Anyuki Tanaraq
”I don’t get why being in the city makes everyone hurry around so much. They should all just slow down and relax.”
Nicknames: Anyu
Race: Enuri
Gender: Female
Age: 15
Appearance: Standing at a height of 2’11” and weighing a meager 33 lbs, on the smaller side even for her race, Anyu’s petite frame means that it can be rather hard to notice her unless she wants to be seen. Though having spent the last several years living a somewhat active lifestyle of hunting and trapping has left her rather slim, it wasn’t really sufficient enough for her to develop any sort of noticeable muscular definition, which further emphasizes her small stature.
Born with albinism, Anyu’s skin is understandably quite pale. Unfortunately, this means that she’s very susceptible to getting sunburned, especially in a tropical city like Alsijan. Her porcelain skin also has a tendency to show marks really easily, meaning even light pressure can leave her with what appear to be bruises, though they often don’t hurt much, if at all. It’s also worth noting that she has a terrible time hiding any sort of blushing due to how light her skin is.
Anyu’s hair is a very light silver color that can often be mistaken for white in the right lighting. The fur covering her ears and tail has the same coloring as the rest of her hair, though her ears and tail are also marked with several spots that are darker in color. Anyu’s hair is rather thick and fluffy, with a soft texture that helps to retain her body heat, even if she doesn’t particularly need it anymore.
In contrast to her skin and hair color, Anyu’s eyes are actually a brilliant light blue color. Also, despite what her feline features may suggest, her pupils are round like most people’s due to the fact that her Enuri heritage is that of a large feline. Speaking of feline features, Anyu also possesses sharp claws that she can use to defend herself or gain purchase when climbing and teeth that are noticeably pointed.
Personality: As it turns out, Anyu is an incredibly timid individual and therefore often finds herself trying to avoid interacting with others or drawing attention to herself whenever possible. While Anyu has never been a particularly bold or outspoken person, a large part of her shyness stems from her complete lack of self-esteem and her fears of being hurt by other people if they were to get to know her. Anyu genuinely believes that she is a bad person, especially because she can use magic, and that means she finds it hard to believe that people would accept her if they did get to know her or that some people would even want to get to know her.
Interestingly enough, it is actually a lot easier for people to interact with Anyu than they might expect. This is because Anyu is usually too afraid of angering other people and being punished to try and hide when someone is making their way towards her or slip out of a conversation. Of course, she’ll still try and maintain a comfortable distance from the other person(s), and it might be rather difficult to get her to respond with more than a couple of words. This reasoning, and the fact that she has no confidence in herself, also means that Anyu tends to be obedient and agreeable to a fault, often becoming incredibly anxious and apologetic when she feels that she’s being disobedient.
As alluded to previously, Anyu believes that just being able to use magic makes her an evil person and that actually using magic is an evil practice. This belief has understandably made her rather hesitant to try and learn how to use her magic at all. However, upon hearing, somewhat extensively, from a Guild recruiter that magic could be used to help people and perform other good deeds, Anyu has become a bit more open to the idea that maybe she should learn to use magic. It still usually takes a bit of gentle encouragement to get her to actually try and do anything with her magic, but that’s better than the adamant refusal to try that she exhibited before.
Biography:
To her family, and the rest of the tribe, Anyu’s birth was not a joyous event. The fact that her mother had passed away while giving birth to her naturally broke the hearts of her father and older siblings, but it also branded her as a cursed child in the eyes of the tribe and her family due to their belief that such an event could only happen if the child took the lifeforce of the mother during birth. This stigma wasn’t helped by the fact that she always had incredibly pale skin and hair, which her people took to be evidence that she was born with a soul of winter and that she had been claimed by malevolent spirits.
Because of these beliefs, Anyu experienced a pretty rough time growing up. To put it rather bluntly, her family was neglectful and abusive when it came to interacting with her. Her father was so neglectful that days would pass before he acknowledged that she existed. Of course, when he did acknowledge her existence, it was usually because he felt that she needed to be punished for something, often leaving her with several bumps and bruises. When he drank, these sorts of violent episodes became much more common and were often punctuated with shouting and throwing things. It should also be noted that he also adamantly refused to provide her with any schooling whatsoever, though this was largely because of the idea that educating her would make her more useful to the malevolent spirits that had claimed her.
