Racquiel Silversmythe (Wanderer)

Raquiel's name, like her hair, is waterfall-like, though her physical strength is more like the thin, smoothed, flat rock underneath the kind of waterfall that flows forever down the face of a cliff, not pebbly, broken, or brittle. Raquiel is a willowy yet solid, very dark strawberry blonde - almost an auburn, with sun-streaks in it. The sight of her is to see a shock of figure-over-powering length of thick, almost glowing and shiny cascading hair that tumbles down shoulders to shoulderblades and sometimes elbows, and curls on the ends, which falls down a body that is the tall end of medium height - perfect for someone who sometimes wants to be noticed and sometimes does not.

She is not quite as slender as usual by the end of a long winter and for her that is the result of being penned up indoors at a temporary winter job in close quarters or from habitating a vacant building she can't be seen entering or leaving or from living snowed-in, in a hand-built wilderness lodging she has taken shelter in for the winter, and for her this heaviness is a sign of ill health. She does not usually work in the summer but travels and would be outside 24-7 all year if she were queen of the world and could control weather - a position she would not accept herself if there was such a thing but who she would like to be best friends with, if there were one (because that would free her up a lot and open doors for more travel).

Raquiel has a small, pale, oval or somewhat long face that tans lightly in the summer, surrounded by an enormous volume of hair she sometimes partially hides under hats of various types (according to or matching whatever she happens to be doing, as otherwise her hair gets in the way) and a small nondescript nose with a very few small light freckles scattered across the bridge of her nose and high part of her cheeks, and has medium sized, powerfully deep and kaleidoscopic blue eyes and dark auburn lashes which she sometimes hides behind sunglasses when she does not want anything about her to attract notice, which is usually. In winter she wears whatever she can get easily & will hide the exact nature of her figure - like a tunic-length jean or riding jacket with lean jeans, preferably all in a dark neutral tone - but which also leaves some doubt as to her income level which she usually accomplishes by scoring very expensive, basic, tall dark leather boots with a short heel and no distinguishing label or markings, and by adding a large leather bag slung over one shoulder, which is good leather but nap-sack style so you cannot tell looking whether she is a wanderer quickly moving through town or someone in a hurry to get to work or to the gym. She wears a limited amount of silver hand-crafted jewelry which sparkle - a ring, and earrings that dangle, along with a pendant that has mysterious lettering on it which looks like she could have made it to be enchanting or found it as something old, on a long chain around her neck ...at times she will put the ring onto the chain and then drop the chain down the front of her shirt so no jewelry but the earrings show - she sleeps in those. She carries a bright summer t-top, shorts, short jean skirt and leggings, and dark red lipstick and sandals in her bag for those times she gets too hot or wants to attract attention, or go out with new friends and pretend to be a local citizen out on the town having fun with them. When she wants to attract attention, she is stunning. When she doesn't, she looks busy and confident and you can't see much of her hair or face. She carries a small knife strapped to her outer right shin, hidden under her jeans. She has something that looks like a small, flat black alarm clock in her bag also, that is a solar-powered motion alarm and flashlight, which gives off an ear-shattering shriek disabling an intuder who will fall to the ground and double-up holding his ears if someone sets off the motion alarm once it is activated. In summer she usually wears a nondescript peasant dress and sandals with her hair loose which you can't tell by looking at if she has just resorted to this dress, or whether it is a casual fashion statement. Her sandals always look new.

Raquiel is quiet and curious, not shy. She is either quick and moving, or still. She will stand in a crowd at a bus stop and not talk but be enjoying the company and any sunshine. She might read a book at the park but then put it away and look around and listen. She will pet dogs and speak to children that come up to her. If she sees any unattended children, she will hang around nearby watching them until she sees parents appear. She will take time out to locate a lost dog or cat's home. Raquiel travels to find true friends of which she only has ever found 2 in her whole life, and for answers about a half-forgotten mission she feels she might be supposed to be on, and about which she sometimes dreams in vivid living color when she is asleep. Her non-threatening muted nondescriptness, hinting at possible wealth and the easy, serene confidence which she projects moving through any town, and her outstanding acting ability which she uses with happy guiltless vigor to help her blend in and provide any neccessary life story when encountering regular citizens, often wins her the extreme delight of finding unexpected friends (who share their time or give her things unasked for) from almost all walks of life for a day, a week, or, on-and-off - and really, that's the goal when she is not checking something out or trying to blend into a workplace and appear as one of the workers in order to find out something! Otherwise, she spends her time with ordinary work she finds soothing and fulfilling in an outdoorsy way that takes her mind off her questions and her quest: doing things like showing up to help harvest an orchard, helping a ranch family with their children for a set period of time, training horses. She is able to blend in with ordinary citizens and has such good stories and is so disarming she is almost never asked for proper identification or proof of residence.

Raquiel has started longing for a set place to live, but won't settle in any one area until she can satisfy her curiosity and about what the very best and safest place to live would be. That's because she wants to be a part of a family - to have a husband, and children, and raise them well - more than anything - and has a kind of faith this might be possible, despite the condition of the world.

She cannot be alone in a world like this forever - she must press on and find her place before her older years come and she cannot go as far or work as hard as she can now, or before her luck runs out. She is often very lucky and she wonders if this has something to do with her special mission she feels she has at times, and in her dreams. She feels that there have been times when she should not have been all right, when, inexplicably, she was. Sometimes she has felt somewhat like the woman in a story from long ago, who was standing naked in a line of prisoners at a death camp called Auschwitz, holding a forbidden book in her hand - which somehow none of the guards could see even though she was parading past, naked! But how long can this kind of thing go on? She does not want to push her luck too far. She wants to satisfy her curiosity, find the full meaning of her quest and soon - or, certainly, there is the occasional temptation to just forget about it and start living wherever life happens...but what if she really is a survivor of the destroyed District 13! Wouldn't it be wrong not to get to the bottom of that? What was really going on there before it was destroyed? Could the answer assist all of humanity, even stop the games? What if? How could she ever settle down and become part of a regular family without knowing? Yes, the dreams would interfere...

