Z'viana Rhin

Z'viana Rhin
"Are you eating and sleeping well?"
Gender	Intersexed
Race	Miqo'te
Clan	Seeker of the Sun
Citizenship	Ul'Dah
Age	30
Occupation	Bard
Nameday	31st Sun of the Third Astral Moon
Father	Z'rhin
Mother	Unknown
Guardian	Menphina, The Lover

Appearance

"You could scarcely miss her if you tried!" -Bar Patron

Even as a budding teenager, Z'viana had been unusually curvaceous for the usually-svelte Miqo'te race. In adulthood, this has only become all the more pronounced - no thanks, it would seem, to the shorter stature of her race. The overall effect combined with her age is that of motherly figure; and that's an assessment she would happily accept! If only because though years of adventuring have slimmed and toned her, they've done naught for her unusual figure.

A lifetime beneath the merciless Thanalan sun has given her a richly-tanned complexion that, combined with the short, indigo hair and it's sun-bleached tips lends her an almost Highlander-like quality from afar. Well. Half a Highlander, with her height!

If it's not her chest garnering whispers, then it's her eyes. One emerald and it's amethyst twin - "One from me and one from your mother", as her father used to tell her. As a girl, she oft wore goggles to shy away the curious gaze of those they'd meet on their travels; though she's since grown out of minding.

Personality

"Anyroad, the only thing bigger than that woman's chest is her heart. You want yourself an experienced adventurer to show you more than just the ropes, she's the one to go find." -Fufulupa

If "motherly" is an apt description for her figure; then Z'vi's demeanor cries the word thrice as loud! Once upon a time, she was but a shy, introverted young girl. A thinker and a learner. Yet, even the awkward quiet around all save her father couldn't hide the genuine concern for others; and it would prove that very trait that would allow her to grow to be the woman she is today. Life brought her out of her shell, travels refined her with experience, and time matured both quiet into patience and lessons learned into wisdom. Wisdom she's all too happy share with friends and strangers alike.

Unfortunately, she spends so much considering others that she rarely considers herself. Asked of her own future; she simply hasn't an answer - preferring to walk whatever path the Twelve set before her and let her ballad be written through the friends she makes along the way.

Beginnings

"What weapon waves more wicked than words? Learn them well, Z'vi. They'll protect you where steel cannot." -Z'rhin

Born in Ul'dah to a Miqo'te merchant and the Alchemist whose concoctions he sold, Z'vi remembers little of the earliest years of her life: the security she felt within the city's walls with her parents... the trouble all that precocious curiosity got her into with other merchants as she went sifting through their wares... the failing health and eventual absence of her mother as illness claimed the woman... She recalls vague sensations; but little of concrete detail. It would be the day her father packed their belongings and declared an adventure for the two of them that recollection truly begin.

It was said that with his great love of the spoken word, her father could sell anything without ever speaking of the wares he sold; and to this day, she believes that. As they traveled Eorzea mapping trade routes to it's most remote settlements, she would learn to speak well as her father - but more importantly ,she learned to listen well. Every conversation between father and customer became an opportunity for the quiet young girl to learn. Of history, of culture, and of people themselves. The more they traveled, the more filled with notes her journal became; the more local salves and remedies they learned to concoct; the less interested in the Gil her father became. Theirs would become an adventure of charity; and that charity would see a teenage Z'vi taken halfway across the world.

Her father had long wanted to visit the Old Continent from which the Miqo'te had walked across the frozen seas to Eorzea so long ago; so when the pair met a historian who had booked a ship with intent of traveling there - Z'rhin was more than happy to accompany the small crew and provide his services free of charge. Compared to the excitement of re-discovering a land lost to Eorzea since the Fifth Umbral Era, the voyage was remarkably dull for the adults. Z'vi could not have been happier; pouring through the historian's many self-written tomes upon all that he had found in his long career. A month at sea they spent when at last, the foreign lands appeared on the horizon. Her father would finally see his wish fulfilled; though it would cost him dearly - and change his daughter's path through life in a remarkable way.

It was a breathtaking new world; one seemingly untouched by time itself - though it had certainly not seen the hand of civilization as they knew it in Eorzea. A land that had once become barren in the world's coldest age had returned to life two-fold in the Ages since... or, at least so far as they could see with the scant coast nearly buried beneath a dense jungle. In the thick of it all, father and daughter became separated from the historian and his trio of guards - and though she would remember them later and hope the Twelve saw them well; neither hers nor her father's eyes would lay sight upon them again. Nor would they truly learn if the inner lands were as barren as ancient lore recalled.

The beast struck but a night later, as the two made camp on their journey to find the shoreline once again. Z'vi had never been trained to fight; and what little she could throw at the lumbering, four-legged creature was of little use. Her father, however, had been - and in the first moments after the thing lay slain, it seemed as though fortune had favored them with little more than gashed leg. That moment would quickly pass as but minutes later, the potent poison took it's hold upon the old man. She would never know if any of the salves they had left might have saved him - he passed almost as quickly as he fell ill; his eyes upon the skyline he had so longed to see - his hand stretched towards the his daughter. Alone, thousands of malms from home - and for all she knew... another soul... she did the only thing she could think of. She took a spade from their barrow and began to dig; not considering that more beasts may be drawn by the noise she made.

But the Twelve would give on the very night they took: it would be not beasts who found the girl; but a pair of Miqo'te hunters. Long had it been since they had heard a sound unfamiliar; and they knew it to be no creature. They knew not from whence the girl had come, or why she was so determined to chip away at the hardened soil... But they knew well both death and the dangers of being alone; and so they bore Z'vi with them, placing the burden of her father's body and that of another Miqo'te male to the barrow for the long march home. That night, both Nunh and Z'vi's father would receive their proper Rites together.

With no Tia to succeed him, the small tribe knew that their years in existence were numbered - yet never did they let the weight of it break them. Instead, they taught the City-Miqo'te from Eorzea all they could of Seeker culture. She learned to forage, to hunt, to sing, to dance, to live. Slowly, that shell of shyness crumbled until it was but a distant memory. And in turn, she would give them hope. With much of her life spent entirely with her father and those fleeting moments of meeting others upon the road, it had never been something she thought of. Indeed, until the tribe - Z'vi hadn't known that she was different. That it was not normal for a woman to bear the reproductive capacity of a man. That something so inconsequential as the right set of genitals was all that separated the tribe from a certain, slow extinction and a budding future. That in times gone by when Miqo'te men were so few - nature had found a curious way to make things work.

She was twenty-four when she decision was made. Z'vi would be their new Nunh. Though a foreigner, she had learned their ways well. The tribe had become her friends and, in some ways, her new family. Now she would father their children to ensure a future for them all. Some were overjoyed with the decision; some were not. Though women such as Z'vi were not unheard of; for one to be Nunh was a concept none had considered. Five years she spent in this new life; five years those who dissented had to see that Z'vi, though equipped for the task, was no proper Nunh. Z'vi knew it, as well. A Nunh was stern; a Nunh was detached; a Nunh was powerful. Z'vi was caring; Z'vi was nurturing. Z'vi was none of Nunh.

The Calamity

"You've a fine way with language, lass. Have you considered learning song like the bards of old?" -Unknown

And so it would be, then, that when the Twelve cast fortune in their direction yet again in the form of a vast ship knocked off course by a Spring storm, a mutual second decision was reached. In return for giving the tribe of nine passage to Eorzea, the Miqo'te would help them repair their vessel with what dwindling resources they had. There, they would integrate into one of the twenty-six proper; and the handful of children born in the years since could live in the environment they were meant for. Along the way, the now-outgoing Z'vi learned of all that had passed in Eorzea in the years since she had left it with her father. She learned of the trouble with Garlemaud; of the reforming of the Grand Companies; and of the Adventurer's Guilds and all that adventurers did for the land. When at last they reached shore once again, Z'vi had made up her mind. Her tribe would integrate with the U not far from Ul'dah; and Z'vi would travel to Gridania to hone her talents with the bow and become an adventurer herself.

In the year that followed, it was almost as if traveling with her father all over again. An endless mission of charity; helping each of the City-States with any troubles her growing talents with the bow could resolve. She made many friends and few enemies. She saw things she never even knew existed. She explored ruins and delved caves; fought soldiers and slew beasts. Though skilled, it was not for that she would earn her reputation. Instead, it would be her way with words and caring nature that people would remember. And it would be those - not the bow - that led her to man named Jehantel; and it would be his tutelage that would refine her speech into song... her curiosity into inspiration... her bowstrings into lyre-strings. She became as a Bard of old; spreading history and lesson through song and string alike in her adventures. Yet there would be little time to relish her new-found talents. For the very same month, she would become one of The Mother-Crystal's countless chosen. A week later, Dalamud fell from the sky.

Never will she forget the terrible things she saw that day, at Carteneau. Bahamut's screams ring still in the faintest parts of her mind. She recalled the failed summoning of the Twelve; the failed attempt to reseal the most frightening of Primals. She remembered it's endless maw filling the sky with flame; and then she remembered nothing.

A Realm Reborn

"Have we met? You seem... familiar." -Momodi

When she awoke, she knew not where she was - or how she had gotten there. All she recalled were dreams of Hydaelyn; of a masked man and an uncertain struggle. She knew that only moments before, she had been facing the certain doom of an entire world; and yet here the world lie before her... changed. Yet not in the way she expected. In the days that followed, even more disconcerting revelations would follow: the strange tattoo upon her back, the loss of her Soul Crystal and her muscle memory of the bow-string, and perhaps most alarming of all - that in but the blink of an eye, time itself had lurched forwards without her - leaving the woman untouched for five years by it's ceaseless hand. Time - and those who knew her as a Warrior of Light - had forgotten her. And all those like her.

So it would be, then, that for the second time she would enter Momodi's tavern - and for the second time, she would seek the tutelage of a Guildmaster and hone her skills. For the second time, she set out to learn and teach and live. She would have a second chance in a Realm Reborn.

Other Notes

• Many details listed above are likely to change as I flesh her story out further. Feedback is most welcome!
• For those not familiar with the term "Intersexed", it can be thought of a catch-all for various physical variations in one's gender between male and female. Think of her as a woman up top; but a man down below - but without all the strictly-ERP implications. She makes no point of revealing her nature; and few outside her former tribe would know of it.
• I've written several parts of her history in purposefully vague terms so that if anyone would like to make use of them when interacting with her; they're more than welcome to!
• More coming soon!