Ryley's Biggest Fan!

Ryley had managed to stay away for a good long while.

After the death of his parents, fallen to some kind of illness, their debt had been transferred to his name. He knew he could not repay what they had taken, so at 15 years old Ryley made the unbearable choice to leave the kingdom.

Alterrus, name meaning of Earth, was certainly true to its name. The first land kingdom, forged from the uniting of several villages and the first kingdom to favour government rather than monarchy. Though, the government was no less biased.

Ryley had fled to the shallow reefs of the kingdom Aequor, a safe haven for merfolk alike. For years, he slowly rebuilt his life, now thriving in an environment designed for his likeness.

... Unfortunately, fate would catch up to him, and now he found himself in the dark cage that was an Alterrus prison. He didn't realise they were so hellbent on holding him accountable for his debt, and now an extra charge of treason.

One of the worst of crimes.

A guard knocked against the wall of his cell, waking him. They held a large, obsidian spear; Fragile, but oh so sharp.

Today was his death sentence.

Ryley was taken from the cell, metal chain latched to his neck to keep him from running. The guard led him to a clearing where the light of the sun blinded him.

The floor was a pit of hot sand, the walls an array of bleachers too high for him to climb up against. The audience awaited.

Alterrus was known for their... harsh execution methods. In fact, they were if not the only kingdom to not have outlawed the death penalty, which made Ryley's predicament all the more frustrating.

All this for a bit of debt... he mused internally.

His chain was unlocked, and the guard disappeared behind the door they had come from, locked within a second. Ryley sighed.

At the opposite end of the arena, Alterrus' champion.

A spryte.

She waited for him with baited breath, green eyes vibrant as ever with those black scleras. She looked him up and down, as much as she could, anyway, from so far away.

Her boney fingers (quite literally) twitched at her side. He could see her mouth something, but the sound was inaudible.

Ryley was the first to step forward, thin flippered feet burning against the hot sand.

"This is a bit unfair, don't you think?" He asked, awkwardly smiling with mirth in his voice, as if positivity would get him out of this. "You can't die. The crowd already knows what to expect."

The spryte didn't say anything. Upon closer inspection, she looked tired. Malnourished. One would expect Alterrus to cherish their beloved champion, but in this state, she looked just as much of a prisoner as he was.

"Are you..." He began slowly. "... Are you here by your own will?"

The crowd booed.

Get on with it!

This isn't what I paid for!

He stepped forward again. This time she spoke.

With a sigh, she told him, "I'm sorry. This is the only way."

The only way for what? He wondered, but his time to think was cut short when she swung at him with those deadly claws.

He was left to defend himself without a weapon, in a territorial disadvantage. Had this fight been in his home turf, he would have a much better chance of survival. But not here, not now.

Ryley only narrowly dodged her attack.

"You don't—" She tackled him, boney claws poised above his throat.

He chuckled nervously; "O-Oh... Not much of a show then, huh...?"

The spryte leered at him, wrinkling her nose. She reared back her arm, ready to strike, and... hesitated.

She faltered once, twice, then her eyes rolled back and she dropped onto his chest. The crowd gasped. For a moment, Ryley thought she was dead. Perhaps she had not ingested human meat for too long, or maybe, just maybe, he'd actually found a way to kill her.

Until, that is, she whispered against his neck,

"Just play pretend. I'll get us out of here."

inspiration:

I'll be putting this into four categories:

Child and teenage years

Young adult years

Time on 4546b

Late adult years / post 4546b

Let's start with the first.

Childhood and teenage years

Ryley was born the youngest child to Marie and Chris Robinson, with a sister named Ava Robinson. Ryley's middle name is Oliver, and he was born on the 22nd of November, in the year 2132. This makes him 31 years old by the time Below Zero takes place, in 2163 (my headcanon.)

Ryley has piebaldism, which is, to my knowledge, somewhat like vitiligo except you are born with the condition rather than having it develop over time (thank you @paperpiperpeeperpopper).

It only affects his hair, leading to four white streaks on the hair around his forehead. He inherits this condition from his mother, who has two white streaks in the same place.

Both Ryley and his sister have autism, which they get from their father. Ava's autism is more severe than Ryley's, as she is very sensitive to sound and needs to wear headphones to be comfortable.

However even as less severe, Ryley still gets hyperfixated on things and isn't the most skilled socially. As a young child he went through a phase of muteness, until his parents got him to start speaking with the help of a speech pathologist. He understands sarcasm very well and uses it frequently (much to Ava's dislike).

In his childhood and teenage years, Ryley's biggest hyperfixation was ducks. Yes, the animal.

Ryley also grew up learning to speak both English and Bislama, as his mother was born in Vanuatu but moved to Australia to work for Alterra as a meteorologist. Marie met Chris after she moved and got married years later.

As a teenager, Ryley worked in customer service at his local grocery store. He excelled in school subjects such as maths and physics, which helped him secure a position at Tereshkova University to study starship engineering.

It was around this time, too, that he realised his asexuality (but he had known he was biromantic since primary school).

Young adult years

After completing a four year Bachelor course on starship repair and engineering, Ryley applied for multiple positions at multiple different companies until he was finally offered a job interview at Alterra. He did not get the engineering job he was looking for, as he did not have nearly enough experience, but instead he was offered a janitorial position at the same station his mother worked at. He accepted.

