Rei Coughlin

Rei was born to Daniel and Sara Coughlin on October 27th, 2000. While her father adored her, her mother seemed hesitant, trying her best but something always making her hold back. After only a few weeks, Sara left suddenly in the night, for reasons Rei and Daniel have never figured out. Left to raise her on his own, Daniel did his best for the first few years of Rei's life.

After Sara's disappearance, though, Daniel began drinking more and more, and Rei had to learn to fend for herself - most nights her father would sit on his chair and drink and watch TV, leaving her on her own. Some days were better than others; some days were worse. Rei had realized she needed to be prepared to look after herself and her father to keep them both going. It was around this realization that Rei first began taking rides with her friend to go to a stable she was riding at.

Rei felt like she fit in more around the horses and animals at the stable compared to other people, and the owner realized she had an... uncanny skill for calming horses and realizing what they wanted. Before arriving to Jorvik, everyone simply assumed Rei was just observant enough to catch things everyone else didn't.

Rei was diagnosed as autistic when she was twelve, after an incident at school led to her having a meltdown for the first time publicly. She had dealt with meltdowns before, but she had never reacted so intensely in public. A teacher suggested she get assessed, and, while it took a while, Rei finally had an answer to many questions. It was also around that time that she first began to realize she was bisexual and non-binary, though both realizations took several more years.

As Rei's school career approached it's end, she began to grow exhausted of caring for herself and her father. When she first heard about Jorvik... she took the chance and applied to Jorvik City University, taking several years to save money and prepare for the biggest change of her life. She had been drawn to Jorvik from the moment she first saw pictures of it, like something missing within her was there. Her riding instructor pitched in to help, knowing that Rei needed out of her current situation. And, by the time Rei was was ready, she packed her bags and left for Jorvik, one final argument with her father sealing the deal for good.

Arriving the summer before her first semester at JCU, Rei signed up for a summer camp at the quaint Moorland Stables, where she first met Everbeam, a Jorvik Warmblood gelding that she immediately felt a strange connection with, one she could never fully explain for weeks to come. She also began having strange dreams once she arrived on Jorvik, many making no sense and yet, at the same time, feeling... familiar.

It was during these early days that she met Ydris, an eccentric, outgoing and charismatic ringmaster of a circus being set up on Nilmer's Highland. Unlike most of Rei's attempts at befriending others, she felt at ease around Ydris - after all, he was stranger than her, so he had little he could judge her on. The two became fast friends, with Rei inviting Ydris to watch her first competition with Everbeam, and Ydris allowing Rei to spend much of her time on the highland to watch the world past Moorland.

Things within Moorland Stables itself were tense, and, after a failed takeover by GED, Rei finally began to make her way out through the rest of Silverglade, where she began to meet stranger and stranger figures throughout Jorvik. When she met Sabine, who ended up being something far more dangerous than just an intense equestrian, and Alex Cloudmill, who was Rei's introduction to the truth about herself, Rei was entangled into a world stranger than she could've ever expected - for she was the Fifth Soul Rider.

Much has transpired since her arrival on Jorvik. Her time in college was short, the pressure of her work as a Soul Rider and her day job and everything making it near impossible to keep up. She and Ydris have gone through a lot, and while there's still places in their life that needs work, the two have grown closer than ever - though Rei still fears for him, for what his grief could convince him of. The Soul riders are, finally, fully formed once more, with Concorde and Anne at their peak once again.

And most of all? Rei has found out the truth of her draw to Jorvik, of why she finds it so simple to speak to horses and, perhaps, why the island reacts so differently to her - she is the reincarnation, at least in part, of Aideen. And that has changed everything for Jorvik.