Kitchi

He's lean and fit from a lifetime of riding and wrangling horses. He's swift and nimble. He doesn't ever seem to get sick.

He walks with a spring in his step most of the time. He smiles and laughs a lot, and it simultaneously annoys and creeps out everyone around him.

His past cycles of experimenting with binding spirits has given him impossible strength and health. He's not exactly human anymore.

He tends to wear the same simple buckskin shirt and leggings, no matter how ragged they get. He doesn't bother with weapons. He does wear a wooden horse-amulet the size of his thumbnail on a leather string around his neck. A young Washta carved it from a stick and painted a lopsided white star on its belly. He kept it.

Kitchi and Hiamovi were born and raised in a small farming settlement in the eastern grasslands. Kitchi was pressured by his father to be an incredible warrior, leader, farmer, etc., but Kitchi was only good with horses, really. So he decided to get really good at gathering wild horses in order to impress his father. It didn't work, but Kitchi discovered how much he liked gathering and training wild horses, so he continued to do it. One night, he and his friends were bringing a group of newly-caught colts back to their village when the Star Spirit herself paid them a visit. When she'd left, all the horses--both wild and trained--were gone, two were injured, and one was dead. Kitchi survived though, with only a few broken ribs. He became obsessed with the Star Mare.   Immediately after his friend's funeral, Kitchi left his band and moved to the western grasslands, where more wild horses resided and thus where the Star Spirit came to the physical world more often. He tried everything to attract the Star Mare to him, and sometimes he succeeded, but he could never make her his own. His methods grew more drastic, until he turned to the mountain tribe to learn how to spirit bind. He married a woman from the mountains and had a daughter, but couldn't give up his dream of binding the Star Spirit to him. His experiments--and mind--became more demented, until he was experimenting on not only himself but his own daughter.   Soon after, his illegal binding was discovered and he and his mountain tribal wife were scalped and chased out to the western mountains, leaving their daughter behind. It wasn't long before Washta left too. Their band was relieved to find the conflict resolved and no real damage done, but they had no idea how far Kitchi's experimental spirit binding went, and what tool they sent to the mountain tribe to utilize . . .

Male, he/him

Straight

His father tried to teach him a lot, but lost interest when Kitchi couldn't be everything he wanted him to be. From then on, Kitchi spent most of his time around his horses and friends, learning from them and himself.

Ever since he left his band as a young man and moved west, Kitchi has caught wild horses, trained them, and traded them to people.   When he was banished from the Makkah Nation, he and his wife returned to her homeland, the western mountains. There, Kitchi convinced the mountain tribe leaders to let him work with the Whispers of the Second Peak to find a way to bind a High Spirit.

He discovered new spirit binding techniques previously unknown to binders.

He hasn't yet bound the Star Spirit.

His obsession with the Star Spirit has loosened a few of the screws in his head.

The Star Spirit is all he cares about. Her, and himself. He's obsessed and fearless, and his actions and personality reflect that. He's not afraid to take shortcuts to get to his goal, no matter how it affects others.

He wants to make the Star Spirit his.

He was very skilled with horses and spirit binding.   He sucks at most everything else. He can hunt, but not well. He can fight, but not well. He can get married and have a kid, but be a terrible husband and father.

He loves the Star Spirit and himself. He likes his wife and daughter.   He doesn't like the Makkah Nation and its spirit binders, his siblings or parents, how the mountain tribe is organized and run, and deer meat.

Sometimes he can be nice.

He's awful.

He doesn't care about hygiene and everyone hates him for it. He's stinky and nasty.

He bothers the leaders of the mountain tribe a lot.

He has three older sisters and a younger brother, Hiamovi. His mother, a river trader, wasn't around very often and his father was kinda negligent, so he didn't have a good parental presence/guidance in his life. He would let Hiamovi tag along with him until he got older and didn't want his little sibling bothering him anymore. When he left his band as a young man, he didn't look back.   Ever since he settled in a new western band with a wife and kid, he's met his siblings a few times, but never his parents.   His wife, Nahimana, is of the mountain tribe and a Third Peak hania. She was sent from her tribe to help Kitchi learn spirit binding, and they eventually fell in love and married. They had a daughter, Washta, who shared Kitchi's interest in horses and the Star Spirit. After an attempt that nearly killed Washta, Nahimana didn't let her husband experiment spirit binding with Washta anymore.   When they were exiled, Kitchi and Nahimana stopped living together, though they never formally divorced. He's still fond of her, but she hates him.

He tells people he loves the Star Spirit, but his only god is himself.

He's extroverted but not good at being social. He has a bit of charm to him, something that maybe Nahimana fell in love with cycles ago. He's a good pretender and can put on the mask of a good man. He's insanely confident. He doesn't fear any thing or one anymore, not even himself.

He's had countless horses in his lifetime, those he's caught, trained, and traded, and those he kept for himself for a while. He never kept a horse for longer than a couple of moons. None can compare to the Star Spirit herself.   He's fond of riding horses, horse races and other competitions, and gambling. He would often compete in races as a young man, but as he got older he switched to betting on his horses raced by others and gifting them as the prize of races.

He sounds pretty cheerful, too cheerful perhaps. Sometimes when his mask slips his laugh can border on the insane, and that scares people.