Omylia Wranren

 

Apprentice

 

Omy

 

Female

 

19

 

110 lbs

 

5ʼ4"

 

Raven black

 

Long hair, straight though at times messily pinned back.

 

Sea green

 

Usually paler, though with the ability to tan pretty deeply in the summertime.

 

Athletic

 

Bright blue markings across her face and trailing down her chest. Various, largely superficial scars, and a very obvious lack of an arm.

 

Omylia is very emotive, be it with her hand, or her facial expressions.

 

Omy has a strong sense of curiosity and a detrimental fearlessness in equal measure. She wants to know things, always. Underneath that though, she is most strongly motivated to help her community, whatever that community may be.

 

She is goal oriented to the point of disregard for the immediate well being of herself or those around her. If she feels like something will benefit herself or her people in the long run, she cares very little about what the cost might be.

 

Omy is more liable to trust a talking beetle creature telling her to drink a mysterious glowing goo than she is to trust most of humanity outside of her own community.

 

Rock collecting. All rocks, small, large, shiny, dull. The girl loves rocks.

 

Scrappy: Omylia has a genuine will to survive. Be that a particularly difficult social science exam, or the death of everyone close to her, she feels compelled to keep going. Chalk it up to her Gramps stories on the sacred nature of a life, or her brotherʼs determination to make the best from nothing, Omylia will do whatever is necessary to get by.

Affable: While she may be a bit quiet at first, Omylia genuinely wants to connect with others, and once comfortable will quickly jump into social situations with a gentle, easy going vibe. Not one to draw attention to herself, she is the ultimate "hype man" wanting to support anyone she feels needs it. Need to get pumped for a date? Omylia has your back. Need to get pumped for a fight? Omyliaʼll be there.

Hilarious: Or at least Omy thinks so. She has a particular type of self deprecating humor that allows her to actually express herself, hidden within jokes. Is also known to tease those she feels comfortable with, and finds humor to be a good bonding tool that isnʼt too obvious. Sheʼll joke with anyone, but will only tease those she (however subconsciously) feels connected to.

Non-conformist: Not stubborn exactly, but very determined when she has made a decision about something. She is not above reconsidering her position, or admitting fault, but she still has a lot to learn. Is also not particularly fond of following authority unless it suites her purposes.

Suggestible: While Omylia has some very strong core values based on how she was raised and how she treats others, she is unfortunately able to "logic" an excuse for a lot of questionable behaviors, particularly if theyʼre coming from someone she already respects or has a connection with. Her desire to be accepted and liked has put her in a bind a time or two, at least. Ah, youth.

Avoidant: Omylia is easy going, and very much wants everything to be funny and laid back. Once anything serious or potentially emotional starts coming up, she will either shut down or work pretty hard to change the subject to something safer. This means she will chat with you about nothing all day, and is incredibly focused on her research, but talk about something involving feels, and sheʼs outtie.

Unforgiving: Omylia is many things, but her forgiveness is hard won, if won at all. While not quick to anger, or retaliate, she has an awfully long memory, and isnʼt known to allow major transgressions against herself or more often those she has connections with, go lightly.

 

A mash of old storytelling traditions from her family, and her own philosophy developing from years of getting the short end of the stick.

 

Glacier blue

 

Dried fish

 

Her artefact, and her rocks

 

Ravens, probably, though she has a fondness for most animals.

 

February 27th

 

Her educational background can be labeled...eclectic at best. While sheʼs had experience and did relatively well in a traditional schooling system up until 11th grade, her learning style has always been more...experiential. Knowing how to jump through hoops might have given her the appearance of good grades, but she couldnʼt say she learned much. Being on the land though...thatʼs where she learned the most.

