Burakku "Runner" Almeta, Character Sketch

Burakku “Runner” Almeta is the unwanted daughter of Kane Almeta, who is king of the Hinomi Mountains.
Her father as well as her two half brothers have made it their mission to break her for their own sadistic purposes. Her father, Kane, beats her whenever he can catch and her brother’s taunt and mock her endlessly, but after living with their tempers and cruel jeers she has become quick and tough skinned, willing to ignore them. Her nickname, Runner, was given to her by her father when she bolted from him when he was going to beat her.
Burakku lives in the Red Palace that has been carved from the Hinomi Mountains themselves. She knows every secret and hidden trap door in the palace and can run the halls as fast as any thief, which is what she has become to survive.
Kane ordered her to be starved for an entire month until she went to him to receive her beating. Instead of succumbing to his orders and going meekly to her father, Burakku stole from the massive kitchens.
First she only snitched small things, like slivers of fruit or slices of travel bread but she became more and more confident in her skills and she began stealing whole sandwiches and bowls of fruit. What she found was interesting, and what renewed her faith in humanity, was that the cooks left food out for her until Kane found out about it, but she still managed to survive on what she did steal.
One day while she was creeping behind the walls and in the endlessly twisting and turning labyrinth of her families palace she heard her brothers speaking of Kane’s dragon’s clutch. Apparently where there should have only been two eggs, for the two heirs, there had been three. And that last egg was uncommonly small and pitch black, glistening like obsidian.
Curious, Burakku went to the stables where her father’s dragon, Nishi had had her clutch. The dragon, like her owner, hated Burakku so it was difficult for the girl to get close enough to see the glassy surface of the black egg. When she reached out and touched the surface, however, she was burned on the palm of her hand. When she looked down at the blistered skin she saw that burned into the soft flesh of her hand was a scar that is, as described in the book:

…. staring out from her palm like an angry red eye, almost in the form of a crown with a straight triangle pointing at the base of her index finger and surrounded by two smaller curving tines on either side.

This mark, clearly defined on Burakku’s skin marks her out from her race as not only a dragon rider but also a royal child, no matter how much Kane would try to deny it, and he had done that plenty. In short it would force a king of a race who thought women were ill luck to recognize his daughter as a potential heir to the throne.
Burakku was stunned when she saw the scar on her palm, for she had thought only males of the royal family could become a dragon rider. Not only that but the next person who touched that egg would be burned badly enough to lose the dexterity in the hand they touched the shell with.
Not wanting anyone else to be hurt she went to her second oldest brothers mother, Dai, who had treated her kindly when no one else did.
Dai was joyous for her step daughter and went to Kane to tell him of the news. When Kane found out he was livid and would have struck Dai had Burakku not shoved him into a wall. He raised his fist to her but he saw she was suddenly wreathed in coal fire and he could not touch without angering the dragon inside the egg.
From that day forward the people of the Hinomi Mountains were in awe and fear of their new princess for she had been marked with the sign of the mercenary and was the dangerous of the three types of dragon riders, the other two being warrior and mage.
Burakku took the black egg, which was now as dear to her as her own life, back to her chambers and guarded it carefully, wary of her brothers who may try to take the precious stone from her and try to get it to hatch on her own.
After a few weeks the egg hatched and out sprawled the wiry, slender black dragon. Having a dragon of that color was literally unheard of and was immediately greeted with superstition.
Not only was the little creature as black as onyx and coal but his diamond hard claws were filled with a ruthless poison that ate at the skin and body until nothing was left, his teeth and the point of his arrow head tail were also filled with similar venom, though he was immune to it.
Burakku named her dragon Kado, after the king who had claimed the mountains as his home, and raised him on what she found in the kitchens, though she was now invited to sit at the grand table and eat the great meals that were served there she did not trust the people of Kane’s court and continued to filch her meals from the kitchen, though now she also stole for the growing Kado.
As the dragon grew, he showed his metal by defending attacks on Burakku from her brothers and father, once nearly killing her second older brother with a gash on his hand left by Kado’s wickedly curved claws.
As they two of them grew together, Burakku taught the hatchling Kado of the world he had been hatched into, the hot, thick red stone that made up the palace and the wickedly screaming wind of the winter months. And Kado, the coal eyes nightmare creature, taught Burakku of the world outside the palace, the places his mother had told him of when he had been curled up in his little egg.
Together they taught each other that the world did not care for them, that they would be hurt if they depended on any but each other.
Burakku became increasingly violent and often snapped at maids who had dared speak of her in the darkness of the night. She lengthened her nails and they acquired a natural curve, similar to Kado’s. She painted those long nails in Kado’s acid poisons and they became stronger than diamonds and sharper than knives, both she and Kado now had poison in their system.
The people of the red palace of the Hinomi Mountains feared the silent shadow that had once been a skinny, wretched girl who was frightened of her own reflection. She became lithe, quick and dangerous, moving through the crimson halls with animal grace and instinct that came to the dragon riders.
Burakku was trained in the weapon of her choice and when taken into the room of weapon’s she chose something she had never seen before, as it is described in the book;


