welcome to redford, claudia royce! local sources report that you’ve been in town for your whole life and have settled in the sprawl ( clear water condos ). You’ve also gained a reputation for being resolute, though some whisper that you can be a bit intransigent. others have dredged up rumors that you’re involved in the royce estate as the 4th grandchild / the mark but most know you for your work as a research assistant at starwatch observatory. We’ll see you around town soon!
basics;
name: claudia rhodes royce. nickname(s): claude. gender: cis woman. pronouns: she/her. physical identifier: chase infiniti. date of birth: october 30th. sexual orientation: bisexual. language mastery: english and latin. residence: clear waters condos. height: 5’5”. tattoos: sun, moons, and stars. piercings: double lobes, left tragus, right daith. mannerisms: tilts head slightly when paying close attention/listening, brow furrowing, fiddles with jewelry, paces when overwhelmed, zones out in thought occasionally. moral alignment: chaotic neutral. positive traits: resolute, erudite, nimble & creative. negative traits: intransigent, cynical, avoidant & withholding. zodiac: scorpio. hobbies: gardening & drawing. family: tessa royce ( mother; deceased ), rowena royce ( sister ), & the rest of the royce family. stats: str - 2/5, dex - 4/5, con - 3/5, int - 4/5, wis - 3/5, cha - 2/5
bio;
the royce family name brought attention whether you wanted it or not. claudia always preferred to be alone. alone with her books, alone with her toys, alone in her own little world. as a little girl she was so quiet she’d fade into the background in whatever room she was in that by the time you thought of her she had already made her escape. one could usually find her in the gardens playing amongst the flowers or in her room with her nose between the pages of whatever book she nicked from the library.
around the age of five, tessa royce walked by claudia’s room and overheard what sounded like a conversation in her daughter’s room. the only person inside was claudia, but she was very clearly speaking to a third party who could not be seen. it’s my friend, neb, claudia replied when asked. tessa was told by plenty of professionals that imaginary friends were completely normal at that age, but something worried her. claudia was almost always playing with or speaking to neb. the little girl was getting in much more trouble than before and the blame was always thrown to neb. they made her do it, told her to do it, or they did it themself. it all came to a head on the night of her 6th birthday.
there was a skylight in claudia’s room, right over her bed where she could see a few constellations. every night she would point the ones she knew to neb before heading to bed. this night though, neb told her the story of how they got to earth and how they could show her exactly where they landed. little claudia nimbly makes her way out of her balcony, down the side of the home, and into the brush beyond her property. following her friend further into the woods got spookier by the second and claudia was losing her nerve. neb started moving faster and was harder for claudia to track and suddenly she was all alone. neb never came back and claudia didn’t know where she was.
by luck, it wasn’t much later from her departure that tessa noticed her daughter’s bed empty. even luckier that as the girl trudged further into the woods, bits of her pajamas were catching on twigs and leading the very small search party. luckiest of all, somehow she had been moving back in the direction she had come intuitively. once back under the watchful eye of her family, claudia’s freedoms dwindled. never once was she allowed out of anyone’s sight for over a year.
neb really never did come back. therapists chalk it up to an overactive imagination and the way in which she was left alone. claudia barely remembers that night now, shoos off any mention of neb. what, everyone has an imaginary friend, she’d bite back. her social interactions didn’t get much better. she always felt slightly off from the rest of her peers, but she didn’t really mind. her attention was better spent on her pursuit of knowledge. falling into astronomy wasn’t any surprise and by the end of high school she was off to undergrad. finding her way to starwatch was a dream come true.
the loss of her mother pushed claudia even further away from humanity. that was one of her strongest relationships ripped away from her in the same woods neb left her. she doesn’t process emotions well. shoving sadness, pain, and grief deeper. locking it into something strong enough to hold it forever.
while she isn’t a very inviting person, claudia is relatively nice unless confronted with something. her delivery is almost always deadpan or maybe a little gruff. interactions are slightly awkward, but generally she means well.
questions;
what is their biggest fear?
the forest!! started after her sixth birthday and has only heightened since her mother’s death.
what is their main motivation?
the pursuit of knowledge truly. if she can learn something, she will. while her biggest interest is space, she has always picked up information at any time about anything.
are they a believer or a skeptic?
outwardly a skeptic, deep down a believer. yes, sure everyone has an imaginary friend, but was neb just that ? a question that truly haunts her regardless of how much she denies it.
what brought them to Redford and/or what keeps them from leaving?
being from redford, family and starwatch are keeping her from leaving. though maybe it would behoove her to leave, the royce last name was turning out to be a death sentence. starwatch though. if she keeps up the good work a real research job is not too far in her future.
