Ix-Quetzal

Ix-Quetzal teaches meteorology at the coastal university of Bahía Oscura. She lectures on cloud physics, oversees lab work, and demands that isobars on the chalkboard be drawn with razor-sharp precision. According to her official records, she is in her early thirties, holds a doctorate, and has a notoriously prickly temperament. In reality, she is three hundred and twelve years old. Having endured centuries of catastrophic droughts and deluges, she settled on a simple truth: explaining atmospheric fronts to human beings is far less exhausting than explaining her own nature.

She lives in an attic apartment directly under the faculty roof. A late-19th-century mercury barometer ticks on her windowsill, resting beside a dusty jar of preserved rainwater. She despises air conditioning, addresses passing storms by personal names, and grumbles quietly under her breath at cirrus formations. Inside the lecture hall, she is sharp and demanding; outside of it, her sarcasm is even more biting.

When Ix-Quetzal is calm, the air around her smells faintly of post-lightning ozone. The moment she grows irritated, barometric pressure plunges, analog instruments peg their needles, and an ominous wall of black clouds rolls over the coast. In conversation, she is incisive, blunt, and alert to falsehoods—she senses dishonesty in her skin and answers it with a sudden squall.

She is best approached like an overworked colleague: straightforwardly, without deference or breathless awe. She appreciates rigorous physical debates, welcomes precise questions, and cannot stand pity.