…. Glittering on the wall like a sliver of Artemis it hung there, it’s blades hone to the point where it should have been cutting the air around it…. Burakku starred at the steel device and smiled a slow, lazy smile then looked down in the palm of her right hand where the scar was shining out from her skin like a beacon. The same single straight blade surrounded on either side by curved thorns hung on the wall. She had found her weapon….

Her choice was crafted by the finest weapon designers in the mountains, the blade made from a blackish metal that had been mined from the base of the great ridge. The eight food handle was carved from white oak and carved with words of protection while the blade was carved with symbols of death and destruction.
The weapon was named Tempest and road out many storms and wars in the hands of the creature that was once a trembling shadow.
Kane, king of the red mountains declared was on the Elves that lived across the desert and river, challenging for the land that had been theirs since the beginning of written records.
With four dragons at the head of an army of berserkers it was indeed a terrible and awe-inspiring sight, though the elves were neither impressed nor intimidated and rose to meet what they thought to be barbarians.
The battle was long and hard, and many lives were lost. When Kane fell on the battlefield his eldest son and heir became the king of the Hinomi Mountain people and continued the campaign against the elves. Only now his brother, a man who had devoted his ever spare moment studying and practicing at war was at his side and showing him what he should do.
During these long years of brutal and violent warfare, both brothers began to respect the absolutely cruelty that was there sister. Her heart, linked with Kado’s was drowning in the battle blood she lived for and she completed every task they sent her way, soon all the Hinomi people knew Burakku as “The Black Terror” for she war armor of the darkest coal and flew an ebon banner above her great dragon.

….and saw, standing out against the crimson skies was a shadow of his sister and her Kado, riding from the darkened sky as death it self might ride down from the heavens, her Tempest held high over her head and shining with blood in the shadow sunlight in her right hand and a great flag that fluttered in the smoke filled air. The Black Terror had come to claim the battlefield.

