Pale Yumai

Pale is a hotshot spitfire, believing that she can do anything in the universe (so long as it catches her interest) better than others can. Her gung-ho, lets-get-it-done attitude can be a bit off putting at times, as can her sheer energy, especially to humans or Lost that are unaccustomed to dealing with her. While she, like many Fallen, straddles the line between total disregard of humans not her own and watching herself so that humans don't flee in terror from her, her excitable nature tends to make her forget that she's both faster and stronger than those around her. Luckily for her, the natives of the island long ago grew accustomed to her and her brother, so it's only the tourists who get a shock when seeing her.

Pale has made it perfectly clear to the Fallen she sees the most (and some that she cares about that she doesn't see as often) that her energy is not a sign of her curse. Rather, her curse manifests itself as a tempering of that energy, a focusing and narrowing of attention given to things. This focus manifests as an obsession of some sort, though what the obsession is shifts from time to time, from people, to things, to activities or places. She often describes her curse as "scary even to me", and leaves it at that. To the natives, though, her curse is merely a manifestation of Mashi'ari's will, to be accepted and lived with.

Living on an island all of her life has sheltered Pale from most Lost, so her knowledge of them is limited to rumor, hearsay, and the experiences of others. As such, Pale has a rather biased view of them, and often won't give a Lost the time of day, let alone her attention.

Rather short and slender - lithe rather than muscular - with eyes the same color as beaten copper and skin bronzed from her time in the tropical sunshine of her home island, Pale is a striking, if rather masculine (she could easily be mistaken for Eyolin's twin brother rather than his twin sister), figure to behold. She keeps her flame red hair short and wild, the strands sticking up in jagged edges without need of hair gel to keep it wild-looking. Her blood rose bloom is centered on her left side and wraps onto her front and back, the petals a much darker shade than the petals of many other Fallen, a result of her skin being so dark.

Pale's official colors are orange and fire red, and she has a tendency to wear at least some token of those colors about her at all times. Having been raised as a native in the traditional style, Pale often wears very little beyond a loincloth and a breast-wrap, both patterned with geometric designs in orange and flame red. During the times when she has to wear more "civilized" clothing (such as going to a Gathering in a cold climate, or flying a helicopter), she'll switch to pants and shirts also patterned with geometric designs. On her home island, it's rare to see Pale wearing any sort of shoes, and the only concession she'll make in "civilized" areas is to throw a pair of flip-flops on and discard them as soon as she can.

Pale wears two pieces of very distinct jewelry at all times, a mark of her being a goddess-child. Her left earlobe is pierced, from which dangles a hollow-point fang from a native lizard known as a mamishi. Also, at her throat is a choker with a cut fire opal in the center.

Pale and her brother Eyolin were initially spotted on the lip of the local volcano as wild-eyed children, skittish and wary of any sort of human contact. It took a dedicated party of locals over a week to hunt the two children down, capture them, and bring them back to the village near the base of the volcano. There, the shaman of the village proclaimed them to be the children of the Fire Goddess Mashi'ari, thereby winning them a place among the natives forever.

Immune to the disease itself and sheltered from the world at large, the natives had never before seen the mark of the Blood Rose, and so had no pre-conceived notion of how to treat those with it. As such, they simply treated Pale and Eyolin as children of their goddess, accepting their abilities and immunity to all sickness as just the result of being goddess-born.

It wasn't until a robed nun came to the island searching for those with the mark of the Rose that Pale and Eyolin realized they weren't the only ones like them. The First Gathering was a shock to them, as they learned of the disease, of the hatred of humans, and of their true origin. Shaken by this information, the siblings gratefully retreated back to their home island when the Gathering was over, and went to pray at the volcano they'd been found at.

They prayed for an entire day, hoping for some sign from their goddess, but received nothing until the sun began to set. A lizard, mottled orange, red, and black, approached, settling onto a rock in front of them, from which it could watch both easily. The lizard, known to the natives as a mamishi, was renowned for being skittish of any and all people, rarely even appearing before the shaman, and was the rarest of Mashi'ari's chosen avatars. This lizard, though, discarded traditional mamishi shyness and climbed up Pale's arm to perch on her shoulder.

Surprised into stillness, Pale felt the lizard reach out and bite her earlobe clean through with a single fang, but felt no pain as the lizard quickly released her ear and climbed back down her shoulder and up onto Eyolin's. Puzzled, she watched as the lizard repeated the process with Eyolin, reaching up at the same time to feel at where it had bitten her. She found no blood, but instead found a large fang pierced through her earlobe, the tip sharp enough to draw blood from her fingertip as she ran it over the fang.

Just then, she noticed that the mamishi was in front of the two of them again, standing on its hind legs, its mouth slightly open in what looked like a lizard-grin. Both fangs, partially dropped on their hinges, were visible, leaving her to wonder where the fang in her ear had come from. With a flick of its tail, the lizard turned and vanished, leaving the two siblings alone once more.

Pale and Eyolin found reassurance in the sign, and thus in the knowledge that, whatever else happened, they were the children of Mashi'ari. The shaman pulled the fangs from their ears and turned them into earrings for both to wear. The natives, seeing this, and also that, over time, the holes in the twins' ears didn't close or shrink, felt their belief in the two increase.

To this day, no matter what happens or what visitors to the island say, the natives insist that Pale and Eyolin are children of the Fire Goddess, and nothing will shake their beliefs.