( O ) ) ( ( O ) ) 
8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8
Kaalia s'est arrêtée derrière Isa, qui s'est retournée et s'est figée, en voyant si près le redoutable vétéran.
Indigo a toujours été louée pour son courage et sa bravoure, sa vigilance et ses sens. Bien que sa mère n'ait jamais été beaucoup autour, Indigo a été garantie de recevoir des louanges si elle a tué une grande proie ou a trouvé quelque chose d'extraordinairement brillant. Et ainsi, quand une brune intimidante Feren s'approche de l'oiseau nerveux Feren devant elle - Isa, si Indigo se souvient correctement - elle est immédiatement en haute alerte. La façon dont elle marche a une confiance que Indigo elle-même possède : la confiance d'un prédateur. Dans la nature, quand un habitant de terre s'approchait trop d'elle, elle s'exprimait à travers un piège ou un rugissement, à travers une raideur menaçante qui avertissait le reptilien Feren qu'elle était dangereuse. Et, pendant un moment, Indigo était de retour dans la nature. Son esprit avait tourné feral et ses épaules serrées, ses genoux pliés, et elle s'est traînée - fort.
Le bruit effrayant a brisé Isa de sa transe, et elle a laissé sortir un doux cri. Pris entre un rocher et un endroit difficile, elle était à une perte de mots.
Au début, Kaalia n'a fait aucune remarque au sujet du rancor inutile, juste blithely clignote à la plus courte, plus petite, feren l'accostant avec des mérous incessants. Son expression était lente, délibérée, moqueuse. Elle n'a vu aucune menace et s'attendait à ce que le petit monstre s'éloigne comme la plupart ont le sens de le faire.
Sa posture ouverte a cependant raconté une autre histoire. Chords de muscle roulés sous sa peau, tordus avec une tension lâche. Comme un mur ferme et immobile, elle serait l'impasse qu'on a pour mission de surmonter si un combat devait commencer. Sa position était frustrée d'ouvertures, mais son corps était serré, prêt à frapper toute mouche agaçante prête à bourdonner vers elle. Même si elle ne le disait pas, il était évident qu'elle écraserait cette fougère sans une seconde pensée, s'ils venaient à souffler. La stature et la présence de Kaalia faisaient rétrécir le hall en tirant lentement dans une profonde respiration, et tout le reste semblait insignifiant.
-- Devrais-je avoir une muselière, ou tu me calmeras toute seule? Elle s'est cognée devant le jeune homme.
Pendant un moment, Indigo a oublié que les mots existaient. Son esprit était devenu animaliste et quand ces mots étaient dits, son esprit s'élevait à l'étrangère. Les mots étaient parfois utilisés sur l'île Tengu, mais de façon incohérente, au mieux toutes les quelques semaines, et c'était comme un bandeau de caoutchouc cassé à l'intérieur de son cerveau. Le corps d'Indigo s'est redressé, bien qu'elle soit restée tendue et mal à l'aise, ses épaules se coiffaient de muscles sous la surface. Alors qu'elle ne s'embrasait plus, ses dents étaient barrées et sa queue cousue sur le côté irrately. Elle ne se plaignait pas d'une telle moquerie.
"Je ne suis pas un animal de compagnie, bête!" Elle a craché.
Les paroles de la jeunesse n'ont rencontré qu'un regard dur, les impitoyables impitoyables de Kaalia. Pendant un moment, la puissance de ses esprits s'est glissée à l'intérieur, et elle a exhorté une pensée oppressive dans l'esprit d'Indigo: "Calm". Ce n'était pas une requête ou une suggestion apaisante, mais un commandement lourd et imminent. Tirant parti de la puissance de sa Font, un léger reflet de blanc strié dans les yeux de Kaalia comme elle voulait se comprendre. Le sens instrinique a inondé l'esprit conscient d'Indigo.
Un lavage de sérénité est tombé sur Indigo et ses muscles détendus. Alors que ses sens criaient au danger, son esprit s'est rendu compte qu'il n'y avait aucun danger à craindre. Néanmoins, Indigo n'a pas tout à fait aimé cette femme - pas un peu. Comme si elle pouvait se refermer, Indigo croisa les bras et s'appuya sur le dos de ses talons, regardant l'Isa silencieuse.
-- Allons-nous à votre réunion, Eagle? Elle murmurait, regardant la femme de sa périphérie.
-- Oui, allons-nous, Isa? Kaalia ignorait le runt insulaire qui obstruait son chemin, et avec un geste doux et réconfortant, tira les bras à clef avec Isa, et inaugura le petit oiseau avec elle. "La salle de réunion est par ici. Tu ne devrais pas prendre l'habitude d'être en retard."
Entre les accrochages confus d'Isa, le faible grognement d'Indigo et le silence délibéré de Kaalia, le court voyage vers la salle de réunion était gênant et inconfortable.
