Xeres / Characters / Rowan Quick

Rowan Quick

A wide-eyed toddler who greets the whole world, birds included, like an old friend.
Child Cycle Born Rokoura The Harvest Sphinx
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Basic Information

Full Name
Rowan Quick
Nickname
None
Race (Grade)
Cycle Born (F)
Class
None
Height
2'9"
Birthday
Goldenleaf 26, 1304
Age
Loading...
Birthsign
The Harvest Sphinx
🩸

Bloodline Ability

🔮Unknown

This Bloodline ability has not yet been unveiled to you.

🪞

Physical Description

Rowan Quick
Rowan Quick
Appearance

Rowan stands at an average height for a toddler nearing two, all sturdy little limbs and constant motion. Her dark hair has grown into loose waves that her parents scoop up into a messy topknot most mornings, though wisps always escape by midday no matter how carefully it's tied. Her skin carries an easy tan from a childhood spent mostly outdoors, dusted with the faintest freckles across her nose and cheeks, and her wide hazel-brown eyes miss very little of what happens around her. Her smile is the first thing anyone notices: an enormous, gap-toothed grin that arrives without hesitation and stays for most of the day. She favors a rust-colored pinafore stitched with a small geometric pattern honoring her family's Vaitafe roots, worn over a soft cream shirt, and goes barefoot whenever she is allowed to, which is often. Around her neck she wears a small carved pendant on a cord, a gift from her mother that she has never once tried to remove.

Unique Characteristics

Rowan is Cycleborn, a rare human variation in which her body switches sex entirely every six months, waking one morning simply different than she went to sleep the night before, with nothing else about her changed in the process. Her memories, her voice, her laugh, her love of a good story, all of it carries straight through the shift untouched; only the body wearing it changes. She has already gone through the transition three times since her first shift at six months old, and each time her parents have watched her wake up, blink at her hands as though checking they still work the same, and then get on with the business of being a toddler without any apparent concern for the matter at all. Iris and Peter agree that she was born a girl, and so "she" remains how the family refers to her regardless of which half of her cycle she is currently living in, a small, steady anchor of identity through a trait that upends practically everything else about how the body is supposed to work.

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Personality

Positive Traits
  • Endlessly curious about absolutely everything
  • Instantly warm, friendly and trusting with new people
  • Sits in rapt, wide-eyed silence for a good story
  • Remembers small details from tales told days ago
  • Lights up completely at the sight of any bird
  • Openly and unreservedly affectionate with her parents
Challenging Traits
  • Wanders toward anything new or interesting without warning
  • Refuses to settle for bed without at least one more story
  • Trusting to a fault with strangers and animals alike
  • Peppers adults with questions faster than they can answer
  • Meltdowns when a story is interrupted or cut short
  • Will chase a bird right off a dock without thinking twice

"Bird! Bird, bird, BIRD!" [pointing with her whole arm, utterly delighted]

"Story now? Story now. Please. Now."

"Again!" [demanded at the end of every tale, without exception]

Likes
  • Bedtime stories, and stories at any other time too
  • Birds of every kind, the prettier the better
  • Meeting new people at her mother's inn
  • Being outside near the water
  • Falling asleep in her parents' arms
Dislikes
  • Being told a story will have to wait until later
  • A tale ending before she is ready for it to
  • Being kept apart from her parents for too long
  • Sitting still with nothing new to look at
  • Watching a bird fly away before she can get close
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Background & History

A Second Birth at Six Months Old
Rowan is the first child of Iris and Peter Quick, born in late Goldenleaf 1304 and welcomed into the world as a healthy, cheerful baby girl. For her first half year of life, nothing about her suggested anything out of the ordinary, until one morning shortly after her six-month mark, when Iris went to lift her from her crib and found, quite plainly, a baby boy looking back at her instead. There was a frantic stretch of hours involving healers, a great deal of gentle prodding, and no small amount of parental panic before anyone had an answer: their daughter was Cycleborn, a rare human trait in which the body swaps sex on a strict six-month rhythm while everything else about the person, memory, temperament, the particular way she scrunched her nose before crying, remained completely unchanged. Once the fear passed, Iris and Peter settled into something calmer: their child was still entirely their child, just wearing a different body every so often. They decided, without much debate, that since she had been born a girl, "she" would remain how they spoke of her regardless of which half of the cycle she happened to be living in on a given day. She has since cycled through the change several more times, each one met with the same shrug of toddler indifference that has made it far easier on her parents than it ever could have been on her.
Growing Up at The Ember Lantern's Sister Inn
Rowan has spent nearly two years now growing up underfoot in her mother's inn in Rokoura, which means she has grown up surrounded by strangers who become friends over a shared meal, exactly the way Iris always intended the place to work. She has absorbed her mother's love of a good story the way other children absorb a native language, sitting utterly still, an accomplishment for her on any other occasion, whenever someone launches into a tale of sailors, sea monsters, or faraway cities. Peter's patrol rounds have given her an equal fascination with the guards who pass through and, more than anything, with the gulls and shorebirds that wheel over Rokoura's tidal flats, which she chases with the fearless enthusiasm of a child who has never once considered that a bird might simply prefer to be left alone. She trusts nearly everyone she meets on sight, a trait that delights the regulars at the inn and mildly terrifies her parents in equal measure, and she has already made herself a small, beloved fixture of the community, known well beyond her own household as the little one who wants to know your name, your story, and whether you have seen any pretty birds lately.
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Goals

A Toddler's Simple, Enormous Wants
Rowan's world, at nearly two, is built around a small handful of things that matter more to her than anything else: one more story before sleep, a closer look at whatever bird just landed nearby, and as much time as possible in her parents' arms. She wants to be told about sailors and sea monsters and faraway cities until she falls asleep mid-sentence, she wants to chase every gull and songbird she spots without ever quite catching one, and she wants Iris and Peter within reach, their voices somewhere nearby, their love as constant and unremarkable to her as the tide. It is not a complicated list, but it is a complete one, and she pursues all three with the same wholehearted, unembarrassed enthusiasm every single day.
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Current Status & Relationships

Residence
Rokoura
Role
Child
Parents
Peter
Father
Iris
Mother
ATTENTION!
Rowan is a nearly two-year-old Cycleborn toddler; every six months her body switches sex entirely, with nothing else about her changed by it, and her family refers to her as "she" regardless of which half of the cycle she is currently in. Beyond that, she requires the normal care, supervision and patience any curious, trusting toddler demands.
Rowan Quick
Identity
Residence
Rokoura
Role
Child
Status
● Active
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