4'11", very slender and petite (about 90 lbs soaking wet). Skin is extremely pale but never seems to burn (or tan for that matter), hair is stright, long (to her waist) and is platinum blond, eyes are emerald green; face is high-cheeked, with a tiny nose and large eyes, elfin features. Hikari is quite beautiful but almost unapproachably so, she looks so fragile that she would break if you breathed on her wrong! (She is perfectly healthy, however.) Wears dark but comfortable tunics and usually is found in soft leathers and suedes, loves floor length dresses, but is happiest in long tunics and leggings.
Born in a Craft-oriented hold on the island, Hikari was expected to continue her family's craft of Glass crafting however her sights were set a little higher. Her parents are both still alive, and she is the second eldest of five children (two brothers, both younger, and two sisters one older). She entered the Starcraft because of her love of science, though she was fascinated by the lenses and such which can be made by the glass blowers, she has a much better use for them: watching for storms, meteors and threats from the sky.
Hikari is curious, friendly and unusually calm in the face of any disaster. She helped raise her younger siblings, of course, so she is well versed in such things. She's the type of young woman who could hold on to three kids' meals, two children's hands, and one baby, at the same time.
Hikari was Searched not long ago, in fact while on her way to the Weyr. Since threats are common to weyrs, she knows that her skills will be needed, and wants to get in early. She comes highly recommended by the Master navigation crafter of the area, as well as from her new Alskyran guild masters. While coming near the Weyr, one of the local wings popped in from *between* and two browns came down to see what was up with the little pack-beast and runner rider below. Both dragons agreed that she would work as a candidate, and officially extended their welcome, even though they now knew she was to be there anyway.
Hikari looked to the sky when a dark shadow passed over head. The pair of browns were back from their patrol and she waved at them with a smile. How could she not? They just told her she was rider material!
She wasn't weak, but she wasn't big and strong like the drudges and servants who carried the two crates of her supplies and navigation equipment to the den which had been set up for her. Her navigation skills were strong though! She envied the women in the weyr who kept everything running. Knowing that many in a hold would bemoan such work, she watched the cooks and the cleaning staff, even the half witted ones who might never know how to sign their own name to something, but who could keep working tirelessly and had always been around dragons.
She wondered... did she really feel that jealous of a servant? Who might have lived his or her life in the presence of the dragons she loved to watch? Yes, perhaps she was a bit. But she had her own strong points. Everyone at the glass guild told her that her hands were steady and her eye for detail was fine. She humbly giggled and rolled her green eyes at their praise.
Of course she still believed it, but still. It was nice to have people tell her that she was better at something than she herself really knew. Once she had arranged the crates and two small sacks of equipment in her den, she began to set out the instruments. A beautiful sextant, mostly useful in travel but still for distances of falling objects it was quite important. A set of three varying distance viewing spy lenses, each formed for a different circumstance, and each made by her own hand or design. Charts - so many charts! She loved her charts, not quite as much as she appreciated seeing their value when she looked for something above in the darkness and there it was sure enough right where her hand-plotted paperwork said it would be.
She had a few sets of clothing and some personal items as well, which she folded or hung as was appropriate in the small storage area she was provided. It was a smallish den, but it would be more than good enough for her to sleep or study in. Her work was to be done outside anyway.
After a few hours, a break and a little rest later, she scaled the exterior of Firestone's peak, to see about her post. It was windy, beautifully chilly. There were clouds and a certain amount of nip in the air. It was spring, but early, and there was still snow around on some of the higher peaks around the warm weyr, in the distance. The lake in the middle was entrancing, simply beautiful.
"*ahem*" said a deep voice, and Hikari's hands nearly lost her small precious spyglass. "Ah, I didn't mean to startle you!" The man was the local starcrafter, one versed in the falling menaces to weyrs around the world. "I am glad you've made it. I'm needed in a meeting at a hold nearby, but it will take me some days to return. How about you test your skills by taking my place for the moment?"
"Sir!" Hikari breathed, trembling still a bit at his arrival. "I ... I suppose that you're needed, and I can try my best. I would never let anything happen to the weyr!"
