âââââââââââââââââââââŽ
Blood in the water
âĸ Blood in the water âĸ
Dialogue Colour || DarkGreen
Thought Colour || DarkSlateGrey
â°ââââââââââââââââââââ¯
Blood in the water
âĸ Blood in the water âĸ
Dialogue Colour || DarkGreen
Thought Colour || DarkSlateGrey
â°ââââââââââââââââââââ¯
N I C K N A M E (S)
Razor, by EMT bringing her drunks.
B I R T H D A Y
December 13, 1805, Ophiuchus
A G E
214, most time spent in Otherworld
S E X U A L I T Y
Heterosexual
G E N D E R / S E X
Female
E T H N I C I T Y
Epimeliad, Black Elder
H E X
green[/font]
S T Y L E
Rhanis is found mostly in overalls or other clothing that permits easy removal. She is never found in synthetic or animal fabrics. Thus her shirts are often simple colors and heavy fabrics often found with farmers. Frequently found wearing a hat composed of blackberry vines despite their very clear thorns. Does not wear shoes if she can help it but otherwise prefers thongs or other slip ons.
H E I G H T & B U I L D
A fairly short 5'6" Rhanis is quite thin and carries a farm girl worth of muscle. Always healthy despite what little she eats though some wonder at her particular taste for red meat.
A P P E A R A N C E
A free but predatory spirit with an engaging nature if she'd had a human upbringing she'd be very much a tomboy. Her hair is often a little scruffy but the tresses of bright autumn red are never dirty. A very touchy kind of person it suits her job just fine.
L I K E S
Firefighters, Ossuaries, baking, those justly withering, Green electric power and technology
D I S L I K E S
Utility Workers, Alcohol, Waste of life
Q U I R K S & H A B I T S
Has a growing collection of taxidermy in the house she lives in and a dermestid beetle farm. Gets regular shipments of wood alcohol. While alone in her house is likely nude.
P E R S O N A L I T Y
A very neutral sort she's the fairest soul you'll find next to the local judge and if the locals can't afford her bill she's always willing to cut a deal if she knows they'll keep to it. While some complain that she never seems to sleep she's always there to help the deserving against the pestilent. Those she likes are fed from her bountiful garden and those she does not get tangy elderberry cookies. Those particularly pestilent may find the business end of an ax implied by her gleeful black humor. Not particularly forgiving of drunks she's known as a firebrand to the local pastor though she isn't much fond of him.
H I S T O R Y
Born then shortly stolen at the turn of the 19th century. Once in the hedge Rhanis set forth by her patron in her nature as a healer. Trained by other dryads in the methods thereof. Her time in the real world was infrequent relegated to short times when sent to fulfill contracts bargained by those above her. However her bond to the earth a thing not so easily ignored. Wild creatures suffering from pestilence deep within the mountains called for her aid near a human village in the mid 20th century. Upon arrival found them sickened and dying skin and bones weakened by metal. The bones of the earth crying out in so much pain she could hear it for miles. Even the trees breathed haggardly as he found the river and aquifer bearing poison.
This would not abide. The feral things in the mountains howled with her as she cried out to invoke nature's rage. Thus it came to her in fell winds over the mountain as she followed the pestilent stream to its source. As the wind howled and thunder raged walked calmly up the mountain and found the name of the damned. Avalon Coal Inc. Humans had torn into the harsh mountains to lay their roads. That they should have access to it with their pestilent oil-burning machines. Leaving the trees to suffer acid from the skies hidden from the sun by black soot. As she neared the mine What trees remained in this place banged and swayed at the buildings where humans hid inside. The earth cried out for vengeance and she would deliver it from the flashes of haphazardly dumped fly ash ponds. Piles of spalled stone dumped and smothering the green in a long sloping hill.
And thus she promised the earth, "Even by human ken this place of destruction and pestilence vile, mother earth. By my hand shall it die then in time by my will and their hand shall it live again. Yours to ensure those that chose this path to suffer in the bones of the earth evermore until the mountain purified may live once more. This I promise."
The contract was signed in lightning as a bolt detonated a death-stones of tree trunks carrying their cables to the mountain. The light and hope of the humans fell with the frantic spray of lights within the darkened building. Their lights blinking out. A fetid stench arising from one building that sputtered lights back to life quenched by the anger of earthen spirits as it collapsed out of sight. As she neared the building as leaves and stones rack every surface by high winds it caresses her frame as the wind follows gladly. Suffered on its own from the putrid place. The air in laughing gleeful whistles tore free a small building's door by the gate as the gate rattled and quaked. Rhanis entered the room by the air's quaking suggestion at a large red box.
