Character Ryela Solde

[Ryela Solde]

RYELA SOLDE

Age: 13

Species: Chiss/Human Hybrid (Chiss)

Gender: Female

Height: 1.55 m

Weight: 44 kg

Force Sensitive: Yes

PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION

At thirteen years old, Ryela Solde is still growing into the features she inherited from both of her parents. Her Chiss ancestry is immediately apparent in her blue skin and striking crimson-red eyes, although there are enough differences in her appearance to make it equally clear that she is not fully Chiss.

Perhaps the most noticeable of those differences is her hair. Rather than the dark blue-black hair typically associated with the Chiss, Ryela inherited rich brown hair from her father. It is thick and usually allowed to fall naturally around her shoulders, though she has learned to pull it back whenever she is helping with repairs, training, or doing anything else where loose hair inevitably becomes an inconvenience.

Her features carry elements of both Dean and Rynar. There is something of her mother in the shape of her face and particularly in her eyes, especially when she grows quiet and simply observes the people around her. Her expressions, however, have a tendency to betray her father's influence. A crooked smile, an unimpressed stare, or the particular look she gets immediately before doing something she probably knows she should not do can make the resemblance to Rynar considerably more obvious.

Ryela has a lean build appropriate for her age and an active childhood spent aboard ships and around Mandalorians. She has not yet grown into the physique she may eventually possess as an adult, nor is she a miniature warrior dressed from head to toe in armor. Her clothing is practical and comfortable, consisting primarily of durable trousers, boots, shirts, jackets, and other clothing suited to life aboard a starship.

Mandalorian influences are nevertheless present throughout her appearance. Pieces of protective equipment, gloves, utility belts, and other practical items have gradually found their way into her wardrobe, particularly as she has grown old enough for Rynar to begin teaching her how to look after herself. She does not yet possess a complete set of beskar'gam.

INVENTORY

Ryela's possessions remain relatively modest at thirteen and consist primarily of personal belongings accumulated throughout her childhood.

She carries a personal comlink and a small datapad for communication, study, navigation, and whatever else she has convinced herself it can be useful for. A basic toolkit is usually somewhere nearby, the inevitable result of growing up around Rynar and aboard a ship where learning how things work is considerably more useful than simply complaining when they stop working.

She owns several pieces of basic protective equipment appropriate for her age and level of training, though she does not yet possess a complete set of Mandalorian armor.

Among her most important possessions are a small number of things that once belonged to Dean. Some have already been given to her by Rynar, while others remain with him until he believes she is old enough to understand their significance. They are among the few tangible connections Ryela possesses to the mother she never had the opportunity to know.

PERSONALITY AND BELIEFS

Ryela has been raised almost entirely within the world her father knows best. Mandalorian culture is not one half of her identity competing with another, but simply the culture she has known since childhood. Family, loyalty, self-reliance, courage, and the responsibility to protect those she considers her own have been taught to her through Rynar's words and, perhaps more importantly, through the example set by the Mandalorians who raised her.

She has inherited some qualities that those who knew Dean might recognize, although Ryela herself would not necessarily understand where they came from. She can be remarkably observant when she chooses to be, often preferring to watch someone for a time before deciding what she thinks of them. There is a quieter and more thoughtful side beneath her youthful energy, particularly when something genuinely matters to her.

Unfortunately for Rynar, she has also spent thirteen years learning from him directly. Ryela is stubborn, independent, curious, and increasingly convinced that being thirteen is an arbitrary obstacle imposed by adults who have forgotten how capable they were at her age. She wants to do things herself and dislikes being protected from something without being told why. Simply ordering her away from danger is considerably less effective than explaining the danger and trusting her to understand it.

Growing up aboard the Vigo-77 has also given her an intense curiosity about the wider galaxy. Ships, machinery, unfamiliar worlds, strange animals, and places she has only encountered through maps and stories all fascinate her. She has spent much of her life traveling without necessarily being permitted to experience everything beyond the ship, and reaching an age where greater independence finally seems within reach has only made that curiosity stronger.

Ryela's understanding of family is deeply Mandalorian. Blood matters to her, but presence matters more. Family consists of the people who return, teach, protect, argue, forgive, and stand beside one another when circumstances become difficult. Rynar is the center of that understanding. She loves her father deeply and trusts him more than anyone else, even if becoming a teenager has introduced the inevitable conviction that he occasionally has absolutely no idea what he is talking about.

