Channa, Snow-leopard kin

Name: Channa
Race: Snow-Leopard, obviously heavy Human mix
Gender: Female
Appearance: Tall and elegant, slender, and hardly furry at all, Channa is called a 'skin' because her breed would normally have a thick pelt. Only her tail has much fur on it, and she enjoys grooming it. Her white hair is heavy and strong, often styled. She has violet eyes, a trait not normally found in cats of any morph breed, so this may be part of her Human side. Because she merely has "markings" on her skin (which is in fact velvety) she can 'pass' in general in Human society. She must hide her ears, but her hair generally takes care of that. Her tail is often contained under a skirt. After arriving at Planet Twenty however, she has relished the lack of need for such things.
Personality: open and enjoyable, lacks focus except on dreamy things. Very distractable, loves shineys and warmth, but adores snow and playing in it even though she hardly has the fur to keep her warm

Channa has very strong air-based powers, a telekinesis which allows her to fly, but also seems to keep her warm or cool as the climate / time dictates. She can lift many times her own weight, as long as she concentrates. Since she's easily distracted, she's never been very good at jobs relying on this power. However she does also have a more mental psionic ability, dream-shaping, which gives her the power to enter, manipulate and even instigate dreaming in others.

Channa has been known to use her powerful telekinesis to slam things away from her. Other than that, she prefers not to hurt things, and doesn't really like hunting or the way many other Kin live. She'd rather be at peace and use more civilized methods like trapping or domestication, but she does like meat so she does have to admit killing has its place.

Channa didn't really understand why people stared at her so. She was adopted, and raised essentially Human, by an eccentric older couple. Her distant great-grand-ishmother was a full Snow Leopard morph, one of the earliest experiments with genetic engineering - her genes were used to produce a more humanoid 'daughter', sold off to the highest bidder for the sex trade. However it was obvious after a time that there was too much Human in that morph, as she had several offspring with her clients.

These were sold off too, in a variety of unsavory positions. However, Channa seemed to be one that was favored by fate. The couple who adopted her found her as a baby during a trip through a Morph Marketplace - a slave trade center. They weren't looking for a child, they weren't even looking for a slave. They were looking to expose injustices, produce a documentary. They did so, earning them a dangerous enemy or two in the process. Thus they moved away from that world, retired, and raised this little 'skin' as their own.

Channa never knew true strife, really. She could tell that her parents weren't like her, but they never made a fuss about it. Many of the people who lived near them were Kin, and though they too cast odd glances at the girl, they were friendly and allowed their own children to play with her.

When she began exhibiting her mastery over the air, however, everything changed. Many others were in such a position, and had been captured, hauled off, and exiled on Planet Twenty. Channa's powers were known to her parents, as well as some of the Kin around, but they hid this from those who demanded to see paperwork and rights of ownership.

It worked pretty well, too. Though Channa did use her powers regularly, juggling items and sending papers flying, heating the chilly kitchen or cooling down the attic... Her parents were growing older. But they were no less dedicated to their cause as before - and they sensed that something more could be done about the Kin situation.

Channa wasn't going to become a cinematographer, or a director, or even a good editor. But she did have a style in front of a camera, which led to her being the 'star' of several home-movies. And that got her parents thinking. If it came down to it, she would have to be sent to Planet Twenty anyway.

But what if she wasn't there as a captive, a prisoner, but as a documentary maker? An insider's view, literally in every way possible - she was Kin, definitely not Human, and though she was less furry she was never, ever 'just' a girl. And she was psionically powerful. Her human parents seemed almost jealous - very few Humans after all ever displayed those abilities.

Channa understood and agreed. She felt a bit restless, as she grew into her teen years - and it seemed she was more or less Human in terms of lifespan and maturity as well as appearance, since she didn't mature into a 'teen' in the half dozen years that a typical Snow Leopard Kin might. What might settle her wanderlust would be good for everyone.

So Channa was fitted with a subdermal broadcast unit. This could send images and sounds, plus track her movements, and relay health information back to a sat com unit nearby in space. Though it was very rare to do so for a Kin, she learned that several others were on Planet Twenty with these devices. Mostly, to keep track of their movements and make sure they weren't on murderous rampages.

Channa bid her parents farewell, they knew that it was very unlikely they'd see her in person again. However they arranged for a semi-regular broadcast review, a 'show' if you will, of her collected data. Some of the images they saw were horrific: the landing module of a prison barge that malfunctioned and killed thirty Kin before they even landed; some were adorable: the birth of an elephant Kin celebrated by her whole tribe.

And some broadcasts were kept under wraps until they really knew what to do with them. Many of those involved Channa's flights over the land, under her own power, and the swirling of items around her. Eventually it would have to come out that she was in fact psionically gifted, which would condemn her parents and likely some of the Kin who lived around her when she was growing up. So they had to carefully pick and choose what anyone else saw from her broadcast recordings.

They really didn't know what to make of one meeting.

Channa wandered around the world of Planet Twenty with abandon. She flitted down to the Hyena lands, danced above the Lion prides, and watched the nomadic migrations of several tribes of antelope over the plains. She headed into the northern mountains, met up with bears and tiger Kin, into the tropics where many bird Kin resided. When she went to one area, a mountain dominated by the aliens who called themselves Zekirans, the broadcasts went completely blank. Not that she was dead - but that they were actually interfering with their transmission on purpose.

Channa's physical state before and after that was just fine, nothing dramatic changed. She did have a stronger tie with her dream-shaping power, which wasn't something that the broadcaster could really send. What went on in her mind was still her own, after all.

And what had gone on in her mind there, was a mystery to anyone but her and the Zekirans.

And the dragon.

Because while Channa's state wasn't any different, she now had a companion on her journeys that hadn't been there before. She'd spent only a month with these people, and it seemed that they'd rearranged her whole world in the meantime. Channa's companion was... a dragon. Feathered, furry, with beautiful markings and an intense curiosity about the world around her.

Planet Twenty was apparently as new to her, as it had been to anyone else first placed there. And obviously, dragons were not native to any planet in the empire.

Dashhiih was her name, and she could give shape to the dreams that Channa moved through. Between the two of them, they could tell stories of the subconscious, the unconscious, from those around them.

They were both extraordinarily distractable, still, but hardly ever found apart. Channa flew both beside in the air, and on Dashhiih's back, and as time passed, they became storytellers in their own right.

Some many years after her arrival, Channa knew that her Human parents had passed on, and wondered what would have become of her childhood home. She might someday be able to visit it, there were other dragons who had teleportation abilities, and the Zekirans who had that power themselves. Who was watching her broadcasts now, though? Who was censoring them or approving them?

And was she going to be made a star, or a further outcast because of them? Perhaps some day she'd know. For now, she and Dashhiih went from village to village and entertained with shining images taken straight from the tribes' minds.