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Rysn Ftori
RF pw

Rysn Ftori
Fan art by paintweaver[1]

Biographical information
Ethnicity Thaylen
Nationality Thaylen
Gender Female
Status Alive
Occupation Merchant, Clerk, Ship Captain
Appears in The Way of Kings, Words of Radiance, Oathbringer, Dawnshard

Rysn Ftori is a Thaylen apprentice merchant to Vstim, whom she finds to be a very strange but knowledgeable person, and from whom she can learn a lot about mercantile enterprise. She is a practitioner of Vorinism to keep up appearances, but she does not particularly take some of the traditions to heart; she finds covering her safehand merely a silly tradition. She is also very observant, as evidenced by her listening to a sales pitch between her master and a Shin farmer called Thresh-son-Esan. From it, she deduces that the Shin haggle to undermine their products, rather than boasting about them.[1]

Rysn bota

Rysn
Fan art by botanicaxu[2]

She finds Shin culture to be very odd, and because of this her master, Vstim, tries to get her to appreciate their culture by ordering her to cut out a section of grass from Shinovar, which didn't move like she was used to, and care for it until she no longer finds it strange. She later names it Tyvnk, which means Sullen.[2]

The next year, Rysn and her babsk were in the Reshi Isles trading with Talik, an occupant of a Tai-na called Relu-na. Vstim feigned sickness in an attempt to give Rysn practice trading with real stakes. When Rysn thinks the trade is at stake, she acts rashly and attempts to speak to Relu-na itself by lowering herself down near its head. However, the rope she was clinging to snapped and she fell a large distance. She only survived because the island's soul itself saved her by cushioning the fall. In the end, Vstim gets the corpse of a larkin, his original trade which was never at stake, but Rysn is given a very rare live larkin by the island itself.[2]

Rysn now keeps Queen Fen's ledgers. She believes the job to be a good one, with an office in the Thaylen Gemstone Reserve. Vstim had traded favors for her to get the position. Her apprenticeship with him is now finished, and she is a free woman.[3]

However, due to her fall in the Reshi Isles, she now cannot feel her legs, nor can she control certain bodily functions. She has to rely on her porters to move her, though she can balance while sitting.[3]

Her duties include annotating the queen's pending mercantile contracts with references to previous ones, keeping the queen's personal vault in the Gemstone Reserve, preparing weekly expenditure reports, and accounting the queen's salary as a portion of taxable income from various Thaylen interests at home and abroad.[3]

During this time, Vstim accepted a position that allowed him to become her direct superior. He bought her a ship of her own and offered her the chance to explore the world as a merchant once again, something Rysn thought wouldn't be possible. During the inspection, one of the guards - a Parshendi spy - killed the other guard in the vault and wounded Vstim. Rysn was able to drag herself away and use a hastily constructed contraption combining a crossbow and her own wheelchair to kill the spy. She was able to alert the guards who attempted to convey her and Vstim out of the city with the gemheart the spy was after. However, their transport was attacked and the gem taken, leaving Rysn and Vstim's fates ultimately unknown in the wake of the battle. Their actions however did alert Dalinar to the fact the enemy wanted the gemheart in the first place.[3]

Rysn tells Vstim about the Sleepless, but is prohibited from telling of them to anyone else, even Queen Fen.[4]

Characteristics[]

Rysn lamaery

Rysn
Fan art by lamaery[3]

Apparently, Renarin (referred to only as " ... that Radiant" by Vstim) cannot heal Rysn's legs. She states that it's been too long since her accident, which she deems appropriate, that this is her consequence - payment for the contract she entered into willingly the moment she climbed down the side of the greatshell.[3]

According to Brandon, Rysn did not use her Dawnshard via Command in that story, and indeed is incapable of it.[5]

Rysn is forbidden from bonding a spren.[6]

Beliefs[]

Rysn believes that one must trade from a position of power, something that she can never do again as a cripple.[3]

Her babsk taught a different way of seeing the world, training her to ask, "What need can I fulfill?” That was the true purpose of a merchant. To find complementary needs, then bridge the distance between them so everyone benefited.[citation needed]

Q&A with Brandon[]

Q. With savants, the more they use the magic (the more Kaza Soulcasts, the more Spook burns tin), the more pronounced the effect. Is there something similar going on with the Dawnshards? Would Rysn change more and more as time goes by? Savants do, Vessels do ...

Q. Yes, she would change more as time goes by.[7]

References[]

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