Do we have any idea who Kisara is?

What we have to work with in canon isn't much.

But I think the fact that her ka is the BEWD tells us plenty. Don't you?


.


They would remember watching her fly. They would remember her breath, ripping a rift in reality and shooting down the living shadows with crystalline precision. They would remember the screams as the shadows writhed in agony and demanded vengeance against this damnable beast. They would remember her eyes, like rage-filled sapphires, speaking more than words ever could.

They held denial.

The living shadows would not hunt here.

Not on this mountain.

Not while she lived.

They would remember all these things, but all of them would feel like parts of a dream. The next thing any of them could recall with any clarity was waking up at the foot of the mountain, nestled in a little cave just east of Kyanna, while a woman with white hair tended the fire.

Yuki was first to regain her wits. As she sat up, she was just about to ask who the woman was, and where the dragon went, when those eyes turned to behold her. Upon seeing the stranger's gaze, eyes so blue that they ached to look upon, so blue that they glowed in the dark, Yuki knew.

"The queen of dragons," Yuki whispered, reverently.

The woman with white hair offered a soft, bemused little smile. She was ethereal, almost ghostly, and yet an energy thrummed through her that Yuki could feel even from this distance. Vitality. Power. Inevitability.

"Kisara is my name," said the dragon queen. "You may use it."

"Kisara," Yuki repeated, testing the name. "Why does that name sound so familiar?"

The smile widened and lost a bit of its edge. "Long have I watched over the bloodline which once stemmed from me," Kisara said. "You are my descendant, Yuki Yagami, though you will never find my name on your family tree."

"Your descendant." Yuki wondered when she would be able to string together a coherent thought again. She shook her head. "I'm sorry. That's—there will be time for that later. We came to you for a reason, and I don't have any intention of wasting your time."

Kisara's face split into a toothy grin, which gave her a feral edge that Yuki couldn't help but find intimidating. "I appreciate your candor," she said, and there was laughter in her voice, "but it would be best for the others to wake before we speak of reasons, of missions, of pilgrimage. Would you not agree?" Yuki nodded. "Are you strong enough to stand? Come. Sit by the fire."

Yuki did as instructed.

Kisara handed her a bowl of porridge. "Eat," she said. "Slowly."

Yuki had no idea what was in the bowl, but it was quite possibly the most delicious food she had ever smelled in her life. She took a carved spoon from Kisara's hand and had to force herself not to gulp the entire thing down in one breath, which surely would have made her upend it into her lap.

She was famished.

Kisara was dressed in a simple set of leather pants, a leather tunic, and leather boots, all lined with white fur. Her bare arms were thick, corded over with muscle; she was tall, almost lean, but every part of her exuded raw threat. To call this woman a queen was not to invoke images of powdered wigs, of handmaidens and idle banter at court.

Kisara was a conqueror.

"I'd almost convinced myself we would die before we found you," Yuki eventually said, after the porridge was gone and Kisara had offered to refill it. "Or else that you were a god with no physical body, and even if we made it to the summit there wouldn't be anyone there. Like maybe you were a lesson about perseverance and that I was supposed to understand that, by climbing your mountain, I was a dragon."

"I am real enough," Kisara said. "I will speak to you candidly, as you have me: I am not nearly the fearsome overlord that you will have heard me called. 'Tis true, I do not regularly entertain guests. But I am no simple beast to be handled only by the most tenacious and cunning. Rumors of having eaten pilgrims and messengers who sought me out in the past are just that . . . rumors."

Yuki tilted her head.

"I am, however, not to be trifled with." Kisara caught Yuki's gaze with her own, ensuring that she was listening. "To call upon my aid is no small thing. I have spent millennia as the custodian of this power in my blood. I call upon those who would seek me out to test themselves on the trials of my mountain. If the trouble which brings them to seek me out can propel them to the peak, then it is a worthy cause."

"Were the . . . those shadows. Are they . . . part of the trials?" Yuki dared to ask.

Anger flared in Kisara's eyes brightly enough to make them glow again. "No," she said. "Agents of the Boundless Dark have no place in my kingdom. My people have suffered enough." She watched the fire for a time, like she was trying to divine something from it. "I am sorry for the hardships you have faced." She glanced over at the others, huddled in their bedrolls. "You have done more than pass my trial. You have done the work of my family. Even if I were inclined to send you away, my sisters would haunt me to the end of my days if I tried."

". . . Kisara?"

The queen returned to herself. "Lest you worry overmuch while we wait for the others," she said, "understand that you have come to enlist my aid, and you will have it. In what form that aid is given depends on the nature of your request. But I will not send you home with empty hands. Any tests I might have conjured to determine your worthiness, you have surely passed."

Yuki smiled. "I'm . . . very relieved to hear that. Kisara."