Rae 'Raven' Delancey

RAE 'RAVEN' DELANCEY

OOC
Member name: Gwen
How you found us: add hopping
Other characters: Sarina O'Leary
Activity level: Quite high
Code word: Verified by Bee.
Basics
Full name: Rae Delancey, nickname Raven
Gender: female
Age: 17
Divine Parent: Nyx, Goddess of Night
Powers: Umbrakinesis: She can use shadows to hide her form in night or dusk, it derives from the cloak of darkness Nyx is wearing; Enhanced Powers: When the sun goes down, she is physically stronger, faster and can work her powers better. This also includes night vision to a certain extent; Communication: She can communicate with ravens
Personality
General personality:
It has to be said, this girl is tough stuff and certainly not anywhere near a delicate flower. She will curse like a tinker, she will use offensive words against you when she's angry and she will use her fists and legs – maybe even her switchblade – , if words don't suffice in an argument. It is visible in many things that the concept of 'upbringing' is a foreign one to her, that the street and the gangs living on them were her teachers. She is used to bite her way through hardship, she won't ever give up or back down and she will do whatever it takes to get what she wants, the legal way or not. Authorities are a red rag for her as well, especially if they come in the form of police or 'I have the say here'-s. Having seen a lot in the way of violence and also having been the one inflicting it more than once, it could very well be said she is a Dark One.

However, the tough shell hides a lost girl. She has never known any other life than that of the streets and the gang life, where you stayed on top or died, so being thrown into a completely different environment, where people actually are nice to each other or work together has made her realize her usual ways of dealing with things are out of order. All her life she has been searching for a place to belong, though never allowing anyone to get closer than arm's length. Weakness has always been a no-go, so when confusion makes her weak she rather lashes out to hide it and compensate, though she might not even want to push people away.

Trouble is her middle name, as she gets up to a lot of it: Nicking things, beating people up, lying, cheating, smoking things – you name it. She would probably run away from Camp if she had anywhere else to go, but to her own astonishment the camp itself is beginning to grow on her. Time only will tell though, if she might become a better person, or if she just will continue making a mess out of almost everything she touches.

Likes: freedom, a dry place to sleep, food, metal and rock music, winning a fight, ravens, tattoes
Dislikes: authorities, starving, 18th Street (powerful gang), rain, dogs, drugs, losing
Fatal flaw: Ruthlessness – If she considers someone a threat or an enemy, Rae will bring them down. Don't expect any mercy, unless someone's there to knock her out in time. Feelings or scruples are entirely blacked out in those moments, she's in complete 'either me or you' mode.

History
Claimed?: Yes
Camp experience: one year
Mortal parent: Martin 'Mako' Shark
Other relatives: Not relatives but a few of her street people: Francis 'The Ferret'; Yolanda 'Yoda' Demirez, Natasha 'Nash' Gorokhov; Tamara 'Viper' McLowden, Sally Scissors
History:
If it was for her father, Rae shouldn't have been born at all. She was a completely unwanted accident. Martin, called Mako because of his no-nonsense, dangerous attitude and his last name 'Shark' had been playing with his Dark Metal band Thy Titans in the Delancey goth club in NYC, when he was approached by a mysterious and slightly intimidating dark woman. He wasn't the kind to say 'no' to a woman's advances, even though she made a cold shower trickle down his back by looking into her eyes for too long. They spent one night together, a night he didn't even want to brag to his friends about, since there was still something about her that awoke undefined terror in him, and he expected to never see her again, like all his other one night stands. The band continued on their badly funded and only halfway succesful tour throughout the States. When they returned some time later, suddenly the woman appeared again, holding a babe in her arms and unceremoniously telling him that he ought to care for her. As Martin had no intentions of doing so, he dumped the little critter on the next person he could think of, a procuress called Sally Scissors by everyone.

Now, Sally Scissors was also not the mothering type, but at the same time not heartless enough to let the child die and too lazy to think of getting the girl a better home in some shelter or a hospital. As Martin had told her half of the story, she named the girl Rae Delancey, after the club that had led to the disaster of her conceiving. From the first moment she can remember, Rae's home had always been the streets of New York. The city was big enough to get lost in and stay under the radar, if no one knew or cared you existed, but the streets had their own kind of society. There were many kids like Rae about, forgotten souls who formed gangs, because they wouldn't survive on their own. They stole, they fought teeth and claw for control over their realm, however little and they more vegetated than actually lived.

Little Rae however was adamant not to be pulled under, she had an iron will and soon lost all scruples worth mentioning, so it was not long before she worked herself up the hierarchy and founded her own little street gang, consisting of tough girls like herself, many of them unwanted daughters of prostitutes: Ferret, Yoda, Nash and Viper became her little family, they controlled a neighborhood in southern Brooklyn, calling themselves 'The Raven's Claws' (the Harry Potter pun might or might not have been intended).
That Rae coud do 'things' was what earned her respect in her gang and beyond, though no one ever dared to think too closely about why she could do what she could: Hiding in shadows so completely she could sneak up to a full grown man and take him out, pierce the complete darkness with her eyes without any technical help and call ravens from anywhere to her aid.

Growing up, Rae became even more ruthless and also ambitious, run-ins with other streetgangs became more frequent, though she often also lost against them. When she was only fifteen, members of the 18th Street decided to teach the annoying girl a lesson, cornering her in a dark alley and knocking her out. When she awoke, she was sitting on a chair with hands tied behind her back and some kind of hood over her head. The cold muzzle of a gun was pressed to her neck as a cold, emotionless voice told her better to lie low for a while and keep her nose out of their territory, if she didn't want to end up floating face down in the Hudson River. For good measure, they 'tagged' her, pressing out their lighted cigarettes on her forearm in a shape that she later discovered was a T. 'Target'. A final warning. Should she be found being up to no good in their territory again and someone spotted that scar, she was as good as dead. Even though she tried to cover it with a tattoo, the scar never quite vanished.

Perhaps Rae would have continued down that one way street of violence, drugs and crime, if it had not been for the satyr tracking her down and practically shoving her towards Long Island and Camp Halfblood. First, everyone believed her to be a daughter of Hades, but they all were in for quite a surprise, when after a fight with camp members in the dark – some pranksters of the Hermes cabin who had tried to sneak into another – it seemed as if a pair of illusionary dark wings seemed to spread from her back and a raven positioned itself on her shoulder, cawing three times. Even though such claiming hadn't been seen often at camp, it became clear that Nyx, goddess of night was her mother.

Life changed for her since then, even though she found it hard to fit into a society that was not primarily ruled by the right of violence and power. She misses the members of her gang and often enough tried to steal away to her old neighbourhood to pay them a visit. If a dirty job needs to be done, Rae is the one to be called, if anyone approaches her at all. She has a certain dark fame for insubordination, ruthlessness and a violent temper, so many might try to stay clear of her.