Rheila

Tl;dr
- smol white-scaled viashino from Jund with lifeforce control powers

- used to be a healer before an incident that took his healing abilities from him, and also triggered a mid-life crisis

- now devotes most of his time to a mixture of community service for the needy and being a good mate to his decidedly male hubby

- not the best at caring about people as people as opposed to either aid targets, assets, or collateral, but tries anyway

Early life
- born in Jund almost immediately after the Conflux, grew into a real frail child as opposed to other buff Jund viashino because of it. also got a mutant power innate magical ability to perceive and control life energy directly, so that's nice

- would've been killed by the clan he lived with as a runt if not for his lifebending which manifested really soon, and also made him scary good at healing injuries and illnesses

- was pressganged into medic training at an early age. this and knowing he was only alive because of his gift resulted in developing issues with single-mindedness, tying his worth to his capacity and having little time for contemplating matters beyond that

- became childhood friends and eventually fell in love with Dajaman, an older kid more actively empathetic than others who treated him as a person more than as a runt or an asset. Dajaman was always trying to help people beyond the clan despite (and, in fact, because) of Jund being so barren and dangerous to everyone. although Rheila didn't understand that attitude at first, watching Dajaman's insistence over the years eventually awakened the same sentiment inside him. the two developed a shared vision of making life in Jund a little easier for the people in it, and this led to a closer friendship which eventually grew into a loving mate-bond

- although mostly confined to the clan's home caves, Rheila would surreptitiously prepare supplies for Dajaman to send out and time-delayed healing spells that he could later activate. where the more idealistic Dajaman's approach to their mission was more universal, considering everyone worth support and a second chance, the less sensitive Rheila was more disposed to pragmatically evaluating who was worth focusing on, when, and at what costs. even though the two came to disagreements, they still understood each other and tempered each other's perspectives: Rheila reined in Dajaman's recklessness, and Dajaman stoked the flames of Rheila's compassion

- life went on somewhat steadily until Rheila and Dajaman's community service was discovered by the clan's leadership, resulting in exile (Rheila was about 22 at the time). due to Dajaman's unwillingness to fight and kill, Rheila chose to take on that burden, honing his abilities to more efficiently harm. they eventually found themselves in Bant where they were given a modest place to live; after some time settling down and enjoying the quiet life, they restarted their world-improvement goals, only now on a wider scale. this lasted for about four years

Sparking
- then Dajaman went off to Grixis to investigate an incident, insisting on handling it through dialogue. through his gift, Rheila felt Dajaman die there. disbelieving, he set out to find Dajaman, only to find nothing at the place he'd gone and fully believe in his husband's death

- the loss of the most important person in his life left Rheila somewhat dismayed and also triggered his spark, sending him to [spark plane]. once there, he assumed he'd been sent to some unseen part of Alara and frantically asked for directions back, only to be told he was in another world entirely

- Rheila then almost automatically gravitated towards resuming his healer work in [spark plane], learning quickly and finding some solace in being able to mend and save people again. it was also handy to bury all that grief into

Breaking bad
- initially, he pushed himself to uphold Dajaman's uncompromising compassion in his day-to-day life. however, at some point, he had to handle a severely afflicted patient whose condition no procedure could help. in a fit of panic, he drained almost all the lifeforce from a nearby person to put it into the patient, curing them but leaving the victim on the brink of death. having, in his mind, failed to carry on Dajaman's expectations, Rheila instead sank even further into bleak cynicism than he had before, believing that restraining himself with consideration for others would only serve to make him fail those under his care, just like how he lost Dajaman. and so, he began shutting out every other concern besides his healer work, the well-being of his patients exclusively, and becoming an even better healer so he'd never fail again. this led him to leave [spark plane] to absorb more mlg skillz and heal more people

- from then on, his life followed a pattern of "find new plane --> set up shop --> heal people, gather ingredients, experiment, absorb mad skillz, do whatever necessary (short of direct murder, due to the trauma of feeling Dajaman die) to achieve aforementioned pursuits unhindered --> develop anxiety about all the patients and mad skillz waiting in the Eternities that he could be working on but isn't --> speed-train sufficiently competent replacement if necessary --> planeswalk away --> repeat process, repress occasional guilt and doubt over current modus operandi

- one of the planes involved was Vasille, where some corrupt healers were like "hey, you want the real mlg med school tricks? you should probably join us in doing live experiments on these vagrants and orphans so they'll stop uglying up the neighbourhood. we'll hook you up". he did that for a bit but then one of them died on the table, which broke through his defences and made him too disgusted with himself to continue. from then on, he only did nonconsensual live experiments with either criminals or people who attacked him or his patients from then on. Character Development!