Raquel is a genuine, quiet, chameleon, and would-be friend. She always looks serene or pleasant-demeanored, and radiates purpose - totally happy to go about her business and enjoying small things along the way - unless she is very busy. Any anger she feels about her shallow former life or unsettlement about what comes to her intuition can only be seen in her occasional smoking habit.

Raquiel - almost sounds like requiem - was raised by aloof scientists in an almost perfect family environment in a respected home - the best on their street - which provided well for her every need except for genuine friendships and real emotional support during her teen years. She had activities, clubs, and always something pretty great to wear and drive though nothing extremely outstanding except for her parents' professional reputations and her ability to be unique and entertaining, which her parents did not always appreciate. This alone would have left her unsatisfied even without the dreams.

Dreams of being carried by someone running, the smell of burning, the waking up somewhere nice, in her current family of birth where all was well - except the taboos about what to talk about, and what not. That part was strange.. So were the dreams about where someone still seemed to be communicating things to her, in symbols, images, thoughts, even the idea she is here for a special reason. The number 13 kept turning up. There was even a dream where she was like an angel, perched on the edge of a cliff, overlooking a beautiful city, a robed man who looked like a Jesus figure, walking past, casting a brief friendly glance in her direction like he knew her.

What about the morning her little brother woke up and said to her, looking almost like he was sleep-talking, "You are like the Sun (or Son?) coming down." What about when she was engaged to be married once, and her to-be betrothed exclaimed, in a strange moment, "You must be an angel!" ...looking ascance at her in amazement like he had never seen her before. What about the times she felt like she was a soul amongst a group of souls, some dead, whom still seemed able to communicate with her, but was it by her own memories of times past she shared with these people the means by which things were coming to the fore with her, or was this stuff of dreams and impressions coming to her by real-time communications somehow?

There was no hope of finding out anything interesting or satisfying staying where she was. So, one day, she left her family of birth, her parents, who were preoccupied with their careers and becoming increasingly disapproving of her anyway, especially after she chose not to become a scientist or engineer and would not marry a rich man when she had a chance, after all. To them she starting seeming like a social liability rather than someone who could upgrade the family society and reach by marrying up a rung or two on the economic ladder.

No, her parents, being scientists, could not be talked to about anything like this, especially now. Nor could it be resolved from home. With this, she was on her own. Plus, how could she be sure they were not in on what happened or deliberately hiding it from her? What if she, being raised in a family of science worship so in-bred with the college and the District admin, that her whole family - or her - was maybe even part of ongoing psychological games or research the District was headquarters for? Were her dreams real or even some manufactured influence from psychological research games? (Why was her family environment so perfect but so cold, and why living with educated people were some subjects TABOO and why when there was no extreme warmth there for her, why did they always have to know EXACTLY where she was?) Could ideas about District 13 have been implanted in her mind in some way, or, could District 13 have been her original home when she was very young ...or even a game itself?

One night she simply went out like she was making a late run to the grocery store or meeting a friend for a late coffee, and never came back. The couple times she checked back with what had passed for a close friend, or parent, she found that if she was not in college or hadn't met a wealthy man, they really did not want to talk to her and was just a waste of resources unless she wanted to say where she was....so odd. So odd, that over time she quit checking, and had many adventures, which she is still having though it is starting to get tiring for her sometimes. Raquiel would like to finish this somehow, and become "real" again...but it must be more real than what she had before!

Also - once she has something real, she does not want to be in a position for the world as it is or the games to be able to reach into her world and destroy it - perhaps again, in a different way.

So, the world or people must change, and she is listening for the truth, and the opportunity, if it will be given to her.

You can trust Raquiel to have a lot of fun and expend a lot of energy at times, with a lot of dogged hard work and periods of waiting for opportunity or hard work to pay off, in between. You can expect angelic, protective and very lucky qualities from her, and she can freak you out though is still a little surprised when you are. What, you don't have dreams?

She is starting to strongly suspect District 13 was a colony of souls who were once like angels, who chose to "fall" and make contributions from within the world instead of from above it. Once here they made some amazing discoveries living as normal humans, at first, in their Discrict 13 but then developed some abilities that spooked the whole world - especially its administration. Raquiel uses her own experiences as evidence, to herself. She notices the reactions of others to special knowledge that sometimes comes to her in dreams or other ways, and she realizes a whole District like that would inspire some great reaction - good, or not good, and if her abilities are becoming greater, ...so must theirs have been.

Raquiel can do shocking artwork, that is beautiful but with themes that startle some people. The things she likes to think about and finds enjoyable to ponder, not everyone likes to think about, - especially not people living within a dictatorship and going along with it pretending to themselves and others that its normal. (People with TABOOS.)

Raquiel sometimes has to move onward sooner than she otherwise would have to because she wants to trust people more than she sometimes should, with truth she has found. She has a tendancy to want to share. Because she is angelic, sometimes she projects that onto others and wants to see good that is not really there. Sometimes she realizes this and does it anyway, trusting people with information they feel they have to act on to protect their interests creating a blow-up incident she mischiveously creates. What is angelic about this? Maybe she is thinking at least they can see themselves and what they do better this way/with her influence, and "I am bored anyway, so....!" Or maybe she likes to be chased. Or maybe she is testing her power. Other times she tests people up front before trusting them, like showing up very late for something important and then watching to see who owns the bad manners. (Raquiel thinks bad manners are always a sign of bad character underneath; Thinking so has served her well.)