 

Childhood:
Her mother was taken by the Sky People. Thatʼs what her grandfather insisted, and thatʼs what she declared to Devlin in the third grade as the older boy taunted her in a singsong voice about ʼOmy the orphanʼ. Being three grades ahead of her, Devlin didnʼt believe the stories about sky people, or thunderbirds, or sea monsters any more than the rest of Omyʼs small indigenous community seemed to. Of course they donʼt listen to the old timers anymore, her grandpa would quaff, but their stories were true, believe them or not. Denying who you were was no way to live a life, and stories were life, according to elder Rich Wranren. Omy had been raised on stories since infancy, and Rich who was a master at telling them, was all the parent she needed. She would believe her gramps before she started believing the bully Devlin Anders, any day.

Before Omylia Wranren could retort back through her own sniffling that she was no orphan, her brother appeared as if by magic (as he tended to do), and did some ʼretortingʼ of his own.

It was not so much that Omy enjoyed seeing Devlin shoved down by her elder brother (though her brother insisted that words could hurt like fists so either was an acceptable response) as she enjoyed knowing that whatever may have become of her mother, or her grandmother before her, Zander Wranren would take care of her.

Watching as the recess attendant finally decided to intervene and hauled both Devlin and Zander away, Omy waved, flashing the brightest smile at her sibling who immediately smiled back in return. Sure, they both knew that heʼd be in for yet another weeks detention, and sure Devlin would be back at it again in a few days time. But for now, as Omy was called back into her own classroom by the blaring recess whistle and back to her own studies, for now everything was right.

Trouble Making:
Zander bought the nastiest cigarettes, Omy was dead certain, coughing through the exhale. They werenʼt home-rolled though, so he must have gotten a few extra bucks to splurge from somewhere. She was a bit afraid to ask.

At 13, she was too young to be smoking, but lung cancer was the least of her worries. As an A and B student, she felt like there were worse vices to have, and besides, no one planned on living too long these days anyways. Or at least that was Zanderʼs motto, and with some of his get rich schemes, he seemed hellbent on fulfilling that prophecy.

To be fair, money had always been tight, but with gramps losing his job at the shipyard, and fishing work only happening seasonally, they were understandably strapped for cash. So if Zander picked up some unattended twenties from tourists on the boardwalk, or pilfered some canned goods from Superbear, what really was the harm? And if those canned goods ended up morphing into more palatable fresh food inexplicably, well, all the better, right?

Because Omy was "lucky". She was touched, as Gramps would say. Really just small things; maybe that twenty became a cool 100. Maybe that moldy bread wasnʼt so stale after all. It was a gift she seemed to have possessed since birth, changing things. Never a fan of green beans for instance, Gramps never had any success in feeding them to her because they never stayed green beans for long. It was a gift Gramps was adamant she keep to herself. Sheʼd be taken, he would explain, telling stories of other small girls whoʼd been taken away for similar "luck". Nope, under no circumstances could she share, and now, as she left her preteens, she doubted anyone would believe her anyways.

Trouble Made:
16 year old Omylia was dead certain this was a terrible idea, following Devlin of all people into this governors estate at 2AM to do...what? She had a history exam tomorrow and while she had studied until she knew the material better than her underpaid teacher did, she still worried that perhaps it wasnʼt enough. But what could she say when both her boyfriend (Devlin had grown to use his words over the years, she decided, plus was Zanderʼs best friend, go figure) and brother both pleaded for her to come along. Because she had to, because she was lucky, because she could turn the blank key theyʼd brought along into the right key to open the governors door and lockbox both. Because of course sheʼd told Devlin about her "luck". She was in love with him, they were going to get married, have Indigenous babies, get fancy white collar jobs with her good grades and get themselves out of there. That, and she eventually had to explain how the roses heʼd bought on their second date were still alive 5 months later. Even Devlin couldnʼt be fooled with ʼimpeccable flower maintenanceʼ forever.

The front door was easy. Touch the handle, carved piece of wood in one hand, hold the key in the second. Get a feel, get a sense, concentrate. Sheʼd insisted before theyʼd left that it didnʼt always work, but how could she deny that the 5 grand the governor had won from bingo the night before of all things, would be better spent on Grampʼs medication, and Devlinʼs nieces and nephews? And if it also bought a few packs of beer and some lotto tickets, that seemed fair. So the key changed without much fuss, as if it was meant to be.