As she picked up the large fire ax gave a toothy grin as a spark ignited from the gate. Humans nearby quietly removing the only cold iron wall that might have saved them. As she rounded the gate they lit her in their tools of stolen light and with screams bloody vengeance entered. Harsh forms of earth reached from the soil to drag them under screaming. Though with each chop she reveled in the earth's feral hunger. Faint fell things raced through the air with shadows seeking entry. In the fullness of time, none were spared. One last foreman as an architect of his own doom hid behind a metal door. As the air screamed across rattling steel plates she would not be denied. The spike on the ax pounding a hole through the thick bulkhead as a man idly scribbled on the wall in his own blood, 'FORGIVE US'. She did not. As she tore open the metal bulkhead her hands burning all the while he started to scream. Dragged from the false stone she pushed him into the earth. Axe in both hands as Rhanis readied the instigator of this pestilence begged for mercy but received none. While she'd read few human books one struck her as fitting for this unrepentant creature. Deep below the earth, wracked souls had no mouth but must scream.
As she carried his head away charnel soaked through to earth leaving nothing but more heads behind. The earth well pleased its patience long. Thus the contract struck yet amused her patron greatly by the story of its telling. Rhanis would return to the modern world after preparing her Ossuary from the gifts of mother Earth that those suffering eternally would now spring life eternal. This took time something with which to her abundant and the earth patient.
Then the time came for Rhanis to return to the world to fulfill her contract. As the strange cables advanced through human technology she found herself learning computers. Then acquired an identity with which to learn human medicine. It paid quite well and something to which she was firmly suited. As she studied and performed well compared to her mundane peers of only human endurance soon ended her Residency. Long since gathering funds from the Unseen coming to her for healing instead of human healers. As her resources grew she had not forgotten her promise.
An anonymous donation and contract made with the human agencies long since established to attend the bad behavior of those vile days soon saw the mine marked a superfund site. Its noxious dried ponds of fly ash and improperly disposed of chemicals long plaguing the town remediated by human hands. The cleanup took several years and the mine building fenced in tightly by iron. The long spall hill a thing perfect for a ski resort the earth there now covered in a thick layer of clay and loam to rebuild the mountainside. Free to attend her practice wherever she liked returned to the mountain to serve as doctor to humans as well as one isolated from prying eyes.
In an isolated earthen home built into a hill off the resort road, she's made her 'practice' as the humans call it. While she serves the town as one of few actual doctors within 100 miles she also serves as a nurse for a few hours at the local school. Unlike tourists that come and go she stays year-round.
T A L E N T S
M.D. PhD, West Virginia University School of Medicine, Doctorate of Internal Medicine Summa cum laude, Family Medicine Physician
Baking (vegan)
Horticulture
Taxidermy (skeletal)
W E A K N E S S E S
Cooking regular human food or meat other than baking. Has to eat meat raw.
Doesn't mesh well with the holy rollers, very distinctly pagan.
Afraid of fire, won't use firearms.
Not particularly tech-savvy.
Has to be invited into owned spaces that aren't dirt or natural stone floor.
May not take names (by will of her patron for neutrality)
D U R A N C E
Some changelings escape from their captors finally free but forever changed. Others unlucky enough never escape. Rhanis' fate is to be free to do as they will but valuable enough that their captors still come for them. Much of Rhanis' youthful life was spent in pain and confusion. Her earliest memories ones of roots splitting her flesh and branches slowly growing out of her flesh. No mere fever dream her fae master cut and pruned at her flesh as it slowly replaced with bark and the sinew with heartwood. An intermitted project of fancy rooted to stone but that she was the only one of many unfortunates to survive it. Feeling the heart and lungs move and twitch in front of her eyes as the hands of some being still incomprehensible altered her flesh. Finally at some point roughly pulled from the stone and placed in the care of others like her. Trained to serve the medical arts and bound by terrible words never to repeat them unless bidden. Sent according to his will she remembers the horrid things required of her to heal the damaged behind the Hedge as well as the careful pruning she returned to. Picked up and rooted her agency gone for some unknowable blade to slice and retether her sinew. In occasional returns to the world that she'd left, Rhanis came to understand where she'd come from. A place where she need not be commended to a rock until the whims of her master erupted to redecorate his servant tools. The one last journey she'd undertaken was what gave her the occasional to make a promise to the Earth that bound her to the land.
She got what she intended. A home and a town. A people to heal and value her for more than just a pretty flower. Where she could go wherever she pleases. In time this too she found the designs of the Hedge upon her as she realized what the promise had done for her. Was it just another phase intended by the gardener for their tools? Did she make herself too valuable to ever be let free? As she soon learned the hedge came clawing back for her. Creatures lurking in the shadows drag her back across and into the Gardener's sanctum. Again upon the plinth for their tools as the years are sanded and pruned away. Her sleepless nights spent with eyes watching the twitching heartwood inside the great tree that was now her body quiver as a callous hand ensured its beauty for its own uses. Pruning away the imperfect.
At times she still gets a terse direction from beyond the hedge. While still under the gardener's green thumb she no longer takes up space in his garden.