Raissa

Raissa
[[File:{{#setmainimage:Voyaging Satyr.jpg}}|250px]] A voyaging Satyr
Details
Race	Satyr
Birthplace	Skola Valley, Theros
Lifetime	Mending Era
Children	Xenagos, unborn daughter
Colors
Sources

Raissa is a satyr on the plane of Theros. She is the mother of Xenagos.

History

After three months of pregnancy, the Setessan midwife announced that Raissa would be having twins, but Raissa had already known this from the vision the Sigiled Starfish had given her. Raissa had visited the briny tidal pool often as she carried the twins. She consulted the magical creature after collecting clams to place in the pool next to the opalescent creature. The offerings made, its scintillant spiny surface swirled in a beautiful and mesmerizing dance until she tasted salt and felt herself floating like a mote in the pool, the starfish looming gargantuan before her. Looking up at the watery surface above her, images formed on its rippling underside, showing her visions of things she could not otherwise know.

At five months, Raissa saw in the vision that the boy was outgrowing the girl, and at six months, the watery vision disturbed Raissa greatly. Floating in their womb world, the wriggling boy crowded the tiny girl, forcing her into deep recesses. The girl shrank in the boy's overbearing presence until he completely eclipsed Raissa's view of the girl.

Shocked, Raissa kicked toward the surface of the dream, breaching it and dispelling the vision. She lay gasping on the shoreline, and after several minutes, she gathered herself and stumbled home, massaging her swollen belly and feeling only the presence of one child within her.

Two weeks passed, and now only a single child swam inside her, a fattened boy growing large in the stolen space. He seemed to dance in her belly, cavorting within her full of glee. Raissa was not disturbed by this, however. She felt a surge of pride in her son's tenacity, his unfettered exuberance, and his strength.

At eight months, the starfish's dancing silver sigils shifted in color and wove a dream of incomprehensible breadth, drenched in waves of verdant green and splayed fans of fiery red. The vision pulsed with places she had never seen, places she understood that she would never see - fantastic and foul places that were no part of Theros. Other planes of existence her child would visit.

When the birth came, the child was as wild as ever, poking her from the inside with his little horns, and when the midwife finally pulled him from her, he kicked at her. The midwife cursed at him as she struggled to swaddle him, and finally thrust him into Raissa's arms, then left in a huff.

Raissa's silk robe clung to her skin, soaked and cold with exertion. She shivered, and she called out weakly for the midwife to bring a blanket, but the woman was already beyond earshot, having disappeared into the cellar to drink from the Setessan Order of Midwives's store of symposium wine.

Raissa lay on the straw mattress, exhausted, and considered her situation. She had sought the assistance of the women of Setessa when giving birth. Most satyr women, once sufficiently recovered, would simply abandon their children to the care of Setessa and return to the carefree revels of Skola Valley, the satyr home. Raissa's sister had done just that when she had become pregnant. But Raissa looked down at the pink face of her boy and knew she could not. This child was special, and he would need her to fulfill the destiny she had witnessed.

Six years later, Raissa and her son stumbled from the burning dwelling to the gasps of their neighbors. The gods had cursed her with this nearly feral child she could not control. He had caused them to be cast out of Setessa when he shoved the son of one of the Karametra temple's ruling council to his death from a high rope bridge among the trees.

She pried from his small hand the charred, oil-soaked tinder he had used to set her bed alight while she napped and tossed it away. They had no place to go, now. Where would they sleep? Where would they eat? The boy, now wielding a sharp stick like a sword, leaped back and forth across the ditch at the side of the road. She cursed the gods, but all was quiet. Then, she heard her son next to her, and he struck her in the side of her head with his stick. Pain burst behind her eyelids, white and searing, and she cried out as blood trickled from the scrape on the side of her face. He scooted away, giggling.

Raissa resolved to visit the sigiled starfish again, to determine their new course. They were found in a tidal pool, and she offered them shells as before. In the vision, Raissa saw a night sky above her, the Nyx itself, full of constellations that glided about with a life of their own. They flirted with, welcomed, threatened, and retreated from one another in a mighty drama that amazed Raissa.

Then, it all stopped. The constellations hung motionless before her and her son, and slowly, their heads turned toward them. They faced Raissa's son, and outrage flared in their eyes. Their mouths opened, and in unison, their withering voices erupted in a terrible chorus of condemnation. They raised their weapons. Their hands filled with storms, and lightning arced from their fingers as they advanced on her son. Raissa reached out to grab her son, but he was not there. She saw him, ascending on a roiling cloud of acrid red and green power toward the advancing ranks of the empyreal host, in his grip a gleaming staff. Raissa recoiled and covered her face.

Then the vision suddenly went dark, and when she regained her vision, her son was laughing, a harsh laugh that seemed full of spite, not the bright innocence of a child. He held aloft his sharp stick in a victorious pose. A glistening gray ichor trickled down the length of the stick, down his arm, and dripped into the pool from his elbow to make dark clouds in the water. At the end of the stick writhed the impaled gray body of the starfish.

Story appearances

Title	Author	Publishing date	Set	Setting (plane)	Featuring
Thank the Gods	Clayton Kroh	2014-04-30	Journey into Nyx	Theros	Raissa, Xenagos, Karametra