Name: Kaalia Sigrund
Age: Roughly 25~26
Race: Bear Feren
Nationality: Barallia
Religion: Native Traditionalist
Role: Tracker, Warrior
Fonts: Being host to three different spirits has warped Kaalia's original Font, causing it to manifest in an unusual way. At first, it merely enhanced her natural senses, but they have since been also cross-wired since her merging with two other spirits. Her eyes perceive scent in a wide array of color; to her ears, each color has its own peculiar sound; she can sense the shape and texture of something she smells. While useful in many ways, it's easy for her senses to become overstimulated, often leading to visual and auditory hallucinations; these illusions, although mild, are disorienting nonetheless.
Her spirits have also granted her a way to project her emotion or basic intention empathicly into a creature's mind. The message itself is often too intrinsic to put into words, but it is readily understood in a general way, such as, Enemy, Danger, Calm, etc.
An old earth spirit resides in her as well, the most powerful of the three, which grants her tremendous strength and the resilience of corundum. However, the power, like the spirit itself is lethargic and slumbers unperturbed. Unlike her other Fonts which are passive or require minimal conscious effort, this increased strength and durability comes gradually when called upon, slowly flooding her body over the course of a few minutes. The change starts in whatever parts of the body are closest to the ground and spreads from those points.
Color: White
Weapon: Two Samoan-style Iron Clubs  Her Iron clubs have a hollow shaft with a special chamber inside filled with Red resonant, allowing them to function as loading barrels for Resonant-based mortar bombs
Personality: Gruff and powerful, yet also sensitive and intelligent, much of her father's Feren traits were inherited, despite her predominantly human appearance. With a natural confidence and a larger-than-life presence, she requires a great deal of personal space, and when she enters a room the tension level rises immediately. Possessing a keen awareness and sharp-mind, Kaalia mostly succeeds through sheer force of personality. Rarely challenged to reach her full intellectual potential, she dominates conversation with her intense single-mindedness. However, she is unwilling to argue from a position that she doesn't truly believe in, which makes her a lousy lawyer.
Background: Kaalia has lived and breathed the Barallian frontier. Her family has guarded the old forest of Vastwood at the roots of Vindrell's mountains since the Archon Resonance. Trapping, hunting, gathering, the Sigrund family has carved out their existence in the Vastwood, where the air is so thick you can chew it. The layers of dead leaves and fallen fruit exude a deep earthy fragrance. Life thrives here under the protection of the Sigrund. Neither human nor Lost have staked a claim on this land unblemished by civilization.
Kaalia may be born of two half-breed Ferens, but she has proven the fiercest ranger of her generation, even among her stronger feren-blooded relatives. Her human appearance belies her predatory ruthlessness. Even her own family recognizes she is not to be trifled with.
Raised without any regard to her diluted Feren blood, she was steeped in the Sigrund family traditions from birth. Sayings like "Live for the land, Die for the land." and "The Sigrund is Vastwood, and the Vastwood is Sigrund" are commonplace. Stories of ancestors whose remains were buried under the roots of ancient trees are told during the annual solstice festivals; and it is the fate of every Sigrund to become one with the forest and guard it even after death.
She has not lived without tragedy. Many times have bandits, raiders, and poachers from Vindrell trespassed against her family and instigating long border conflicts. Her large family has been culled several times by bloody feuds. Having grown up in the midst of these frequent skirmishes, Kaalia was inured to violence and gore at an early age. She secured her first human kill before her coming of age ceremony in her 14th year.
Tensions have always been high along the Vastwoods, and while the skirmishes have always been small, they are incredibly brutal. This spurred Kaalia to join the Barallian Border Guard when she was old enough to leave the family territory. With a unstoppable single-mindedness, she marshaled a movement within the Border Guard to install check points and bolster the outposts, culminating into a large swath of militarized borderlands. While highly effective during her time as the Guard Captain for the Vastwood territories, she attracted the attentions of her political opposition in central Barallia like a blaring alarm that wouldn't be silenced. Being accused of misappropriating valuable Barallian supplies and ignoring legitimate threats in other volatile regions, she was met with overwhelming disapproval from the heartlands and was coerced to resign many times. These stalwart opponents were never able to officially oust Kaalia from her appointed office, but it did strongly polarize loyalties inside the Border Guard with "Brinkers" in favor of Kaalia and the Heartlanders opposing her. The tension within the organization rose to such heights that it threatened the Guard's ability to function as a cohesive group. Begrudgingly Kaalia appointed a trustworthy replacement to restore the fractured administration and left for parts unknown.
Three days after her resignation, she disappeared from the public's watchful eye. While a hot topic at the time, the news of her activities slowly faded from memory, and Kaalia vanished into obscurity for two years. However, she wouldn't stay forgotten for long. She received critical acclaim again when she lead a small resistance force of Hunters and Huntresses against a horde Major Lost in Tarcanis. Despite her group's small size, they were able to destroy the Lost without any casualties. She revealed herself then as a Huntress of Echo; her last two years of obscurity had been spent supporting the fledgling organization in their ongoing mission to combat and destroy Lost wherever they appear. The controversy of her time in the Barallian Guard simmers still, but most don't speak of it within earshot of her.
Now, four years into tenure with Echo, Kaalia is a well-known name, one that invokes a tinge of apprehension in everyone who has met her, but her moniker, "The Kodiak of Vastwood", instills fear in every enemy lucky enough to have survived meeting her in battle.