Iya-Ko-Naya — She-Who-Walks-Up-Mountain, The Mother of the Stars​​

           

           Iya-Ko-Naya, who also answers to the shorter form of her name, Iya—or when she was younger, to Nichi-Iya, which in the native tongue of her people means Little-Iya—is now, during the story arc of the Dancers of Light and Darkness series, in her late twenties and early thirties.  She has raven-dark, waist-length hair that cascades over her gracefully contoured torso.  She is tall, stately even, and is extremely world-smart and Medicine-savvy, primarily from her maternal legacy, but also from her experience of having walked both a path of dark-Medicine, and a now-transformed, up-Mountain path of light.  She is unrelentingly committed to her up-Mountain destiny, as well as the betterment of her people, the Kah-ta'i-hai'a.  Her naturally tan-colored, Kah-ta'i face is high-cheekboned and high-browed.  She is stoic, and proud of her heritage.  She is noble and graceful, elegant and Medicine-skilled—in ways that others envy, honor, adore and also despise.

            Darkly alluring, both because of her legacy-endowed status within the Clan of the Mountain and her own, unpredictable moodiness, Iya is considered more winsome than the ravishing beauty that she could be—due to how seriously she takes life and her responsibilities.  Iya's nose has a slight bump in the middle where it was once broken in a bar fight.  The slight contrast to the otherwise graceful slope of her slightly upturned nose, which rests on her high-cheekboned profile, only serves to accent her fetching, up-Mountain prettiness, is marred only by the white, waning-crescent-shaped scar on her right-cheekbone, which exists as a constant reminder of her escape from her abusive ex-husband, Numo Black-Feather, a Dark Brother of Medicine.

            As a Keeper of the Ways of the Ancestors, Iya is primarily a healer, but also a crisis manager, a climber and Shadow-fighter.  She is skilled at Medicine-riding, which means she can easily jump a steed from real-time into Otherworld and back.  She bears the spirit-marks, or scars, of several life-changing, re-Awakening trials on her body—the most serious of which is a regularly re-opening, dark-Medicine-tainted wound on her upper arm, just below her right shoulder, which continually plagues her, even years after receiving it.  She gained the Darkness-plagued wound from an encounter with an indigenous dark-Medicine Brother on a contraband-running excursion across the border from Mexico.  She also bears a long, white scar along the inside of her right thigh, which was inflicted by a dreamtime encounter at twelve years old with an ancient-knife-wielding priest.

            The quarter-sized, waning-crescent-moon scar that rests on her right cheekbone, just below the outside of her lower eyelid, as well as the forearm-length scars along the underside of both of her wrists, are a personal legacy from a purported push by her ex-husband—from which she nearly died—which also caused her to lose her unborn Star-Child.  Unfortunately, those scars serve as a permanent reminder of that personal loss, from which, even years later, Iya has never fully emotionally recovered.  Iya's ebon-dark eyes sparkle with ancient brightness when she is vexed, or when she is touched by the Medicine of the Ancestors.  Her arms nearly constantly ache, and she can regularly be observed brushing or rubbing the lengths of her forearms.  Both she and her Sister-cousin Te'o-Hai are "as lovely as the nighttime sky."

            Iya's lips are "Kah-ta'i lips," meaning they are russet, and round, and full, and seductively pretty, especially when she smiles ever-so-wistfully at the children gathered around her prettily garbed, traditional attire, which she wears for storytelling.  Although she wears short skirts and blue-jeans as easily as her traditional dress, being loyal to the ways, when Iya teaches or tells story, she prefers full-flowing, single-color, or large-floral-design skirts and sleeveless, bust-revealing denim blouses.  Her wrists are often adorned with several jangling, hammered silver, copper, or gold bracelets that brightly contrast with her darker skin, and match the long, hammered-silver loops that dangle from her earlobes.  Occasionally she wears an ankle bracelet.  But that is the look of Iya the healer, the Medicine-sister and the storyteller.  When she and her warrior-sisters are minimally dressed for fighting in Shadow, Iya wears only a leather loincloth, leather bandeau ,and flop-topped leather moccasins.

