Rancor

Birthday
20/10/21
Name origin
Bitterness or resentfulness, especially when long standing
Sexuality
Unsure, has yet to show any particular interest in anyone
Gender
Hen
Sex
AFAB
Plot death
Yes
Alternative death
Trampled by vengeful sheep

Purchased traits
None
Items
None
Pets
A small flock of fat tailed sheep (officially 5 designs accepted)
Size class
Medium (2'4 at shoulder)
Weight class
Bulky
Appearance
Despite only being a year old, Rancor has wasted no time and has alread grown her adult plumage. While she still has a little filling out to do, she is almost certainly fully grown. She has long since lost the dark stripes and spots of youth and her wings and tail now proudly bear yellow bars. Now the only thing separating her from the late Queen Zinnia is her youth and yellow eyes.

Nestling
0-3 months

Rancor doesn't know who she was born to. No one has properly explained the concept of children or families to her yet, so this doesn't bother her. She knows Reprise and Fallow take care of her, and she knows Vengeance is her big brother. He helps to take care of her a lot too, and he's the most fun to play 'seashell soldiers' with, so he is perhaps her favourite avus.
She doesn't know much about the world outside the palace yet, but she's eager to learn it all. 'Outside today?' is one of her most common requests now that she's learning to speak. Her vocabulary is 'excellent' according to Fallow, which she knows means 'good'.
Whatever's going on outside, she knows Reprise is very busy with it. She's starting to suspect that whatever is keeping everyone busy is the reason her carers get that weird look in their eye when they see her sometimes.

Fledgling
3-6 months

Rancor has gone through an alarming growth spurt over the past few months. Wanting nothing more than to explore the outside world, she's quite chuffed about it, really. Before she was 'too young' and 'needed to wait until her flight feathers came in'. Well, they're in now and she's ready to go to school like her brother! She's also hungry all the time and it's really not fair that everyone else but her is allowed to pick their own treats from the market!
Her irksome carers have continued to restrict her to the palace as much as possible, but she's quickly learned her brother is sympathetic to her plight. More times than not, she can persuade him to take her for a walk or practice flight.

Unable to deny her maturity any longer, her carers finally granted her the freedoms of a fledgling. They weren't nearly as much as she wanted, but she devoured them nonetheless. She was granted her first audience when Reprise formally introduced her to the kingdom and, much like many things, found herself a natural aptitude for addressing the masses.
It was at this event she was gifted her flock of sheep. With the Mountain kingdom desperate for food, Rancor was eager to grow and utilize the small flock to aid citizens. She scoured the royal library for any and all material on shepherding, but found them rather lacking. Vengenace's friend, Merula, however, proved to be much more useful. Her father dealt with livestock, so every time Rancor was permitted to accompany Ven on a visit, she would wrack the hen's brain for knowledge.
Within mere weeks of settling her sheep in, however, spotted murrain began it's deadly sweep through the kingdom's livestock. Rancor watched her flock like a hawk. They were isolated from the majority of other livestock in the kingdom, but inevitably, they began to show symptoms. This would be a huge setback in their progress, but Rancor didn't despair. She knew how murrain worked. If one slaughtered the ailing animals, sometimes the disease would retreat. It was a heavy sacrifice for such a small flock, but sometimes sacrifices had to be made for the good of the collective.
Her carers didn't seem... particularly impressed by her quick thinking, but she wasn't outright scolded. They just gave her a lot of looks that said 'you've done something very wrong but I can't exactly punish you for it'. She could live with that.

Sub-adult
6 months - 1 year

Still growing rapidly, Rancor reached sub-adult in record time. Like last time, it took some debate, but ultimately she was granted more freedom. She was still frustrated by her restricted range- being strictly limited to upper Preyma if she wished to travel alone- but she could make do. Her carers rarely noticed if she crept into lower Preyma unsupervised.

During this period of her life, Rancor felt very much like she was idling. She would sneak out at any given opportunity, much to the exacerbation of her carers, but other than that she wasn't really getting anywhere and it frustrated her to no end. The kingdom was starving and on the brink of all out war, she didn't have time to be sitting on the sidelines doing nothing! Possessed by her need to progress, Rancor and Reprise were often at odds with each other. In Reprises defense, she was just trying to keep her safe, but in Rancor's defense, she could take care of herself! For a time Rancor was sent to public schooling- likely an attempt to keep her occupied. At first, she was excited to have something to do with her time, but it quickly proved just as boring as everything else. She already knew most of these things and all her classmates were so slow to pick everything up! Once again, Rancor found herself idling. She was pulled out of school as promptly as she had been sent- something about getting along poorly with the other students and unsettling the teachers- but thankfully not everything was a lost cause. Through her adventures in escaping, Rancor met a good number of avus, namely Captain Argus, Sergeant Crocosmia and Scrimshaw, who she found palatable enough to consider visiting more than once. Argus and Crocosmia were practically a lifeline during this period, as they were her only surefire ticket out of her boring old bounds in upper preyma.

