Raelyn was home to a family that consisted of her, her four older brothers, and her father. Her mother had ran off about a year after giving birth to her, and even though he never said it, it was very clear that Raelyn's father blamed her for it (the real reason was him being abusive and forcing Raelyn's mother to have more kids, but I guess he never found that out).
All her life Raelyn had been trained to fight, steal, and hunt. As she was the youngest of her family, along with the only female, she had to work twice as hard as her brothers to earn the respect of her father. Physically weaker as Raelyn was, she always struggled with handling the large swords and axes she had to train with. She kept losing all of her fights and it was very clear that she didn't enjoy it for one bit.
This changed once Raelyn got her first bow at the age of twelve. Archery was something that had actually sparked her interest, and she spent a lot of time developing her skills. Along with this, she also became quite a skilled pickpocket, small and agile as she was. She was a key source of their food income, which made her father a bit more appreciative towards her.
Unfortunately, things went wrong after a few years. Raelyn was trying to teach a younger child how to shoot a bow and arrow, when an accident happened. A horrible chain of events took place which ended in Raelyn being shot in her eye with an arrow. She lost all of her vision in her left eye, which obviously made her depth perception really bad. This leaded to Raelyn having lost her skills in archery, seriously angering her father in the process. To him, she was now just another mouth to feed and he couldn't afford keeping her around. He did what he had always secretly wanted to do; he disowned her.
Raelyn was 16 years old at the time, with no food and no place to stay. The only thing she still had, was an old dagger that had once belonged to her mother. Raelyn knew that no one in the town would take her in, as her family had a bad reputation as thieves and barbarians. She decided on starting a new life somewhere else, as she had already lost everything she could.
And so, Raelyn started her journey from Presa de Madera to Carolustadt. It took her months and it was quite exhausting, but she also enjoyed the freedom of travelling by herself. The easiest way to hunt is using a bow and arrow, but as she didn't have either of those and her depth perception was so horrible, she relied mostly on the different kinds of plants throughout the land. Her father had taught her and her brother a ton of possible skills you could need to survive by yourself, and they certainly came in handy.
Raelyn would never forget the relief she felt once she had reached Carolustadt. The way the smell of the food from the Mos Le'Harmless Cantina had filled her nostrils when she entered it for the first time. The way the warm water from the bathhouse had felt on her skin as she washed all of the dirt and the sweat and the bad memories off. But she would also never forget the hint of disappointment she felt, as she knew she had reached her destination and she wouldn't have to survive by herself anymore. This lead to her making the decision not to stop travelling there; every once in a while, she would go back out on another trip through the land of Atlas.
