Ryanna
From FiranMUX
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Contents |
Zutiv's Gift
When Ryanna was but just a small toddler, she was wandering on the banks of Sarkaran. She was no bigger than a small ruffian little girl with pretty black curls and bright green eyes begging for small scraps of food and flashing those deep dimples at anyone who would chance to look at her. She did seem to catch enough people's attention to survive the wilderness by herself. During the festival, she was found under Mer Gelosik's chair while he watched an event, and he fed her.
He came back to the festival grounds to see the events, and she seemed to just latch onto him. Picking his leg to hang onto. He asked around for some time, and found out that she was an orphaned little girl and thus took her home with him. Gelosik was allowed to adopt the small child, even though he was unmarried, by then Clan Proxy Argus. After being adopted by Gelosik, Ryanna grew up with her daddy believing that she must of been a gift from Zutiv. A gift for Gelosik. They lived in a one bedroom apartment for some time with nothing but each other and their chickens, which Ryanna was quite fond of. Gelosik doted on her and fed her belief that there was nothing but the warmth of Zutiv's sun before she appeared under his chair that day.
Growing Up Orphan
When she was about seven or so, Gelosik decided to marry a woman by the name of Ettie of the Bear Clan. She was a pagan! Ryanna was small and perhaps doesn't remember that the woman was frequently in her life the first year or so she was with Gelosik. Ettie did go off to do some job off in another city for some years and when she came back, Ryanna didn't recognize the woman. She just believed that Ettie swooped in and took Gelosik's attention from her. Ryanna dispised her from the beginning. She realized that Ettie was there to take her father away from her and it seemed that she got to spend less time with Gelosik now that Ettie had moved into the apartment with them.
Ettie tried her best to befriend Ryanna and the young girl did her best to be nice to the woman, but deep down she knew she wasn't at all the gift to Gelosik that Ryanna was. And she made that clear in subtle ways. But because she is Zutiv's gift she has learned at an early age that she must be proper and ladylike at all times, so others can see how special she is. She has to make sure Zutiv doesn't get disappointed in her.
When she was about 10, Ryanna was quite happy when the couple became caretakers of the Zutiv's Blessing Orphanage and the family moved into the orphange. She decided that she could help the children understand that they were Zutiv's gifts as well, they just weren't as special as her and they hadn't been gifted to anyone yet. Ryanna became the prize at the orphanage, and if she hadn't been adopted already, Ryanna would of charmed her way into any of the families that came to visit with the orphans.
Good Gold Dragon Woman
As Ryanna grew into a teenager, she found that she could charm just about anyone with her deep dimples and sugary sweet smile. She was quite the bully of the orphanage, though outwardly, she learned very early on how to manipulate and play on people's strengths and weaknesses. She made quite a few friends and just as many enemies with her talk about being Zutiv's gift. She would go to the temple and find a way to brighten the priests' days or make their jobs easier. As well, anytime she came across a pagan, her step-mother included, she would make sure that they understood the path that they were on would only lead to damnation. She was hellbent early on to convert as many as she could to see the light of the One True God, Zutiv.
She had her Ceremony of Souls and shortly thereafter she helped Gelosik and Ettie around the orphanage. Scheduling interviews and viewings of the children. She learned how to style hair and took the children to the temple and the baths on a regular occassion, to make sure that they were presentable and could represent not only Zutiv in the eyes of these prospective parents, but also, represent her family who had been taking care of all them. She did take on a motherly role in the temple, finding it easy to dole out punishments or ordering the children around when they were alone. She became the tattle tale and the enforcer of the children.
Whether Gelosik noticed this is hard to tell. Ryanna has always been the apple of his eye. Ryanna has learned from an early age that her father was known as a drunk in the city and thus, she played on it for the most part when she was younger. When she became a woman, she began to slowly rid the pantries and the amphoras of the alcohol in the orphanage and would deny it ever being her. She would either point the finger at Ettie or ... perhaps Zutiv thinks Gelosik might like tea better. Hmmmmm.
Whirlwind Romance
Gelosik and Raheem Firabi seemed to have plans for their children, plans that the children were not so receptive too at first. Ryanna and Ranuk had met in childhood and both had thought the other arrogant and big headed. At the insistance of their fathers the children met for dinner, now that they had both become adults, perhaps their views would change?
Change it did. After that night, the two were inseparable and it seemed that they were destined for a wonderful marriage. Their father's arranged for a marriage between the two and they spent the next few weeks in a whirlwind courting. A waterfall of violets and a gift of an iron sword sealed the deal for the two lovebirds as they spent every moment they could together. Lady Galadra Junik, Ryanna's aunt had arranged that their courting to be cut short as Ryanna had to make a choice. She could marry Ranuk before he went off to his first war season or she could wait for him to come back from war.