She snapped a salute, like she'd seen riders give, and the barrel chested man smiled back at her. "Good girl. We'll see about that apprentice-badge of yours later on, see if it won't be replaced quickly."
He turned, before Hikari could even take in a breath to respond. She watched the man head back to the inner caverns, and then turned her eyes back to the sky. This was her element after all, she knew that sometime soon there would be the deadly fall from the sky...
She just wasn't sure when. She'd come back from Alskyran guilds with expert knowledge in the facts of stellar movement, of how to judge by curve of plane and distance... Yet she'd been gone from this world for many years. It came flooding back when she scanned the sky and saw the dreaded huge ruby planet looming on the horizon. How could such a thing ever have been overlooked by the colonists?! It was huge - and yes it had an erratic orbit but...
Sighing, Hikari made notes to herself, jotting them down on a paper pad she'd liberated from Kshau's records room before leaving. Her trip to the old world was not just an indulgence, it was a necessity. Her Alskyran guildmasters wanted her to have some practical experience in things, and they'd gotten used to imported folk like herself talking about this big red planet thing. They were curious as well...
But Hikari was interested more in saving people and lands from this threat, than just gaining her journeyman badge. That was what the craft master had implied, wasn't it?
The day wore on into evening, and the fires lit below were hypnotic. Hikari continued to make spotty notes in her book, checking the progress of the big planet against the stars and the horizon line. She knew where it would wind up by midnight - and she hoped only that she'd be allowed to sleep in her new den at that point. Perhaps someone would come to relieve her?
Perhaps was a long way away. It was no joke that when the junior apprentice who arrived at nearly two in the morning had done so because he was apt to lounge about and forget what time it was. He approached warily, quietly.
Hikari was awake, but only barely. Her tired body was barely able to move her when he cleared his throat. "I'm sorry miss, it's late and I'll make it up to you, I promise, I swear."
"... I think they told me about you before I came. Blarinon, isn't it? Well," Hikari's form snapped up to her full - if tiny - height, and she glared at him. The firelight from the torch he carried made her eyes look even more dangerous than they would be in the day. "I've heard that if you botch your shift even just one more time - like this - you'll be out of the guild entirely."
"Guild?" He asked, somewhat dumbly. "I don't-"
"The starcraft, you dolt..." Hikari said, more tired than sharply. But even though she was angry that he hadn't come to his post when he was meant to, she could hardly keep any information from him. She told him of the planet's progress, and that she thought perhaps sometime by late morning there might be 'fall to the east plains.
"You might want to warn them ahead of time, just in case." Hikari said. She slogged her way back to her well-earned sleep.
Noise? Why? Hikari sat bolt upright, and clutched the sheets to her chest as she crept to the large half-ledge half-balcony that her starcrafters status gave to her den. She gazed outside and there it was: on the horizon a shimmering of silver raining down in the east. The red planet loomed high and heavy, making the normally beautiful sky seem truly dangerous.
"He didn't warn them." She said to herself. Her big emerald eyes closed and she sighed. It turned into a yawn, there was nothing to be done about it now. She dressed carefully and kept her head. Doubtless, the riders would be able to take care of this, but she knew that the idiot boy hadn't warned them like she told him to.
Instead, this boy brought to the craft only through his father's money botched it yet again, and this time, Hikari heard, there were lives lost.
It was on his shift, while this happened. But the first thing Hikari did was to go to the weyrwoman's office. The woman was pacing back and forth, not riding as was obviously her wish. Hikari bowed and clapped gently against the door, alerting the weyrwoman.
"I humbly apologize for not having warned the weyr in time, last night. Since I am the senior nav- star crafter in the weyr at this time, ma'am, I take full responsibility."
Lerial probably thought about yelling, it was certain her dragon was mentally firing off something into the woman's mind. But instead, she gulped back something harsh about the timing of her arrival and the leave taking of their master starcrafter, then said, "well, this is hardly the way I'd welcome a crafter to my weyr."