            There are noteworthy time-shifts throughout the entire trilogy.  Most are told from flashbacks.  Some, however, occur as stories within stories, others as re-Awakened memories.  At the beginning of each chapter throughout the entire book series, there are relevant fables, a maxims, stories or sayings—or outtakes of past or present conversations.

            During the ongoing story of Iya-Ko-Naya's life among the Free-Rangers, she and her loyal sister-cousin Sweet-Star frequently cross the Frontera as Medicine-riders, working in the company of other desert-riders.  In that work-a-day setting of the open desert, Iya is a tight-jeans-wearing, no-nonsense Shadow-riding Medicine-sister, both desperate to please, and at the same time resentful of the addiction that she has acquired to Shadowplant.  She despises her dependence on her larger-than-life, hulkingly muscular, headstrong, dark-Medicine-wielding husband Numo Black-Feather.  He alone holds the source to her addition to the Medicine that he has used to treat the Shadow-caused pain that Iya experiences in both her arm and thigh.   And although Iya loves Numo for both his leadership qualities and his recognized prowess as a Shadow-fighter—and despite the fact that she was initially attracted to his skills as a Brother of Dark Medicine—Iya has come to hate how manipulative, and controlling, and ruthless the leader of the Free-Rangers needs to be to preserve his status among the desert-riding clan.

            Unless dressed for storytelling, Iya most often is seen in work clothes, which hide her shapely figure—meaning worn jeans and long-sleeved work-shirt, which protect her from the sun, and the brambles of the herbs that she collects both for her own use as a healer and for her Grandmother's similar use.  When gathering herbs, she often plaits her hair into two thick, waist-long braids.  Most commonly, though, she wears her hair down, flowing in long, shining cascades that ripple across her waist and shapely backside.  Most notably, she is never, ever, without her left-temple-braid-worn Otherworld Feather—Moon Woman's Feather, as those who have one often refer to it—that denotes her own personal status, along with three other apprentices and a few renowned warriors, as a Seeker of Medicine among her people.  When in quiet conversation, the up-Mountain Sisters often plait each other's hair into intricately woven, scalp-adorning braids.

            Iya's favorite footwear has forever been flop-topped, dual-soled moccasins—which are calf-protecting, long leathers that can be pulled up to knee-length, but which both Iya and her sister-cousin Sweet-Star, like to wear unbound and loosely flopping around their ankles.  Iya-Ko-Naya walks with a pronounced, elegant-yet-alluring sashay—most notably when she wears her long skirts for ceremonies or storytelling, but also quite commonly even if she is wearing jeans.  Her definitive stride conveys both her inward pride, as well as her self-confidence, in being a maternal-legacy-carrying Sister of Light.  She frequently attracts the stares of both Sisters and Brothers alike, whose eyes linger on her commanding presence long after she has passed.

            If ever Iya laughs, or has the opportunity to enjoy life, she meets the moment with a white-toothed smile that is infectiously full, dimpled, and radiant.  She is, after all, not only the Keeper of the Ways of the Mountain, but the de-facto leader of the up-Mountain Clan.  Although bequeathed that position primarily through her legacy, she didn't become that because she has a weak personality.  As Daughter of the Mountain, Iya is followed with more loyalty, and singular, heart-felt devotion by her friends, clan-sisters, close and distant relations, and true-to-the-ways up-Mountain Warriors of Light than any other character in any of the books in the entire series.

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Tah-Nak-Te'o-Hai — Sweet-Star

 

            Tah-Nak-Te'o-Hai, Sweet-Star, or simply Te'o-Hai, is Iya's younger (by two and a half-years) ultra-loyal, look-alike Sister-cousin.  Sweet-Star could be—and likely is—Iya-Ko-Naya's half-sister, hence their similarities in appearance.  Sweet-Star, like Iya, is a shapely, raven-dark-haired, incredibly beautiful up-Mountain clan-sister.  And she knows it.  Although—much to her added attractiveness—she maintains an honest-to-goodness, modest humility.  Her starbrightened, night-dark-eyes glimmer as much from joy and laughter as they do from her legacy-gifted skills with ancient Medicine.  She and Iya's healing abilities are nonpareil, second only to the two Elder Medicine-sisters—Nora-Feather, who is Te'o-Hai and Iya's Grandmother, and Moon Woman, to whom Te'o-Hai is apprenticed as a Seeker of Medicine.