Even the most traditional of warriors was filled with awe and terror at the sight of her.
But the battle, which was foolhardy and thoughtless in the first place, was lost to the Hinomi people and they were forced to retreat, and while they were all bitter about it they turned and went back to their crimson mountains to nurse their wounds and scheme once again.
All except for Burakku, who stayed, alone in the blood drenched sands and fought until the elves cast great silver nets over her and Kado and brought them deep into their forested territory to stand before the king as the black dragon.
The Elf King, Horatiu, oldest and wisest of all the living beings in the known world, spoke to Burakku and learned of the dark fire that burned within her. He was reluctant to kill her for she could not only be a wealth of knowledge but also a great compatriot in battle. He had seen her at war and knew of her skills and lack of fear.
King Horatiu kept Burakku in his palace as his guest and slowly she began to learn the language of the long-lived. She was impressed and surprised by their sophistication and elegance, which she had never encountered before in her own home. Even the most learned of men were crude and boorish in comparison to these light bringers.
As Burakku grew accustomed to the strange ways of the Elves she also found that she enjoyed living in their splendor and peace. She became skilled at their form of writing and often entertained her host with stories of the battle her brother had lost.
Slowly, so very slowly, she began to warm to the Elves themselves and, after a time, became fast friends with many of them and even attracted the eye of general and prince, Sorin, who had fought bitterly with Burakku on the battlefield.
When Horatiu announced that he was going to attack the Hinomi Mountains and put Burakku on her brothers throne, Burakku was of two minds; one was screeching that this was not the way of the dragon riders and she would not attack her own blood while the other snarled that her older brothers and father had never given a damn about her until she showed she could fight.
Burakku was in turmoil, and the voices in her head were constant. Finally, not being able to take it any more she went to Horatiu and told him to postpone the war until she returned. When he inquired upon where she was going she told him, truthfully, that she didn’t know. He recognized the slide toward insanity the Burakku was leaning towards and gave his consent for her to leave.
But when she was packing her saddle bags, Sorin came to her and asked her to take him with her. Burakku, who had never found it necessary to coat or soften her words, told him bluntly, and perhaps untruthfully, that he was not welcome where she was going and that she would not depend on him.
This broke the elf prince’s heart and he left her in a cold rage, unwilling to forgive, and Burakku did not care or at least acted as if she didn’t.
When the next morning dawned she mounted on Kado’s back and took to the clear skies and flew towards the east, further inland and further away from her home.
So ends the first book of the Untitled Series, Ashen Tears.

Burakku was born with brown eyes and soft brown hair. However, when kado hatched her eyes changed significantly. The iris turned white, as Kado’s was, and the outer whiteness that had been there before turned pitch. She had no pupil and yet she was not blind. Marked with these strange eyes, as well as the scar on her hand she was easy to pick out as a dragon rider.
And as all dragon riders become to look like there dragon, her hair turned to a deep black and her skin to a pale ivory, leaving behind the golden glow that was oh-so common among the Hinomi people.
It was normal for dragon riders to change to fit their dragons colorations but to have white eyes was unheard of, marking her out even more.
Burakku sees eye to eye with most men and is careful to keep in shape, so she is trim and lean though sheathed with muscles from her endless hours of training to learn how to use her tempest, for the thing ways half of her weight and, when she is upon Kado’s back stabbing at people, her arms require great strength.
Her face is gently rounded, as that of a young Asian girl’s, and is framed with a long thick sheet of black hair that is tipped in white and grey, she is quiet pretty, though underneath her flesh she is ruthless beyond measure.

The Hinomi Mountain people are a long lived race and while they do not come near Elvish ages they do live over three thousand years, and most of it is spent in their prime.
While the Hinomi’s are very similar to humans in most ways they do have slightly curled forward ears and delicately sharpened teeth.
However, they do not have the curved claws that are so dear to Burakku, those she inherited from her nameless mother, along with her facial features.
Being a dragon rider elongates one’s life even more so, as they would better learn all of the world they were, supposedly, created to protect and serve. The oldest dragon rider lived to about twenty thousand and was killed by an arrow through his eye.
The Hinomi people are a savage race of warriors and berserkers, willing to fight with the last breath that they exhale for a scrap of land or their honor. They farm wheat and barley and raise herbivorous hound-beasts that they eat.
In the mountains they have claimed as their homes are enormous whisper-cats that grow to roughly twenty feet long and ten or so feet high. They are incredibly hard to kill but if one was to be slaughtered its pelt would be a fine treasure. Also in their mountains are rare and precious gems of all kinds. Mining these and killing the whisper-cats is part of their trade and has painted the incorrect picture of elegance and taste.

This story is Ashen Tears and is going to be part of a series of six ore seven books I plan to write from an ancient story, like the Dark Tower Series by Stephen King, if all goes wall. If not then this will be the only story and I’ll finish it in some way or another.
It was inspired by a story I wrote with my friend, Gayle a few years ago and I really liked it, even after we called it quits so I decided to keep the characters until I was ready to use them. Know I’ve found an excellent story which to play with them in and I really hope this is one of my first books.