Karmenie's life started in as ordinary a way as possible - she grew up in a village in the south of Cantor, to a toar-herding family with six kids. They weren't too far from town, so she and her siblings would travel in to sell the milk and pelts. On one such trip as a teen, she rough-housed a little too hard with her friends and fell into the river - from which she was fished up by a very gallant young King Giovan, framed by sun and dashingly wet hair, with a white pegasus in the background. She fell hard for him then and there.

She spent the next few months pining in between her farming work - until she found out he was already married and fell into equally dramatic despair. In a fit of drama, she declared she'd become a nun in her heartbreak and marched up to Cantor Abbey to take her vows. Her family didn't think she'd last, but whether it was out of stubbornness or something more genuine she stayed. And they would have been right if she'd stayed a nun as she originally intended. The Abbot at the time, a gentle older man, could see from a mile away that she had too much energy for the monastic life and sent her off to travel with a canon who taught reading and healing in the villages. The decision was right - travelling and seeing the rest of the country suited her, even more than farming. She made friends everywhere and picked up Exorcistic healing from her minder. Eventually she was travelling by herself to teach and heal around the country.

When she was in her early thirties, the old Abbot retired. It so happened that there was a large generation gap in the abbey - most people were either the abbot's age, closing in on senility, and her age. The Chapter made the decision that for the sake of longevity, the new Abbot or Abbess should be one of the younger folks with advice from the older ones while they were still around. The younger person they picked was Karmenie. 

Deeply thankful for the confidence of her seniors, she accepted with the intention of becoming a paragon of goodness like the old abbot. And for a while she tried very hard at it - being slow and deliberate, prioritising harmony and spirituality. But one of the concerns she now had on her plate as Abbess was the decline of the the abbey's influence. It was still the peoples' house of religion, but there were murmurings that the Crown had doubts about it remaining the country's governors and that the nobles in the east were pressuring the matter. Though the old Abbot was somewhat resigned, she objected to the idea of being ruled and taxed by nobles - so she set about reconnecting with the secular side of life in Cantor. She travelled far and often, both around the country and outside of it to shake her fists in the courts of the wider Kingdom. She involved herself with the lives of the ordinary folk. All the while, she rediscovered herself. This was what she liked to do in her heart of hearts. As she leaned further into it, her joie-de-vivre only grew and the Cantish grew fonder of her. The Crown noticed and stepped back from its nascent plans to change anything - after all, change was work and now it no longer seemed necessary.

And so, Abbess Karmenie became the beloved face of the abbey. The country's aunt and later grandmother. And best of all, she could do it as herself.