            Sweet-Star loves to dress in fashionable short dresses, tight jeans and designer blouses.  Unlike Iya's cut-short-to-the-quick, midwife-trimmed nails, Te'o-Hai prefers to wear French-manicured nails—a habit acquired since leaving the Mountain to study with Moon Woman at the university.  Te'o-Hai has a flawlessly smooth face.  From a distance, Te'o-Hai and Iya are indistinguishable, in shape, height and general appearance—something the two forever have used to their advantage, especially during their teenage years, whether it was to share a boyfriend, or with the other's help, to allow one or the other to slip away unnoticed.

            Tall like Iya, Sweet-Star, too, is a skilled Medicine-rider, healer, singer and teller of both the stories and the Legends of their people.  Much to Iya-Ko-Naya's chagrin, Tah-Nak-Te'o-Hai was compelled to follow a prescient dream, which led her to work and study away from the Mountain of the Ancestors with Moon Woman at the Med Center in Tucson.  When Te'o-Hai visits up-Mountain, she often forgets to change into more traditional dress, having poured herself into too-tight t-shirts that bear the university logo, or into skin-tight, designer jeans.  The two are formidable when they fight in tandem against Shadow, or Shadow-Beings, or against random, ill-intentioned thugs, or simply against Darkness—or when they work side-by-side as healers, and to guide the frequent re-Awakening illnesses that occur among their friends and family.

            Inseparably close since they were tiny girls, whenever Sweet-Star returns to the mountain she and Iya-Ko-Naya continue to sleep together, just as they did during their entire youth, in a far-too-narrow bed, wrapped tightly in each other's arms, their fingers wrapped in each other's hands, protectively holding each other in the event that either of them might in their sleep fall into Shadow—which would, intentionally, and as they have promised each other since their earliest days, cause them both to be pulled together into Otherworld.  Their promise to each other is simple:  if one falls...they both fall.

            Sweet-Star is elegant, sharp-witted and sharp-tongued, fiercely (to a fault) loyal to Iya  and ultra-protective of her slightly older Sister-cousin who is her best and closest of all her friends and relations.  Te'o-Hai most avidly, perhaps more than any other Sister or Brother of Light, is convinced that the ancient Legends are entirely true.  Sweet-Star, like her mentor Moon Woman, is a quintessential storyteller, and knows more about the up-Mountain lore, fables, tales and Legends than any other clan-sister on the Res, either up-Mountain or down.  Iya and Sweet-Star's closeness is mythical, in more ways than not, entirely literally.  Those who see either of the two sister-cousins often call them by their ancient namesakes from the vast pantheon of Star-people—including the Sisters-of-the-Sun-Filled-Sky from Legend—instead of by their given, personal names.

            The two Sister-cousins have re-Awakened incredible skills from their ancient memories.  Te'o-Hai also holds the same maternal legacy as her Sister-cousin Iya.  If anything happened to Iya-Ko-Naya, then Sweet-Star, as Nora-Feather's second-oldest granddaughter, would become Keeper of the Ways of the Mountain.  And yet, because Te'o-Hai so very dearly loves her Sister-cousin, she is not at all envious, nor even remotely jealous, of Iya's personal legacy.  Instead, Sweet-Star is fervently protective of Iya's right to hold the legacy-bequeathed title of Daughter of the Mountain.

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O'hai-Ne'ah — Day-Star Black-Feather

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            O'hai-Ne'ah is a gifted healer, and an incredible Medicine-rider—if, that is, she were ever allowed by her Free-Range leader blood-brother, Iya's ex-husband, to believe it.  In the wake of Iya's Medicine-riding-sisters' perfectly masterminded extraction of Iya-Ko-Naya from the nefarious clutches of Numo and his desert-riding Clan, Day-Star is forced by her blood-brother to take "any and all" of the Medicine-risks for her Free-Ranger Brothers and Sisters.  And then some.  Every proverbial bump, bruise and trial are hers to both take, and then to heal—after all her Shadow-stepping tasks are done.  She even spent time in the Federal Penitentiary for her brother.