Ryanna couldn't bear to be without him and not be married to him. The couple chose to marry before he went off to fight Shambelians. They got married after only a few months of courting. It was a small, quiet but lovely service. They both moved into the Junik Mansion where Ryanna became her Lady Aunt's maid and began to live life as a couple. Ranuk went off to war with the knowledge that Ryanna was pregnant with their first child. He was told the day he was to leave for the front.
Lady Galadra had told Ryanna weeks later that the news from the front that Ranuk was captured by Shambelians and it was very likely he may not get out alive. And if he was alive, he may not get back home, but could be a slave for them. Ryanna prayed to Zutiv for days on end, no sleep, no rest until she was greeted at the temple doors by her husband. They had a beautiful reunion as Ryanna gave birth to their first child, Callista a few weeks later. Once again, Zutiv proved that she was special, she was his gift, her prayers were answered, Ranuk was brought back to her.
Storms on the Horizon
Ryanna and Ranuk spent five years in happily married bliss. Living in the Junik Mansion with her Lady Aunt Galadra and her Lord Uncle Zafir had proved to be beneficial. Raising their daughter was just as easy, though with Ranuk busy with guard duties and Ryanna busy tending to the Junik Mansion and her own duties, it proved to be difficult to find the time to devout to expanding their family.
Ryanna prayed everyday for ways to see the time was right to expand their family and to keep up with the rising and falling of their busy schedule. Callista, increasingly became a handful and it seemed that it would be hard to control the young girl. Callista had no brothers or sisters to play with and thus didn't have much childhood interaction without playing the noble children. She starved for her parent's attention and seemed to get it anyway that she could.
When Ranuk's cousin, Sedarius asked that they move into the Firabi Country Manor, Ranuk volunteered Ryanna for the household duties as she was a Good Gold Dragon Woman and would be able to take care of a house of men. Soon enough it was Ranuk, Sedarius, and their uncle Tabarus in the same house. Ryanna learned very quickly that the others in Ranuk's family had a much firmer hand than her husband and she was definitely the brunt of many punishments and prayer settings when it came to doing the wrong thing. If she didn't know it was wrong when she started, she did after she did it.
Sedarius seemed to be a quiet and reserved man, pious to the core, taking to lightening storms and weekly fastings. He would order that everyone in the home pray at the same time, and there was to be silence in the home when he was meditating. He became a priest of the True Temple shortly after Ranuk and Ryanna moved in. Sedarius' father was Head of the Household at that time, and when Kenaki was found to be a fugitive from the Republic, he was stripped of his title as Head of House.
The Battle for Head of House
Ryanna found herself pregnant with Ranuk's second child shortly after Kenaki was denounced as Head of House. She found that her duties increased as three agitated men were in the home now. Ranuk would increasingly come home in a foul mood and seemed to have alot on his mind. She found that it was harder and harder to get him to talk to her, as he spent most of his time brooding. About what she wasn't sure. He didn't even express joy when she told him she was finally blessed again with his child, as he had been with Callista. It seemed to weigh more pressure on her husband.
Ryanna threw herself into her work both in the Firabi home and the Junik Mansion. When her Lady Aunt went running off to see some pagan Oracle, Ryanna decided it was was better to cut ties with her aunt and with her apologies she left her employ. This was mostly to make sure that none of the men in the house thought that she might be a prime candidate for an Inquisistion. This was a very real fear as Sedarius was increasingly moody too, and she would find he and Tabarus in the library playing chess in brooding silence. With one word or one arch of a brow, Sedarius could send Ryanna down to her knees in prayer for forgiveness for some crime she didn't know she committed.
With Ranuk off in his room angry at the world or busy with guard duties, the couple started to drift apart. Her husband was not around to protect her from the constant pressue of Tabarus or Sedarius on her now heavily pregnant state. She was still washing the floors and cooking the meals. Even when their grandmother Riosa moved into the home. Ryanna found that her life in the Firabi house was anything but the rich environment of joy and family love she had been longing for.
After several months of all the men snapping at each other, Riosa had come to Ryanna with the reason. The older woman had overheard the talk that Sedarius and Ranuk were vying for the spot of Head of House. Shortly after Ryanna learned this news, Lord (then Proxy) Ojitar Firgalik named Sedarius Head of the Firabi Family. This set Ranuk on a tirade. He came to Ryanna in confidence stating that Ojitar had to have taken bribes from Sedarius, otherwise the man would not have been named Head of House.
