hevring began to prosper again.
• Though he was initially wary of supporting the future Empress, his son's convincing and his wife's urging allowed him to support Edelgard as well, and eventually pass on his title to Linhardt with a smile.

LINHARDT

• a dumbass

AGATHA

• A maid in the service of House Hevring that's served over three generations of the house; she was originally brought in because her parents had been doing excellent work and they wanted to give their daughter some kind of future, but she wound up performing exemplary work and eventually rose to be the head maid of the household.
• One of Octavia's few confidants in the house when Giselle ran rampant; Agatha served as a bit of a spy for Octavia without the younger girl knowing, and was honestly more of a mother than Giselle had ever been to her. In a way, Agatha was instrumental in taking down the corrupt family members due to her gaining their trust and then turning it back on them.
• Generally is just kind of here to be down to earth and eventually find someone who can succeed her when she retires. (She insists that she doesn't need to, but Octavia won't have any of it.)
• But she's also the person who has her shit together the most in the house, due to dealing with multiple generations of highly eccentric people. Agatha keeps track of anything and everything that happens in the house, and if anyone asks her where anything or anyone is, she'll be able to give them a near exact answer.
• Her grandparents originally served House Vestra; they eventually moved into serving House Hevring to keep an eye on them as spies, and that training was passed onto her parents, which thus got passed onto her. She tried to pass on some of her training to Octavia, but she mostly just took to the axe-wielding. (Because even if Agatha is an amazing knife-thrower and tried to teach Octavia, Octavia didn't take to it nearly as well.)
• ...She also attempted to give Octavia a knife to deal with Giselle directly if she so desired but the then likely teenaged Octavia was a little aghast and refused to do that.

LUISE

• Technically was a member of House Hevring, but she was born between a union of Bertram and Giselle.
• Luise grew up with the expediencies of inheriting the house placed on her from an exceedingly young age; her mother did everything to raise her to what she believed a 'proper heiress' should be, and she couldn't really do much without her mother breathing down her neck or berating her for everything she did wrong.
• Luise was actually pretty envious of Octavia, really; of how the woman openly rebelled against her mother's wishes, and just how much she was able to backtalk the woman despite the threat of being cut out of the family looming above her head.
• When she went off to the Officer's Academy, her inadequacy was almost startlingly apparent; she couldn't really do much of anything without worrying about it being perfect, which nearly resulted in her flunking out of class and nearly dying on the battlefield.
• ...And then Luise straight up decided to run away and live as a commoner because quite frankly, she couldn't face her failures and she really just didn't want to live that kind of life anymore. She didn't tell anyone where she went, but she's changed her name and just lives her life as a villager without any complaint or noble expediencies.