Name :
Ping

Email address :
onethousandnames AT gmail DOT com

Character Name :
Isra Satu. It means "Night Journey Tale."

Age/Birthdate :
17, born the fifth of Girithon

Description :

Isra is not what anyone could rightfully call thin. She's 'pleasantly plump,' to put it nicely; not so nicely put, she could probably stand to lose a little weight. Isra enjoys eating, and quite frankly, giving it up in order to fulfill some unrealistic body standard is not something she's willing to do. It is exceedingly unrealistic to expect Isra to fit the tall, willowy proportions that many men profess to prefer (and that the higher race, the elves, all seem to possess.) Isra is short, curvaceous, and sturdily built. She stands at 4'9", and while she has an hourglass figure, her waist is not something most girls would envy, especially not without her chest and hips to offset it. She comes from generations of farmers, as well, and it shows: her shoulders are sturdy and wide and her muscles are pretty good for a house servant.

Her skin is dark, the color of brewed tea, but clear beneath the usual smudge of flour or dirt or paint. Her face is round, and she's really very pretty in a country-girl sort of way; she's never going to attract attention for glamour or beauty, but for being the pleasant smiling face in the background, she's your girl. Her hair is slightly darker than her skin tone, being that brown-red-black color that brick often is, unable to make up its mind which it is. It also can't decide whether it's curly or straight, and decides to just wave uncontrollably, usually being slightly frizzy and untame-able. She controls it by lopping it off, to a cut just above chin length: decidedly not the feminine standard, but not masculine, either.

She is ALWAYS SMILING. If Isra is not smiling, she is asleep or dead. Her hair is always slightly wild, her clothing always slightly messed up, torn, or stained, but she doesn't care about it; there are too many other things to worry about. She does not look like the servant of a higher class elven family, but since she rarely goes out into public with them, they think of her fondly all the same.

Icebreakers :

Storytelling : Isra has a gift and a love for storytelling. She has a rampant imagination, and she's very good at reworking and combining tales she's heard before, as well as inventing new ones.

Babysitting : Most children share her love for fantasy and stories, so she gets along with them marvelously. She has enough energy to keep up with them, and they normally listen to her because she acts less like the adult in charge and more like one of them who just happens to be in good with the adults.

Storms : Isra hates storms. Lightning scares her half to death; you will usually find her under the covers during one, with a favorite pet to snuggle with. (Sigal now takes the place of the old family dog for this, much to his dismay.)

Personality :

Isra has a bright, bubbly personality that's hard to shut off. She's an eternal optimist, a lover of fairy tales, and in general, one of those girls that you'd love to hate if it weren't for her redeeming faults.

The first thing everyone finds out about Isra is that she's a storyteller. Give her half a chance and she'll start telling you local legends, classic myths, and just plain fictional stories about boys and girls who run off to find adventure. Whatever the situation, she has a story to match it: if she doesn't know of one, she'll make one up. Storytelling is a philosophy to her: you can find out anything you need to know from a story.

She can't stop talking. Silence is torture to Isra. She does her best not to talk when others are talking, but she finds it hard to stay quiet for any length of time, unless she's unconscious. While she was sick in bed with the flu she chattered her mother's ear off until her voice gave out. She'll tell you stories, talk about the weather, discuss the state of snakes in Sombalia, but for heaven's sake, don't ask her to be quiet.

As said, she's an eternal optimist. She thinks everything will work out all right in the end. She doesn't just see the glass as half full, she sees it as overflowing, because some people only have a thimbleful, you know. She comes from a peasant family but saw it as rich; she can find something positive about everything if she tries hard enough, from rats to the bubonic plague. Well, perhaps not the plague, but rats are certainly useful.

She's not all perky sunshine, though. The girl has a temper on her, and her love of talking can get her into trouble. For one thing, she can't shut up when she's angry. She keeps on talking and talking and telling whoever it is EXACTLY what it is she thinks of them. She'll fly off the handle for small things, like leaving the butter on the counter to spoil. However, once she's vented her rage, she'll smile cheerfully, say that they didn't need the butter, it's making them all too chubby anyway, and forget about it. And she won't understand for the life of her why you didn't forget about it, too. Grudges are not a thing she understands. You get mad and you get over it. The world would be a better place if everyone was a raving lunatic for five minutes and then smiled the rest of the day.