            Day-Star is shorter of stature than most Medicine Riders, but she is lithe and nimble.  And when she makes the effort, she is extremely pretty in her long, raven-dark-hair and Medicine-touched, sans-mascara-lined, jet-black eyes.  Perhaps her most noteworthy distinction among her Rider-brothers is that O'hai-Ne'ah "rides a mean horse," which is as close as Numo Black-Feather will also ever come to complimenting his Blood-sister on her no-less-than-extraordinary talents, both as a talented, skills-re-Awakened Shadow-fighter and dark-Medicine-blessed sister-healer.  Day-Star desperately seeks approval from her blood-brother, who stoops to no end to make his younger blood-sister dearly pay for her part in having "stolen Iya-Ko-Naya away" from the Free-Ranger clan.  O'hai-Ne'ah willfully complies when Numo sends her on nearly impossible missions to collect ancient artifacts, or to guide travelers across the desert, or to help him smuggle drugs--sometimes making her run for days through Shadow to meet him on one side or the other of the Frontera--only to send her back again with some clandestine message to one of his henchmen.

            O'hai-Ne'ah makes up for her diminutive slightness and less-strong stature through sheer determination, and often mindless courage, which allows her to accomplish serious, risk-taking tasks.  Then...she simply waits to be sent again.  In the meantime, she takes care of her rider-sisters and children, and tends to the reckless wounds of the Free-Range Brothers.  Because of her overbearing blood-brother—and her own Shadowdancing heritage—Day-Star has become distrustful of men.  Still, Day-Star is notorious for hooking up with those whom she favors, and is unmatched, even by her blood-brother Numo, for finding solace in the Shadowy realm of Otherworld, where her Shadowdancing talents can be as deadly as they are salacious.  That, too, is a skill that she has used for her blood-brother.

            As sharply dressed in leathers as she can be in either tight-fitted blue-jeans and blouse, or a sleek dinner dress as she hosts parties at her brother's West Hills Estate, O'hai-Ne'ah finds comfort in practical solutions, rather than in the dreamtime realm of Shadow, or in the Legends that she has never had the time, nor the luxury, to believe in or to dally.  To her, the skilled use of Dark Medicine is simply that.  A use.  She is as skilled with turning Darkness to her advantage as any of the other Medicine-riding Sisters can turn light.  To the one, her Sisters of Light continue to respect O'hai-Ne'ah for that dark-Medicine skill, because she, in turn, wholly respects and honors their way of light.

            It is not until she meets Shatwa Hei, and her own memories of her ancient connection to that Warrior-from-beyond-the-Stars gradually emerge, that Day-Star begins to wish her life were different.  Aloof and solitary, O'hai-Ne'ah meets life as it comes--often disastrously, but at the same time, equally often with hidden blessings that make her both happy and immensely appreciated by others.  To most of the Free-Rangers, Day-Star is as equal in stature among the desert-clan as Iya-Ko-Naya is to the up-Mountain clan-folk.  And if there were a name among the desert-riders that was equal to that given to the Daughter of the Mountain, O'hai-Ne'ah would have been graced with it long ago.  Quietly, and with an insecurity that is at once both evident and then immediately lost in the Medicine-filled depth of her ebon-dark-eyed stare, Day-Star is content with her desert-bound life, knowing all the while that she, too, can carry secrets.

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Dja-ne-ke'a Hawkman — Walks-Far

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​            Wispy-thin, with black, auburn-tinged hair that has long-since been bleached and streaked with gold, purple, electric-blue and neon-green-and-red highlights along its outer edges by the numerous jaunts she has made into and out of Shadow, it is neither in jest, nor disdain, that Walks-Far has earned the moniker of Crazy-Spirit-Touched.  She, like the ascetic warrior-riders of old, often rides sans-clothing into Shadow, so as not to disturb the senses she needs to "move like the wind."

