(Dev Patel/36/nb+he/they) Kanta Rana has been in Eden Ros for 3 years. He is 36 and works at Ahab's Ferry as a Captain/Owner. Rumor has it, he’s a Hunter associated with the Order. He is Chivalrous and Adaptable, but also Short-Tempered and Erratic.
Introduction
Name: Kanta 'Shiv' Rana
Age: 36
Pronouns: He/They
Species: Human (Hunter)
Faction: The Order
Occupation: Owner/Captain of Ahab's Ferry, Order Archivist
Hometown: London, United Kingdom
Sexuality: Bi
Relationship Status: Single & making the rounds
HEADCANNONS - WANTED CONNECTIONS [Coming Soon]
TW: Death, Graphic Violence/Murder/Gore, Mental Illness Narcolepsy/Somnambulism, Verbal Abuse, Mentions of Suicide
001: Your name is Kanta. You were born in London, 1990, and you have always been more hunter than man. Your first kill was in the womb, snuffing out your twin and absorbing him into yourself. It became a running bit in your family shortly after you were born. But, looking back in retrospect with what you know now, you don't find it as funny as you did then.
002: You are the youngest Rana son, the most recent addition to a long line of ruthless hunters. It is rumored that the Ranas had a hand in establishing Order sects across India long before the British Raj's rule but all the proof you have are tall tales and bedtime stories. Regardless of whether or not this is true, your family has drastically dwindled in numbers but still maintains a strong presence in the modern Order.
Your father, Asim Rana, is a diligent Archivist to the London sect. What Asim lacked in social skills or brute strength he easily made up for with sheer intellect and cunning. Your older sibling is his spitting image, both in appearance and capability. They were the ideal prodigy under Asim's tutelage.
You, however, were more attached to your mother: Kalpana Rana. Kalpana was a highly skilled and persistent hunter but she was more interested in the physical process and mental ritual of hunting than enforcing human supremacy or codes of honor. She had no interest in climbing the Order's social order. Kalpana instead focused her efforts outside hunting on the well-being of her children, Kanta especially. While Asim took their eldest with him to work in the Order archives, Kalpana took you on field excursions outside of London. Your most cherished early memories are the summer days and nights spent as your mother's dutiful squire.
003: Those excursions came to a gradual halt as your mother's condition worsened over time. Kalpana had been troubled with bouts of narcolepsy since childhood. That narcolepsy evolved into noctambulism by the time you and your sibling hit double digits. Some nights Kalpana suddenly fell asleep in one area of the house and mysteriously woke up in another. Other mornings she’d find herself standing at their doorstep or looking at the family home from across the street at the crack of dawn. She tried prayer and medicine. She tried locking all the doors and handcuffing herself to the bedpost. Nothing stuck. As Kalpana's physical condition faltered, her mental state spiraled soon after. Minutes, hours, entire days were lost to sudden pitch black. Kalpana lost track of time, then space, and then eventually she lost her sense of self.
One day you wake up and your mother is simply gone. No dramatic breakdown. No tearful goodbye. Just an empty space in Asim's bed and a broken kitchen window.
The community puts up missing person posters and spends nights searching for Kalpana. No dice. Kalpana is gone with the wind. The case goes cold. The Order stops looking. Your family is left to grieve.
004: Kalpana's disappearance hits you the hardest. You struggle to accept that she's gone. You cling to denial, even as your sibling insists on gifting you her magical dagger. You reject the daggers and push your sibling away but they keep coming back over and over again. You know you should be grateful but their insistent comfort is suffocating. You push and shove but they keep coming back. Over and over and over- Your irritation mutates into frustration, then furious resentment.
It reaches a tipping point on the first anniversary of your mother's disappearance. You and your sibling get into a screaming match Asim has to break off. You can't remember what the argument was about but you go to bed angry. You close your eyes, tears running down your cheeks as you curl into a ball and hug your knees. Sleep finds you. The world goes dark, quiet. Then you jolt awake. You're not in your bed. You're in your sibling's room. You don't remember how you got there but your sibling is wounded and their blood is on your hands. They scream. Asim pulls you away and you stumble away as he treats their injury. He asks you what happened, what did you do but you struggle to answer him because you genuinely don't know.
Nonetheless, one fact remains true: you committed a grievous crime. You harmed one of your own without honorable reason.
Order tradition would have you punished with equal harm. However, Asim refuses to see his children claw at each other once again. Asim facilitates another punishment in its place: banishment.
005: Your mother's dagger isn't the only thing you carry on the boat to the rehabilitation camp in Norway. The grief and anger still festers deep inside you, restless and unyielding. Your first few weeks are rough. You get tossed around by older camp kids like hounds to fresh meat. You pick fights you're bound to lose, spending nights in the isolation ward only to come back running with a sharp stick immediately after being released. Eventually the camp councilors realize that the promise of punishment was getting you nowhere. So, they shifted course.
