GRAY, aphra h.

[LADY APHRA GRAY]

aphra hadassah gray

The midwife and Lord Gray and the oldest Gray daughter stood around Lady Gray's bed, lush and green in the deep palace caverns. It was storming outside. Aphra Hadassah Gray didn't cry, and she didn't breathe more than a little. The midwife tried every remedy she knew and nothing would help the pale little baby in her arms. The Lord and Lady Gray were terrified for their little girl, and in desperation they ran into the rain holding the baby as the thunder crashed around them. There were Corvus all around the woods, striking terror into their hearts as they felt the life must have been leaving their baby girl...

Aphra's eyes opened and she began to breathe, even smiling slightly, though she still refrained fro sounding. After that they called her the daughter of rain, the thunder's child. She was Aphra of Rain more than she was Lady Aphra Gray. Aphra was fragile and she was treated as such. She stayed almost purely in the caverns for years upon years, watching her sister grow and run in the woods, and the birth of her brother, who quickly proved strong. Aphra was fragile and she was only supposed to leave the caverns when it rained. Even that was discouraged, really - after all, a stalactite in her bedchamber dripped into a deep pool. Aphra would sink into it nightly, wishing that it would lead outside, praying to the rain that she could run and shout like her brother and sister and all of the other Grays.  Aphra of the Rain was Aphra the Outcast.

Aphra grew up pale and thin. Her parents were too afraid to let her go out of the caverns, and too afraid to let her get into dangerous things. These ranged from reading about death and sex to talking to anyone outside the family or her servants. Aphra was known to the Gray people as a walking corpse. No one had even seen her before, outside of the royals. During storms she would go outside in a thin white cloak and just sit in the woods, staring up at the rain and letting it come down on her eyes. She couldn't do much else, there was nothing else she knew. Once in a while a servant would speak about filthy things when they attended to her, and eventually Aphra would crave to hear them. Nightly she would hope that her maid would have some new tale of sex or sickness or fighting to regale her with, and when she grew into her teen years she would become audacious enough to beg to hear of them. Though she rarely spoke otherwise during these stories Aphra would finally feel alive vicariously. She would go to bed with her stomach churning, feeling dirty and rebellious and altogether right. She grew curious and she longed to go outside during all hours of the day, not just the thunder. But still she was too afraid that perhaps her parents were right, and besides, she didn't want to get in trouble, not really. She was too sheltered for full rebellions. So she would sit outside in the rain, letting it fall down onto her face and skin and soak her to the bone.

The process never ended, of course. She would go out during the thunder and in during the calm. That's how she spends her days, unsure of anything else she can do. She itches to go out more, to feel all the things she hasn't felt before. Aphra has been surrounded by death all her life. Corvus flock near her bedchamber, and each year her parents view her continuation of life as a miracle, and she is Aphra of the Rain. Aphra the outcast. Apra the alone.

I'M boots, YOU CAN REACH ME VIA aim, msn, pm. MY CHARACTER IS PLAYED BY olivia o'driscoll AND IS A gray. I ALSO PLAY july, emily, and errol.

[DANILL RUBIN]

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