            As a runner-sister, Walks-Far is nonpareil.  As a risk-taker, she is, in a word, crazy.  As a Shadow-fighter, Dja-ne-ke'a considers it less of a risk to be on a Horse.  And on a Horse, she most certainly is.  It is impossible to mention Dja-ne-ke'a without bringing to mind Sky-Foot, her Shadow-stepping, jet-black, star-nosed Pi'a, or Stallion.  Or vice versa.  As Legends form, and are begotten, there are already some storytellers among the Kah-ta'i-hai'a who claim that Walks-Far was born right alongside her head-high, Shadow-jumping Stallion.  Or he...alongside her.

            With no bridle, saddle, noose or hackamore, and with only the bareback touch of Walks-Far's hands, heels, thighs, palms, toes or the slightest of squeezes of her heels to his withers or flank, Sky-Foot leaps as easily across rocky gullies as he does into and out of Shadow.  The two of them fearlessly do it.  And for this reason, it is Walks-Far to whom the Warrior-sisters and Maktah-brothers entrust their most sacred, secret and important messages to be delivered—either in real-time or in Shadow.  There is not a single dreamtime battle in which Dja-ne-ke'a and Sky-Foot are not seen—if only for a fleeting moment.

            Dja-ne-ke'a is younger blood-sister to Jack Hawkman, or Sergeant Jack, to those who know the capable tribal officer.  Jack is in charge of the South Range Riders who patrol the South Wastelands—a foreboding network of blind draws and box-end canyons, where unwary Outsiders are frequently lost, without water, in the treacherous southern reaches of the Res.  Walks-Far suffers, solely by association, from her brother Jack's notoriously bad reputation as a handsome, but not-so-nice ladies' man.  As a Shadow-tremor-stricken Runner, Dja-ne-ke'a relies on alcohol to numb the paranoid, jitters-causing effects of too much Shadow-jumping.  With the drunken effects of the alcohol she consumes, Walks-Far must bear not only the constant putdowns, gibes and wicked, behind-the-back comments regarding her reputation, but of being, as Jonathan might say, "an untouchable" Sister...and far worse.

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Keh-Le-Tah-Bik-Te — Eagle-Sight

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            Tall, thin, exceptionally willing, but gifted like her brother as a Medicine-lance-wielding Shadow-fighter, Eagle-Sight is the youngest of the five Medicine-riding Sisters.  Dark-haired, lanky and often mistaken for her Flatland-guardian brother Stands-By-The-Brook, Keh-Le-Tah-Bik-Te is known for her no-nonsense judgment, her coolness under pressure, and her stalwart loyalty to those whom she loves—including Iya-Ko-Naya and her blood-brother Stands-By-The-Brook, to whom she has always been close, especially after the death of her mother who was slain by the Dark Ones.

            In Walks-Far's stead, when the up-Mountain runner-sister is not available, Eagle-Sight runs on foot into Shadow—a most dangerous task—but she does so willingly, having great trust in all her training and her ancient, re-Awakened skills as a warrior-sister.  In battle, Bik-Te and Walks-Far often work in tandem as Runners.  But in close fighting when she must, or when she chooses, there is no other Sister or Brother that any Shadow-fighter would desire as a Maktah-partner.  Because Keh-Le-Tah-Bik-Te is so observant, she always understands the grander flow and subtle nuances of battle, both into and out of dreamtime or Shadow.  For this reason alone, she has become a close confidante to all the up-Mountain warrior-sisters, and as equally important to the fringe-Riders, and to the rogue bands of Free-Rangers who ride in both the desert and along Dah'jeh-le-vah's foothills.

            Keh-Le-Tah-Bik-Te does not readily offer her opinion.  But when she does, those who hear her should be well forewarned to listen, and to listen carefully, as she often only speaks once, and then, with a flip of her long braids and a raising of her jet-black eyebrows over her Medicine-touched, Night-dark eyes, the lanky Warrior-Sister vigorously resumes task as a Warrior-guardian of the Light.