- he also ran into Tshosiech, a planeswalker who's really into eating undeveloped sparks. due to saving-the-life-of-intended-meal reasons, Tshosiech decided to trap Rheila in a mental trap, but Rheila left before it went off

Reunion, revised life plans
- about six years passed until Rheila found out that Dajaman had been resurrected and was also a planeswalker. the resulting emotional shock made him wander through the planes aimlessly in a torpor until he found his way back to [plane], where Tsosiech's mental trap triggered, resulting in Rheila being trapped in a coma state. he spent a month or two like that until he was busted out of it by none other than Dajaman, who'd caught wind of this. the ordeal made Rheila awaken green mana also

- Dajaman coming back opened Rheila's heart and made him realize how callous and withered he'd allowed himself to become. in his shame, he tried to push Dajaman away, believing he no longer deserved Dajaman mate in his life and was no longer able to be what Dajaman wanted him to be. Dajaman, however, had already heard about some of the fuckshit Rheila had done (but not all of it. this'll be important later) and independently decided to forgive him of it. when Dajaman asked if Rheila still wanted to continue the work they'd set out to do, Rheila realized that he did. and that was enough for Dajaman.

- during and after some time of Rheila going back to some previously-visited planes to make amends, the two re-established their bond and relationship. Rheila would continue working with medicine and improving lives around him in-between domestic happiness with Dajaman, but his mind was now divided between devoting itself fully to efficiency at the cost of compassion and compassion at the cost of efficiency. his will wavered, but Dajaman's support kept him mostly grounded

Further bullshit
- then Shenanigans happened with a kid named Amber and Rheila got the parts of his metaphysical magic system that let him directly heal people irreparably damaged. whoops. this attack at what he internally associated with his entire existence as a person made him go a little completely bonkers and psychologically coerce Amber into reversing the Shenanigans. it didn't take. after angsting for a bit, he decided to get right back on the community service horse even harder this time, focusing on the weak and the poor specifically (due to expoiting the relatively weak Amber). also to mount a rescue of Amber, who'd been kidnapped while he was angsting. this got Dajaman to take him back after being briefly horrified by aforementioned bonkers-going, join the rescue, and also concentrate his previously-less-directed drive to be excellent in general into becoming lizard spidermen

- this new lease on life went reasonably well for a while, if fraught with the aforementioned split devotion issues, until the duo returned to Vasille, where healers were being serial-killed by mutants created by all those live experiments Rheila participated in back in the day, which he'd managed to forget entirely. investigating this made Rheila un-forget this and, fearing this to be the thing that would push Dajaman away from him for good, began investigating further on his own. his emotional state worsened to the point where he actively tried to give his life to the mutants to appease them, only to be saved by Dajaman who'd found out anyway. after an argument about trust, they resolved this and confronted the mutants' leader together. this ended up with Rheila killing the mutant leader and, through doing so, reaching a kind of emotional reconciliation between his two warring outlooks that let him consider both in a more balanced manner again, on a case-by-case basis. the power couple coerced their way into the mutants getting actual therapy and stayed in Vasille to fight against the various exploitations of the weak and poor there, with Rheila's recovered determination and newfound broader mentality making him much more effective at it

Driving goals
- protect the unprotected, help the unhelped

- be merciful about dealing with the bad guys involved when need be

- have a cause to occupy his life with

- be good husband to Dajaman

Personality
- mostly terse, distant, to-the-point, and actively projecting stoicism and competence in interpersonal conduct with non-Dajaman people

- when he feels like he can mentally relax (which is rare) regrets being rude and actually enjoys discussion (but don't expect a wide range of topics)

- has to constantly be doing something with his time, spends much of spare time making medicine or tidying

- single-minded, focuses on one issue at a time

- bad with words, more comfortable expressing self through actions

- neat freak

- austere in lifestyle

- holds self to a strict standard, has a deep vein of anxiety over not being some nebulous Good Enough because of it

- takes self very seriously, gets flustered very easily if mocked or put in embarrassing situations

- dampened empathy, not very emotionally intelligent in general

Appearance
- newt-like face as opposed to ordinary crocodilian Jund viashino

- twink

- white scales speckled with black ones

Abilities
- control of lifeforce (innate)

- more directly: draining it from others and infusing others with it

- more subtly: manipulating the link between lifeforce and mana and converting one into the other (think Channel) or shutting off the ability to access mana; controlling the flow of lifeforce through the body to        disable certain body parts; tracking people by specific lifeforce "flavour"

- blood- and flesh-related magic (learned, reasonably strong)

- barrier magic (learned, passable)

- grab-bag of other WBG-range tricks (learned, weakest)

Weaknesses
- physically fragile

- constantly tense

- probably hasn't slept properly in days. easy to catch off guard

- gets caught up in details, has to actively try to see the bigger picture over immediate concerns

Relationships
- Dajaman: beloved mate. worries about caring for him sufficiently. adores his compassion but wishes he weren't so gullible. convinced he needs to be protected from having to do unsavoury things

- Fulmen and Arina: acquaintances. slightly cold to arina for prior pub racism