Rana grew up on the outskirts of Brookshire as the fourth child of eight of her father Ratan and mother Parisa. At the time she had two older brothers (Ratan and Faraz) and an older sister (Leila). They lived in a hunter’s compound that her father built with her Uncle Kanta to accommodate both of their large families.
As the families grew, the Roens became a veritable clan. There were her mother and father; aunt and uncle; siblings (in order) Ratan, Faraz, Leila, Dabir, Roxana, Jaya, and Nisha; and cousins (in order) Soraya, Bala, Nadira, Kama, Prem, Nikhil, Avanti, Shaheen, and Mohen.
Because it was such a large family, there was a big gap between the oldest and youngest children with Soraya born 15 years before little Nisha. The result was that groups of children clustered up at like ages and formed their own posses. Rana’s closest companions were her brother Dabir and sister Roxana, along with her cousins Kama and Nadira. They could constantly be found climbing the buildings around the compound or having footraces near the woods.
Rana liked to follow her father around, when she wasn’t running with her clique, and particularly liked going with him to sell skins at the tanner. Carric was a grumbling elf and it was fun to learn elvish swears from him. When her father and Carric bartered, there were certainly plenty of them to learn.
A trip to the center of town also meant stopping by the general store and trying to learn how men and women interacted from someone other than her sisters (who were full of disinformation). Tabatha Mechatonk was a lot of fun to watch, she laughed at funny times and was always smiling like she knew a secret that nobody else did. When Rana tried to copy her, Tabatha would pat her on the head and promise her time would come.
The older she got, the more Rana would go with her brothers. Once they realized they couldn’t shake her on their hunting trips, they decided to put her to use. They gave her an old net and told her to swing it at the bushes to drive the game in front of them. She took to it right away, and the older she got the more experience she got with the net. One day her brothers followed a worrying baying, snarling noise only to find that Rana had managed to capture a wolf with nothing but her net. After that she became a permanent part of the hunting party.
The muscles she gained from hunting with the net, and eventually an axe as well, prevented her from becoming lithe and whispy like some of her sisters. She developed into a slightly thicker woman. She maintained an air of cuteness, but it seemed she was not destined to become an “exotic beauty” like they were. She became more comfortable with her male relatives and at the major festivals could usually be found competing with them or gambling with some of the older men.
This preference for male company did nothing to improve her abilities with the opposite sex, though. She constantly strove for companionship but was rebuffed, or kept at a friendly distance. Even when someone was interested, she either couldn’t see it or didn’t take the opportunity. She kept a bit of a childish approach when it came to love and it was difficult for her to mature.
One by one, her brothers became old enough to want to go to war. Eventually, her father was convinced and allowed Faraz, Dabir, Bala, and Kama to join the army. Rana was sad to see them go, but it left her and Ratan basically in charge of the hunt. For years there were only a few messages from the four that went to war. Thankfully, they were untouched by the Day of Mourning, but on the same day Cyre was destroyed, the Aundairian army was in an engagement near Thrane that left one cousin dead and the other three with various injuries.
The family heard about the death and was devastated. Details were vague, and Rana begged to be allowed to go find the four and find out what had happened. She left home that day not realizing how long she would be gone. She found her brothers and discovered that both of her cousins had died, one in battle and one from his injuries. She was quickly overcome with grief for her cousin Kama, who had been one of her closest childhood companions. Her brothers brought her to where they had buried their cousins and she knelt in silence by the graves for a long time.
Her brothers were still in the army and as such could not just leave their unit right away. Rana decided to go along with them, refusing to let them out of her sight until they could return home. She thought she would be the thing that protected them, forgetting that they had already survived several years of war. Two years later the Treaty of Thronehold was signed, and she was free to leave the army with her brothers. For a time they tried to find the old battlefield where their cousins were buried, to no avail. Too much had happened in the meantime, and it appeared someone had come along and exhumed the bodies of soldiers that had been buried in the area. After two years of investigating, there was no leads left. Missing home and family, the trio finally went home. They realized they’d be arriving just in time for the Spring Fair. As they neared Brookshire, Rana set out ahead to warn the family of their homecoming, she was chosen because her two brothers were still stiff with war injuries.
Soraya - 28 - Cousin - Female
Shadow of Malice - Seeking a 5th
Oct 25 '11, 5:22am
