Ralina Ravensdale
| |
| Ralina Ravensdale | |
|---|---|
| Social Rank | 9 |
| Fealty | Crownsworn "Crownsworn" is not in the list of possible values (Redrain, Valardin, Grayson, Thrax, Pravus, Lyceum, Crown) for this property.
|
| House | Ravensdale |
| Gender | Female |
| Age | 23 |
| Religion | Pantheon |
| Vocation | Artist |
| Height | 5'6" |
| Hair Color | Brown |
| Eye Color | Blue |
| Skintone | Fair |
| Family | |
| Parents | Alin Ravensdale, Krista Ravensdale |
| Journals | |
| Authored By / Featured In | |
| Active | |
Description
Ralina is not a happy girl. Something about her demeanor, generally bland expression, and the way she carries herself, they all combine to usually just flat out make that simple fact glaringly apparent. She's of average height, with a slim build, her thin limbs showing just a hint of toned musculature. With fair skin, shoulder-length brown hair featuring just a bit of wave to it, and bright blue eyes, Ralina is somewhere between plain and pretty, little about her really making her stand out. When her wide mouth curves in a smile, the young woman inches a bit closer to pretty, but those smiles almost exclusively come at awkward, off-putting times. Not much of one for fashion, be it by choice or limited resources, she tends to wear cheap, masculine attire, and frequently has dark kohl rimming her eyes, giving her an almost owlish look.
Personality
After witnessing the violent deaths of her parents as a child, and proceeding to grow up on the streets, Ralina has gotten lost somewhere between the low points of depression, pessimism, and the rock bottom pit of something akin to existential nihilism. Painfully antisocial and amazingly dispassionate, she doesn't particluarly care about anything, not even herself. Or so she'll gladly claim with some awful, morose bit of prose. But she has survived up to this point, and done everything in her power to do so, which discredits her stance to a degree. Despite being emotionally broken and horribly ill-equipped to deal with almost any sort of social relationship, some deep down bit of Ralina does still crave finding a place she belongs, people she can trust, even if she doesn't realize it.
Background
Ralina was born into a small family in one of the capital's worst neighborhoods. Daughter of Krista and Alin Ravensdale, parents with dreams too big. Ralina was a happy child, laughing and smiling more often than not. The dreams of her parents led them to gradually nose deeper and deeper into the dangerous underbelly of the borough. Her mother wanted money, her father wanted to succeed, to be 'somebody'.
Unsurprisingly, Ralina's parents eventually found themselves wading too deep in those treacherous waters. They started playing too many angles, making deals over here and then turning around to do the same somewhere else, knowing they couldn't deliver on both.
A couple of angry gangs, one bloody night, and Ralina's family disappeared. The young girl herself only living through the ordeal because she'd scurried under a bed and had been terrified into absolute silence and numbness by the sight of what was happening. That same night, her father's two brothers met similar fates, simply on the suspicion that they'd been involved in the scamming, leaving her with no family.
Scarred by the sight of her parents being killed, the girl spent the next period of her life living on the streets, snatching bits of bread and other food here and there or picking pockets when possible, sleeping where ever she could. The earth shattering shift in the girl's life was reflected in her personality, the cheery child turned to a dour, withdrawn teen. One night, well into her newfound life of pickpocketing and scavenging, Ralina was watching a troupe of actors perform a skit inside a rowdy tavern. The play was a tragedy, with one lover dying, the other reciting a morbid pit of poetry about death and depression and loneliness before proceeding to commit suicide.
The poem stuck in Ralina's mind, and she found herself repeating it aloud a few times. She approached the troupe and managed to get taken on as a sort of errand runner, in exchange for meals and reading and writing lessons. An adult now, Ralina seems to have embraced the theme of that poem, all the way down to the very core of her soul itself, and manages to eke out her living with her own morbid, depressing pieces that aren't particularly good, as well as with some other performing tricks.