Finding the damn lock box Devlin insisted was in the bedroom somewhere goddamnit (he had an in with the housekeeper that came by twice a week) was harder. She never got the chance to try her luck on the box once they found it, however, before it ran out.

Everything seemed so slow, the lights flicking on, the shot gun cocking, the shouting and blast that had her ears ringing for hours afterward. The screaming seemed so distant though later Devlin would say it was largely from her, that Zander made hardly any sound at all as he hit the floor, the closest to the door, and as a burly dude to begin with, the biggest target of the three. She would remember his eyes the most though, not the blood that pooled out of his head from the impact of falling, nor the blood that seeped into his clothing so very very fast. No, it was his eyes as they found hers and she did...nothing, that she kept returning to. Nothing but stare back, watching as recognition and everything that made Zander Zander, faded.

Broken Pieces:
Braindead. The bullet had severed his spine. The cops had been called, and eventually an ambulance came. Omy and Devlin were arrested and charged with breaking and entering and attempted larceny, though due to bad publicity, Omy would walk away with a trespassing charge, and 1,000 hours of community service. Devlin would be charged to the fullest and sentenced to 5 years because he had a knife on him at the time. The governor was simply protecting himself and his family, and because he feared for his life, was deemed blameless.

Omylia was removed from Gramps care after that, the judge finding him an unfit caregiver. Zander would have been in an uproar, Omy thought, and immediately burst into tears in court. At 16, there was unlikely to be an adoption in her future, so she was sent to a girlʼs home for "troubled teens such as herself".

Phone calls were expensive in prison, so Omy and Devlin wrote back and forth at first, Omy visiting Zander in the hospital once a week, after her month long home probation, and kept Dev updated. His condition was...unchanged. Unresponsive. Gone, if the doctors were to be believed.

But Omy was touched. Lucky. If she could make a key, surely, with some practice, she could fix a spine. Sheʼd fixed Zanʼs computer once, just by looking at it (though that was probably just a fluke). Fix his spine. Fix him. Fix everything. Because she had to be the fixer now. No big brother to step in.

No Devlin it seemed either. A year past, letters as consistent as any of the staff at the home had seen (after being thoroughly searched for contraband of course) since theyʼd worked there. A year and three weeks in however, they stopped. At first Omy wasnʼt concerned, maybe something had happened with the post, maybe the prison was on lockdown (as happened at times, per Devlin). Six months was an awful long time to be locked down though, and as a year creeped up and then passed with a whimper, sheʼd cried all the tears she could muster and had sent too many letters of her own to count, all returned to sender.

It happened, insisted the staff, and many of the girls in the home itself. Men, theyʼd mutter, understandingly. Sure, there were a few girls interested in her, though relationships with fellow "housemates" were discouraged. Sophie in particular was a good friend, and sometimes more, but she was heartbroken and unrooted for the first time in her life. She was in no place to love, and definitely in no place to be loved, not while her brother needed her.

So she kept her head down, kept her grades up, and late at night, when everyone else was snoring, and the night shift staff sat dozing in the office, she practiced her "luck".

On her 18th birthday, and her discharge date, she would find out Devlin had killed himself. She threw up, sobbed, and then shoved that right down where it belonged. Out of mind.

Damn was she lucky.

Home-going:
Gramps funeral was a large affair, as were most funerals in her tiny hometown. Heʼd been sick for awhile, but while it wasnʼt a surprise it didnʼt make it hurt any less. Seeing familiar faces pour into the shabby rec center, all Omylia could do was nod as people filed past her, offering words that she knew were supposed to be comforting, but just made her feel more alone. She was the last Wranren. No...not the last...but the only one able to stand here. At least for now. But she had grand plans to change all that, and it was that sliver of hope that kept her from breaking down entirely, as the service ran its course. As the coffin was closed, then lowered into the dirt, right next to the headstone of her grandmother, though no body laid beneath it. And as the dirt was spread, with Omylia the last one to sprinkle the earth on top of Gramps final resting place, and if that dirt seemed to have a spark of bright blue visible only for a split second as it left her hand, a testimate to all the things she wanted to leave with him, but never settling on a final form and instead simply staying as the dirt it was meant to be, well, who could say for sure?

