Ruth Galatine

## Ruth Galatine

* Original
* Simulacrum

### Relations

Ace Galatine (Older Brother)
Ridill Arondite (Friend)
Melli Luxity (Friend)
Willow Wisp (Best Friend)
The Captain (Therapy Animal)
Unnamed Brother

### Affiliation

Station One (Formerly)
FLOW
OPIA

## Physical description

### Eye color

Grey

Ruth Galatine is an NPC in Reflection. She is played by Jay. She is the sister of player character Ace Galatine, and is a founding member of what would become FLOW. Following her disappearance into the Coda and subsequent death, she remained deep in the Coda as idle Flame before being retrieved by OPIA and restored to life.

## Appearance and Personality

### Appearance

Ruth is an average sized woman with crimson hair and pale skin. She often wears a white cap and a mostly white jacket with pink LEDs on the bottom. The jacket is large enough to cover most of her shorts. She also often wears a t-shirt advertising one of her brother's movies underneath. She wears black and blue shoes and white leg-warmer socks.

Following her revival, Ruth's new body had some divergent features from her original one. Most notably, most of her hair had changed color from red to white. Additionally, her irises became grey, with small points of blue light shimmering in her pupils.

### Personality

Ruth is an exceptionally carefree person. She is incredibly prone to breaking rules, especially if she's bored, and is always seeking her next source of entertainment. She enjoys her brother's movies (possibly ironically) and sparring with her friends. Additionally, Ruth is a massive flirt, although her skills at actually maintaining a romantic relationship are not very good. She is also fond of light-heartedly mocking her friends.

While she doesn't often show it, Ruth has a complicated relationship wth her Galatine heritage, primarily concering the Formless Style. Due to the intensity of the training required to master it that she had to undergo since childhood, Ruth feels like she needs to apply herself in ways that make that training "worth something". Additionally, much of her playful personality is deliberately constructed to keep her emotionally distant from others in order to not elicit the Formless Style's side effects. On a similar note, she finds talking about her feelings to be uncomfortable and prefers to cope by doing physical activity, mostly combat.

Ruth is a lesbian.

## History

### Early Life and Station One

Ruth was born in Gravnir not long after the birth of her older brother, Ace. At a young age, she moved from Gravnir to the Undercity of Fuse City, where she was trained in the Galatine family's ancient Formless Style, although she did not completely dedicate herself to mastering it the same way Ace did. While Ace went on to become a movie star, Ruth continued to pursue a career in the martial arts. Following the incursion of Demons from the Coda, Ruth joined Station One as a mercenary, protecting medics and Coda divers from Demonic attacks. Here, she became friends with Ridill Arondite and Willow Wisp. While sparring with Willow outside of Station One, Ruth, Willow, and Dr. Verona were attacked by a Demon. During the ensuing combat, Ruth mysteriously bonded to the Sword of Hope, and used it to defeat the Demon. She continued working at Station One, using her Reflection to beat back the Demonic threat far more efficiently than she had before.

After Willow died on a mission on the third layer of the Coda, Ruth entered a state of extreme mental fragility. She fled to the populated section of the Undercity, where she spent a large amount of time at Melli Luxity's net cafe. During this time, she begged Ace to join FLOW, but he denied her outright. Also during this time, she took Ridill on a date to the strip club next to the Galatine family's childhood home, but mostly ignored her, to the point that Ace had to take Ridill home himself. A few weeks later, Ruth disappeared into the Coda, where she eventually died due to unknown causes.

### Death and Revival

Some time after entering the Coda, Ruth encountered Uno on the third layer, with whom she discussed Willow and the Formless Style, but it is unclear if this was before or after her death.

Due to the physical properties of the Coda, when Ruth died, her Flame did not return to the Flame of Creation. Instead, it remained in place, slowly seeping into the ground. After a long enough time, Ruth would have melded with the nearby environment if not for the intervention of a nearby village of autonomous constructs, who had constructed a mechanical "graveyard" that kept idle Flames stable through a system of Flame-channeling machines. Ruth remained in the graveyard for around two years before OPIA managed to uncover her location and free her from the Coda.

Once her Flame was returned to OPIA, Ridill and Treble immediately got to work on synthesizing Ruth a new body made of the Elements of Sunshine, Darkness, and Divinity-as-is-Beast. Despite numerous interruptions by various, mostly malicious parties, Ruth was given a functional new body. Once she was physically fit to do so, she rejoined FLOW on active missions.