Korda holds his own important place within that understanding of family. He was a constant figure throughout her earliest years, particularly during the periods when Rynar's work took him away from her. Ryela consequently grew up viewing Korda as far more than one of her father's friends. He is family in every way that matters to her, one of the people who helped raise her and someone whose presence has been part of her life for as long as she can remember.

Dean occupies a different place in Ryela's life. She knows that Dean was her mother and that she died giving birth to her, but everything Ryela knows about her comes from Rynar, recordings, possessions, and the memories of people who knew Dean personally. Ryela does not consider herself culturally Chiss simply because her mother was one. Her Chiss ancestry is part of who she is physically, while the woman behind that ancestry remains someone Ryela is only beginning to become curious about as she grows old enough to understand what her mother's absence actually means.

Her emerging connection to the Force complicates that relationship in a way Ryela does not yet fully understand. It is something Rynar cannot share with her and something she inherited from the mother she never met. Whether that eventually draws Ryela toward learning more about Dean or simply becomes another part of herself remains to be seen.

STRENGTHS

Observant: Ryela has a natural tendency to watch and listen before deciding what she thinks about a situation. She notices changes in people's behavior and small details in her surroundings that can easily escape someone less attentive. Those who knew Dean may recognize something of her mother in this quieter side of Ryela, even though Ryela herself never had Dean's example to learn from.

Mechanically Inclined: Growing up aboard the Vigo-77 with Rynar as her father has made machinery an unavoidable part of Ryela's childhood. She has spent years watching him work, asking questions, handing him tools, and eventually being trusted with simpler repairs of her own. She is nowhere near an experienced mechanic yet, but she has developed a good instinct for how machines fit together and can recognize many common problems aboard the Vigo from sound or behavior alone.

Adaptable: Life aboard a starship has taught Ryela that plans change, equipment breaks, destinations move, and sometimes the sensible solution is whatever happens to work. She adjusts to changing circumstances quickly and is comfortable improvising when the original plan falls apart.

Mandalorian Upbringing: Rynar has been teaching Ryela the skills and values he believes she will need to survive. She has received age-appropriate instruction in self-defense, weapons safety, navigation, survival, and the practical realities of life aboard a starship. At thirteen, she is still very much a student, but she possesses a foundation that many children her age would never have received.

Strong-Willed: Ryela does not surrender easily when something becomes difficult. Whether she is struggling with a repair, learning a new skill, or facing something that frightens her, her first instinct is usually to keep trying. That determination can become stubbornness when taken too far, but properly directed, it gives her considerable perseverance.

Force Sensitive: Ryela inherited a connection to the Force through Dean. At thirteen, that connection remains largely undeveloped and instinctive rather than trained. It may manifest through unusually sharp intuition, moments of heightened awareness, sensing danger before she consciously understands it, or reflexes that occasionally seem a little too quick. She has potential, but potential is not training, and Ryela has only begun to understand that there is something different about the way she experiences the galaxy.

WEAKNESSES

Young: Ryela may have grown up around Mandalorians, weapons, starships, and dangerous situations, but she is still thirteen years old. Confidence and training cannot replace experience, physical maturity, or judgment, particularly when she encounters situations unlike anything Rynar has prepared her for.

Stubborn: Ryela has inherited and learned enough stubbornness from Rynar that changing her mind can become an undertaking all its own. Once she believes she can accomplish something, failure often convinces her to try harder rather than reconsider whether she should be doing it at all.

Too Eager to Prove Herself: Ryela has reached the age where she desperately wants to be treated as capable rather than as a child who needs to remain safely behind everyone else. Growing up around experienced Mandalorians has given her some unrealistic expectations about what she should already be capable of doing, occasionally leading her to take risks beyond her actual level of experience.

The Mother She Never Knew: Dean is not a lost childhood memory for Ryela because Ryela never knew her at all. Her mother has always been an absence filled by other people's stories. As she grows older, Ryela is beginning to understand that there are questions about Dean that Rynar may not be able to answer for her, particularly as her own Force sensitivity develops and gives her something tangible in common with a woman she never had the chance to meet.

HISTORY

Ryela Solde entered the galaxy through both love and loss.

Her parents, Rynar Solde and Dean, had spent years building a life together aboard the Vigo-77. Their relationship had survived imprisonment, war, separation, uncertainty, and the collapse of the Diarchy that had once been Dean's home. Eventually, they began looking beyond simply surviving the next crisis and toward the possibility of creating something permanent together.

A family was part of that future. Dean did not survive Ryela's birth. Ryela did.

