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'You know nothing. You don't even know how much you don't know.
Your struggle is against the inevitable. It has happened before. You will change nothing.
But that's not my problem.
You are an accident. An unplanned variable.
And now, you are mine.'
-Maelstrom, Chapter 1.9.
Raelyn is the consciousness of the Isfet Gem. When Dante Wilder - Aaron, at the time - made physical contact with her, she permanently bonded with him. Now, all of her awesome powers are his - but she has access to his mind, and to his body, if she so desires. She will defend Dante, on account of his body now also being hers, but she despises humanity at a collective. Luckily for them, she despises the Prime Mover even more.
Technically, Raelyn is small enough to fit into the palm of a person's hand, and totally immobile. However, everything else about her makes the fact that she's a rock very easy to forget. The Isfet Gem may have once been a smooth, oval gemstone, but history has not been kind to it - to her. The surface is covered with marrs, and jagged chunks are missing. Now that she has bonded with Dante, her physical body is usually somewhere on his person - stowed away in one of the many pockets of his uniform's coat, or perched on top of a nearby surface. Not that distance affects her connection to him, but she'd like to keep herself close, all the same.
When she takes control of his body, his/her eyes turn a vivid purple - as if the fact that they're two completely different people, with different sensibilities, isn't enough to alert people to the fact that an exchange has taken place. In the mindscape - some cerebral part of Dante's mind, where the two of them can talk face to face - she takes the vague form of a purple woman.
It isn't just that there's an air of hostility that surrounds Raelyn whenever she interacts with anyone. There's disdain, too - disgust at the fact that a human is presuming to speak to her, and that she might even be obligated to speak back. She complains that she inherited some of Dante's disposition when their minds merged, and that she's got more time for people than she used to. Since no-one knew what she was like beforehand, there's no choice but to take her word for it, even if it seems unlikely. However, she has emphasised on multiple occasions that her dislike of humankind doesn't compare to her hatred for the Prime Mover, and that, as long as humanity continues to resist her creator, she will continue to aid them in their struggle.
For all anyone knows, there's perfectly good reasons for her to be, and act, the way that she is and does. However, no-one can say for sure, since she doesn't share anything with anyone. Only Dante has even the faintest idea what's going on in Raelyn's head (so to speak), and even that is more from the side effects of their psyches being conjoined than it is from anything that she's actually told him. The most he can make out are sparse memories from thousands of years of existence - and then, much more recently, bright flashes of agony.
The Gems are conduits of the natural world. While the intricacies of their nature and creation are long-lost, there is a general understanding that there is one that corresponds to each element - no more, no less. Isfet is, by definition, not natural; it was created by the Prime Mover, a manifestation of their anger and desire to wipe out humanity, long after every other natural element was brought into being. With that in mind, how can there be an Isfet Gem, and how can it possess memories that go back longer than the existence of the isfet itself? Nobody has been brave enough to ask, and Raelyn herself has certainly never volunteered that information. But, based off of Dante's private suspicions, the process was a painful one.
As a consciousness inside a Gem, Raelyn has lived for thousands of years. Her damage shows that she can be damaged - and, presumably, destroyed - but barring such circumstances, it's presumable that she will live for thousands more.
Most of Raelyn's power is symbiotic. Typically, when a person comes into physical contact with a Gem, it bonds with them, granting them extraordinary power related to whatever element said Gem represents. This bond, and these powers, last until the death of the recipient, at which point the way is clear for someone else to bond with the Gem and take on the power. However, by being sentient, Raelyn complicates this dynamic. Rather than a passive granter of power, she is an active participant in the bond - and, in fact, has all of the agency. She is the one in control of all the power, able to grant its use or withold it as she sees fit, and she also gains a link to the host's physical body that lets her take control as she chooses. While she is inclined , at the very least, keep her host alive - unable to use her own power without a host body, she's essentially just a helpless gemstone by herself - she's under no particular obligation to be cooperative.
As the Gem of Isfet, she is capable (through a host) of creating and manipulating Isfet. The fact that the Isfet can essentially be anything means that her powerset is incredibly versatile. Material, volume, hardness, shape, viscosity, strength, mass, colour, melting and boiling points, size, conductivity - whatever she creates is hers to manipulate as she sees fit. It is, in a sense, the power of creation itself, and Raelyn can use it like a human flexing a muscle. As long as she continues to make the active choice to do so, she can create whatever she wants. Perhaps the only caveat to her power, aside from the dependence on a host body, is that her control will slip if she's creating on instinct, or on reflex. Typically, everything that she creates is purple - a conscious choice on her part - but in stressful situations, they will regress to the 'default' white colour of isfet; a sign that she has to prioritise when under pressure. For all that she dismisses humans, it seems that she and they are more alike than not.
There is a mental aspect to Raelyn's capabilities, too. Her consciousness is immune to psychic manipulation - illusions, mind-control, and other psionic abilities have no effect on her, even if her host remains susceptible. Furthermore, she can manipulate something that she calls 'The Mindscape' - a mental plane that functions almost as a realm of her own. Here, she can manipulate the environment and manifest 'physical' forms for herself. Not only can she easily draw her host into the Mindscape - they share a head, after all - but she is capable of dragging other people's psyches in as well, if her host makes physical contact with them. This ability can be used to transmit information, buy time (in a mental plane, the flow of time is percieved differently), or occupy a person's mind to leave them vulnerable in the physical world.
Maelstrom
Raelyn features heavily in Maelstrom.
After making physical contact with Raelyn in the opening chapter, Dante (then Aaron) recieves her powers of isfet generation and control. Initially peturbed, he learns adapts quickly to his abilities, and - on indefinite leave from his position in the Bulwark - uses them to become a vigilante, running around the city of Invictus and looking for people to help. Every once in a while, he'll have an uncharacteristically hostile internal reaction to something, but he dismisses these incidents as stress-related and gives them no further consideration.
During his infiltration of the Highwing Institute, he starts feeling more and more pressure from inside his head. Eventually, during a high-stress moment, this pressure erupts. Raelyn makes herself known for the first time, siezing control of Aaron's body and banishing him to the recesses of his own mind. She trailblazes the escape from Highwing, although murdering a number of people - including Duke Abernathy, the Supreme Commander of the Bulwark - in the process.
Once out, days pass with Raelyn in control of Aaron's body. Eventually, Aaron regains some saliency, and begins to try and take back his body. In response, Raelyn drags him into the Mindscape, where she names and introduces herself. Given that the Prime Mover and Doctor Aedifo are about to doom the human race, the pair manage to come to a compromise. Working together, they lead the team that will become Pandemonium's Bane, stop Aedifo and the Prime Mover, and save the world. In the aftermath, she and Aaron manage to negotiate a longer-term agreement between them that doesn't involve her running off with his body forever, and the two settle down into an uneasy coexistence.
Savants
Raelyn is one (of many) primary character(s) in Savants.
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