### Act Two

Ruth joined Wave Three as a member of Arg0s' Gate of Gravity. During orientation, she briefly got into an argument with Basil over the way she was talking to Mic. Later in the day, she joined her Gate in combatting a Demonic incursion. During the fight, she had Liam hurl her into the air in front of a massive Demon and summoned her Reflection, dealing a large amount of damage on her descent. She attempted to recreate the attack with Mic, but failed. Near the end of the battle, she wielded the Sword of Hope alongside Willow to prevent the Demon from initiating a Coda dive. After the battle turned in FLOW's favor, she and Willow guided a large Demon away from the battlefield until it died on its own, after which they rested on its corpse. She asked Willow to help clear a way for her to achieve the same level of stardom, and then trained using the Sword of Hope with Willow as her partner. She explained that her Reflection helped keep her sane while she was stuck in the Coda, and therefore she didn't want to "cheat" on it, so she had not bound to a new one. After returning to upper Fuse City to regroup with other FLOW agents, she was approached by Solace, who attempted to commune with the Sword of Hope. After Lace did the same for Willow and Robin, Ruth commented on their "game".

The next day, Ruth greeted Willow and Ridill as they arrived at OPIA to do Reflection communions with Willow's gate. Ruth decided to join them. After helping Willow find Colt, she joined the rest of the Gate of Dreams at the VR chamber. She joined Willow in every Reflection communion. While she was within the vision created by Cursor's Reflection, she began discussing various "philosophical" topics with Willow, such as "what do you call water when it isn't wet". After leaving that communion, she arrived at the conclusion that she would make a good philosophy major. During the subsequent crisis involving Basil being attacked by an unknown entity, Ruth fled into the Abandoned District to avoid speaking to Ace. She was cornered by Ridill, Willow, and Basil, who attempted to talk her into speaking with him. She tried to divert the conversation to talking about how most of her old Station One mates hadn't really seen Fuse City in peacetime, but they managed to convince her to go speak to Ace. When she did so, Ace asked her why she was still at FLOW. She summoned the Sword of Hope and told him that she felt like she owed him to fulfill his dream, but also that she felt like she needed to make her Formless Style training feel like it was worth something. When Ace told her she didn't, she said that even despite that, she wanted to make it mean something. Irritated by that response, Ace walked away without another word.

The next day, Ruth and Willow wandered around the Undercity. They were eventually joined by Basil, who attempted to help Ruth through her emotional hangups. She led her to Dr. Saakova's office, which she said had a sinkhole under it, to try to teach a lesson about taking action despite risks because risks were ever-present. Ruth did not truly grasp the message, but she appreciated Basil's help. Later that day, while Willow spoke with Nine, she showed Basil her old dojo. The next day, she participated in a VR training session with the Gate of Gravity to prepare for the upcoming global mission. After the Court of Compulsion attacked Cialla, Ruth was deployed alongside Basil to break the siege on Cam's tower. During the battle, she wielded the Sword of Hope on her own against a large Compulsion Demon. After Basil broke the siege, Ruth joined her in traveling to a distant monument to speak to Logic. She then went with Basil back to Cam's tower, where they discussed their feelings on the Pyromancers. Ruth showed off a secret ability she got from her deep bond with the Sword of Hope before Ridill arrived at the tower and had them help a pair of elderly Ciallan ladies re-plant their melon garden. Ruth struggled with applying too much force to the melons, but enjoyed the process nonetheless. At the end of the planting period, she asked the ladies to comment on Basil's helpfulness, which they did.

## Abilities

While not as dedicated as her brother, Ruth was trained in the Galatine family's Formless Style and was skilled enough to use it to aid her in fighting against Demons. Her lack of absolute dedication to the style caused its powers to manifest differently for her compared to Ace, but in turn, her Elemental composition remained completely stable.

### Reflection

Ruth was one of the first Reflection wielders. Her Reflection is the Sword of Hope. It manifests as a massive greatsword that requires multiple people to wield. While properly wielded, the Sword of Hope is capable of several special abilities, including firing energy blasts and hurtling its wielder through the air. Even after her death, she remained bound to the Sword of Hope. Like Willow, she can bind to a second Reflection if she so chooses, but she has not yet.

Due to her deep bond with her Reflection, Willow is capable of manifesting her Reflection's consciousness in a physical body separate from herself. The Sword of Hope's projected form takes the shape of a limbless torso wearing a tuxedo-like garment and a metallic helmet on its head glowing with green energy. Two massive, armored hands float at the sides of the entity

## References

1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 For Tomorrow
2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 Forgotten Hero
3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 Beachside Burn
4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 Bedside Manners
5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 No Options
6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 Take Your Time
7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 I'm Still Alive
8. ↑ Dear Sweetest Me
9. ↑ 9.0 9.1 Night Ride
10. ↑ 10.0 10.1 For Today
11. ↑ Chasing Ghosts
12. ↑ Crossing Threads
13. ↑ 13.0 13.1 13.2 Dying Flame
14. ↑ 14.0 14.1 14.2 Lock And Key
15. ↑ Through The Gate
16. ↑ Strong Enough
17. ↑ 17.0 17.1 Uneasy Future