English

"She's got starlight in her eyes, you know. In the light, she's just another homin; if you meet her in the shadows, the celestial spirits themselves stare into your soul." ~Nomis Merclao

Lucere, a lifetime resident of the Silan island, has always had a natural penchant for the profound mysticism of nature's power. At a young age, she entertained herself by weaving Atys' elemental energies into mesmerizing illusions. Several childhood years were spent playing with the Silanese wildlife, teasing and terrifying creatures with predatory phantasms. In the early twilight hours of a cool autumn morning, Lucere went for one of her usual swims in the lake near her Kami friends' camp. Impulsively, she decided to finally see for herself the danger she was warned of at the end of the lake tunnel. Her curiosity paid off in full as she discovered amazing new creatures, much larger and more powerful than anything she had ever seen before. Having a deep well of experience with animals, she recognized the creatures as herbivores, and decided to make contact with them. The kipee ignored her slow advances, and childish squeals of glee as she managed to actually touch the creatures. After numerous returns to the jungle, she finally ventured deeper in to find more of these alien behemoths. Lucere's brazen confidence was shaken when she found that the kizoar did not share the same tolerance for piggy-back riding that the kipee had. Eventually, she became a regular denizen of the jungle, her antics mostly tolerated by the Kitin.

It was a fateful day when Lucere's foraging was disrupted by an agitation of the wildlife around her. The Kitin moved quicker, and their attention was skittish. The kipee had not even allowed her to approach when she tried to greet them. The ground of one of Lucere's foraging areas began to vibrate, and dirt began to heave beneath her. Scrambling to an alcove further away, she watched in morbid fascination as chitinous talons chewed their way forth from under the soil. A gargantuan Kitin with intimidating, predatory features pulled itself up and out of the hole, shaking debris off onto Lucere's carefully prospected resources. As the beast advanced further, it was followed by several airborne kipesta, wielding what appeared to be naturally-developed contrivances of weaponry. As the kipesta soon spread through her jungle, she timidly began to approach the giant kirosta, which was now busying itself with widening the tunnel it had excavated. Lucere's quiet 'hello' was immediately drowned out by a thunderous, primal roar from the kirosta, which sent her frantically backpedaling towards the jungle entrance. Closely pursued by the heavily pounding claws of death itself, Lucere's vision was blurred by her traumatized tears, and she tripped over one of her carelessly piled foraging spots. She was immediately set upon by a terrific swipe of a talon, thrown forward a long distance through the air, her body weightily colliding with a large tree. The side of her skull impacted the trunk of the tree forcefully, and her vision was flooded with blindingly bright blue bolts of light as she slumped onto the ground at the tree’s roots. Her ears rang with deafening static as she looked up, towards the kirosta in the distance. The lights danced in her eyes, swarming around the plants and fauna; the jungle floor pulsed with a deep, thrumming haze. Pulling herself painfully into a sitting position, she looked down at her hands, and watched bands of lightning belting out in arcs between her fingers. She blearily pondered why the sparks didn’t cast any light, before noticing that the ambient hum of her surroundings warped and pitched as she bent her fingers. Completely forgetting the eminent threat of the kirosta, Lucere weakly grinned as the soil under her hand rose as she willed its permeating energy to rise, forming a bulge in the ground. Her seemingly frozen perception of time was shattered when she heard the kirosta’s screech through the calming buzz in her mind. The kitin’s pawing of the ground in a territorial display came to an end, and began advancing towards Lucere once more. Overcome with dizziness as she difficultly stood up against the tree trunk, Lucere’s mouth tightened into a thin line, and she raised her arm towards the charging kirosta. Dredging up a titanic force of will, she dug deep within herself, and within Atys, and pulled. With a crackling upward swipe of her hand, a huge vast mass of earth broke forth from the terrain, throwing the kirosta upwards, screeching furiously as it thrashed in the air before coming back down with a sickeningly clacking thud. Detritus rained down upon the struggling Kitin, burying it in a hill of mud plant matter. Water as well spewed forth from the mess of landscape, as underground springs broke free and made their way to the surface. A modicum of Lucere’s rationality returned, and with a small smile at the kirosta’s chittering demise, she turned away from the chaos she had sown, hurriedly stumbling on her way towards the lake tunnel’s opening. Several kipesta and now-provoked kizoar and kipee were battered with surges of soil, incapacitating them while Lucere made her escape. After making her way through the tunnel, and back to shore, she finally stopped to catch her breath and clear her mind. Lethargically flopping onto her back on the warm sand, her breathing slowed and pulse subsided as she stared upwards into the sky. Hours passed before she was shaken awake by the Sage from the Rangers’ camp, his worried shouts rocking her head with painful twinges. In the few seconds before the sun breached the horizon, Nomis could swear he saw stars in Lucere’s distressed, tired eyes as she looked into his own. Picking Lucere up and brushing off the sand, the sage lifted her onto his back, and carried her back to camp. Later that afternoon, when questioned what she was doing on the beach, asleep with the tide washing over her feet, all that Lucere could recall was waking from a vivid dream, with contusions across her back, and a worryingly agonizing migraine. The matter was soon dropped, but under Merclao’s purview, she soon became an acolyte of his teachings, and grew into a young woman of significantly adept control over the esoteric energies of Atys. Scars remain in the jungle’s terrain to this day, and her occasional visit to the area poke at her mind with visages of claws, earth, and lightning. Her dismissal of these images as dreams has left her experiences and abilities unexplored and forgotten. For whatever reason, the usually docile kipee become edgy when she’s near.

She is now a young adult, and is regularly involved in the activities of the Rangers of Silan. Her daily camp duties usually include the gathering of raw materials, hunting local rendor for meat, and fending off the occasional stupid gringo when necessary. Lucere spends a large portion of her energy protecting refugees as they train themselves to adapt to survive in this new land. While she speaks little, she does much, and is constantly traversing to all points of Silan on long quests. She has never left for the mainland like the other refugees, instead choosing to stay and cultivate her skills while helping others do the same. She has little interest in the world outside Silan, and has constantly had to turn down the imploring requests of acquaintances to join them as they leave for the mainland. Her birthplace lies in the soil, and it is her anchor; perhaps someday she will journey into the Prime Roots, and even further still to follow the innate beckoning of Atys’ quiet hum. Lucere has grown up with an intimate connection with the moon, sometimes feeling as if she could sense it as it moved across the sky. The stars have also always intrigued her, as they twinkle in a celestial display of playful light, shooting stars, and… something else that flows through it all. Having to leave Silan’s gloriously clear night skies, and all her acquaintances in the camps would mean leaving her best friends of all: the stars.