Instead of being told to bury your anger, you're encouraged to embrace it. Redirect your wrath. Let the festering sorrow inside you fuel the fight against the dark. You finally understand your mother's passion for the hunt once you find that same clarity in practice runs. Capture the flag. Spectated sparring matches. Target practice with a bound and gagged supernatural. You perform with focus and excel with flying colors. You get tattoos to prove your worth.
The pain in your heart dulls as you lose yourself in the hunt. Shikar.
006: At eighteen, you're branded as properly rehabilitated and released into the world. Yet, You don't go home. You run to the nearest Order headquarters and report for duty. It's better this way. Your family is better off without you. Coming home now would just reopen old wounds. You tell yourself that as you spend the next few years jumping from sect to sect, hunt to hunt with no pause.
Most hunts are conducted alone. You still struggle to play nice with other hunters. The unfortunate hunting parties that do get assigned to you rack up a long list of complaints. Too brash. Too inconsiderate. Too unsettling, feral even. Your superiors repeatedly scold you after every report but it falls on deaf ears.
007: Eventually, you fuck up a hunting party so badly that you have no choice but to listen. Switzerland, 2012. It was supposed to be an easy extraction mission: confiscate the grimoire before the witches do. That was until the witch he fought against distracted him. Lost in yet another hunt, you don't realize how far you've separated from your hunting party until it's too late. You advance on the target. You summon your dagger and just as you are about to sink the blade into her vile heart- BAM! You're suddenly caught in a trap, magically bound and silenced. Your frustrated scream is muffled by sealed lips as you writhe against the restraints and helplessly watch the wicked witch make off with the grimoire.
You are brought back to your superiors as a disgrace. The rest of the hunting pack is off the hook but you are left with two options: go back home to report your failures to father as a field runner or be demoted and go back to the rehabilitation camp as a counselor. You choose the latter in a heartbeat.
008: Before you know it, you're back in Norway. Not much has changed since you were discharged. The kids are different but the underlying structure is still the same. At first, you try to keep your head low, redirecting your anger and frustration toward the cleaning jobs no one else wants. But, at some point, you run out of toilets to unclog, floors to mop and violently scrub to perfection. You're left with no choice but to actually do your job and council trouble children.
To your surprise, it's not as hard as you thought it'd be. You recognize the pain these kids go through, the weight of shame and expectation on their shoulders. In some kids you see yourself and give them the same advice you had. Other kids are the exact opposite and you adjust accordingly. Some need comfort and distraction. Others need time and space. It's all trial and error until something eventually sticks. You find yourself adjusting to community work shockingly well.
009: Saoirse is nothing like the other kids you mentor. For starters, she's much older than the other children. Having just turned 18, Saoirse was already pushing the camp's age limit when you arrived. She's been testing that limit ever since. Saoirse is notorious for giving camp staff a hard time, especially Head Councilor Titus Hagen. You've tried to connect with Saorise on several occasions but each instance has been fruitless. It quickly dawns on you that Saorise is in denial regarding the severity of her situation. Whatever political backing Saorise receives from her family will mean nothing if she continuously refuses to cooperate.
So, on one hot summer day, you set aside time to talk to Saoirse privately. You say it as it is: If Saorise doesn't get her act together soon, Head Councilor Hagen WILL put her down. Whether that be through a bullet between the eyes, a slit throat or cyanide in her dessert– It's just protocol. None of the children sent for rehabilitation were supposed to know this but Saoirse is no longer a child. She is an adult trapped in a children's bootcamp; she was fully capable of handling that kind of information. Or, rather, that's what you thought at the time.
You are proven wrong several nights after. You're the first to discover Titus Hagen crucified. Saoirsee and the murder weapon are nowhere to be found, disappearing into the night like a specter of vengeance.
010: The other counselors are left scrambling in the wake of sudden tragedy. Somehow, in the midst of all this chaos, you end up having to be a voice of reason. As more of the staff lean on you for support, you become the one to call the shots.
You start simple. The camp re-establishes order within its borders, securing the physical safety of its inhabitants as well as your own authority. A year passes. Your role as impromptu Head Councilor becomes official. Then you get bold and instill reform. No more shame tactics that turn juvenile hunters against one another. No more importing bound supernaturals that eat away at their resources. The games they play shift away from individual competitions and instead focus on teamwork. The young hunters begin to rehabilitate themselves through the bonds they make with one another.
