Rowan was born at the Academy to two Uen Roug parents. By the time she could crawl, she was out interacting with the unicorns and becoming immersed in the atmosphere of the Academy. When she was six, she started basic training. Having been brought up here, and being precocious, she rocketed through her classes and skills and found her Bonded at the young age of 10. Her elders all felt that was entirely too young to Bond, so they made her wait until she was 13, and finished with her schooling for her Y'cha. Rowan was a friendly, well-liked, outgoing young girl. Physically inclined, impetuous, proud (a bit too much), she made friends easily and was a natural leader.

At 14 she finished the very last of her training, and convinced her parents to let her go out on her first mission. The mission went well, and she was sent out on others, while continuing to train phsyically and connect deeper with her Bonded, Blackarrow. The two were almost exactly alike in tempermant, too much alike sometimes, for they were forever butting heads, but no two Bonded had loved each other more.

At 16, because of her exceptional skills, she was made into a full soldier, and continued with her progress, becoming a Lieutenant at 19. As time went on, her leadership and physical skills improved, and her ego became larger. She never spent much time in the library, or looking into histories or diplomacy, although she was very charming.

When she was 20, tragedy struck, when her parents were off on a mission and they, and their unicorns, were all killed in a surprise attack. She was devastated, having loved her parents very much and lived with them her whole life and been close to them. In her grief, she took a year off from the Academy, Blackarrow at her side, and went out into the world. They stayed relatively close to Uen country, spending time by themselves and growing ever closer. When the two returned just after Rowan's 21st birthday, they had become a well-oiled team.

She fell back into Academy life with full force, taking on the hardest missions, and proving herself time and again. She became supremely confident and the talk of the Academy. She was heading into becoming Captain, well on her way to the promotion, when another tragedy struck her, this one decimating beyond what she ever could have imagined.

At the age of 23, she went out with a group on a mission, haughty and confidant. Several days later, the group was attacked, Rowan was seriously wounded and Blackarrow had been killed. What remained of the group retreated back to the Academy, and Rowan, still hazy and drifting in and out of consciousness from her wounds, had not been told yet about Blackarrow. She hung between life and death for a week, until the healers finally brought her back. They believed part of the reason it took her so long to decide to live was her subconscious knowledge of her loss. After another week, this one filled with her in an un-wakeable sleep, crying out for her Bonded, she finally fully awoke. The shock of the realization of her loss was so intense, the pain so great, that she fell into a state of catatonia, where she remained deaf and blind to the world for an entire year. The healers watched her closely, uncertain if she would live through the trauma of having her Bonded killed.

A year to the day of Blackarrow's death later, she started to come around, as if the switch which had thrown her into darkness had been flipped back on, bringing her back to life. And for the first time, she grieved for Arrow. It was a painful thing for the Academy members to watch, to see someone suffer from pain that deep. Afraid that she might try to kill herself, they took away almost everything from her recovery room, and only allowed her to eat and bathe while someone watched over her.

For three years, Rowan grieved and mourned the loss of her companion and soul mate. As time went on, the pain dulled, but never went away. Just shortly after her 27th birthday, she decided to start re-training, wanting to bring meaning to her life without Arrow. She began in the library, not wanting to be around the unicorns outside, and the act of fighting making her physically ill. She studied and read and learned all the things that in her youth she had missed in her prideful exuberance. And she became the antithesis of what she was, humble, an introvert, studious. She spent most of her waking time in the library, and that was most of the day, because nighttime often was only restless nights filled with crying and nightmares.

When she turned 29 she taught her first classes at the Academy. It was during that first semester that she first ran into Onyx, Blackarrow's son. They talked and Onyx offered to help Rowan through the grief she still carried. That was the start of a friendship that would soon become something even more rare. In 108, Onyx and Rowan Bonded in a special Y'cha ceremony. Being Rowan's second Bond, it was not nearly as close as her First Bond with Blackarrow, but now she has the comforting presence of Onyx to keep her safe and sane. Although reluctant at first to 'limit' himself, Onyx knew that this was what the Light had chosen for him. He had always been deeply afraid of Bonding with someone, and this gave him what he wanted before he even realized it.

Now Rowan is 34 and has been Bonded to Onyx for two years. They have been training to perhaps re-enter the field, and the time has finally come. They are co-leading the mission to Zadiago with Lt. Rhia and Electra. Rowan is friendly, although withdrawn often, but now its usually to talk to Onyx. She has taken up swordmanship again, and regained her previous expert skills, although it doesn't feel as natural as it once did. She also has become much more of a scholar with her years in the library. The one thing that has not changed is her new humility, and her absolute disgust for hubris in others. To this day she believes it was her own ego that killed her Bonded, and she can not forgive herself for that, and will not allow it in others.

She still does not remember what happened from the moment the fight started until the day she woke up from her catatonia.

Rowan has dark brown, very expressive, eyes. Her skin is lightly tanned, and her features are lined with the years of despair she suffered. She is a fairly plain looking woman now, no longer taking great care in making herself attractive as she once used to. Her build is thin and lean, having gotten out of the habit of eating three full meals a day (although Onyx does his best to make her do so when he can!). Rowan has long, brown hair that she usually pulls back into a functional ponytail, and wears the clothing of a Lieutenant. She has an undecorated longsword as her only visible weapon, although she hides a dagger in her boot.

[portrait by player Regina Carey]

Onyx

A impressively built, muscular black stallion with a sort of quiet, graceful power about him. He is deep black in color, with a shining white mane and tail, and a white star on his forehead, out of the center of which his horn (white with black swirling through it) rises. Onyx was a child prodigy, showing signs of his talent almost from birth. He is very clever, but doesn't like to draw attention to himself, instead living by the motto: "there is no limit to what you can achieve as long as you don't expect the credit." Indeed, he has achieved much in his 10 years of life: he helped the builders to design the new fountain in the cafeteria
courtyard and volunteers his time, counselling homesick youngsters at the Academy, letting them take pony rides upon his back. Despite all of this, however, Onyx is painfully shy, especially around other corns, and once harbored a secret fear of Bonding, because of the pain he sees in his father's Bonded, Rowan: his sire, Blackarrow, died mysteriously before he was born, and many believe that the similarity of their talents is due to a transferral of the dying Blackarrow's talent to his son's fetus.

Now, however, the Light has chosen a different path for Onyx, and he has Bonded to Rowan unexpectedly. It was a very rare, unsual ceremony. Although Onyx knows that he is missing out on the deep connection of a First Bond, he is happy and at peace with his decision. He admittedly regretted it for the first year, but as time has passed, and he and Rowan have grown ever closer he no longer regrets the decision.

Onyx and Blackarrow's talent is the detection of magic at a radius of up to a mile. Right now, he is very sensitive to Wyn, and can pretty much discern between constructive and destructive magic types, but as time progresses he will probably be able to pinpoint more exact types, hidden talents in students, and the like.