Mendendam unggas liar di hutan
Jalan yang tinggal jangan berliku
Tilamku emas cadarnya intan
Berbantal lengan tidurku
When I tell you my hand was only half-prepared for the hell Lightbright put it through, but worthit tbh!
I don’t have a major 2,000 words essay for this sweet lass, but here’s some information for her!
Between the three ladies who left Caminus to make contact with earth, she’s definitely the Beauty of the bunch (Windblade being Brains and Chromia Brawn) and is practically the gem of her community/clan.
Almost a jack of all trades. She gets those toned arms from farmwork (her people, the Orang Minang, are agricultural specialists on Caminus). She’s also an accomplished silat practitioner who incorporates her moves into dancing, a singer and has an semi-intuitive skill for Cityspeaking/coding (whereas someone like Windblade relies more on study/practice).
However she’s not entirely happy with her role! Her people are the largest matrilineal society in the world, and the custom of ‘merantau’ (something close to a walkabout to seek experience, wealth or commercial success), commonplace for men back then, was carried over to Caminus—women would inherit and guard property (ensuring that they were always taken care of if their husbands died) while men would often go offworld to explore the solar system for new sources of precious material or as interplanetary freight workers. Her clan in particular is a major player in Caminus’ carefully-tended agricultural sector, to the point where it might collapse if they pull out, and while they are very proud of their talented ‘princess’ and her passion projects, they also expect her to take on the role of a matriarch and inherit/guard the properties that were passed down and help run the sector as its future head.
Which clashes with her personal wish, because as proud as she is of the women in her life, she wants to explore the stars like her father did and still does (as a child, she was always excited for the weekly com call home and would ask him 1001 things about what the universe was like, what the stars looked like from where he was from, whether she could come with him on his next trip. The answer was always a gentle no, because she had so much riding on her as the only daughter)
Her grandmother threatened to disown her when she made the decision to follow Windblade on a mission to earth (merantau, in her words), but her mother supported the idea and she promised them that she would come home to them once she saw the world beyond what Caminus’ protective, insulated domes (TTB Caminus is situated on Venus and is a massive floating sky-city as the planet at ground-level is too volatile for any structure) had to offer.
She’s a hopeless romantic who loves reading Harlequin novels in her downtime, and the most naive of the three given her sheltered upbringing and the adulation Camiens have for her as their nearly unattainable songbird. Zero street smarts and initially not a good judge of character. However she’s also the friendliest of the trio, as well as the one with the most faith and ability to see the best in others.
Lodestar becomes her titan (which her grandmother commissioned for her when they reconciled) when she returns home and becomes Caminus’ new ambassador.
Her human name, Laila, is of interest because Malaysian songs make PLENTY of mention of a Laila in them (Mimpi Laila, Kasihnya Laila, Lagu untuk Laila, etc). Initially I chose it because of this, and because most of these songs paint Laila as this ethereal, unattainable figure, and then I find out that it’s actually referring to an old Arabic story of Layla and Majnun, which is similar to Romeo and Juliet (no poison is involved, but the man does go mad in the end, hence why ‘majnun’ is interchangeable with ‘madness’ in our vocab). Given Lightbright’s eventual relationship with Sparkstalker, a Decepticon, it definitely seems like a human name tailor-made for her!
tangentwithtanner
kianamaiart
turnnoffyourmind
areudirty
andulkaphoto
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2087
