Scythe Rand

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**Scythe Rand** is a new-order scythe.

## Biography

She apprenticed under Scythe Goddard before being ordained and then started working under him as a junior scythe. Her loyalty for Scythe Goddard went so far as to save his decapitated head as she escaped from the burning Tonist home while the rest of his body burned.

### Thunderhead

Scythe Rand took on Tyger Salazar as an "apprentice", she planned to use him to restore Goddard by buffing up his body, and then gleaning him and attaching Goddard's head to his neck and the rest of his body. She chose him because he was a close friend of Rowan Damisch, and they could use that to their advantage once Rowan was in their captivity. Rowan is used to sparring with Tyger and help him become stronger. Ayn led Tyger to believe that she had trained him so that he could be ordained into a scythe. He had been a flirt to her throughout his "training", and they even went as far as kissing on multiple occasions. Then on the day that she told him he would become a scythe, she put him to sleep and gleaned him. She then revived Goddard using his body. Ayn tells Rowan that she sprinkled his ashes in a field of wild bluebonnets, and he had not been thrown away. She regretted gleaning him, and even as she pursued Goddard later in Thunderhead, it was mainly because of the body he was attached to, and if he had accepted her advances, she would have imagined it was Tyger. She was annoyed at herself for the regret because she saw Tyger as annoying and naive, careless, and ignorant, but somehow she had feelings for him.

Ayn hopes to be recognized by Goddard as someone valuable now because she has a power over him that she didn’t have before. However, Goddard still sees her as below him, and never really appreciates her as an equal. She did, however, recognized the advantage of Endura sinking before Goddard did.

In Endura, she released Rowan from imprisonment, saying “If I can’t get what I want, he can’t get what he wants.” She even blames it on Scythe Brahms, managing to get Goddard to impulsively glean him, and violate the seventh commandment.

### The Toll

She works with Goddard as he rises to Overblade. She is not an underscythe for him, so this grants her more freedom. She makes frequent visits to Tyger's memory construct in an Antarctic construct sanctum. She spends about 45 minutes sifting through the backbrain before being able to speak to him each time. His memory cuts off to the time before he met her, so every time she has to reintroduce herself. She tells him that she thinks she has made a mistake, and it is evident that she misses him and regrets bringing Goddard to power.

After Scythe Constantine betrays Goddard and allies with the Lone Star Region, Ayn becomes Goddard's third underscythe. But he tells her, that there is no we when she refers to them as "we". Later in the book when they approach the Atoll, she gleans Goddard stopping him from gleaning Rowan and Citra. She then escapes with him in the safety pod, leaving Curate Mendoza to die.

It is implied later that she supplanted Goddard with the memories of Tyger, as there is a chapter towards the end from Tyger's point of view, and Ayn is with him as he awakes. He once again asks who she is, and it references the times she spoke to his memory construct. It is implied that they stay on the Atoll when it is mentioned that Goddard has been absent.

## Personality

A member of the new order, Scythe Rand is ruthless and cold, though at heart, almost soft. She is described by the author Neal Shusterman as a sociopath, but she still has feelings for Tyger.

## Appearances

* Scythe
* Thunderhead
* The Toll

## Trivia

* Scythe Rand is probably Korean, because Kwon, her last name, is a rare Korean last name, and that she is mildly PanAsian (Korea is in Asia).
* Scythe Rand has devoted much of her journaling to details of her various sexual conquests.

## References

1. ↑ The Toll: Author Commentary in The Toll Barnes & Noble Limited Edition
2. ↑ Thunderhead