Ryley was 26 by this point. He had been working as a janitor for four years at Alterra, securing enough money to rent a third floor apartment with his girlfriend, whom he'd met during high school (it's me, actually /not fake /totally real).

Alterra had, surprisingly, noticed his hard work and promoted him to janitorial chief. It was three months after that promotion that he was asked to be a part of the Aurora mission.

On board the Aurora, he became surprisingly good friends with Jochi Khasar, the Mongolian Emissary. This was mainly because Ryley shared Khasar's struggles of being looked down upon (e.g. Khasar was Mongolian in an Alterran environment, while Ryley was a person of colour with autism).

Time on 4546b

(I did have some previous 4546b headcanons that I mentioned before, but a lot of these have been retconned.)

Despite my constant joking about how stupid Ryley is, I will admit he made some very smart choices on 4546b. That being, he made his main seabases in areas with little hostile wildlife.

His first and most furnished seabase is in the safe shallows, on a large piece of rock that almost breaches the surface of the water. This way his seabase isn't really a seabase anymore. Get it? Okay I'll stop.

His second, smaller base is in the northwestern mushroom forest, atop the large mushroom tree. A good stop to catch his breath and scavenge for materials, especially as this mushroom forest (and surrounding blood kelp zone) is rich in valuables.

His third base is built on the floating island. It's more of a meditation space than a landbase. It's like, two multi purpose rooms with a bed and too many windows so he can admire the tropical island without being jumped by cave crawlers.

As one would expect, Ryley got a handful of scars on 4546b. Ones you will most commonly see in my art are the scars across his face; a slash across his eye and forehead, going down to his jaw, from a warper which made him blind in one eye. And a nibble on his nose from a cave crawler that had jumped onto his face and knocked him over.

Ryley also has bites on his forearms from being munched on by bleeders, he has a chunk taken out of his ankle by a biter which, thankfully, was not deep enough to take out his Achilles tendon or the resulting lower fibula bone. Additionally he has a third degree burn scar on his left shoulder from a crashfish.

Ryley spent three years on 4546b. He spent the first year surviving in general, then spent the last two multitasking between building the Neptune rocket and taking care of the Sea Emperor babies.

He also had one pet cuddlefish! He found it in the deep grand reef degasi base. He simply thought the egg was cute and decided to bring it back to his alien containment. The cuddlefish is named Nimbus and lives around his safe shallows base :D

Late adult years

If you are triggered by mentions of suicide, this is your sign to stop reading.

By the time Ryley was back in Federation Space, he was 29 years old. His hair had grown to shoulder length, dye faded to reveal his natural white streaks and styled in a messy ponytail to keep it out of his face during dives.

He has also grown a light amount of stubble (he could never grow a full beard; he doesn't have the genes for it), and is quite a bit more muscular. This is due to a) three years of constant exercise and b) highly increased protein intake from the fish meat.

For about a week, Alterra kept Ryley in quarantine to study his blood and make sure he could rejoin civilisation. Once deemed healthy, Maxim Plenty, part of Alterra's Board of Directors, negotiated with Ryley to stop him from giving Alterra a bad reputation. Ryley signed a legally binding contract with the following terms:

He cannot publicly talk about the specifications of how the Aurora or the Degasi crashed, and subsequently, the Quarantine Enforcement Platform.

He cannot publicly talk about the Architects, their technology, or their facilities to ensure Alterra gets a head start on studying them.

Ryley was given the option to leave Alterra (and never come back), but if he stayed under their employ, he was promised special benefits including:

Therapy from any top Alterran psychologist free of charge.

Any job position that he had the qualifications for, as well as a custom pay package.

And, he would have his one trillion credit debt forgiven.

Obviously, the benefits were too great for him to leave, so he remained with Alterra as a spaceship engineer.

With his custom pay package he moved from Earth to Proxima Centauri B to settle into a peaceful, domestic life with his girlfriend, whom he planned to propose to as soon as he stopped being suicidal.

Yeah. I won't sugarcoat it. After coming back from 4546b, Ryley was riddled with suicidal thoughts as he suffered from terrible survivor's guilt and trauma from not only the carnivorous alien fish, but the Kharaa.

Ryley, for a while, firmly believed that he was meant to die on 4546b and wasn't meant to live this long. He never attempted, but the fantasy was there for an excruciatingly long year, until the combined efforts of his girlfriend, his family, and his psychologist managed to drill into him that he shouldn't feel shameful for being alive.

As we approach the year 2163, Ryley has adopted a kitten which he has named Bart, after Bart Torgal. His hair is back in that stupid fauxhawk with cyan streaks, and he's also taken up looking after plants; His apartment is covered in pots of succulents and cherry tomatoes, not only as a way to keep himself busy but as a way to relax.

He plans to live the rest of his life in a peaceful routine of waking up, eating, going to work, watering the plants, and going to sleep. It's the best he can hope for after three years of fearing the unknown.

Oh, one more thing. Constantly having to tend to injuries made Ryley really wish he knew more about human anatomy. The moment he got access to internet again, he learnt all he could about anatomy until it eventually became a hyperfixation.