Her older siblings weren’t really any better, however. They would take pleasure in punching or kicking her out of nowhere, making fun of her appearance and intelligence, or insinuating that their mother would never have loved Anyu anyway. Growing up, it often seemed that the only time that Anyu got any reprieve from her siblings was whenever they were either running errands in town, going to school, or working on something that kept them too busy to bother noticing that she was around. In fact, the only thing that really changed as Anyu and her siblings got older is that her siblings became more devious in bullying her, often enlisting the help of the other kids in the neighborhood as well.
In a sort of bizarre contrast to Anyu’s regular home life, the other members of the tribe were often cordial, if never warm or friendly, on the rare occasion that they interacted with her. At their worst, they would merely go out of their way to avoid crossing her path whenever they saw her out and about or mutter quick prayers for the state of her soul as they passed. Generally speaking, this was because they believed that Anyu’s condition wasn’t something that could be helped, even if they did think that it made her dangerous to be around. This way of thinking gave the tribe as a whole a tendency to pretend that she and her family didn’t exist. As such, her family was generally isolated from village life, with the tribe ultimately refusing to interfere in her family’s affairs.
When she was about fourteen years old, her magical ability began to manifest itself. The first time Anyu noticed her abilities was when she accidentally froze a cup of hot tea that she had been about to drink. Knowing that the people of her tribe viewed magic as an evil practice, Anyu did her best to keep her abilities hidden. Unfortunately, given her lack of control, it simply wasn’t meant to last. It was eventually discovered that she had the ability to use magic when she subconsciously froze a section of the road behind her in order to escape from the local bullies her siblings hung out with.
With so many witnesses to her use of magic, she was quickly found guilty. Because of the tribe’s belief that only the great guardian spirits could truly decide if one was worthy of living or dying, she wasn’t condemned to death. Instead, she would be sedated and hauled deep into the wilderness where her fate would be up to the spirits. On top of all this, in the unlikely event that she survived, she would still never be allowed to return to the village. And so, Anyu found herself slipping into unconsciousness as she was carried away from the village and into the dark forest.
When she finally came to, she was lying in a small, snow-covered clearing, the thick dark clouds above swirling with the promise of more snow. Eventually, she managed to make it to her feet and begin walking out of the clearing, if a little unsteadily at first. As her mind cleared of the drug-induced haze, Anyu noticed with a start that neither the cold in the air nor the snowflakes that seemed to always be falling around her bothered her at all despite the fact that the clothing she had been sentenced in offered little more protection than her pajamas would have. Ultimately, she chalked this up to her cursed magic and refocused on finding a way to survive.
Anyu spent the next several days wandering through the woods and looking for food. Having never been taught any sort of survival skills, however, she had no idea what she was looking for or where she could find food. And so, each day ended with her hungrier than when the day had started. On the fourth day after she woke up, however, she happened upon a snare that had caught a rabbit by surprise. All too aware that she had no idea how to cook the poor thing even if she had the nerve to kill it, Anyu sat down and began fighting with the knot to free it. Just as she finished her good deed, however, someone else joined her in the clearing and demanded to know who she was and what she was doing.
After Anyu fearfully explained what had happened as best she could without getting into too much detail, the strange woman introduced herself as Ilya and invited Anyu to follow her back to the edge of the woods where she and her friends were camped so that she could eat. As they walked in silence, Ilya would occasionally glance back at the small girl as if questioning how Anyu hadn’t already frozen to death or why snowflakes would occasionally fall around her despite the clear skies above. If the older woman suspected that Anyu could use magic, she never said anything, and Anyu certainly didn’t want to mention the fact that she was cursed to someone who was offering to help her.
Upon arriving at the camp, Ilya’s friends looked at her rather questioningly but made room for Anyu around the fire and rummaged around for a spare blanket she could cover up with while they finished cooking the meal regardless. Hungry as she was, the small, objectively bland meal tasted amazing to Anyu as she sat and listened to the strangers try and one up each other with ridiculous stories. Before too long, however, she was nodding off where she sat, prompting Ilya to lead her to a small tent where she could sleep properly. While Anyu drifted off, she was vaguely aware that the stranger’s had switched to more serious topics of conversation upon her departure, occasionally hearing phrases like “potential profit” or “rare specimen” until she truly fell asleep.