The pitying looks though, the offers for help, all done for the right reasons, she was sure, only served to irritate. She didnʼt need pity, and she didnʼt want help. Her treks to the long term care facility her brother continued to linger at become common place within the tiny community. She noticed some folks specifically taking to driving past her on her hitchhiking route, offering to give her a lift. An offer she should have accepted of course but she knew, deep down, that it wasnʼt because they were really going that way, and so she took to leaving at odd hours, never keeping an exact schedule, anything to just...be. Be with her own thoughts...her own life, however broken and fractured it was.

Zander understood though. Sweet, broken Zander. He was in there, she could feel it, as she kept him up to date on the goings on of home, and kept the more upsetting information decidedly to herself. He needed all this strength to heal, after all, it wouldnʼt do to distress him from things that couldnʼt be changed.

Home-gone:
The bike chain had nearly rusted together, but it would have to do, as she peddled as fast as her legs could push her, rain pounding with more force than itʼs usual constant drizzle suggested was possible. An oddly warm rain too, with the potential for lighting, despite how infrequent the phenomena was there even. It would have been a nice change of pace, if it werenʼt for the voicemail that sheʼd finally had a listen to thirty minutes prior, as soon as her shift at the one restaurant in town was over. She made a poor waitress, and everyone knew it, but there werenʼt many other applicants to choose from, and despite how absentminded she could be about orders, she showed up largely on time...largely.

Of course if she hadnʼt been working, if sheʼd answered the vibration in her apron pocket instead of thinking that she at least pretend to take the job serious, maybe then sheʼd have made it earlier. Maybe then things would have been different.

Truth be told though, Zanderʼs condition had been deteriorating for some time, if the doctors were to be believed, and heʼd been transferred back to the main hospital in town a week prior. She ought to have known, and perhaps a part of her did. But she wasnʼt ready, how could she be?

It wasnʼt that she hadnʼt be practicing, because she had been. It was easier at night, as she sat alone in the house that the bank couldnʼt take, despite their best efforts, even if very little of her Gramps belongings remained to cover debts that didnʼt seem to disappear even when the debt holder decayed six feet under. The soft creaking of near empty rooms provided a soothing soundtrack to her attempts to harness her luck properly. Dust often provided the medium, though dirt, half finished ramen, coffee grounds, broken glass, all served just as well. Still, making a key, a figurine, a pair of dice, a noodle monster, all paled in comparison to her goal, Zanderʼs x-rays, years old and covered in her fingerprints, tabled to the kitchen windowʼs, the porch light providing the needed backlighting to stare at them properly from the vinyl kitchen table.

Anatomy textbooks long overdue were a constant feature of her hurried meals, shoveled into her mouth out of necessity, before she hurried either to work to keep the electricity on, or once more poured herself into the books or her current project. Reworking bone seemed simple enough, given enough patience...but the cord itself? She had little idea how sheʼd tackle that, and even with more simple things something seemed to push back. As if it understood what she wanted but something wasnʼt quite correct. As if it wasnʼt exactly supposed to be. And no shit it wasnʼt supposed to be. Many things werenʼt, but so it went.

Dumping the bike at the front entrance to the ER soaked to the bone, sneakers squished as she stepped into the brightly lit entrance and moved with unfortunate familiarity toward Zanderʼs ward.

Everything seemed to move in infuriatingly slow motion after that, as she watched a doctor first leave Zanderʼs room and, catching site of her, tried to intercept, the look of cold resignation attempting to change a second too late, and Omylia felt her heart sinking straight through the floor. A middle-aged woman was no match for a determined sibling, faking left before shoving the door open on the right, startling two of the nurses currently unplugging the various equipment that had kept Zanderʼs body alive all these years, screens now blank.

