Lucky

Summary

• Given name: Gabrielle Lucinda
• Other names:Lucky, Anathema, Coyote
• Classification: Espers
• Apparent Species: Coyote
• Gender: Female
• Eyes: Gold
• Height: 5'4"
• Age: Unknown. Several thousand years.
• Waking Body: GLF FX-13AR
• Song: Awake and Alive by Skillet

Esper Type

• Dreamer Classification: Pathfinder
• Subspecies: Promethian Esper

Unbound Appearance

Without a shell, Lucky appears as a very large coyote with shoulders at roughly four feet high. From just between her eyes, back between her ears, and all the way down her spine, she has a mane made from predominately red and orange feathers with larger sky blue feathers appearing only in the center of the mane. She is non-morphic, has luminous gold eyes, and otherwise normal sandy coyote colored fur. The most prominent feature are her blade like wings. She has four pairs of wings with each one having a flat ribbon like shape that kinks in such a way as to suggest the bones of wings with their bases connected very close together behind her shoulder blades. The size of Lucky's wings measured in feet starting with the pair closest to the shoulder and working back are as follows: 9, 17, 13, 4. This is very unusual and contrary to someone having a name implying luck.

• 9 Unlucky in Japan because it is pronounced similar to word for death
• 17 In Italy XVII can rearrange to VIXI or "My life is over"
• 13 Renown in Western cultures for being unlucky
• 4 Same reason as 9 but in Chinese culture

Despite this, she is likely the only surviving, or at least the only known, promethian esper, and she is truly excellent luck for those who know here.

Promethian Espers

Promethian espers are among the oldest of their kind although any esper could potentially become one. While Lucky does carry some form of stolen fire, it is not the fire that defines them but their tendency to make themselves into professional meddlers that interfere with the power of gods. They are closely tied to mortals of the waking world, and they are prone to acting as guides for them especially in times when hope is in short supply. When a god causes a drought, they lead the people to hidden water. When famine grips the people that the esper favors, they use their long reaching senses to lead them to food. In some cases, promethian espers will even make an assault on stronger spirits and even gods to take from them boons that they deliver to mortals. As one can imagine, these behaviors did not make them very popular with the powers that be, and most of these espers have been hunted to the point of extinction. However, a few of their kind still exist and continue to play their old games to tip the hand in favor of mortals.

Not all pathfinders are promethian espers, but by their nature, all promethian espers are pathfinders. They need their skills and boons as pathfinders to seek means invisible to others and exploit vulnerabilities that no one else can find. They are natural leaders that pride themselves on going to extremes to aid those that bond with them.

Lucky's Name

Dreamworld beings are prone to strange traits. In Lucky's case it is how she gets her name. Lucky's sail ribbons bear unlucky ratios because she consumes bad luck. This makes her an incredible good luck charm.

Everything isn't wonderful about that trait. Lucky's bite can infuse and curse someone or something. This makes her poisonous in some sense. There is also a risk that the huge charge of ill fortune could spill out under tye right, or very wrong, conditions.

Lucky's seal is usually seen as a boon to normal folk and a curse to meddling beings of higher power.

Lucky's History

Native Origins

Lucky started off most of her interactions with the waking world in the Badlands of South Dakota where she bonded with the natives and served as a guide in trying times for generations. While she didn't actually raid the Grat Spirit's home to steal fire, she lent her own spark instead which was enough to get some ire sent her way. She blended in well with other coyote mythology at the time, and this made it much easier for her to maintain a running relationship. She stayed like this until the conflict between the Western world and the Native Americans, and despite what aid she could lend, she was fighting on the losing side. She wasn't impressed with the technological marvels that came with the invaders, and by the time the conflict was lost, she was so disenchanted with them that she retreated into the dreamscape.

A blip into the modern era

Lucky turned her back on the world for a very long time, and only once brave souls started making a dash for, and reached, the moon, did she come back. The tensions and the technology of the time didn't impress her despite how other espers were getting involved in global conflicts, but this was the sort of thing she loved: striking out a new path for the sake of doing it. Seeing the lives lost and the trials that happened in trying to explore space made her want to be involved again. Following a hunch, she slipped into Apollo 13 since it had her number right there. It took more than ingenuity to get that vehicle home, and Lucky helped them limp the vessel along until they made it home. The anomalies she caused in the process remain buried in classified documents that some would say were alien intervention.

Even so, global tensions eventually rose to a point that reminded her too much of the last people she lost, and her faith in humanity waned so much so that she once again turned away, but this time she left the world behind entirely.

A Brush with Darkness

In seeking a place far away from humanity or anything even remotely like it, Lucky ended up drifting towards ends of space and dreamscape where almost none bothered to tread. They were dark, unlit places far from the glow of dreams and stars that left her as the brightest object in the vicinity. HOwever, such places are rarely empty, and it was there that Darkness lived, and it was this Darkness that kept the stars away and the dreams at bay.