Over breakfast the next day, Ilya suggested that they knew of a place that would probably be pretty happy to give Anyu a place to stay for at least a little while and offered to take her there if she wanted. Though hesitant to burden the strangers any longer, Anyu figured that she didn’t have much of a choice and accepted their offer, helping them pack up as best she could so that they could get moving. Ultimately, it only took them a couple of days to reach their destination: a small village whose largest building was a squat stone structure that was attached to the town’s watchtower. The red-tiled roof was sloped to allow the snow to slide off and onto the ground, where a man shoveled it away to keep the path clear.
Upon entering the building, Ilya headed straight for the large desk that had a balding man behind it and began discussing something with him in hushed tones. In the meantime, her companions directed Anyu over to a bench against the wall and instructed her to sit there quietly and make sure to keep the hood of her borrowed cloak up while they stood nearby and chatted idly. Seeing that there were a lot of people in the large room, Anyu subconsciously curled up, wrapping her arms around her knees on the bench in order to avoid being noticed as she surveyed her surroundings.
The long room that they were in happened to be filled with tables that were occupied by all sorts of people, most of whom were writing meticulously or reading carefully. Occasionally, someone would stand up and deliver what they had been writing or reading to another individual behind the desk that Ilya was standing at, but that didn’t really help Anyu figure out where they were. The only place she knew of where people wrote like they were doing there was the schoolhouse back in her village, but everyone in the room looked too old to be in school to her.
Before Anyu could think about it for too much longer, Ilya was ordering her to follow along as she and the balding man went around a corner and into a side room. Once the door was closed behind them, the balding man gestured impatiently for Anyu to throw back her hood. After getting confirmation from Ilya that it was really okay to listen to the man, Anyu let her hood drop, her ears twitching slightly at the sudden freedom they now had. When the man had managed to get over his shock, which was a reaction that confused Anyu to no end, he and Ilya withdrew to the other side of the room and began arguing quietly enough that Anyu couldn’t hear more than a few words.
A few minutes later, the man sighed and put up his hands in a defeated gesture before pulling a hefty pouch that jingled slightly and it moved and handing it to Ilya. Having gotten what she evidently came for, Ilya gave a sort of offhand wave and left the room. Muttering under his breath about filthy poachers for some reason, the man directed Anyu to put her hood up again and follow him to a room upstairs. A few moments after leaving her to settle in a bit, he returned with a hot meal and explained that she was at an outpost for the Mage Guild of Alsijan. Though Anyu was initially frightened as the idea of being the guest of an organization focused on the evil practice of wielding magic, the man managed to allay her fears and explain that they sought to improve the world around them, even if he wasn’t quite able to convince her that magic wasn’t inherently evil.
Over the next several days, the man would visit Anyu periodically and ask her a variety of questions, always jotting things down on the important-looking papers that he carried around with him as he did so. After the third day of her stay at the outpost, however, the man explained that the Guild would like to have her travel down to their headquarters in the city of Alsijan with an escort. Though it took a hefty amount of encouragement and coaxing from the man, Anyu eventually agreed to the arrangement. And so, just a few days later, Anyu found herself in a caravan on her way to the city of Alsijan.
Because of these beliefs, Anyu experienced a pretty rough time growing up. To put it rather bluntly, her family was neglectful and abusive when it came to interacting with her. Her father was so neglectful that days would pass before he acknowledged that she existed. Of course, when he did acknowledge her existence, it was usually because he felt that she needed to be punished for something, often leaving her with several bumps and bruises. When he drank, these sorts of violent episodes became much more common and were often punctuated with shouting and throwing things. It should also be noted that he also adamantly refused to provide her with any schooling whatsoever, though this was largely because of the idea that educating her would make her more useful to the malevolent spirits that had claimed her.
Her older siblings weren’t really any better, however. They would take pleasure in punching or kicking her out of nowhere, making fun of her appearance and intelligence, or insinuating that their mother would never have loved Anyu anyway. Growing up, it often seemed that the only time that Anyu got any reprieve from her siblings was whenever they were either running errands in town, going to school, or working on something that kept them too busy to bother noticing that she was around. In fact, the only thing that really changed as Anyu and her siblings got older is that her siblings became more devious in bullying her, often enlisting the help of the other kids in the neighborhood as well.
