Archived:Riley Peregrine

Personality
Before Riley was taken custody by her cruel and strict stepmom, she was carefree, a bit tomboyish and crazy to sum it all up. But all that changed ever since the death of her parents. Even her supposed-stepdad-to-be treated her and her twin brother like dirt. After she got out of that mansion, Riley became quiet, disciplined, clever but stubborn, sarcastic and delusional as well.

Riley's extremely cautious, serious and making her crack a laugh is somewhere near to impossible. She's patient and calm in most situations, even at the brink of death. This gives her an advantage over most fights.

History
As I regard the tale of my parents, I still believe it to be a lie. I mean, who would ever think my mother would be Hecate, the Greek goddess of magic who met, challenged my dad in illusion tricks in a circus and eventually fell in love with each other? It's all just a crazy myth my step-mom wove to scare us when my twin brother and I moved in on their mansion when I was eleven. And another reason to keep us contained and be whipped for. That's why she locked us up on a spare room for nearly three years (we were twelve at that time)--because she was afraid of what we were capable of.

That was the reason before we knew what my twin and I were. Before we got our first attack. Her reason used to be because it's her way of punishing us for ruining her party with her friends by accidentally shoving the cake. Ever since my father died on a heart attack, our lives drastically changed. We used to have a lot of friends in school even of our deformities in language (dyslexia) and of our ADHD that constantly kicks us out.

If only dad didn't die when we were 12. We wouldn't have been in this hell. For every wrong mistake we made, we were whipped. Every rule we broke, we were punished in every form of torture. Our room and the mansion were only our limitations. We're not allowed to go outside for an unknown reason. The people who knew us even thought we were dead, blinked out from existence. And we never knew why we were treated like this. We had attempts of running away but our stepmom made sure we stay contained. A question still lingered in my mind: if he hated us so much, why keep us?

We never believed on her silly tale until my brother and I had finally got the chance to be taken to a festival after three years of imprisonment inside the mansion. Our Step-mom was having her 'night life' enjoying some games and gambles. We were on a Ferris wheel when we got attacked by a pack of harpies that looked a lot like old hags trying to claw our eyes out. After a couple of bloody gashes, bruises and cuts, we were at the brink of death until our step-mom butted in the moment the wheel stopped for the next round and slew the monsters. And we were like, No way! She must have noticed the chaos we were causing. People were staring us like we're crazy shooing a bunch of .... birds, I think? One little mortal girl had noticed.

Once we got home, she explained everything to us. She's a demigod too, a daughter of Eris, and another reason why she locked us up was because we have powers we may not be able to control and might disrupt her 'social life' and her shot at being not a demigod. She always said afterwards, "They say we're born to be heroes and trained to slay monsters. I say otherwise. We're trained to defend anyone but born to die." Her reason why she left camp, loathed it and forced herself to live a normal life.

She didn't regret marrying our father but when she knew what we were when we unintentionally broke the pipes out of anger due to her keeping us isolated from the world at 12, we became a living torment to her. That's why she hated us. But still, she took us to camp to jokingly 'dispose us' at that dump site. No surprise. No wonder why she would shut herself out on her room whenever we find her covered with wounds, bruises and even injuries. Our backyard was usually the one messy as if there had been a battle. And there was. She was defending her home. And sometimes, Clara, our stepmom's friend would come to stop by us. She must have been helping her on fending the monsters off.

On our way, she gave us ordinary items she got from Clara once who was a child of Hephaestus. I got a leather belt that transforms into a whip and a sword after flicking the air thrice. My brother got an usb that transforms into a spear at will. It was necessary if we need to make it out alive. And we better learn fast as well each encounter on monsters such as hellhounds, giant scorpions and empousai on our way to camp. We had our final stand together at the foot of a hill. Frail, weak and pale from the lack of sunlight all those years inside the mansion, my brother and I were quite helpless in each fight. But on this fight with the scorpions, we'd need every fraction of energy we have left. The fight last nearly half an hour. And at that time, we're already near to faint from exhaustion, blood loss, injuries and poison. Our step-mom was poisoned and so was my brother. I thought we were about to be finished off by two more scorpions until reinforcements came and helped us out.

The three of us ended up in an infirmary for two weeks. Our step-mom just wouldn't stop blaming us over and over again. Man, I hate that woman.