Adult
1 year- present

Finally, Rancor was officially granted adulthood. The yellow bars of her wings had finally come in. She looked nigh on identical to the late Queen Zinnia, and everyone knew what that meant: she was fully grown. No longer able to deny her agency, Rancor was granted an apprenticeship. Well, okay, maybe she was still denied a lot of agency, given she was strictly forbidden from joining Ven as a guard, but she was allowed to choose a non-combative field of study. Of course, she chose to continue her studies with Merula as an official shepherd's apprentice. Her flock was recovering well, and the excuse to be outside or venture to Cloverleaf to visit her mentor gave her ample opportunity to sneak away. It was a win-win, really. Reprise still had guards hovering about her most of the time, but it was more like regular royal life than being constantly grounded now.

It was on her way to Cloverleaf that Rancor intercepted a message. There had been many unauthorized pigeons intercepted as of late, and she had half expected it to be more nonsense about mushroom soup like the last one but... this letter? This letter was invasion plans. Stuffing the parchment in her pouch, Rancor hurried back to her guard. Not to tell them. If she told them, everyone would freak out and she wouldn't set foot out of the palace for months. Besides, she already had a plan. The enemy sought to conquer the Cursed Valleys. Rancor knew a lot about the cursed valleys. She could take care of this herself, no need for anyone else to worry. When the problem was dealt with, she could present her results to Reprise and she'd have to put more faith in her.
It took a bit of pressure, but Rancor was able to convince Ven to assist in her plans. Not only would his screeches and large wings be instrumental, but she needed someone big for backup, just in case things went south. Also, she needed someone to help carry her taxidermied imposter corpses down to the valley. The first counter attack went perfectly. She donned Zinnia's armour and Ven gave a few good hollers and the hippus were lured right into their trap. Among the many things Rancor knew without explanation were the appearances of a dozen Hyresh residents. By picking out those akin to animals available to them, she was able to fabricate a grizzly mound of fallen citizens for the invaders to stumble right into. With a bit of smoke, sheep blood and a few good wingbeats from Ven, she put on a ghost act and sent the enemy packing.

Unfortunately for everyone, the Plains didn't give up that easily. Once more, Rancor intercepted a letter, but this time on much shorter notice. There wasn't nearly enough time to prepare as well as they had last time, and the hippus had made off with a few of the taxidermies, so they were certainly aware something was amiss. Not to be deterred though, Rancor once more donned Zinnia's armour, filled her crop with sheeps blood and returned to defend the valley. It almost immediately went to shit this time. The Plains prince snatched her from the tree. Ven went berserk on him and his guard. Backup arrived, but only just in time to save them. Despite riding the adrenalin of a narrow success, Rancor was under no illusions of how much trouble she was about to be in.

Once more, Rancor was restricted to the palace indefinitely. Practically kept under lock and key, she wasn't to set foot outside without an escort. She buckled down and prepared for another long stretch of boredom. Thankfully, after only going a few months staring at a wall, something interesting happened. She caught a small gryphus snooping around the palace and apprehended him, even earning her very first scar in the process. The fellow insisted he was just here to rob the treasury, but Rancor didn't buy it, and it didn't take much to convince Reprise of the same. A trial was held. The roo was evasive throughout the whole process, but there was an alarming revelation: the gryphus knew. He knew Rancor had memories that weren't her own, and what's more, Reprise seemed to know too, given how quickly she shut him up.
It had been something she had mostly tried to ignore, fearing broaching it with anyone lest she get more weird looks than usual, but Rancor was quickly learning that she was definitely not normal. You were definitely supposed to know where all your memories and knowledge came from. And here was Reprise, letting her only lead slip away. Rancor was furious, an rushed to confront her, to at least wring whatever Reprise wasn't telling her out. It was a rather heated conflict at first, but eventually the pair cooled off enough to process a bit. Reprise revealed to her that Rancor hadn't been hatched, merely found gnawing on the bones in Zinnia's pyre. She didn't know how or why, but that's where she had came from. It raised more questions than it answered, but at least Rancor knew this: whatever she was, whatever dark magic or ghosts she may hold, it was not the doing of her family. That in and of itself was a comfort. Finally, Rancor confessed what she had known for some time: she had Zinnia's memories.

The peculiarities didn't stop there though. Ever since the battle in the valley, Vengeance had been acting off. At first, she had suspected it was merely the shock of his first battle, but as he slowly processed, she began to suspect that wasn't the case. Finally, she cornered him over a pot of stew. Thankfully, it didn't take much for her brother to open up. He too had memories that weren't his, but not just from one avus, but many. Dromaeus, hippus, anyone who had fought in the valley, it seemed. Once again, this raised more questions than it answered, but at the very least, she wasn't alone. She told him of her own memories. Her family knew now. Whatever was going on, her family knew. At least if they had to be haunted, they were haunted together.

KIN:

OTHER:

Likes

• Exploring
• Playing with Zinnia's seashell collection

Dislikes

• Restrictions
• Others questioning her logic or how she knows things

Trivia

• Severe case of resting bitch face

Songs

• Young and Menace - Fall Out Boy
• Borderline - Tove Styrke
• White Whale - Everything Everything
• Poor George - James Supercave
• Hand me my shovel, I'm going in - Will Wood and the Tapeworms