In a sort of bizarre contrast to Anyu’s regular home life, the other members of the tribe were often cordial, if never warm or friendly, on the rare occasion that they interacted with her. At their worst, they would merely go out of their way to avoid crossing her path whenever they saw her out and about or mutter quick prayers for the state of her soul as they passed. Generally speaking, this was because they believed that Anyu’s condition wasn’t something that could be helped, even if they did think that it made her dangerous to be around. This way of thinking gave the tribe as a whole a tendency to pretend that she and her family didn’t exist. As such, her family was generally isolated from village life, with the tribe ultimately refusing to interfere in her family’s affairs.
When she was about fourteen years old, her magical ability began to manifest itself. The first time Anyu noticed her abilities was when she accidentally froze a cup of hot tea that she had been about to drink. Knowing that the people of her tribe viewed magic as an evil practice, Anyu did her best to keep her abilities hidden. Unfortunately, given her lack of control, it simply wasn’t meant to last. It was eventually discovered that she had the ability to use magic when she subconsciously froze a section of the road behind her in order to escape from the local bullies her siblings hung out with.
With so many witnesses to her use of magic, she was quickly found guilty. Because of the tribe’s belief that only the great guardian spirits could truly decide if one was worthy of living or dying, she wasn’t condemned to death. Instead, she would be sedated and hauled deep into the wilderness where her fate would be up to the spirits. On top of all this, in the unlikely event that she survived, she would still never be allowed to return to the village. And so, Anyu found herself slipping into unconsciousness as she was carried away from the village and into the dark forest.
When she finally came to, she was lying in a small, snow-covered clearing, the thick dark clouds above swirling with the promise of more snow. Eventually, she managed to make it to her feet and begin walking out of the clearing, if a little unsteadily at first. As her mind cleared of the drug-induced haze, Anyu noticed with a start that neither the cold in the air nor the snowflakes that seemed to always be falling around her bothered her at all despite the fact that the clothing she had been sentenced in offered little more protection than her pajamas would have. Ultimately, she chalked this up to her cursed magic and refocused on finding a way to survive.
Anyu spent the next several days wandering through the woods and looking for food. Having never been taught any sort of survival skills, however, she had no idea what she was looking for or where she could find food. And so, each day ended with her hungrier than when the day had started. On the fourth day after she woke up, however, she happened upon a snare that had caught a rabbit by surprise. All too aware that she had no idea how to cook the poor thing even if she had the nerve to kill it, Anyu sat down and began fighting with the knot to free it. Just as she finished her good deed, however, someone else joined her in the clearing and demanded to know who she was and what she was doing.
After Anyu fearfully explained what had happened as best she could without getting into too much detail, the strange woman introduced herself as Ilya and invited Anyu to follow her back to the edge of the woods where she and her friends were camped so that she could eat. As they walked in silence, Ilya would occasionally glance back at the small girl as if questioning how Anyu hadn’t already frozen to death or why snowflakes would occasionally fall around her despite the clear skies above. If the older woman suspected that Anyu could use magic, she never said anything, and Anyu certainly didn’t want to mention the fact that she was cursed to someone who was offering to help her.
Upon arriving at the camp, Ilya’s friends looked at her rather questioningly but made room for Anyu around the fire and rummaged around for a spare blanket she could cover up with while they finished cooking the meal regardless. Hungry as she was, the small, objectively bland meal tasted amazing to Anyu as she sat and listened to the strangers try and one up each other with ridiculous stories. Before too long, however, she was nodding off where she sat, prompting Ilya to lead her to a small tent where she could sleep properly. While Anyu drifted off, she was vaguely aware that the stranger’s had switched to more serious topics of conversation upon her departure, occasionally hearing phrases like “potential profit” or “rare specimen” until she truly fell asleep.
Over breakfast the next day, Ilya suggested that they knew of a place that would probably be pretty happy to give Anyu a place to stay for at least a little while and offered to take her there if she wanted. Though hesitant to burden the strangers any longer, Anyu figured that she didn’t have much of a choice and accepted their offer, helping them pack up as best she could so that they could get moving. Ultimately, it only took them a couple of days to reach their destination: a small village whose largest building was a squat stone structure that was attached to the town’s watchtower. The red-tiled roof was sloped to allow the snow to slide off and onto the ground, where a man shoveled it away to keep the path clear.
