RILEY

FULL BACKSTORY

Past
Riley was born in a very poor area of the city, having not a lot to start with in life besides their parents who did their very best. Riley can't remember their early childhood super well, but they remember their parents being kind people, always trying their hardest to care for Riley, even through them being a rowdy and angry child in elementary school, their parents would do their best to set Riley on a better path than they'd started with. At age 8 however, their parents were suddenly killed in a freak accident, no one knew how to describe what happened, not even Riley who'd witnessed it. It just didn't sound real, it could only be described as monsters that were there and gone before anyone could register what happened, leaving their parents suddenly dead in the middle of the street as though it'd simply sucked their life out of them. Riley would try to live on their own in their parent's home still, eating the food still left and later stealing food, as they didnt know how to cook yet or what ingredients theyd even need, if they even had money that is. Having to move around more eventually when people came knocking at the home, and then being briefly homeless, before being found and scooped up by an orphanage at age 10.

The orphanage didn't seem too bad for the first week or so, but things would change quickly, apparently it was normal for the staff to suddenly be more 'proper' for a bit after a new child arrived, at least, according to some of the older kids there. Riley's combatitive attitude from school did not stop here, continuing to start fights with those who couldn't really fight back in order to release frustration. They'd eventually meet Mary, intending to be rude to them too, but when the girl's friend immediately shut Riley down with a strong kick, the group ended up simply talking instead afterward, the situation somehow ending with the three of them being friends. Riley and Mary would still argue a lot, but their other friend would usually snap them out of it, and besides that, the two got along well and would often talk to eachother about whatever they were thinking about. 3 years later though, when Riley was 14, their mutual friend would get adopted, and the remaining two lost contact with her. Mary and Riley would argue more without their friend to intervene, but continued to be friends still, or at least tried to. Another year later Riley would finally get a good look at how the other bullies there would treat Mary, themselves having managed to mostly avoid the bullies ire. They told Mary that they would protect her from now on, and did for a little bit, until the bullying began to target Riley even when Mary wasn't around, and Riley caved to avoid the bullying, joining in with them instead of being against them. But they would have to 'prove themself', and so was often made the main person to bully Mary now, and eventually started doing it without being told to. Eventually Riley would pull out the last straw, one of the other kids whispering to them to tear up Mary's 'stupid doll', and despite Riley being aware of how important it was to Mary, caved once again, ripping it from her arms and tearing the poor thing up in front of her. Mary would get furious of course, and lunged at Riley, the two beating eachother up until the staff finally decided to intervene, punishing them both and taking the pieces of the doll away to toss in the garbage. Riley would feel terrible afterward, but it was a bit late for that now. The next day they would go behind the building and look at the garbage bins, finding the pieces of the torn doll, which were miraculously tossed haphazardly toward the bins, and not in them, the doll having fallen behind the garbage instead of in it, being discovered just as Riley was about to give up. They wanted to fix it before trying to give it back, and it was hard to get ahold of thread and needle there. It'd probably have been better to wait awhile either way still. So they stuffed the doll parts into their pockets, and kept them there since, their cargo pants baggy enough to hold them without obviously showing something was in their pockets.

Before they could ever get the chance to fix it though, Riley was awoken to a fire and screaming a few months later. The failure to upkeep the smoke detector and sprinklers maintained being the building's downfall. Being deep in the building, Riley was the last person the fire reached, the others supposedly dead or in the midst of dying, if the screaming and moments of sudden silence were anything to speak for. Riley could see a path out, not free of fire, but not raging enough to entirely block the path, if someone were willing to take the pain. Riley was willing to do so, they were not going to die in this awful place. They ran through the flames where it seemed possible to, and succeeded, but not unscathed. Despite their attempts to put the fire on them out, the flames still managed to severely burn parts of their body, mostly on their upper left torso. By this point as a 15 year old, and the lack of care the orphanage staff ever gave, Riley had some semblance of medical first aid, and managed to keep the burned wounds from getting infected, but without a hospital, they still didn't heal as well as they could have, looking gnarled and causing pain in that arm at times. Riley refused to end up put in another orphanage, and with more independence than they had as a young child, went back to living on the street and stealing to survive. There was a flaw though, with them having never shown up again, and the rest of the orphanage being dead, without survivors, Riley was presumed dead too. There was no evidence they still existed anymore, legally dead and homeless, it would be extremely difficult for Riley to return to normal life.