From her first day of life, Rynar found himself responsible for something no battlefield, training regimen, or Mandalorian tradition could have completely prepared him for. He was a father, and the person with whom he had expected to share that responsibility was gone.

The Vigo-77 became one of Ryela's earliest homes. Its corridors, engine hum, compartments, cockpit, and countless repaired systems formed part of the landscape of her childhood. Cupcake was there as well, ensuring that growing up around Rynar was considerably less orderly than it otherwise might have been.

For the first several years of Ryela's life, however, Rynar could not always be the constant presence he wanted to be. Raising a daughter alone required credits, and the jobs that paid enough to provide some measure of security for her were rarely the safe ones. He continued taking high-risk cargo runs and dangerous hauling contracts, sometimes disappearing for stretches of time because those jobs offered enough money to keep Ryela fed, clothed, sheltered, and cared for while allowing him to gradually build something more stable for their future.

Rynar was never absent from his daughter's life, but until Ryela was around six years old, necessity sometimes made him a more distant presence. When he was home, he was still her father, and when he left, Ryela knew that he intended to return. His work simply meant that some of her earliest years were divided between stretches with Rynar and periods spent waiting for his ship to come home.

During those runs, Ryela was frequently left in Korda's care. Korda consequently became one of the defining figures of her early childhood, rather than simply one of the Mandalorians she knew through her father. He fed her, watched over her, dealt with whatever trouble a growing Ryela managed to find, and provided the stability Rynar needed to leave knowing his daughter was safe. To Ryela, Korda was family long before she was old enough to understand why Rynar trusted him so completely.

Those early separations also taught Ryela something important about her father. Rynar left, but Rynar came back. Sometimes he returned exhausted, battered, or carrying fresh evidence that whatever contract he had accepted had been every bit as dangerous as expected, but he returned to her. His absences were never abandonment, even if a child could not always understand the difference as easily as an adult.

By the time Ryela was around six, Rynar had accumulated enough credits and stability that the most dangerous cargo runs were no longer necessary simply to provide for her. His priorities shifted accordingly. Work remained part of their lives, but Ryela no longer spent the same long stretches separated from her father, and Rynar became a far more consistent part of her everyday life. Their years aboard the Vigo-77 increasingly became something they shared rather than a place Ryela waited for him to return to.

Rynar never attempted to erase Dean from their daughter's life simply because Dean could not be there herself. As Ryela grew old enough to ask questions, she learned about her mother through him. Recordings, belongings, photographs, and stories gave Ryela pieces of a woman she could never remember for herself.

Those stories did not, however, make Ryela culturally Chiss. The only parent she has ever known is Rynar, and the culture he raised her in is Mandalorian. Mando'a, Mandalorian traditions, the importance of clan and family, self-reliance, and the expectation that she should eventually be capable of defending herself have surrounded Ryela throughout her childhood. Her Chiss ancestry is plainly visible whenever she looks in a mirror, but Chiss society itself is something distant and largely unfamiliar to her.

Life aboard the Vigo also meant that Ryela grew up around machinery almost from the moment she could walk. At first, she watched Rynar work. Then she handed him tools. Eventually, she began asking enough questions that showing her became easier than trying to keep her away from whatever he was repairing. By thirteen, she knows enough about the Vigo to recognize many of its familiar sounds and moods, can perform simple repairs with varying degrees of supervision, and has developed the dangerous confidence of someone who has spent her entire life watching experienced people make difficult things look easy.

Her connection to the Force emerged gradually. Rynar himself is not Force-sensitive, but Dean was, leaving Ryela with an inheritance her father could recognize only through what he remembered of her mother. Strange instincts, moments of awareness that seemed impossible to explain, unusually quick reactions, and occasional incidents that neither father nor daughter could easily dismiss eventually made the truth increasingly difficult to ignore.

Ryela is Force-sensitive.

What that means for her remains unanswered. She has no formal training and lacks the discipline and developed abilities of a Jedi, Sith, or experienced Force user. For now, the Force is something she experiences more often than she understands, and deciding whether she wants someone to teach her may eventually become one of the first major choices she makes for herself.

At thirteen, Ryela is standing at the beginning of that journey. She is not yet a Mandalorian warrior, Jedi, pilot, mechanic, soldier, or whatever else the galaxy may someday make of her. She is Rynar Solde's daughter, Dean's legacy, a Mandalorian by upbringing, half Chiss by blood, and a young girl beginning to discover that the story she inherited from her parents does not have to determine the one she writes for herself.