Rya Mire
Race:
Gem
Age:
18
Element(s):
Earth
Height:
5’6”
Bio:
Rya wasn’t the first member of her family to simple disappear. Despite being from a small village on the edge of a swap, not eight years had passed since her older cousin, Elena, had been made to disappear. Although she was only ten at the time, it was a memory that haunted her childhood. The sight of Elena being drug from her parents’ house without even the chance to say goodbye. How Elena’s mother howled for days and days. When the howling died down, nobody ever even mentioned Elena’s name. It was also though she never existed in the first place. She disappeared.
Rya didn’t want to disappear.
But it also seemed to bring a sense of relief to the family. While there was no exact science to how brides where selected, it was simply unlikely that the family would loose another one for many years to come.
So, life went on. Rya and her brother and sister grew up, learning to live from the swamp near their house. Learning to hide in its depths when the Drakkan drew near. Rya learned to garden with her mother, working to domesticate the wild swap plants for medicinal and recreational usages, like her family had been doing for many years. While she thought it was okay, exploring the swap was her favorite thing to do. Rya’s father seemed convinced that, somewhere in the swamps murky depths, among the caiman, bugs and trees, there was the secret to all their problems. While Rya doesn’t believe that anymore, she had to admit that what the swamp had to offer was little short of magic.
Plants that could stop a womb from quickening and plants that would cause visions to appear for hours at a time. Plants for healing and hurting and something in between. Like her mother and father, she thought she’d have the rest of her life to explore its wonders.
But sometimes children have to find out that parents lie. That Rya and her sister Ayr were not guaranteed the right to grow old in their swamp just because Elena had been lost. That telling children to hide wasn’t just a fun game or a way to stay out from underfoot. Especially when the Drakken seemed to know what they were looking for.
Rya’s own exit was a lot less…dramatic than Elena’s, or she’d like to think so. The Drakkan allowed her to return home, still covered in swamp slime, to pack a trunk. She didn’t take much, just clothing, her journal of discoveries, stuff to remind her of home. And a small bag of seeds. To “Take a piece of home to where ever that may be”. Rya can’t remember what she had said, but what ever it was, it was the wrong thing to say. Probably “I love you” or “It’ll be okay” But once the shock was over and the anger set it, she knew what it should have been.
What it should have been was
“Don’t let me disappear”
Other: