Zixxi Ze'Zhoozia
Zixxi Ze'Zhoozia is a Zaedyn Wind Scout originally from the Mount Lorine aerie of the Ideil Mountains of North Thiskel. She is the daughter and eldest child of Zhoozia and Sexab, and sister to Zharis, Isis, and Varisa. Her father focused all his affections on his only son, Zharis, though Zixxi was eager to please him. She became envious of Zharis, but when he left the aerie, she realized their fraught relationship with their father was to blame for their troubled relationship. She set out to find him long after he departed and has been traveling Aserra since.
Physical Description
Much like most Zaedyn women, Zixxi appears petite and delicate, with the addition of two massive white-plumed wings. She is just slightly taller than average, however, and could even be called “sturdy” for her race, which would have been useful for her first career choice. To humans though, she is still a short and fragile looking thing. She has a slim figure with minimal curves; small hips and breasts.
She shares rather obvious features with her brother, Zharis. There are similarities in their facial features, and they both inherited violet eyes. Though, much like all Idelian Zaedyn, they both are fair skinned with white-plumed wings. Unlike her brother though, Zixxi’s silver hair has a faint lilac hue to it, complimenting her eyes. She keeps her hair cut short, with bangs that sweep across her brow, but don’t fall low enough into her eyes to block her vision. The rest of her hair is cut in a stylish “pixie” cut, keeping it out of her way while still being attractive. It exposes her long, tapered ears, which are pierced three times, each stud connected to a chain that attaches to the next stud.
Zixxi’s typical clothing is mostly practical, but also a little stylish. She wears fitted, lightweight leather with platinum accents and scrollwork designs, including a vest that hugs her slim frame, gauntlets, and thigh-high boots. The vest includes a gorget with a high collar and a stylish fan-like tail in the back of light brown cloth with sturdy white-lace hem-work. There are platinum insets from the waist, sweeping down the front of the vest to the hem. Zixxi’s gauntlets reach to mid-bicep and have platinum trim along the top and wrist. Her boots match the set as well, with platinum trim along the top. The boots have a slight, thick heel. Beneath the leathers, Zixxi wears white blouses and a pair of sturdy brown canvas breeches.
She carries a fine, lightweight rapier and a small but powerful bow. She also carries a knapsack with a variety of necessities.
Abilities and Personality
Zixxi grew up in an ancient aerie with deeply established traditions. She received an extensive community education and training in her Elementalism. As a young adult, she trained to be a Sky Knight in the beginning, but after hurting her brother, she switched to the Windscouts. She is an accomplished flier, swordswoman, and archer. The injury she sustained to her wing several years ago has proven challenging, but one day she will recover.
Background
Zixxi was first born to Sexab and Zhoozia of the Lorine Mountain aerie. Sexab was a career Sky Knight, while Zhoozia was a devoted homemaker, and the daughter of a Sky Knight herself. When Zixxi was born, her father had hoped for a son, but settled for a daughter. Two years later, however, her brother Zharis was born and became the apple of his father’s eye, whom he hoped to shape into his protégé. Two years after Zharis, their younger sister Isis was born, followed by Varisa the next year.
While Sexab’s attention was on Zharis, Zixxi tried her best to make her father proud. She hoped to become a Sky Knight like from her most formative years, and her parents allowed her some early training alongside her brother, but Zharis never had the passion for it that she did. It seemed that he was only going through the motions to avoid conflict. Zixxi tried to figure out what it was her brother wanted, but he never had an answer for her. He was content to do what was expected of him, what she wanted more than anything. It frustrated her and eventually fostered a bitterness in her.
As she reached fifteen, the earliest age at which career training was allowed for young Zaedyn, she expressed her interest in joining the Sky Knights right away, but Sexab insisted that she wait two more years for Zharis. This only made her frustration worse. After waiting those two years, her anger festering in her, she and Zharis joined the Sky Knights, and Zixxi took her anger out on him. In combat training, she chose him nearly every time as a sparring partner and put all her wrath into every strike, abusing her brother so much that the instructors had to physically pull them apart. But her bullying continued in other ways; teasing him, insulting him, pushing him around every chance they were together. For all her attempts at using him as an outlet, her anger only grew worse.
Eventually, Zharis found himself a shield in another young man named Idrael. Idrael took up sparring with Zharis, and they would sneak away during free time to avoid her. Over time, as she observed Zharis and Idrael, she noticed curious behavior... lingering glances, affectionate touches, satisfied smiles, things that two typical male friends wouldn’t express to each other. Wanting an answer, Zixxi followed them one night as they slipped out of the aerie after supper and spied them kissing. She realized what was going on and knew she had more ammunition.
A few days later, they returned to their family home, and vindictively, Zixxi revealed what she had seen at the dinner table, outing Zharis. She was not prepared for what followed, however. Sexab got out of his seat and punched Zharis, knocking him to the floor, then drug him out of the house, threatening to disown him. Zhoozia stepped in to try and rein in her husband, but he would have nothing to do with Zharis. Zharis left home and returned to the barracks, effectively becoming an independent adult.
Zixxi was devastated by her own actions. She had broken apart her family with one cruel revelation, ruined her brother’s life, and whatever trust he had in her. Her anger was gone, replaced by deep, aching guilt. Ashamed, Zixxi gave Zharis a formal apology and distanced herself from her brother, going so far as to give up her dream and leave the Sky Knight training program to join the Windscouts instead. She and Zharis both continued training for their now separate careers, both graduated to supervised positions when she was twenty-two and he was twenty.
Though it wasn’t her initial chosen career, Zixxi put her whole heart into the Windscouts, as though devotion to her work would assuage her guilt. She couldn’t find the strength to re-open her relationship with her brother, however. Twenty more years passed until the pair both were graduated to a full-fledged Sky Knight and Windscout, and Zharis was gone as soon as possible. Zixxi didn’t know where he would have gone, but she finally felt the will to reconnect with him after he left. She waited, hoping he would return after a few months, but the months turned to years. After ten years, she could wait no longer and began to travel the Ideil mountains, visiting other Zaedyn villages, but no one knew of him. After visiting every Zaedyn village, she realized that he must have gone off the mountains, perhaps into the human world. So, she traveled down to the Itray Forest to speak with the Idayn, but none had seen him there. Crossing the mountains again, she entered the Eldir Forest to speak with the Idayn on that side, and she finally found evidence of his passage. A few Idayn remembered a violet-eyed Zaedyn man who had visited their village years before. He hadn’t stayed long, and had traveled toward the human nations to the south. Zixxi’s heart fell. Tracking him would be harder now, but even worse, she feared encountering humans for herself. Empty handed, she returned to Lorine to either wait longer for her brother, or to muster the courage to face humanity.
She waited five more years, until her father came to her one day to talk about Zharis. Given time, he had come to regret his actions and how foolish he had been to expect so much of his son. He realized that Zharis would always be his own man, not a carbon copy of his father. Sexab was ready to make peace with his son, and Zixxi. After he expressed his guilt over turning his back to Zharis, Zixxi opened up to him about her own problems. Sexab gave little in response, but he at least acknowledged he was unfair to her. It was probably the least Zixxi could expect. It took him fifteen years to come to terms with Zharis, it would likely take him longer to apologize for poor treatment of her.
Meeting with her father gave her a new burst of courage to track down her brother, knowing that he now had a home to come back to. Short after speaking with Sexab, she prepared for another outing and headed down the mountain, into the Eldir, and began to follow a trail of rumor south, into the human nations. It took her a year to find any useful information until she stumbled upon rumors of the Alorians, a mercenary company run by a man named Tynad Alori, and included a Zaedyn at one point. From there, it wasn’t hard to find the Alorians.
Once she met with Tynad and explained who she was, the aging mercenary graciously obliged her by telling her everything he could about her brother from the point which he invited him to join the company, to his final battle when he avenged his lover. Upon learning of the depths of wrath her brother had descended to, Zixxi both feared and feared for her brother. After avenging his lover, Perrod, Zharis had apparently gone west, and Tynad believed he had taken a ship to Kalesten. He provided Zixxi with some money and supplies, then sent her on her way.
Facing a voyage to another land, Zixxi was terrified, and half-tempted to run back home to Lorine to gather her courage before setting forth. However, it would only waste more time—though Zharis’s trail was already six years old. Mustering her resolve, Zixxi continued along a route Tynad suggested, finding snippets of rumors of a Zaedyn passing through years earlier until she reached the very port he had departed from years earlier. She booked passage on a ship to Serdenaugh and set forth to Kalesten.
Her arrival in Kalesten was met with calamity after calamity. First arriving in the lawless nation of Serdenaugh, Zixxi found herself faced with slavers looking to capture a beautiful and exotic Zaedyn, which she narrowly escaped before she even had a chance to find clues of her brother’s passage. She haphazardly made her way to the borders of Belvon where she was greeted by armed soldiers and fired at by wholly unfamiliar and dangerous weapons, chasing her southwards out of their reaches until she saw the Perdraser mountains on the horizon. Making her away across the country as fast as possibly, she flew up the mountains to search for Zaedyn cities. She found refuge in an aerie on Mount Shiral, where she stayed for several months, regaining her bearings before picking up her search again. Once recuperated, she visited other cities in the range, asking about her brother, but he had not passed that way. Once she had visited every aerie, however, she decided to rest for a while before braving the new continent again. She stopped on Eristad Mountain, near the end of the range, taking up residence in the Zaedyn aerie.
During Zixxi’s stay on Eristad, she found another reason to pause her search. A local woman was a seer, and after a chance meeting with Zixxi, she had a vision of her future the following night. First thing the next morning the seer ran to Zixxi’s temporary abode to tell her what she had seen. The seer warned that if Zixxi resumed her search, she would fall to earth into the hands of Kuzo and be unable to escape. While the seer had not seen what the Kuzo would do to her, the implication was enough. Horrified by the thought, Zixxi decided to remain in Eristad much longer, though her heart still yearned to find Zharis, to know what became of him. She missed home as well. Though one Zaedyn city was not too different from another, she missed her mother and sisters and the friends she left behind.
Twenty years passed and the seer’s warning had lost its bite. Convinced she could avoid the entire situation, she set forth into Chawoven, which she crossed by foot. She asked about Zharis along her path, but found nothing to go on, so she figured her next stop should be in the mountain range to the north, to see if he had maybe decided to live with their kind there. It was a long shot, but so was the entire search of a continent.
After traveling the Gayntos Mountains from east to west, Zixxi finally learned that Zharis had stayed on Mount Aldinal and left a few years ago. Surprised to finally find a lead, Zixxi eagerly set forth back on his trail, heading back down to the west end of Chawoven. However, the seer’s vision would come true. While flying down the south face, a gust of wind caught Zixxi off guard, and being unfamiliar with the winds that circled this range, Zixxi couldn’t save herself. She hit a cliff wall and broke her wing. She tumbled down to the cliff face into the forest below, her wing in tremendous pain.
Only minutes after her fall, the very creature she was warned of appeared. A long Kuzo male discovered her, and while she feared the worse, she wasn’t raped or brutalized. Instead, he offered her some of his food and through hand gestures, offered to help her with her wing. Zixxi, dumbfounded, agreed to his help. The Kuzo left her for a while, then returned with bandages and helped her make a splint for her wing. Despite their language barriers, they were able to exchange names, and she learned his name was “Gurt”. Gurt helped her find shelter and care for her wound while she recovered, bringing her food and other necessities. However, their partnership wouldn’t last long. While Gurt was seeing to her one day, a Kuzo hunting party from his clan came across them. They wanted to have their way with her and take her back to their camp, but Gurt wouldn’t let them. Her tiny Kuzo benefactor stood against the entire hunting party, giving her enough time to escape on foot.
Zixxi pushed herself through the forest as fast as she could, trying to ignore the pain wracking through her every time her broken wing brushed against the foliage. Luckily, she was discovered by another hunter—this one an Ochae’nafod of the Vulpes clan. The fox-kin happily took her to his village where one of his clanmates was a skilled healer. Zixxi stayed with the Vulpes for a few days as she regained her strength, and indulged them in her story. They were quite impressed with the altruistic Kuzo, though they all believed the worst—that he probably died at the hands of his fellows.
The next day, Zixxi was escorted out of the forest with two of the Vulpes hunters for protection, then she set out into Chawoven again to continue her search for Zharis.