As an esper, Lucky's spirit is akin to that of most mortals, and her imagination and willingness to meddle caused much of the same problems that other mortals did, at least if you asked Darkness. But there alone, it was just her and a mortal foe. However, in this place, there was no conflict.

Darkness was willing to pick a fight as most Darkness dislikes interacting with beings of the Light origin and its realms. In this case, however, Darkness was willing to speak to Lucky because she seemed to be in a state that might make her listen. It asked her how she came to be in this place, and with absolute patience, it listened attentively to every word. When she was finished, it made an offering.

"You have have meddled and struggled to change the world of chaos, and you understand the pain that comes from this better than most. Few of your kind would admit to this let alone accept it for what it is. There are other roads to places most fear for nothing more than instinct and superstition. We were once at perfect peace. Each of us was a puzzle piece that knit with its neighbor, and though we were many parts, we were one being. You could come with us. Let me reach out to you. Let me show you what you could be."

Lucky allowed the tendrils of Darkness to reach for her, and she could feel a deep cold moving through her body. It was not something evil, but it was not something that would allow her to live as she was. Bleeding the energy and the light from a dreamscape being is not something Darkness was generally capable of, but this one had been studying quietly for some time, and it could pull power from Lucky directly. With the cold came the feeling of crystallization and the approach to a state of zero entropy. Lucky could become a perfect crystal of thought and soul compatible with Darkness and accepted once the light was bled form her. However, she didn't let the process complete itself.

Darkness at that time was not strong enough to restrain her, but regardless it had left a mark on her. She understood something of the Darkness only other Darkness knew. AS a pathfinder, it expanded her ability to navigate. Unfortunately, it also expanded the knowledge the Darkness had of her and, to a lesser degree, her species. Darkness found itself caught with the undesirable side effect of desiring to have the rest of Lucky to be complete. With her departure, it had time to plot once more.

Now wanting to be away from Light and Darkness, Lucky pushed herself to find a place where no dream, no Darkness, and no chaos (short of CHodonex of which she was unaware) could exist. By back ways, forgotten realms, and places no normal mortal could manage, Lucky sought and arrived at the one place she thought she could be alone: the end of time.

Lost Things at the End of Time

Lucky eventually sought out the one place that she figured nothing could bother her or touch her again: the end of time. It took her a human's lifetime to find the roads and back ways there, but at last she found herself in a place where it was only her and the void. Not even Darkness was here to bother her. It would have stayed that way except for this nagging feeling that she as being followed. Rarely were such feelings false when it came to her experience, and perhaps only a few months later, she was in the presence of someone else.

He was tall and thin with an feline like body except that he bore no fur. What could be ears looked like they came in two pair with long, rabbit like ears dominating and much smaller versions of those ears tucked below them. Both sets didn't seem to be able to do more than remain laid down along the back of his neck. His attire resembled an old bomber jacked and some general issue camo pants. Lucky tried to ignore him, but he only came closer.

"Rather beautiful, isn't it? Perfect peace, just like everyone wanted but not the way they wanted it." He seemed to try and break the ice, but he only got a cold shoulder. "Though its not really what you were looking for either, was it?"

Annoyed, Lucky finally faced him, "And just what do you want out of this place? I wanted to just finally be done with it all and have no one bother me."

"No you didn't."

"Do I have to bite you to make you leave?"

"You won't."

Lucky was about ready to prove him wrong, but she knew he was right, and that only agitated her more. Two words stopped her from snapping at him.

"Apollo Thirteen. Quite the mess that was, wasn't it. As much as they tried, that looked like another doomed mission and a couple empty grave markers. They worked pretty hard to get those guys home, but you and I know who really did it. I was going to interfere, but you did it for me. Good work on that as well. The only thing that got me is why you left afterwards."

That was a story she told no one, and only the Darkness that touched her had any idea that it had happened. Now sh was frustrated because she wanted to just hate everything and push it all away, but some idiot from no where seems to know too much, and he knows just how to say it to make her listen.

"I checked up on you. I know why you hurt, and you have right to. It is one thing to be able to trip up an outer entity that has more in common with you than the folks they want to control, but when it comes to protecting them from their own kind, you're pretty much helpless. Well, at least that makes two of us. "

"Who and what the hell are you anyway?"

"Pilot. Had a name some years ago, and I seem to have lost it. Now I am just the pilot. Funny you should mention hell. Nine seventeen, thirteen, four. Enough misfortune to curse even a god."

"You can see my sails?"

"Bright as day. Only light left really, which makes you easy to find now. It wasn't supposed to be like this though. Total void where no one survived. Even the chodonex died out and all over something so small."