She dislikes reality sometimes. She's a farm girl, so she's used to certain shortages, and the death of livestock, and similar situations. But when things get too depressing for her, she tends to retreat into her fantasy world. If there's no one to tell stories to, she'll tell them to herself, but she prefers to find a group of children to tell stories to when she's feeling down.

Isra's never experienced real hardship, though. She's never seen real hunger, real poverty, or real pain. Her family's had illness and death, they've had some short times, and they've never been rich, but she's never seen how hard things can get. When she gets a chance to see these things, her bright bubbly world won't seem quite so bright anymore. And when that time comes, she may very well retreat further into her fantasy world, where the damsel in distress is always rescued and the hero is always good and the villain is always bad.

Quirks :
She can talk a cactus to death if you let her try hard enough. She'll talk to mice if there's no one else around. She thinks animals are nifty, no matter what they are. Give her a tarantula and she'll think it's really awesome how hairy they are.

Darkest Secret :
Isra isn't sure she wants anything to change; she doesn't see anything so bad about the elves, even if the dragons' story is sad. She'll fight more for Sigal's sake than her own. This isn't something that's a secret between her and Sigal, simply because she can't keep a secret from Sigal, but it's not something they ever ever discuss.

Reaction to Sudden Hugs :
Isra likes hugs. Expect a bone-crushing hug in return.

Background :

Isra grew up on a farm, her family's operation in the south of Arcadia that's part of a chain of such farms. They provide food to the surrounding cities, mostly human townships, though a few of their better items are saved for the more noble cities further north. Isra's family does well enough; they own nothing, of course, but their elven overseers let them take what they need without interference, and they think of the place as their own. The Satu's, as a whole, have never been a greedy family, and have long been descended from the original farming natives of the valley. They do best on the land of their ancestors. Isra grew up as a capable country girl, if one with an overly active imagination.

When she was fourteen, their elven overseer stopped by with a guest and his family, showing off as he was sometimes wont to do. Isra was minding a group of children, and the elven guest's own two children wandered off and into the group. The two were known as trouble makers, but simply edged in to listen to the stories Isra was occupying the human children with.

When the overseer and his guest found the two children, the guest was relieved enough that he joked he should take Isra home to keep his two that occupied all the time. His children took the suggestion seriously, and were taken enough with this new diversion that they begged their father to let them keep Isra. He ended up offering Isra a job to make them happy, much the same thing to him as adopting a puppy; he was certain once they tired of her she could at least make a good kitchen hand.

Isra took it happily, not realizing she had no choice in the matter anyway, and seeing it as an adventure. She was established in the elven household, partly as a nanny and partly as a distraction, and developed a bribe system to get the two to behave for her. She had more luck with it, thanks to her gift for storytelling, than the original nanny, who was reassigned. Within time, Isra discovered the two children were more bored and spoiled than actual troublemakers, and began concocting ways to occupy them instead.

The older girl, Melime, is now in school, which is of course considered too far above Isra's head to help with, but she still minds the girl when she's done with her studies, and the younger brother, Selmacas, is still under her care for now. She also watches the human servants' children as need be, and while her employers sometimes wonder how appropriate it is, they figure it can't hurt for now.

NPCs :

Melime & Selmacas Veryandil :
The two young elven children she looks after. Melime is the older sister, while Selmacas is the younger brother. Both are under the age of ten and extremely high-spirited. They both get along with Isra famously, seeing her as a favorite toy or pet, and one they have to behave nicely to if their parents will let them keep her.

Intyalle & Seretur Veryandil :
Mom and Dad of the elven hellions, and Isra's employers/masters.

Ilta & Lemuel Satu :
Her parents. Her father's distant but kindly, and her mother's your typical busybody.

Selby Satu :
Her older brother. He doesn't much understand his little sister, being overly practical himself.

Human Name :
Sigal, meaning "Violet Treasure."

Dragon Name :
Apibigigaputtuqsritquvlusikuaqsieeaktuqtuq, meaning "I ask you to be inspired by dreams."

Age :
Solidly into middle age.

