Kaiwen Firestarter
Numena
And something of a pyromaniac...
'Red crow, red crow, fly inside me,' she'd sing in her husky voice.
But she could still prick her finger with a thorn and the red crow wouldn't fly from the cut. She couldn't bleed - not red blood, not green fairy-tale blood, not any blood at all.
And she couldn't dream.
Charles de Lint, Memory and Dream
Kaiwen, numena, a soul as warm and passionate and mercurial as fire itself. A creature brought over from a place she remembers only as "the before" by a painting, she has lost the story she had in that place, and seeks to make a new one for herself. A numena, Kaiwen does not eat, sleep, bleed, or dream, and cannot be physically harmed unless her gateway painting is damaged or destroyed.
That frightened me now and then, filled me with urgent, unreasoning despair, as though I lacked something vital - an arm, an eye - but did not know what it was I lacked that other people had to make them fully human.
Patricia McKillip, Winter Rose
"Firestarter" was the name of her painting, and so it was young numena's name as well for the first month she was in the world. By that time, however, she had been brought to understand that most people had two names, and 'Firestarter' was hardly a title to inspire confidence. So, she named herself: Kaiwen. And Kaiwen Firestarter she is now.
Out-worn heart, in a time out-worn,
Come clear of the nets of wrong and right;
Laugh, heart, again in the grey twilight,
Sigh, heart, again in the dew of the morn.
W. B. Yeats, "Into the Twilight"
Kaiwen is a curious person, and, having newly crossed over from the before, she wants to discover everything she can about this place she is in now. She seems innocent, yet, in a naive way, she can be occasionally cruel. Her temper is as fiery as her surname would suggest, yet her emotions change rapidly. Her appearance is the same as her painting, almost: a young girl, looking perhaps 15, with hair the deep red of glowing embers. Her eyes are a pale gold, the pupils ringed with pale blue, like dancing flames. Her clothing is simple, a loose black smock, and equally baggy trousers of the same color. Her feet are bare. And she travels, looking for her red crow, her blood and dreams...
Red crow, red crow, fly inside me...