Name: Lichen
Sex: Dal
Age: 22 springs

Relative of Rue. Cousin. Mother Clematis (Clever, intellectual), sister to Rue’s mother, Moss (Maternal love; charity).

About the character design: I incorporated some traits from the jackrabbit (ears - they can be double the size of their head - and agility), caribou (feathering and stocky build, heavy ruff), and greater kudu (erectile crest). Inspired by a chance comment – that Rue was reminiscent of General Woundwort from Watership Down, it reminded me that in the end of that book, his legend is such that he’s said to be cousin to the Black Rabbit of Inle. So I created Lichen in the vein of the Black Rabbit – powerful, terrible, but neither good nor evil, and honorable in their own way.

Name: Lichen has a meaning of dejection and solitude, but it also is a plant (sort of) that is very complex, despite its simple and often unremarkable appearance. It’s actually two plants living symbiotically, a fungus and either a cyanobacteria or algae. Neither can live without the other (something I found amusingly ironic for my Hyksi). Also, lichens are amazingly widespread and hardy, found anywhere, on anything constructed from stone, rocks, and on about any plant that lives longer than 2 years, especially trees. Lichens can be used for food (caribou eat it too), to make dyes, medicines, and perfumes. Some can be pretty, but many aren’t. Lichens aren’t exactly well known or highly thought of, and greatly underestimated.

Description: Big for a dal, of the same stocky build as Rue, Lichen is an extreme rarity – while albinos are rare, melanistic coloring, total and true black, is even rarer. She’s got very large ears, feathered legs, and a heavy ruff. A short crest of coarser hair runs along the back of her neck and shoulders, able to be bristled erect or relaxed flat at will. Her eyes, the only thing not black, are differently colored. She’s odd-eyed, with the left a dark forest green, and the other a light brown.

Personality: Self-possessed and quietly confident, Lichen is generally a “live and let live” sort. Generally neutral, she may disagree violently with unnecessary or undeserved brutality and cruelty, but will safeguard her own life and freedom first. A loner, she views the “natural order” with skepticism, and in some cases, outright defiance. She does not accept the usual role for a dal, and yet, for those who enjoy that role or are content in it, she would not try to force her own ideas on them. Benign in a distant sort of way, if someone does not agree or like the way she does things, she is more apt to shrug and simply walk away – letting the other do their own thing while she does hers. Her ease of detachment from any she meets, even if she’s helped them, has lead to a reputation of being cold and unfeeling, but the truth is much more complex, as can be readily seen in her relationship with Rue. Calling him her only family, she will not hesitate to risk her life for his, even if he’s engaged in something she views as foolish – however, she neither views him as her leader, nor helps him with every battle, only dropping by for "visits" in between her wandering. His causes are not hers, and sometimes, she’s even a thorn in his side, her caustic sense of humor and refusal to do anything she doesn’t consider warranted causing her to bedevil the poor buck.

History: Lichen’s mother stole away with a wandering male, and so Lichen wasn’t the offspring of the herd trium, something made painfully clear by her hue. Because of this, and her plain; coloring, she was shunned, and often picked on. Awkward as a kyfaw, a tomboy sort always following the bucks around and trying to join in on their activities, she would watch and listen a great deal, learning much without seeming to, and practice what she absorbed by herself, stealing away from the herd. After a while, instead of quietly withdrawing or fleeing her tormenters, she would turn and fight, and fight viciously. The sheer fury she showed when finally confronting another kyfaw startled many, and while it impressed some, or at least made them leave her alone, it only made her more different than before. Lichen finally found a friend in Rue when he was born a spring later, the kyfaw of her mother’s sister and the only family who would have anything to do with her. The two share an odd bond that has lasted even to the present day. Despite this, the hazing continued as she grew, small groups of both bucks and dals harrying her. Becoming adept at strategy and fighting through necessity, she’s both a smarter fighter than Rue, and more skilled, though she will forever lament the fact that dals don’t possess antlers.
She became more withdrawn and silent as an adult, and once Rue and his mother left, she began to wander further afield, often tracking Rue down for a visit, a habit she’s continued even after she left the herd permanently. Rebellious, independent, impossible to quell, she has roamed far and wide, seen much, and has her own ideas about How Things Should Be. She has had no kyfaws, nor does she ever intend to, ensuring it through use of Sets. Though she and Rue clash on ideals, she does have her own rather unique code, and can at times be help, or hindrance, to those she encounters, if they even see her there at all.

Hyksis and Fearaki belong to OpalSkye. http://opalskye.deviantart.com/