#rysel

she grew up with very little stability. her parents were adventurers by trade, constantly moving place to place, she was just enough younger than her older brothers that she couldn't quite do the things they could either so she was just kind of left to do her own thing a lot, aside from time to learn how to wield a sword and a bow, make traps and whatnot. it was this being left alone and brushed aside that made her feel the need to prove she could do something useful, and led to her getting attacked by the bear. her parents dropped her with her aunts, who while they cared for her were not prepared to have a gravely injured, emotionally unwell child dropped on them by some random relative who refused to settle down and actually take care of said child. she goes into everything expecting the worst and expecting a fight, she's operating under the assumption that nobody will like or trust her, and her reaction to pretty much any situation is to fight her way out, even when it probably shouldn't be

whereas rys grew up with pretty much every aspect of his life being controlled either directly or indirectly by his parents, especially his mother. he wasn't allowed to be anything, he was expected to be perfect, and his best efforts were never good enough to get him ranked any higher in line for the throne than his actual baby siblings. he's operating under the assumption everyone's going to be disappointed in him, and he's doing absolutely nothing to prove them wrong, because why bother when the effort gets you nowhere anyway? he expects everyone to want to hurt him and most of the time he's just going to sit there and take it, and his few attempts to stand up for himself at the start are largely misguided because he does Not know how the real world works and that trying to pull authority figure card doesn't work on cyrael, who isn't even tied to a single kingdom.

and these two who have pretty much no shared experience or personality compatibility have to work together, because cy has to or she ends up back in prison and rys is at a point where he's going to do one good thing (find and save his sister) or die trying, and without her he most definitely would have died because he has no practical skill surviving or fighting in the wild