Cindy Harper

Cindy Harper is an enigma for her family, and herself. No one understands what happened to make her as she is, but everyone involved seems to think that for some reason she is important. Which, by the way, really annoys her.

Until her sixteenth birthday, she was Craig Harper with a twin brother named Chris. But Craig's coming of age wasn't at all what anyone expected. Especially Craig.

His were form was female. With all the instincts of a female coyote. She naturally ran at that point, out into the forested mountain slopes around the Harper's 'special place'.

While out there, Lady Moon touched her. And answered when she asked questions, to a point.

Craig still wasn't happy, or comfortable and ran again. With his -- her older sister Carly following along to make sure the new coyote didn't get hurt.

The return to the Harper enclave and subsequent 'getting used to the new you' things are shown in "Singing to the Moon' so I won't clog this up with all that.

But I will say that Cindy (formerly Craig) is decidedly female with all those drives and urges a sixteen year old girl would have. Which is another problem that she has to deal with.

But Cindy is special.

Just how that is no one quite knows or wants to speculate on. Especially not Cindy. She isn't faster, or stronger, or more powerful than her peers, and in fact is just about average in that respect.

But as a human, she is beautiful, and as a coyote to be honest. Much to her chagrin at first.

Worse, or better depending on how one looks at things, she also has a very intimate connection with Lady Moon, who the coyotes revere and the females sing to quite regularly. Unlike others of her kind though, Lady Moon actually does talk to Cindy. Even if what that being says seems to make little or no sense.

No coyote in living memory has had that kind of connection with what is essentially, thier deity.

So the questions are bouncing around over this. Is Cindy a Shaman, a priestess, or just a favored daughter of the Moon?

No one really knows and Lady Moon isn't telling.

But Craig is now a girl named Cindy and has to deal with everyday life as a very pretty girl. Without the benefit of growning into it as most girls do.

Ahh, the trials and tribulations of a poor, confused, teenaged girl... Who used to be a boy.

But she does have a few advantages.

She was deeply into martial arts as Craig, and as Cindy she has the same skills even if she does need to adjust to a different center of balance, strengths and weaknesses. She is also a lot faster than she was as Craig, and much more flexible. Also, Craig was well on his way to being valedictorian of his high school class and that intelligence isn't gone.

Her quirky sense of humor sometimes makes that difficult to see, especially since she seems to delight in pulling little pranks on people.

Lady Moon calls her Coyote, as in a name not a designation, but that's something that will be delved into later.

Later, while looking into just why a rather large group of Hunters were in town and seemed interested in one particular, innocous family, Cindy did a number of things.

One, much to her chagrin, she joined the cheerleaders because she had uses a fund raising drive those girls were doing to walk up to that family without being suspicious.

Two, once she found that family, she became the first unseen in living memory to meet Dragons.

Three, after that meeting, she had a child to care for. A baby girl she named Linda and the reason so many Hunters were in town.

Four, like any mother, she was determined to defend her child.

Though, her solution could be called a bit drastic.

Even though she was barely sixteen, Cindy engineered one of the most devastating defeats The Order of the Sacred Heart (Hunters) had ever suffered. Not one of the unusually large contingent from that order who were in Ravencrest survived that defeat.

Plus, she had managed to unite different factions, and kinds, of unseen to accomplish this. Vampires, Weres of different clans, and Witches were all involved. Plus, she emerged from that with dragons (almost mythical even to other unseen) as if not friends, at least feeling friendly towards her. Another thing no unseen in living memory could claim, both the meeting of those beings and the very cautious and maybe friendship she'd forged with the pair she had met. The thing is, they allowed her know thier true names. Though that information is held only by Cindy and the dragons in question. The witches may be aware of that, but even they aren't sure. As usual, the Fae aren't talking at all.

And the child she took in as her own, defended so fiercely and already loves as if Linda was her own flesh and blood...Is a Dragon.

As if life wasn't complicated enough for her.

Just to add a little spice to that, her attachment to Carson Locke, a wolf if you haven't been paying attention, is returned and both have declared that the other is thier mate in front of others. Not a simple dating thing, mates. For life.

No one is quite sure where that is going to go as of yet but it is clear that neither of the pair will accept not being with the other.