Birch

Carrying the burden of trauma from his childhood, Birch finds himself deeply afraid of finding his soulmate. He is, by all accounts, an excellent partner - playful, witty, charming, and deeply observant. He understands the emotions and gestures of others, as he is at all times intimantly aware of the "threat" of romance from anyone who grows close to him. Birch loves to be surrounded by people, but never really seems to form any sort of meaningful relationship, as he never truly lets anyone in. Birch's heart is guarded, sealed and locked, kept safely from the emotional burdens he's seen soulmates cause firsthand. 

Birch lost his father young - to a hunting accident no one could've seen coming. He spent the next several centuries watching his mother wither away. Although she continued to care for Birch until he was able to care for himself, the light had gone from her eyes. As the years passed, she became increasingly nonverbal, until she ceased speech all together. At times she could be left alone and acted almost normal, completing chores around her home, but other times she couldn't even bathe herself. The more time that passed, the worse she became, until ultimately Birch spent the majority of his 3rd and 4th cycles taking care of his mother. 

The first time Birch reincarnated, he begged his mother to reincarnate with him, but she declined. By the second time, she was no longer speaking. He didn't bother asking the third time. 

For nearly a millenia, Birch watched his mother wither away, depleted to nothing more than a husk of heartbreak, until finally one day she simply didn't wake up. 

It took many years for Birch to redefine his life without his mother - and even now, in his fifth cycle, there are still times where his new reality feels quite strange to him. Sometimes he dreams of waking up to find both his parents present once more - other times, he's caught in a nightmare where he finds his soulmate dead in his arms before he ever even meets them. The worst nightmares of all, however, are those where he does meet them... Where they fall in love, make a life together, complete their ritual, and even having children... Only for him to wake up, with nothing to keep him company save a deep sense of loss and a deeper fear that his soulmate could be across the street buying produce at that exact moment. 

Somewhere during his third cycle, Birch began to record these dreams, although he's never shown the journals to a living soul. Tucked away in the floorboards of his family home, however, are a myriad of journals chronicling the lovers he's never had, the ones he has, the ones he pushed away, and the days when the tug of longing to find his soulmate felt so overpowering that the only way to escape it - even temporarily - was through the world portal itself. 

Once he was no longer shackled by the care of his mother, Birch found work as a crystal courier, delivering much-needed crystals and other supplies to remote villages from the elders located in more urban areas like Tianshu. While Birch is just another dragon amoung thousands in cities like Tianshu, he is well known to the outer villages he delivers to despite never staying long. His personable yet mysterious demeanor has made him quite the popular character and gained him the nickname Cindertail. In villages where he's most well known, particularly in the winter, it's common for mothers to tell their children to light a kettle for Cindertail, and he often leaves each village loaded up with warm soups and teas for the next leg of his journey. Occassionally, he lingers for a day or two, and is often particularly popular with the children, who he plays with and brings small, time-softened and inert crystals to as trinkets. Some children merely believe they bring luck, but others believe they protect you from bad dreams or help you find your soulmate faster. Birch never confirms if any of this is true, but magical or otherwise, these gifts are quite popular among village children. No matter what though, Birch never stays more than three days at any given village, wandering eternally with his next goal in sight.