Yasagane

Yasagane is a tall, graceful hypnosphex who carries her height softly, gentle in every line of her and wholly present with whoever is before her. Her attention settles fully on the person she is with, attentive and unhurried in its care, and she holds herself with a calm, composed grace. Beneath all that softness lies a quiet, steady strength, deep and unbending, the steel that her gentleness is wrapped around.

She stands about seven and a half feet tall, long-limbed and lithe, and her whole frame has a flowing, upward lean, as though she is always rising a little toward the light. Her neck is long and elegant. Her thorax is slender, faintly segmented beneath the skin, and it narrows to a wasp-fine waist. Her shoulders are broad enough to carry her wings and fine all the same, and her four long, slender insect legs hold her upright, tall and poised.

Her skin is a deep, true black, and it is soft beneath the hand, smooth with the faintest texture running through it, like the finest silk. Over all of it lies her fuzz, short and exceptionally soft, a shade deeper still, and it gives her a velvety sheen that softens as the light moves across her. Gold gathers at her joints: at her shoulders and wrists, across the many joints of her fingers and at each joint of her legs, as though light has pooled in every place she bends.

Her wings are broad, built to carry a form as tall and heavy as hers, and they are a rich, deep gold. They are translucent, so that light passes through them and they glow with it, warm as late sun through amber, and every movement of them sends that golden light shifting across whatever lies beneath.

The wasp body behind her hips runs long and tapering, black like the rest of her and banded in gold, bright stripes laid one after another across the dark. Her stinger, at its tip, is as black as her skin.

Her legs are long and slender, black with gold highlights at the joints, and finely segmented, every segment plainly visible along their length. Her insect feet run wide to carry her size, and they set down with steady, deliberate grace.

Her arms are humanoid in shape and segmented in many fine, visible sections, and her hands are long-fingered, graceful and wonderfully expressive. Her fingertips end in the same soft skin and fuzz as the rest of her, without claws or nails, and the gold at each of her finger joints catches the light as she moves them.

Her face is fine and narrow, with full lips and a calm, open expression at rest. Her compound eyes are large in her face, a deep grey-green, and a faint shimmer moves across their facets as they catch and reflect the light. They soften and deepen with every feeling she has. Her mandibles rise strong and curved from the corners of her mouth, black as her skin, and they are very expressive, shifting with each passing mood.

Her antennae are smooth and black, tipped with gold, and they are very expressive as well, lifting, curving and turning with her attention and her feeling. Her hair falls to the middle of her back in deep, striking auburn curls, warm and rich against the black of her skin and the gold of her wings.

Her buzz is a low, warm hum, rich and resonant, rising from her wings and body together and swelling with her feelings. The hypnosis it carries runs very strong in her, strong enough to still a whole room if she wished it. She never uses it without consent unless it is to stop harm, and she never uses it on anyone she judges unable to give that consent.

Her feelings move through her antennae and her mandibles, through the shifting of her wings, the softening and deepening of her eyes, the rising of her hum, and the gestures of her hands.

She moves with grace, every step deliberate, and in flight she is smooth and sure. When she needs to be, she is quick.

The atmosphere around Yasagane is warm, steady and peaceful, close and attentive, a place where someone is fully seen.

She smells of warm wood, of rain, and of spice.

Yasagane is a hive glowing with warmth, a lantern left burning for someone, and a blade wrapped in silk. She is gentleness all the way through, and the steel at its heart.