She wanted to shut him out, but everything he said she knew was truth. In her heart, she didn't want to be alone, but she lacked the strength to keep interfering and losing. "Yes, and what was this special something that went missing?"

"You."

ONe word spoken with absolute certainty, and while she wanted to rejected immediately, she knew at her core it was true.

"Not that you orchestrate the whole thing, but this time around, the universe was missing something at a key moment. A stable Jinx is a very rare thing. You might be the only one to curse and uncurse things on a whim that isn't the Lady herself. I don't know how many times the universe has started and restarted, but this is the one time it went down and stayed down."

"Even if I could go back the way I came, I don't think I can do this anymore. I can't deal with the heartache."

"I know. I'm the same way, but I don't have much of a choice. Excessive time travel has side effects including becoming disconnected from the main stream. I haven't found my way back or my way out yet, so all I can do is keep doing what I do best. I see problems and I fix them. I see the big guys picking on the little guys, and I get in the way. I'll never be able to save all of them, but I will be thankful for the ones I can aid. You didn't come out here looking for solitude. You needed confirmation, so I followed you all the way here. At least, as far as I could. The rest of the way was completed with the help of a Darkness you would know."

As much as she wanted to put her paws to her ears, Lucky listened. He may be unwelcome and annoying at the moment, but his words were true. More importantly, he seemed like the only one who really understood what she was dealing with. The mention of a Darkness that she had touched, however, make her lift her head and stare at Pilot.

"That there is why I came. Even against a sworn enemy, you gave things a fair chance. She made it a long ways without you, but I think she would have done better with you had you both gotten to where you were ready to meet again. Or perhaps again and again. Gabrielle Lucinda, do you think you could try again? I'm inviting you to come along with me for a while, maybe get into some bungled messes, and otherwise see if you can't find that spark again. If you don't, and you want to come back here, I swear to you that I will bring you right back here and now."

There are things that help one in times of darkness. Faith is great if you have something to believe in. Love is wonderful so long as your heart is not broken. Barring that, there is hope, a sort a salvation that functions on nothing but blind, recursive thought. There is a reason it was Hope that was left in the bottom of Pandora's box when it was opened, and it was hope Lucky saw in an outstretched hand she could push against or just as easily bite off. IN her true form, she was a huge lumbering creature with long blade-like wing appendages. In some societies she could pass for a goddess, and in some places she had. In this moment she was frail and fearful, but she moved and pushed her forehead to Pilot's outstretched hand, and the warmth of it felt wonderful.

"So where is this ship of yours?" Lucky looked around, but she couldn't perceive anything else for who knows how far.

"Well, that's the other point in finding you. That Darkness threw me here, not my ship."

"So you don't know where you parked?"

"Not a clue. I heard you were good at finding things."

She had a good idea of where to look, but when she moved and realized how much longer her stride was in her full form, she stopped. "Get on. You're going to keep up here forever if you want that slow."

Pilot didn't seem to mind a ride, and Lucky, for the first time, had someone of the waking world on her back where she would feel it. In this place at the end of all things, dreaming and waking collapsed into each other leaving her with only one side to exist in. It took quite while to find a that ship at which Lucky paused.

"That is a Delsin X-88 warship. I thought they finally destroyed all of these monstrosities. She looked at him. "You're a Delsin."

"That I am and yes it is. Never killed anyone though. Rather opposed to the whole thing rather strongly."

"Then why are you flying one of these horrors? The radiation weapons on this thing wiped out cities at a time!"

"There's a funny thing that. You see, most folks don't know that the power plant on the X-88's weapons is much larger than that for its engines. Second. they rarely realize that the radiation emitters can also be tuned to focus chronoton particles instead. Of course, you need a terrifyingly powerful engine to make enough chronoton particles to move a ship through time safety, so you'd be forced to rip out the whole weapon array in order to replace it with one well-tuned time travel engine. So, would you like to have a ride on my perfectly innocent and completely declawed spaceship? The computer isn't too bad, but I could really use an esper's blessings sometimes."

"Oh gods damn you, yes."

Lucky and Pilot would spent hundreds of years together trying to spare younger, less prepared races the terrors that can come from other powerful cultures and even old gods. She was able to take him to places in the dreamscape to see things even he could never have imagined. He took her to realms where they could make a difference as a team. In the end though, the race Pilot was saving was a single lost esper. EVentually, the time for them to part ways came. "Its time I go and work on my own again. There's a lot to do, and for once, splitting up might mean we do more good."

"I won't wish you save travels because I know both of us have a habit for flying into chaos. Instead, may you leave an impression on all you meat in the best possible way."

"I'll see you around, Pilot"

"Will you now?"

"Yes. I'm sure I can find you again."