Physical Appearance :

Sigal's height is that of your average horse, perhaps fourteen or fifteen hands high. His body length, though, is more than twice as a long as that same horse. Sigal's body is similar to that of a Chinese dragon's: long, narrow, and flexible. He has three pairs of legs: one on each end of his body, and a third situated in the center. It's there that the resemblance to a Chinese dragon stops, though.

His legs are formed like that of a cat's, including the pair in the center of his body, and he has paws instead of avian or reptilian feet, with retractible claws. His tail is that of a bird's: several scalled plumes that can fan out when need be to steer when flying. His wings are formed like a bat's, several bony sections with skin stretched out tightly between them, and the winspan can stretch out to twenty feet. The wings fold flat along his sides when he's not using them.

His head is shaped like a dog's, his jaws able to close completely over the rows of small, sharp teeth in his mouth. He relies not on a powerful bite (though it would be plenty painful to be bitten by him) to section his food, but on the sharp, serrated edges of his teeth. He chews more than your typical predator, grinding his food into bits to fit into his smaller, longer stomach. The nostrils can close flat when flying, and his eyes have a protective film for a similar purpose. His ears are huge, and are able to move independently of one another. The spread out several feet from his head, and can rotate up and be cupped for long-distance hearing, flatten out to the sides and be used to help obtain lift, or let flop down like a dog's for rest. This is the only part of him that has spikes on it, having many long, strong bones spaced between the skin to give the ear muscles something to adhere to, as well as provide strength and support.

He is scaled all over, excluding his ears and wings, in a shining, dark violet color that tends to reflect light back. The skin beneath the scales, and on the wings and ears, is a pale violet color. His eyes are almost a pink color, so pale is the violet: the black, reptilian pupils stand out starkly against the pale iris.

Before returning to his natural size stated above, Sigal is a little smaller than the others, simply because of his length: he's just long enough to drape over Isra's shoulders comfortably, head and tail dangling down either arm, with his height proportional to that.

Human Projection :
Sigal's human appearance is almost exactly opposite of Isra. The dragon is tall, standing at 6'3", and very thin, appearing more the willowy elf than simply a tall human. His face is narrow and angular, and his features are rather -too- perfect to have been formed naturally (see Darkest Secret on the reasoning). His skin is pale cream, devoid of freckles, scars, or any distinguishing marks. His hair, though, is long and violet-black, always styled pristinely, and his clothes are also always pristine, though he does attempt to match Isra's style to fit in with her a little better. It doesn't work very well.

Breath Weapon :

Sleep Song :
An auditory attack that wraps around the victim, warm air tugging at them like a blanket. The sound differs from person to person, sounding like whatever that person finds most soothing. Anything from classical music to running water to mooing cows: whatever a person finds can lull them to sleep.

Powers and Skills:

Physically, Sigal depends on flexibility, shock, and speed. His long, flexible body makes it easier to twist and avoid attacks than, say, one of his two-ton companions, and because of his smaller weight and long legs, he can move faster, as well. As for shock... Well, Sigal in reality tends to prefer to scare the crap out of his opponent or at least startle them, and then let someone else do the dirty work.

Being one of the prismatic dragons, his skills lie in magic, and he channels his power in many forms. Many of these, however, are defensive and not offensive. Sleeping spells, dreams, hallucinations, mind-reading, telepathy, and sleepwalking are the primary forms he uses to distract and confuse the enemy.

Bio :

Sigal is a very calm soul. He seems almost incapable of anger, he's stoic in the face of rage, time, and change. Affront is probably his worst discernable emotion. He can be a little gruff when trying to hide other emotions, such as affection; he tends to think that such things should not be shown.

He's actually a little ridiculous: while self-important doesn't describe him, self-aware might. It's not that he feels more important than everyone around him, it's simply that he feels they don't understand the nature of things. He lives in his own little world, and has a very different perspective on things. While he's not the wisest of dragons, or the oldest, or really much of anything to the rest of them, he has a tap into the world that the rest of them can't understand. Dragons may dream, but Sigal's dreams are different. Sigal's dreams are true. Whether they were true in the past, true at the moment, or true in the future depends... In some cases they are simply what might be true, or what might have been true, if a certain choice is picked or if a certain path was taken. Interpreting them is not an easy thing, though, and it is that preoccupation which sets Sigal apart, which makes him behave and hold himself differently from other dragons.

