Rhysalla 'Rhys' Salem

Rhys after a shift at the Menagerie

## Description

Most of the time, Rhys is... kinda shapeless. Definitely Middle Eastern, with long hair. But her perpetual clothing consists of jeans, work boots, flannel shirts over layers of other plain shirts, and a beat up old backpack. When her girlfriend hasn't been working on it, her hair is perpetually tangled -- not dirty. Unless she's been working (fairly often), she's spotlessly clean and washed... but tangled... like she just doesn't give a second thought about her appearance.

That said, she's capable of looking like a lithe, reasonably fit young Middle Eastern woman. Zoe has even taken to braiding her hair on the regular. And Evadelle and Zoe teamed up to demonstrate it was possible to get her looking pretty sharp in a womens' cut suit... but that's the exception, not the rule.

Aside from that, the thing that /really/ stands out about Rhys?

If she's not indoors, and sometimes even when she is, she is near perpetually followed around by a small army of cats, crows, and occasional other curious animals, with whom she converses more readily that she talks to people.

## Personality

Rhys is not a people person. Indeed, she's got relatively severe anxiety issues when it comes to large groups. If she goes to the bar, she needs a clear path to the door. Even then, stammering and lack of focus are issues.

She excels, however, when it comes to anything in the out-of-doors. She speaks every animal language she's ever encountered, and happily tells people that English isn't even her second language... that's Arabic. Feline was her first.

Fishing, hunting, scouting, diving, camping... are her bread and butter. Her first magics were her 'veterinary hospitals' as a small child, helping injured wildlife and farm cats at the farm next door.

She is fastidiously clean, both in the physical sense -- and especially magical. She's prone to doing long abjuration rituals inside string cordons both before and after major magical use, to make sure she's operating only on the thing within the cordon, eliminating 'magical glitter' and emotional resonance before and after.

Growing up in a magical family, she knows her way around Abjuration and Tantra extremely well, having a knack for them... while almost never using anything else, and even with her favored arts, tending to try and turn everything into ritual.

Otherwise, despite not being a scholarship kid or needing to, out of love of the jobs, extra credit, and the creatures, she has two jobs at the school -- working as an assistant in the Menagerie, and as the school's pest control officer, using a 'work crew' of cats and other animals who she has organized into an efficient anti-rodent and other pest force.

It's been noted how close to Kouris she would be, were her family not old school Armitage... and if she didn't positively despise parties, up to and including taking on life-threatening extra credit assignments if it means she can skip them.

## History

Rhys grew up with a combination of world-travel, and 'home' in the tiny town of Waterford, VT. Her family, on both sides, have been Armitage for millennia, and those of the families with the gift are expected to follow suit. They were one of the Armitage families who helped to donate to the founding of Ravenswood, and every generation since has had Ravenswood graduates. In part this support has come because they both value and celebrate academic achievement -- and despise active conflict.

Rhys herself describes her childhood environment as 'one giant library', with her family spending millions of dollars per year hunting down and obtaining rare and valuable books to add to the collection, with their entire, massive mansion-home already filled with books. Her older sister was already well on her way towards following in the family 'library cat' tradition when Rhys was born.

And from the start, she was different... her first language was meowing at the family cats -- fluently, and having them respond.

Rhys was a perfect Armitage in some ways -- she got on perfectly with the cats, who adored her. She was a magical prodigy, picking up history and theory even faster than her sister had at the same age. But she couldn't abide long hours of study, or trips to dry and boring auctions and museums -- instead sneaking out at every opportunity to fish, camp, explore, and, once she began to learn tantra, to set up 'vet hospitals' out of stricks and string where she'd tend to cats and crows. The neighbors, the Woods family, just encouraged it, given they had a daughter Rhys's age -- figuring the girls should get to know each other, even if the Woods' tendencies were Leng.

Rhys's other great passion, as an Armitage, was following Bast. Where the family mostly did so via old tradition, research, and prayer, Rhys sought to emulate the guardian and watcher -- learning her prayers, talking to her four-legged 'children', and crediting her greatest gift, her ability to speak to animals, to Bast's gift to her. The rejection of her family's values, her love of the outdoors, even as a prodigy wizard, and her veneration led to her self-reference as Bast's Stray.

The other thing she did pick up from that time, with lots of solitude, disapproval of basically every large group she was put before, and social rejection at school as a weirdo was her social anxiety -- and with it, a hatred of large-group activities.

Where she did meet expectations was, when the time came, going to Ravenswood -- settling quickly into the Armitage dorms, finding herself a girlfriend... and eventually a polycule with her podmates... and eventually a second familiar, inheriting 'Cutter the Brave' from Ellie Silver, to join Rhys and her long time companion Macavity, a massive raven who took to her -- and took to watching after her, in her early teens.

## Roleplay Hooks

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* Rhys is the school pest control officer, and also works in the menagerie. She has no financial or scholarship need to do either of these things, but has a passion for cryptozoology, a preference for keeping busy, and a love of all things to do with creatures and the outdoors.
* Her absolute favorite place on campus is the lawns -- where she is regularly followed and attended by a host of feral cats and crows, that she often lets climb on her or just rest with her in between her work shifts.
* For all of her outdoorsiness, she is a talented wizard and responsible student who has excelled at trying to help some of the faculty, and a number of students with problems -- especially when those problems or tasks can be solved via abjuration... her specialty... or through the tantra labs, where she has somewhat graduated from Evadelle Shaw's nurse to one of the better student healers.

## Relationships

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* Nickname: "Quote."

## Additional Pictures

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## Etc

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