2 years later there would be a glimmer of hope though, one day found by a man who caught them trying to steal from his business, and Riley wanting to avoid jail time, panickedly explained their situation, how sorry they were, they'd never do it again, and gave back the stolen goods. The man was silent for awhile, but then gave them a deal, he would act as their father, Riley was still 17, he could help get them legal documentation again, but in exchange he needed Riley to help him with a few things. This seemed too good to be true, but Riley agreed. They were right unfortunately, Riley never recieved that documentation, and instead got lumped into doing their new adopted father's dirty work, mostly spying and relaying sensitive information, a personal private detective, and at times, stealing or 'sending a message'. Without a real route of escape, this was clearly a man that was a bad idea to run from, and even if they did, where would they go? Legally dead, a grown adult with no documentation at all, and a man who would surely pin them onto multiple crimes the second he could figure out how to do so without doing any time himself. What choice did Riley have but to continue along with it? At least they had a home.

Besides the crime, Harrison wasn't exactly the WORST father, but certainly not a good one either. He had no care for what Riley did with their life as long as it didn't jeopardize what they were doing, and in general had no care at all for Riley if nothing was messed with. It was like a vaguely less horrific version of the orphanage, no one who cared, but at least no one screaming or hitting either, not at home that is. Riley could do anything, as long as they obeyed and didn't run away. Their father didn't even really care when Riley would come out as agender, or their smoking habit, or anything else. Despite their dislike of Harrison, they would choose to keep his last nime; 'Wild', liking the sound of it and also feeling as thought they'd failed their parents. It would be better to try and redeem the Wild family name than to tarnish their parent's name.

Riley would meet a girl eventually a few years later while spying for their father, and the two would chat for awhile, before becoming friends and eventually deciding to date. Riley took this girl, Meredith, home one night, and Meredith seemed more focused on their father than them, but Riley would shrug it off. This would continue, until eventually she would suddenly dump Riley, saying she'd gotten what she wanted and the relationship was simply unecessary now. They'd simply been a stepping stone in this woman trying to get in leagues with powerful people in the city, and Harrison had seemed like a good leaping point. Riley was left shattered, but with no one around to care.

Current
This situation with their father would continue this way for the next 16 years, until Riley was 33, and they were approached by Nova. Nova offered a very similar opportunity to Riley, she would /actually/ get them documentation, if Riley could give her info on their father Harrison and every secret about others that the two have gathered. Riley figured she might be lying too, but it wasn't like that'd be any different than before, just reporting to another person now. They agreed, and if something went wrong with Harrison, then, well, at least Nova would probably continue to find work for Riley to keep up. Or maybe she'd just finally put them out of their misery. And so Riley became a double agent, spying both for their father and on him, as well as whatever Nova requested. At least she actually paid Riley, enough to sort of live normally, at least the illusion of normality.

While working for Nova, about a year later Riley would meet Agaria at FELIS SUPERNOVAE, the club Nova ran. Riley had had a few failed relationships between falling out with Meredith and meeting Agaria, but this time it seemed real. Agaria genuinely wanted to know Riley for themself, but wouldn't let them sit and wallow in their own misery either. Riley would never tell her the actual details of their job, or their current circumstances, always finding explanations around it if not just avoiding situations where it could become relevant. Things were going really well, until a few months after Riley's 36th birthday, Agaria had always wanted to be an actress, and while the city they lived in was great for 'making it big', it wasn't a place for actors to do that, and she'd finally gotten a part, but had to move to take it. She tried to get Riley to come with her, but Riley couldn't, for a multitude of reasons that they couldn't say. Agaria accepted this, and promised to keep in touch at least, and she did for awhile, but then after a phone number change, the two lost contact with eachother and Riley hasn't heard back since.

Now at age 37, Riley is still trapped in this cycle, although their dad seems to finally be catching onto something being wrong, and has stopped sending Riley on jobs. It's only a matter of time there until he realizes the disappearance of these issues corresponds with Riley being off the job. Riley has still never recieved any documentation help from Nova, and expects they never will, not until she's finally worn them out of usefulness, but at least she's continued to give jobs and pay Riley. The jobs have been getting weirder lately though, and now certain days are suddenly off limits for them to visit the club? Riley is used to spying, listening in on Nova sometimes when they can now, but nothing said seems to make anything clearer, other than apparently someone else who seems to know them has been working for Nova at a more frequent rate. Who it could possibly be though is a mystery still.