Ryanna, distraugt of this turn of events, spent many nights in prayer and many days in thought, before she realized what Zutiv would wish her priorities to be. Zutiv first, Clan, Head of House, and then Husband. With that, she did the unthinkable. She went to Sedarius with the words that Ranuk had uttered to her in confidence. Loyal is one thing Ryanna is, and at this point, Ryanna took a path and had to suffer the turn of events that would follow.
Trials of the Faithful
Sedarius was of course furious and immediately brought this to the leadership of the Clan. Ranuk was disowned from the Firabi family and thus forceably removed from the Manor. Ryanna had the choice to stay with her husband or save her good name and take an honorable divorce. Suprisingly Sedarius was allowing her to make that choice and stay part of the Firabi family should she wish, along with Callista.
In the end, Ryanna had no choice. She couldn't be disloyal to who Zutiv would wish for her to follow. Her Head of House and her Clan. Both of which her beloved Ranuk had slandered. This made Ryanna take the offer to divorce and did so with a heavy heart. When they were unbound, Ryanna went into a deep depression, asking for time to recover. She locked herself in her room, not leaving for anything until Sedarius forced her to come out of her room and care for her daughter and the home. The rules of the divorce was that Ryanna couldn't meet with Ranuk, she could have no contact with him. She was heartbroken.
A False Hope
After a few months of prayer in the temple, Ryanna came into a state of calm. Zutiv's assumed shelter and hand on her shoulder helped to guide her in her mending of her heart. In the temple, she met a man named Sernon. They became fast friends. Nothing out of the ordinary or improper. Simply a shoulder to cry on or an ear to vent to. Ryanna and Sernon slowly fell in love. The two would go on picnics out in the family apple orchard. Sernon took to Callista right away and began to come to family dinners.
Sernon became a friend of Sedarius' as well and came to live in the Firabi Villa down the path. Sernon asked Sedarius for permission to wed Ryanna. Sedarius stated that Ryanna had to be divorced for at least six months and then they could begin courting officially for another six months. The couple agreed to this and continued to be friends and grow in love for each other.
When Ryanna went into labor she didn't have a midwife in time and did so in the comfort of her bed. She didn't seem to have a hard labor, as no one knew she had given birth until it was over. Sedarius' new bride, Yesina had come to see what was taking so long with dinner and found Ryanna with a still born baby in her arms.
Devestated, Ryanna locked the door to her room, and did not leave that room for nearly three months. She wore mourning clothes until she was ready to leave her home. Riosa took over the duties of the home as Sedarius allowed her the mourning period for her still born daughter. She emerged from her room and went straight to Sernon at his Villa, only to find that he had married. He was married a pagan woman of all women. This was the last crushing blow for Ryanna. Ryanna more than anything else and thus she started to believe she wasn't Zutiv's Gift after all. Perhaps she had angered Zutiv in some way. She was resolved to make it up to her God somehow.
Turning Over a New Leaf
With the thought that she has angered Zutiv somehow, this has caused Ryanna to falter in her manipulative and uppity ways. She has been broken, not only in spirit but in body, with punishments that came shortly after the loss of her child for things that her grieved mind didn't understand. She was whipped and beaten for short comings and the light of Zutiv shone before her as she prayed under Sedarius' whip. She thanked Zutiv for allowing Sedarius a strong hand to punish her and keep her on the right path.
She has been resolved to make it up to Zutiv for her mistakes and her wrong turns. She has become much more docile and withdrawn with the many stresses and traumas put on her life. She has since stopped looking for positions as a Lady's Maid and is content to be the woman who takes care of the Firabi family. She takes care of Sedarius and Yesina's children and has been hired as her new sponsor's nanny as well. Lady Shenisa has been quite kind to her and has helped her to see that there is light at the end of the hard road that she has traveled.
Ryanna has had a change of heart, and has devoted her life back to Zutiv, allowing him to act through Sedarius as it is only proper. She was arranged to marry again, several months later and with a six month courting, she married a young man by the name of Kato Emagalish. He is a newly made man who has never been married before and has much to learn. But Ryanna is determined to be the perfect wife for him. She determined to see this marriage work.
She blames herself for all the problems that have fallen over the Firabi family and her own life as a whole. She works hard to be content to live as her position in life is the woman in a male dominated family. A male dominated world. Under the careful and strict hand of the High Inquisitor she will find it very hard to stray again.
Firabi Family Tree
