Rhian Advrik

Face Claim: Higuchi Kaede // Virtual Youtuber

APPEARANCE

Rhian is a young girl with long waist length pale silver hair and lavender eyes, with pale, porcelain skin. She stands at a whopping 5'4" and weighs 120 lbs and is slenderly built. Her lavender eyes are rather pale, her pupils more so, given that she is blind. Her casual outfits usually consist of comfortable shirts, sweaters, skirts, and jeans, typically pastel colors though she has a couple of darker colors as well. When wearing the school uniform she typically puts her hair up into a ponytail, just to get it out of the way whenever she's working, but more often than not she leaves it down. Surprisingly she has a small tattoo, right underneath her left ear. It's a series of small, raised dots that read Braille for her, with the words 'sweetheart ' right below it in looping cursive. She also carries around a walking stick that she uses for mobility, and also to gently whack people with it. She has a couple of scars, burn scars around her wrists and ankles from chains digging into them, as well as a burn scar on top of her left hand and some of her fingers, and some on her back, hips, thighs, and calves (though they're not as severe as the ones around her ankles and wrists).

PERSONALITY

Rhian is a very gentle soul who very nearly abhors violence. She does consider herself a pacifist, hardly ever wanting to fight anyone physically, emotionally, or mentally. She's also rather quiet, preferring to have someone else start the conversation than her. That's not to say she's afraid to, she just prefers it. She's incredibly empathetic and patient and will be quietly supportive of anyone who needs it. When she was younger her kind nature was often taken advantage, but now as she's older she has more of a backbone and will stand up for herself and not let anyone walk all over her. Politely, of course. Despite being so kind to others, she does have a surprisingly passive aggressive side when she feels she has been wrong. And sarcasm is not a foreign concept to her. It's only when she thinks you deserve that she pulls these bad boys out. She is also intelligent as well, able to read the room despite not being able to see it, and fully capable of some impressive critical thinking. She's also very book smart, surprisingly enough, as long as the book is in braille. That or she enlists someone to read to her. She has quite a few fears, spiders being one of them. Small, constraining spaces can send her into a panic, as well as being unable to move. Chains especially will send her into a panic, though she's usually fine as long as they're not touching her. When she's afraid she locks up, shutting down and cowering away until whatever it is that's scaring her goes away. Loud, aggressive voices also make her very nervous and she'll usually try to move away from the source. She's sensitive to loud noises, since it's one of her senses that had been heightened a little due to her lack of sight. She'll often cringe at loud noises and, again, try to vacate the area. She's very used to bullies at this point and doesn't typically react to them now, letting hurtful words roll off of her like they mean nothing.

HISTORY

Rhian was born, and rather quickly abandoned by whoever her parents were (she does not care who they are anymore). To this day she's not sure why she was left alone, though at the present day she doesn't really wonder why anymore. She was picked up by an elderly old man who managed to care for her. He taught her how to move around in the world, since it was later discovered that she'd been born completely blind. He also taught her how to read Braille, since his sight was also starting to go due to his old age. He gave her her first walking stick as well, a carved ivory stick with the head of a dragon on the top of it. She loved it, and still has it to this day, hidden away for just her. She was happy in this small home, until she was six. The elderly man who took care of her had a younger brother who was cruel and disgusting who occasionally came over to visit his brother. He made Rhian extremely uncomfortable, always feeling like he was looking at her, making weird comments she didn't understand yet. One day she woke up to being yanked out of her bed. She could smell alcohol thick in her nose, almost making her gag from the intense smell, and she knew immediately who it was. She tried to escape his grip on her arm as he'd dragged her through the house, but she was too weak and small. She demanded what he was doing, called for her caretaker, only to smell the disgusting scent of iron in the living room, and she knew then he wouldn't be saving her. Then she smelled smoke and heard the crackling of uncontrolled flames, just barely managing to get her walking stick before it burned with the rest of the house. She heard the house collapse under the weight of burning wood before she was taken away.

The brother took her away to his own house, locking the place down so that she couldn't escape. He kept her in heavy chains, limiting her movements so that she didn't get any 'bright ideas'. He forced her to take care of the house and refused to let her use her walking stick, even going as far as breaking it so that she couldn't. Every time she messed up or did something wrong or bumped into something, she was punished. He hardly ever fed her, and whatever meager food she was given or found was hardly enough. It eventually got to a point where she just ignored the hunger pangs in her stomach, struggling to do the work with so little food. On occasion she had passed out, and only then did her 'uncle' feed her something, enough to keep her going for a little longer. When she was done working, she was locked in the smallest room in the house and left there, sometimes even being forgotten in there until something needed cleaning, or her 'uncle' was bored. When she turned ten that was when the 'uncle' took her punishments even further. She wasn't that young anymore, right?

