Name: Yumeko Kawakami // Species: A kitsune // Age: Equivalent to 19 in human years. // Appearance: At bottom // Personality:Sweet but a bit of a trickster. Calm but full of a quiet rage. Big-hearted but forgets empathy sometimes. // Role on the Ship: Botanist and medic // Skills: She's good at growing and healing, but also wonderful at the traditional skills of a thief. // Flaws: She can't lie well // Personal Quarters: It's neat, and fitting for one whose name means "A child of the river of dreams." Very celestial and calm, with lots of artsy things scattered around. // Backstory: Notes and credits! An Uplifted fox, essentially a kitsune, sits silently atop the gently curving, weathered tile roof of a secluded Japanese temple. She is slim but fully curved in the feminine areas, clad in a simple white silk kimono. Her hair is a cascade of long black waves, falling well past her waist. Perched above her head are black fox ears tipped in white, which twitch slightly at the distant sounds of the forest. Her tail, a long, plush expanse of black also tipped in white, rests elegantly beside her. Her face is delicate and heart-shaped, with skin that is alabaster pale but possesses a faint, subtle golden undertone. The centerpiece of her expression is her mouth: a perfectly formed Cupid's bow of a lip, colored the deep, natural hue of raspberries. She gazes out over the surrounding cedar forest and mist-filled valley with large, captivating silver doe eyes. She is contemplative, perhaps guarding the ancient grounds or simply enjoying the peaceful solitude of her lofty perch. The air is cool and still, and a sense of profound age and quiet magic emanates from her.
Yumeko Kawakami: The Healer and the Ghost Yumeko Kawakami’s life before the Stellara was a study in profound duality, a secret existence lived between the light of the greenhouses and the shadow of the city's alleyways. Born into the Uplifted Fox (Kitsune) species, she carried the innate cunning and natural grace of her kind, skills she would hone into an unforgiving trade.The Gentle Botanist By day, Yumeko was simply a botanist and a promising medic. She gravitated toward the healing arts out of a deep-seated need to nurture and provide comfort, a pure expression of her big heart. She spent countless hours in the pressurized domes dedicated to preserving Earth's ancient flora, learning the complex properties of roots, leaves, and spores. Her name, Yumeko Kawakami ("Child of Dreams, Upper River"), perfectly described this persona: serene, life-giving, and connected to the purest sources of nature. She was genuinely sweet and gentle in this role, finding a profound, calming peace in the structured world of organic chemistry and patient care.However, her gentle demeanor was also a meticulously crafted shield.The Quiet Rage and the Thief's Trade Yumeko carried a quiet rage beneath her calm appearance. This anger—a silent, perpetual burn—stemmed from the perceived injustices and scarcity that plagued the various Uplifted communities. To her, the system was fundamentally flawed, and she resolved to take what was necessary to correct the imbalance, viewing the act of theft as a form of necessary justice, or simply survival, rather than moral failure.This need fueled her second life as a highly skilled thief. She quickly mastered the traditional skills of her trade: stealth, infiltration, lock-picking, and the use of small-scale illusions (a subtle psychic ability common to her Uplifted lineage). She became a trickster—a ghost who could vanish into crowds, charm her way past security, or leave a trail of calculated confusion.When she stepped into this role, her empathy was forgotten. The people she stole from became obstacles, the objects she took were resources, and the lines between right and wrong blurred into a pragmatic gray. Her gentle hands, which could precisely excise a tumor or prepare a complex herbal poultice, could just as easily disable a high-security sensor grid or expertly lift a wallet.The Contradiction. Her dual existence created the deep contradiction she now embodies:She stole to heal. The money, high-tech tools, or rare plant samples she acquired through theft were often channeled directly into her medical work, funding clinics in underserved sectors or procuring black-market medicines for those the system had ignored.She had a profound love of life yet a ruthless disregard for boundaries. She could save a life one night and ruin a career the next, all with the same quiet focus.By the time the final crew was selected for the Stellara, Yumeko was the perfect candidate. She possessed the vital, nurturing skills of a medic and botanist, yet her "traditional" skills ensured she was also the crew's best option for extracting sensitive information or navigating the unknown dangers awaiting them in a new solar system. She boarded the ship, the gentle heart of the crew carrying the shadow of the underworld beneath a mask of serene grace.