Upon entering the building, Ilya headed straight for the large desk that had a balding man behind it and began discussing something with him in hushed tones. In the meantime, her companions directed Anyu over to a bench against the wall and instructed her to sit there quietly and make sure to keep the hood of her borrowed cloak up while they stood nearby and chatted idly. Seeing that there were a lot of people in the large room, Anyu subconsciously curled up, wrapping her arms around her knees on the bench in order to avoid being noticed as she surveyed her surroundings.
The long room that they were in happened to be filled with tables that were occupied by all sorts of people, most of whom were writing meticulously or reading carefully. Occasionally, someone would stand up and deliver what they had been writing or reading to another individual behind the desk that Ilya was standing at, but that didn’t really help Anyu figure out where they were. The only place she knew of where people wrote like they were doing there was the schoolhouse back in her village, but everyone in the room looked too old to be in school to her.
Before Anyu could think about it for too much longer, Ilya was ordering her to follow along as she and the balding man went around a corner and into a side room. Once the door was closed behind them, the balding man gestured impatiently for Anyu to throw back her hood. After getting confirmation from Ilya that it was really okay to listen to the man, Anyu let her hood drop, her ears twitching slightly at the sudden freedom they now had. When the man had managed to get over his shock, which was a reaction that confused Anyu to no end, he and Ilya withdrew to the other side of the room and began arguing quietly enough that Anyu couldn’t hear more than a few words.
A few minutes later, the man sighed and put up his hands in a defeated gesture before pulling a hefty pouch that jingled slightly and it moved and handing it to Ilya. Having gotten what she evidently came for, Ilya gave a sort of offhand wave and left the room. Muttering under his breath about filthy poachers for some reason, the man directed Anyu to put her hood up again and follow him to a room upstairs. A few moments after leaving her to settle in a bit, he returned with a hot meal and explained that she was at an outpost for the Mage Guild of Alsijan. Though Anyu was initially frightened as the idea of being the guest of an organization focused on the evil practice of wielding magic, the man managed to allay her fears and explain that they sought to improve the world around them, even if he wasn’t quite able to convince her that magic wasn’t inherently evil.
Over the next several days, the man would visit Anyu periodically and ask her a variety of questions, always jotting things down on the important-looking papers that he carried around with him as he did so. After the third day of her stay at the outpost, however, the man explained that the Guild would like to have her travel down to their headquarters in the city of Alsijan with an escort. Though it took a hefty amount of encouragement and coaxing from the man, Anyu eventually agreed to the arrangement. And so, just a few days later, Anyu found herself in a caravan on her way to the city of Alsijan.
Affinities: Evocation
Craft: None, at the moment
Magic: Anyu’s one and only affinity is for Evocation magic, where she displays a natural talent for manipulating water and ice. Due to her complete lack of training, her abilities at the moment are quite lacking, often being limited to subconscious uses or minor things like freezing a cup of water or accidentally causing snow to fall around her. Her magic also provides her with an immunity to the temperature of her environment, often causing her to dress inappropriately for the weather compared to other people. It’s also worth noting that a side effect of having an affinity for ice magic is having skin that is freezing to the touch. With some training, Anyu would be able to create walls of ice to defend herself or attack with icicles and jets of water.
Skills: Anyu also, like virtually all Enuri, possesses keener senses of sight, smell, and hearing than most humans. Anyu can also use her tail like an extra limb, though the fact that it’s not really as strong as one of her arms means that it doesn’t really have that much of a use apart from making daily life a little more convenient. Finally, her feline ancestry also provides her with a rather uncanny ability to orient herself while falling to minimize the chances of getting hurt.
Anyu can also draw somewhat decently, having doodled to occupy herself for most of her life.
Other: Anyu is left-handed.
Anyu has a bit of a phobia about being touched due to the abuse she experienced in her past.
It’s also important to note that Anyu lacks any kind of education whatsoever, which means that she lacks the ability to read, write, or perform any kind of mathematics.
