Niir is a young Zekiran descendant, not immortal but long-lived, who was among the first born after the Zekirans arrived to Planet Twenty. As most of her peers, she shares genetics with many, many famous people - Vanya, Mirage, even Viridia directly (her great-grandmother). However, like many of her peers too, she was modified genetically before being implanted in her mother, and has some interesting features.

The most striking of these of course is her tiny size. Zekirans traditionally were tall, slender elegant humanoids - generations of travel on a starship created this phenomenon. But though she's nearly half the size of most of her Zekiran friends, she's still around the same proportions. She does have a little bit of a childish look to her, but she's already sixteen years old and no child!

Niir has the ability to sense and filter through other Genres, or universes, and can easily create a portal which she can reach through, or step into, to get there or retrieve things in these other universes. Because this power is exceptionally handy to have especially on Planet Twenty what with teleporting dragons and the like, she's a popular person to use as a communication between worlds. She eagerly aids her friends and relatives in this work and is always curious about what is going on in the Nexus.

Because she is also a Dream walker, able to telepathically enter and manipulate other people's dreams, she knows of many, many destinations that people hope to see or recall from their pasts. Because she was born on this world and not on the colony ship, Niir is amassing a collection of other older Immortals' anecdotes to plot where she might next slip through her portal and visit. Some places bear little resemblance to their Zekiran memories - some of them were visited hundreds of thousands of years before!

Niir's portal only goes through space and dimensions, not through time. She hopes to discover either a way to make it do this, or to find someone who can do it with her. She wants to actually visit Zekira some day - the thriving world which died so long ago is still very vivid in her companions minds.

In the meantime, however, she has a beautiful collection of silken hand-dyed clothing and colorful accessories like sashes, banners and tapestries. For the cost of entering and safely exploring a new world for an hour or so, she will ask for something pretty in trade! With her ability to sense animals as well as people, know where they are, what mood they're in and the like, she always has a good idea of the surroundings of a new world. If the situation through a Portal is bad, she will refuse to go further than open a 'window' like a port-hole in a ship, to look through but not be detected.

For herself, she'd be much more bold - but she has a sense of needing to protect her friends or anyone who she views as a 'customer' for her Portal trips. If anything bad happens to anyone while on them, she always takes it very, very personally. (Thankfully this has never happened - close calls, but nothing truly terrible.)

When she learned, as she usually does through dreams of those around her, of this Valley of the Sky place, she instantly perked up. Where was it? Could she reach it even though no one here had ever been there? She did the next best thing: She portaled to Carramba High - where one of the students there had actually fathered a nest at the Valley! Through him, she was able to truly locate the little colorful Saa - and now of course is making plans to go back to the Zekiran colony and show off! Wouldn't it be fantastic to have a bond in one of these amazing creatures? Maybe ... maybe it could help her learn to time-portal? Even if not, having a companion on solo trips would be far safer than going anywhere alone...

The gears in her little head are whirring! And when Niir wants something, she's bound to try and get it!

"I do not know about this..." Said the half-Saa, balancing on her tippyclaws, and looking down into the Portal. "It is a very long way down."

"Oh hush, you can hover, can't you?" Niir chided, "Callindifer, I swear, you're such a chicken."

Callindifer bit his muzzle shut, closed his eyes, and scooted through the Portal. Though his wing-nubs fluttered a little, it was indeed his magic holding him aloft when he didn't go plummeting down into the waterfall below them. He spotted a fallen log, and fluttered toward it with some effort.

"You know I can't fly that well," he panted. He almost panicked again when his bond came through, she doused herself in the ... very shallow water.

"It's not gonna hurt you," Niir laughed, "come on, it's safe. There is nothing that will eat you here, at least nothing nearby." Niir slogged out of the water, stood upon the grassy shore, and Callindifer came after her. It really was a fun job following her around, but it did get to be a bit stressful. Callindifer would never abandon his bond, though - no way.

"What was it we were looking for here? A bug?" Callindifer asked, as a brightly colored flying insect caught his eye.

"Yep, something that nests on saplings... ooh, I think there's one," Niir said of the bug, "think you can maybe do that thing?"

Callindifer, though a bit winded from his flight, concentrated. Though he was hardly ever going to be considered truly Skilled in his elemental arts, he could in fact produce a small glimmering flame - though it gave little heat, more light than anything else. It danced over the spot by the shore, and the fluttering bug seemed to think that was a really interesting item. It bobbed closer, where Niir readied her net, and within moments they'd captured the bug.

They didn't need to use too much more of Callindifer's power to capture another half-dozen more of the little bugs, and then they were on their way back home. Within days, they'd gotten the bugs to rest on their own stock of young trees, and noted well that they produced a sticky stringy substance while they 'slept'. Silk, right from the source...