From there, she felt sure there was yelling to be had. From her, she had no doubt, though what she screamed she couldnʼt remember. Yelling about what were they doing and no he couldnʼt be gone heʼd never have left without her, and how dare they take his life, they were murderers, that was the only explanation.

Every tear she hadnʼt shed and every emotion sheʼd refused to feel seemed to explode out of her and still more seemed to swell as hands meant to calm and contain her were shoved away, and she found her own hands wrapping around Zanderʼs lifeless shoulders, shaking him to get up, wake up, they needed to get out of there.

But of course he didnʼt respond, didnʼt magically get up and do as she bid, despite ever cell in her being commanding it.

Still, if there were ever a thing she would refuse to accept, it would be this, and despite every self preserving instinct telling her to let go, she could no more change her course than she could change the flow from life to death or from river to ocean. She would fix this.

Feeling the threads that kept an object together were vastly different than the rush she felt as she attempted to feel the threads that made Zander...Zander...first her hands that kept contact with his shoulders glowing a faint though ever brightening blue, the hands around her own shoulders once again falling away, though whether from confusion or something else didnʼt matter, as the light and her own "luck" moved about Zanderʼs body, and up her own, her eyes eventually emanating that same eerie blue. Not that she could notice, as she wasnʼt really seeing anything. Not with those eyes, anyways. If she could just...heal him, then everything would be fine, despite how something...someone kept pushing her back. So many threads to untangle, too many to keep hold of in her mind, trying her best to focus, just focus on his spine, his...brain. His soul. Something that the moment her "luck" had reached out to the body she clung to, knew was no longer there, and likely hadnʼt been for some time. No matter. She could fix it, she could bring him back. She had to.

If it felt like her tears were burning as they ran down her face, pooling down her neck, she either didnʼt mind or didnʼt care, as she pushed her gift as far as sheʼd ever pushed before. And still...it wasnʼt enough. She felt it slip, felt the force that would keep her from the only thing she wanted give yet another push back, or was it a tug, as thicker, strong pairs of arms nearly wrestled her away, apparently not as deterred by the light show as the nurses had been.

And they nearly managed to rip her away entirely, one hand still clinging to a wad of Zanderʼs hospital gown, her mind reeling from a different kind of force. The threads that made up Zander were already decaying, slipping away even as she attempted to grasp at them, shift them back...back in some sort of way, some sort of way that felt wrong, not just from the pressure that made every time she practiced feel wrong...but somehow else. Still she clung, both to him and to some sort of hope.

She could push too, shoving as much energy as she could muster through the arm that held Zanderʼs gown in a death grip, trying to reach out with her other hand again as well, only managing to brush his limp hand and making contact with whatever he held within it before a pain sheʼd never felt before shot through her arm and everything vanished.

Monsters:
"Is...is it dead?"

Another sharp prod, and Omyʼs eyes slowly tugged open, taking a few moments and a good many blinks to shift into focus, though an understandable difficulty with how close another beings face was to her own, only to have them lean back and be blinded by the sun instead.

"Nope! Not yet anyway," another voice, similar in tenor though distinct in its own way, and much much closer.

The face sheʼd seen then.

"Awe."

Omy couldnʼt say she appreciated the sound of disappointment that came from the first voice, though in hindsight sheʼd have to admit that she certainly felt half dead, and definitely looked as much, as she attempted and failed to sit up, the arm sheʼd attempted to use not responding, causing her head to fall straight back with a squish.

"Is it a golem?"

Once more the world went black, as the face appeared inches from her own, large eyes searching.

"I donʼt think so..."

"Dwarf?"

"Too tall."

"Elf?"

"Too short"

"Elemental?"

Another sharp prod in her chest had her hiss in pain.

"Nah, too squishy."

"Knock it off," Omy attempted to sound forceful, even if she could only manage a rough mutter, moving to push herself upright again, this time going to favor her right arm instead, and managing with a bit more success.