Loyalty born from comradery eventually bleeds into Order ideology. And, most importantly, everyone is having this way. The rehabilitation camp becomes a happier place. You become a happier person. Content. Calm. Pleasant to be around. You like this version of yourself. However, happiness is fleeting. The Order took notice of your revolutionary leadership and saw potential. In the eyes of these superiors, your efforts were wasted on their unwanted children. You are needed on the front lines; you are selected to replace Eden Ros’ Senior Archivist. Effective immediately.
011: Under strict confidentiality, you leave the haven you helped nurture and board a ship to Eden Ros. Senior Archivist, Callum Rutherford, welcomes you coldly. Callum was a bitter old man with no family or family but a well-stocked liquor cabinet to keep him company. You spend just as much time learning how to tiptoe around his fragile temperament as you did actually learning how to be a proper Archivist.
You come to memorize this sect's many secrets as well as Callum's many regrets. He regrets not making a name for himself in his youth. He regrets not having any more sons after the first blew his head off. He regrets agreeing to be stuck with you. Callum read through your files before you were selected. He had become acquainted with the written version of you, the wild and ruthless hunter you were before reform. He was sorely disappointed, infuriated to meet who you actually are. In his words, nothing but a "weak and sniveling, pussy-footing worm”. As useful as dirt. As worthless as shit on his boot.
Callum was sure to let his disappointment be known. You had no trouble tolerating his verbal berating at first, tuning Callum out and keeping your head buried in file after file. But he just keeps running his mouth. Behind closed doors, he digs into your name, your family, your grief and shame-- your personhood in it entirety.
Days become weeks, weeks become months. Two years spent enduring constant verbal harassment for the sake of respecting your elders, for upholding the Order's honor. Your patience wanes. The deep-seeded anger of your youth re-emerges. You maintain your composure but the itch to sink your fury into some unfortunate bastard gnaws into you. You crave clarity. You yearn for bloodshed.
012: Callum's age catches up to him. His health takes a turn for the worse, falling in and out of sickness. He is left with no choice but to hand his position to you. A local ritual must be conducted to cement your place as Eden Ros’ Archivist. Callum keeps you in the dark regarding most of the details of this ritual but you do get the general summary: You are to drive Ahab's Ferry into the Isles and engage in a hunt alone. What exactly you are hunting is for you to discover, learn and adapt accordingly.
The ritual, the hunt, is held on a fog ridden day. In a field of endless green and gray, you venture into the wild with a clear head. Your focus sharpens once you find the trail of footprints and crushed flora. You attempt to be gentle in your pursuit. That is until one false step triggers a bear trap. You manage to pull away before your foot is crushed. You are unharmed but the initial panic is enlightening. You remember that you're no longer working with children. You don't have to hold back anymore.
You fully plunge into the hunt. Old habits kick back into full gear. Everything else outside of yourself, your target and the obstacles in your way fade to the background. No pain. No distraction. No hesitation. Just hunt. Shikar.
The traps fail to hinder you. You hide in the trees. It's only a matter of time before you find your target maneuvers within your range. You pounce. Mother's dagger digs deep between the shoulder blades. The full brunt of weight and gravity brings him down. You recognize his voice, Callum Rutherford's pained scream.
He squirms, reaches around and plants a hand on your face to push you away. No use. When his fingers slip into your mouth you bite down. Tear skin. Shatter bone. Swallow flesh and blood. Callum declares his defeat and begs for mercy but it's too late. The hunt must be honored. The hunt must be carried out to completion. The hunt must take a monster's life. In the heat of the hunt, you forget your dagger entirely. Your hands find purchase in his hair. Your eyes latch onto a large rock inches away. His face is smashed into mush, his cranium into wine.
You're left alone in the afterglow. Pupils dilated. Knees buried in dirt. Fresh air heaved in and out of your lungs. Blood running down your chin, viscera dripping from your hands. Your heart hammers in your chest but your mind is clear at last.
You close your eyes and smile.
You're finally at peace. You're finally at home.
013: Looting the corpse, you find a small diary in its coat pocket. According to his writings, this is fortunately all according to plan. It was supposed to end this way. New blood replacing the old in a trial by combat. All of the Order's previous dealings die with the old man, leaving the champion as the sole keeper of secrets. But there is one more secret buried in his notes, one you are only supposed to uncover after his death.
You absorb the information. Process it.
On the edge of the isles, you cremate the old man on a pile of logs and burn the diary with him.
014: Life changes after you return to the mainland. You inherit Ahab's Ferry and take your place as Archivist with little to no fanfare. You rent out a new apartment by the docks. Get friendly with the locals. Start a new gardening hobby. All is well and good.
There's just one small problem.
You're starting to walk in your sleep again.
dividers by @uzmacchiato