It was when she was twelve that she finally managed to find a way to escape. The chains had begun to rust having never been replaced and neglected on her body. One day she finally managed to break the rusted chains while her 'uncle' was in a drunken stupor, and she took that moment to bolt out of the house as fast as her weak legs could take her. She got down front walkway when she ran into someone. Terror coursed through her, that this man would take her back and she'd be stuck in that dreaded house forever. However, this man had other ideas. He was infuriated by the sight of this poor girl and had been conveniently heading to the house to 'take care' of the man. Now he was given more reason to do what he'd been planning. He gently assured her she was fine, ok, she wasn't going to go back to that place and he wasn't taking her back there. He left her to stand there and go inside, and she heard two gunshots. Her problem was taken care of. When the man returned he asked if she wanted to come with him, to which she hesitantly nodded. She had no where else to go, what else could she do? 

The man was called Lucian Advrik, and he was the head of the local mafia. He took Rhian in, adopted her, going the whole nine yards to help her integrate into the family. It was heavy, hopeful relief for Rhian, given the care she needed after years of abuse. She was safe, cared for, fed and loved. She was still nervous around touch, shying away from any of it for quite a while. She also often forgot to eat and hardly ever spoke up to say she was hungry, too ingrained in her head to never eat. Her broken walking stick had been retrieved, but she was given a new one, made of metal but decorated by stuff she liked, like soft fur or little toy animals clinging to it. It was a slow recovery for her, and her new family helped to catch her up in her education until she was ready to go to public school. It was nerve-wracking, and when she eventually did enter she was more often than not ridiculed for how she looked, how she was blind, how skinny she was. It was heartbreaking for her, but she refused to speak up about this treatment to her family, too afraid she'd upset them and they'd leave her. A family was all she had longed for, a real and true family, love and affection, and she didn't want to risk losing it, so she stayed quiet. Despite the harsh going ons at school she had a blast with her family, learning how to bake and play games and do fun activities. She especially liked baking and cooking, surprisingly skilled at moving around the kitchen and measuring ingredients despite her lack of sight. 

It was this talent that had her meeting someone...well, special. One day at school she brought in cookies for one of her favorite classes (music class) because she had made too many. It was here that she caught the attention of one Aiden Kimiko, one of the bullies at school. Though she had always tried to avoid the more...violent bullies, so thankfully she was hardly ever in his radar. Until now of course. But she quickly figured out that he really, really, really liked sweet things. After that first day, whenever she saw him, she carried around extra sweets for him. She thought it'd be nice! They orbited each other really, not really having a defined kind of relationship with each other, but they did talk and get to know one another, mostly when she gave him food. They had an odd relationship, but she wouldn't classify it as bad. But then, one year, he had to leave. He didn't tell her why, hardly even said goodbye, but he was gone. Rhian was confused, maybe a little hurt because really he had been her only, well, friend of some sort. After he was gone her old bullies came back with a vengeance, since Aiden's presence had been keeping them mostly at bay. She went through this for a year once more, feeling lonelier than ever at school. 

But then the next year something new happened. Someone visited her, approached her on a rare time she was alone. His name was Airh'Rhie, and he spoke of something that sounded like out of a fairytale. Not like the Disney fairytales, but the Grimm brothers ones. He spoke of a school that she had the ability to go to, spoke of it's purpose and what it was all about. She was given a choice, to attend, or to stay oblivious. And, well, she chose to go. It sounded fascinating and she thought it'd be nice, and she desperately wanted to get away from her current school. She accepted, and after informing her parents (with a loose lie that she had been accepted into a prestiguous, private school. Thankfully they bought it, not able to believe that she would lie.) was brought to this new school. And surprise! Aiden was there too, and it was where he had gone the year before! Rhian was ecstatic that she had run into Aiden again, and was more than happy to commit to these new studies at the school, thankful that there was braille and there was someone willing to read to her if she bribed him with enough sweets. 

Now she's a third year at the school, still a diligent student, still trying to make new friends and moving on from past traumas. She still often forgets to eat despite her baking and cooking prowess, still accidentally tries to starve herself. Chains still scare her, as do small spaces, though she is getting better in responding to bullies. She enjoys her life a little more now, starting to become content with where she's at and what she's doing, and who she's with.