"I hope that I have not offended," Hikari said, bowing again. "But I asked my replacement junior apprentice, Blarinon, to warn the riders in the morning, even if he spotted nothing."
"Ah... Blarinon... Who was found asleep by the guards just before dawn... " Lerial said, and Hikari's eyes became furiously wide.
"He was two hours late! What could he have been thinking?! I'd rather have stayed up all night and to the morning if only I could have warned the riders myself! I should have done it last night!"
"At two in the morning, hardly many of my riders would want to hear that news..." Lerial gave a half smile. "Now. Stop beating on yourself, and ... what?" She tilted her head and listened to her dragon. "You've been searched," Lerial said, as if she was bringing amazing news - which normally it would be.
"Yes weyrwoman, I have been. Yesterday morning." Hikari pushed her hair behind her shoulder, and thought that it needed to be washed since her long stint up in the windy starwatch nook. It wasn't all white, it was kind of grimy...
The weyrwoman watched the girl with interest. "Well. That's that then. You'll stand when the eggs are ready."
"I w- I will. Certainly, weyrwoman! It would be quite an honor!" Hikari bowed again, almost entirely to hide her brilliant scarlet blush at this event. She was going to stand already!?
"There's our second clutch. It will be needed sooner than I expected."
"But the dragons hatching from it won't be old enough to fight against threats for a while," Hikari said, "until then, though, I can still be of use. I will get to the post after I've had breakfast and a bath, weyrwoman."
"You do that," Lerial said, shooing the tiny girl out of her office. The fight against nature outside went on, but at least it was a short 'fall. There were no serious injuries, except one pair of riders pride, when their dragons almost flamed one another. Hikari listened to the riders talking and griping in the dining hall.
"I am so very sorry about that," she said to one of the brown riders. "I should have told someone before I left my shift - I suspected that there would be 'fall before noon, today..."
"And you were right," someone else spat. "Now we're at least back maybe you should make it up to us."
"Maybe you should hold your tongue N'par," put in a shapely green rider, "she's new and she hardly had anything to do with that slacker's behavior on the watch-heights."
"Does everyone know about him?" Hikari asked, and the woman nodded.
"He's infamous, son of a rich merchant who wanted him to do something with his life... Turns out he's best at getting himself into trouble."
"He's going to have to face the master crafter," Hikari said. "At least I know he won't be as mad at me than he will be at the boy..."
"He won't be mad at you," the woman said, "you came prepared... The last one was ... well, that's just gossip..."
Hikari leaned up, eyes batting, "well?" She grinned. "I'll be headed up to the watch heights and I'll need some company - especially if I'm going to be putting in extra shifts!"
She took her time, because... well, she was still a starcrafter, and she still knew to be courteous to those around her.
She waited the entire hatching. So many eggs... A blue started things off, followed by a brown and another blue. Yet a third, then a green came out. There were two more greens and a beautiful silver white, hatching next. Hikari dreamed of flying on those wings... But they were not for her. Neither was a big brown which strutted about like he owned the place.
When the last egg kept shaking and finally cracked open, it left a dazed, pale blue on the sands. He couldn't right himself, as his tail was pinned and he was on his back already from the exertion of breaking shell.
No one else moved. But Hikari felt so bad for him - he wasn't injured, he was just unable to rise! What was the matter? She stepped over a pile of sand and shell, and then ran over to help him. She turned his wings so they wouldn't break, tugged his tail free, and finally set his feet on the sand. She thought that would be that.
But he looked at her, deeply, and bespoke. It seems to me, that the Pernese don't have enough wit to help those who need it. Wouldn't you agree, Hikari?
The way he said Pernese was so ... hateful! "Um, um..." Hikari said, but she knew that Hoparath was only saying that beacuse he'd not been helped by any of them. Surely they would eventually...
Would they? He asked. She pondered this, while they went to the kitchens for their first meal together.
Hikari didn't tell anyone else - but ... he was right. They didn't know how to care for their hatchlings, weak or strong they could thrive if given the chance!