Sigal is the loner. In his old life, he preferred nesting up in caverns, high and deep in the mountains, and letting others come to find him. He enjoys sleeping... a lot. Isra will let him sleep for two days before she rouses him out of worry. She earned a small scar for that the first time, before Sigal realized WHO had roused him.

Sigal is fond of his human, make no mistake. He's affectionate towards her, allowing her to cuddle him when she wants, and acting rather like a protective uncle towards her. Do anything to Isra and you're likely to find a chunk of vital anatomy chomped off. And while he acts like he wishes she would hurry and grow up, he's very fond of her as she is. The uncle-niece relationship mentioned earlier is probably what describes them best; Isra is a little girl to him, but that doesn't make him any less fond of her.

Sigal has all the patience that Isra lacks, and more besides. He occasionally has far too much, being more content to wait a situation out than to take action. Things take time to make themselves clear, and muddying up the picture, to him, serves no purpose. However, he does have very resolute ideas on what is Right and what is Wrong, and once he's decided something is Wrong, very little will stop him from doing something about it.

Sigal and Isra met after she began working at the elven estate: her masters are rich though not quite nobility, and prefer to live in the country. During one of her free days, Isra was wandering into the nearby forest and got herself lost. Curiousity (or something similar) drew her deeper in, and she ended up following a stream. It's source disappeared into a cavern, and she followed that in.

Inside a ways back, she discovered a jewelled egg. At her touch it broke open, revealing the small dragon inside who spoke to her inside of her mind. She listened to the most wonderful story she'd ever heard, and agreed to help the dragon with his quest.

Quirks :
He has a fondness for humans that's odd for a dragon. His tendency to stay alone in the mountains and listen to his dreams hasn't allowed him to connect with many other dragons, and his dreams focus on the entire valley of Arcadia, not just the dragons. He even has a certain amount of sympathy for the elves, but moreso for the humans, who are in a similar plight to their own.

Darkest Secret :
Sigal is extraordinarily vain, but feels it is beneath his dignity to be so. This is not so much a secret to anyone who knows him at all, but one that he feels is a deep, dark secret. Shh, don't let him know that you know.

Reaction to Sudden Hugs :
Stoic, amused forbearance.

Past Life Connections :
Almost none. Sigal might not even be known to some of the dragons, having been a loner for most of his life. He tends to get along best with those who are patient.

Dragoon Appearance :

She starts out with a pale violet base: a corset for her top, tied with all the eyelets and ribbons you could want, all in shades of violet, and then a pair of leggings for the bottoms. Over top of the leggings she wears a dark violet skirt made of a gauzy, translucent material, down to about mid-calf length. On her feet she wears sandals made of dark violet leather, straps wrapping up her ankles to meet her leggings.

From her shoulders sprout the dragon wings to match her bound partner's: except hers are the dark violet color of her skirt, and not the pale violet color of his skin. They are not, of course, functional, and are there mostly for effect, or to let her glide down a bit if she falls from a high spot. They are perhaps six inches longer than her armspan on each side, and of the same bat-like build that Sigal's are.

Her arms and shoulders are bare, but a net of small amethysts binds her hair back away from her face.

Dragoon Skills :

Telepathy
Isra and Sigal can communicate at all times perfectly clearly by speaking through their minds. The closer they are, the easier it is in some ways; neither has to concentrate to get the connection. But the further apart they are, the less likely it is that unconscious thoughts will intrude into the telepathy. This is more of a problem on Isra's end, since Sigal's thoughts are usually too serious and/or above her to really penetrate into her skull.

Empathy
For everyone else, Isra gained the ability to sense how they feel. She can't read minds or communicate with them the way she can with Sigal, but she picks up on their state of mind almost unconsciously.

Influencing Thoughts
This takes an extreme amount of energy, but Isra can occasionally influence someone's thoughts or feelings to take another direction. Some minds are more resistant than others, though, and it's always easier to simply nudge someone's mind down a similar but different path than to make them take a U-turn.

Unique Power :

Waking Dream
A spell that causes the receiver to lapse into hallucinations. To the others around them, they appear to be sleepwalking, and are unresponsive to the world at large. Isra cannot control what the recipient dreams or their actions while in this state, nor can she control how long it lasts. Naturally resistant minds tend to break out of it quickly.