"Oooh," she could hear the voices in unison, though she couldnʼt for the life of her seem to get anything in focus no matter how often she blinked. "It can talk!"

"Kinda sounds funny though."

"Kinda smells funny too," the other voice agreed.

"Hey, where you get off judging me when..." whatever undoubtedly solid argument sheʼd have managed to put together trailed off as the strangeness of her situation seemed to dawn on her, along with everything that had led up to her currently sitting in the mud. Even beneath the layer of mud, the pair of voices must have noticed a change in her face, as Omy leaned to her left side, suddenly nauseous, only to fall back onto her side, the arm that should have propped her up seemingly...missing. That was...odd.

"Uh...you gonna die now, mud lady?"

God willing, was all she could think, as she emptied the contents of her stomach into the soggy ground beneath her, and just...kept on before finally, blissfully, passing out.

Hybernation:
She spent nearly a year (by her rough, admittedly sporadic estimation) with the bear people, many of those days spent sleeping. It was hard, at first, to wrap her mind around where she was, and what was happening...what had happened, but Gramps had told her enough stories and sheʼd...well sheʼd changed enough objects to have at least nominally accepted the existence of a great many things she did not understand.

The cubs, as she referred to them, Káa and Sháa had dragged her back to their den once sheʼd passed out (by her feet, she was quick to remind them, as soon as she was well enough to crack jokes) their mother Sháawat taking one look at her before determining thereʼd be no dinner coming from her scrawny butt and sending them out again.

Sháawat for her part wanted no details from Omy about where she came from or what she was, and despite Káa and Sháaʼs pestering, made her swear as soon as talking was a thing Omy did, to keep it a secret from them as well.

It didnʼt seem so odd to her at first, considering that she was living in a bears den that looked, to her eyes, looked like a house similar to those back home. With beds, a kitchen, woods stove. Sure the coats hung by the door were obviously bear skins, and suuure, as soon as one stepped outside (an activity that sheʼd been dissuaded from doing too often) it was obviously just a hole up in the mountains, but after everything it only seemed fitting sheʼd be taken in by a story. And if keeping her origins to herself was all that was required in turn, well that was more than good enough for her.

But of course, when sheʼd slept all she could stand (and then some) had healed as much as she was able, and had learned as much as she was going to from Sháawat about where she was, really, and what was happening outside the den, and away from the mountains that were located in a place definitely not near home, well...she knew it was time to go.

Summerʼs Coming:
It was hard to say how she knew when it was time, but one morning she woke and felt the tug of the cedar plank sheʼd hidden within a side table calling, and that was that. Tugging on her clothes, and leaving small gifts for the family who she assumed, but would never fully know, had taken her in at great risk, she slipped out of the den and started back down the mountain. South. South seemed to be the direction she was meant to head.

She didnʼt have to go too far it seemed, before she felt the piece of wood in her pocket start to warm up. Still, she couldnʼt help but take one last look back. Back toward her second home, and toward the muddy, marshy north that Káa and Sháa spoke about easily, and Sháawat spoke about little at all. Seemed like she was heading the wrong direction, if anyone were to ask her.

Her suspicions would have been confirmed too, as she watched what seemed like a well outfitted caravan of...soldiers? moving slowly but surely toward the muddy north as well, floating lanterns lighting the pre-dawn way, looking more like specks than real people from up there. Unsettling specks, if she thought about it. But she didnʼt, instead going to dig into her pocket and brush her fingers along the plank, hoping that this next little journey was a bit gentler than that last. For everyoneʼs sake.

 

Dzanti

 

-Gramps (deceased)
-Zander: brother (deceased)
-Mother (taken by sky people)
-Grandma (taken by sky people)
-Devlin: boyfriend (deceased)

 

6

 

3

 

2

 

15

 

5

 

5

 

10

 

1

 

3

 

Ruin

 

Omyʼs magic manifests in such a way that she "sees" threads of energy that are woven into whatever object sheʼs focusing on, and she can unweave or manipulate those threads to create change in the object itself. Some objects are easier to manipulate than others.