Kinesa Petrov (from Psi High)

Healer icon By Luis Prado, Noun Project

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Kinesa Petrov (26)

Project: YA Novel (Psi High)

Known as: No nickname

Real name: Kinesa Petrov

Group affiliation: The Prime Council

Physical description: Kinesa looks like she is in her early forties, but she is actually much older. She wears her straight, nearly-white blond hair in a pageboy cut and tends to dress very pragmatically (especially for someone of her wealth). Her eyes are unusual – very nearly purple.

Personality: Kinesa is taciturn and practical. Where most of her fellow council members can be scheming, dominating, and competitive, she tends to maintain a calm (if stern) composure. Much of her irritated grace comes from the fact that her place on the Council is totally secure. She is the member that all the rest rely upon the most and she knows it. It makes it easy for her to be unconcerned with the bluster around her.

She has a darker side. Her ability to manipulate pain means that many of her extracurricular interests fall into the nontraditional category. Any energies she has stored up gets expressed in these sessions – and if the result is sometimes fatal for others, that does not trouble her.

History: Kinesa was born in 1920ies Russia (indeed she is nearly 100 years old, but her power helps forestall her aging). Her family had very little and from an early age she resented her parents for not providing for her in the way she felt she deserved. Her parents were swept up in the socialist ideal and felt real change in their proletariat circumstances was just around the corner. They were greatly disappointed. Kinesa, as she grew, realized that she was an exceptional person surrounded by those who would unfairly hold her down (if anything, her world view aligned with the Germans that her country was at war with in the 1940ies).

When it was revealed that she was an Electi healer, it looked like her fate would be to be Stalin’s personal physician. While she was still in training, however, she took an opportunity to escape and escaped to the UK. Given her potential, any number of important people were happy to help her.

The most important people that took notice of her was the Prime Council. They saw in her the potential the be a Prime healer, a rarity indeed. The Prime Council telepath was happy to alter some memories to erase Kinesa from public knowledge. Kinesa was relieved to finally be elevated to the level she deserved.

For over 60 years, Kinesa has been a member of the group that secretly rules the world (or, at least, accomplishes anything they choose to). Not being interested in ruling, and certainly not a bureaucrat, Kinesa ignores most of the Council’s dealings. She sometimes does things the Council needs and takes care of the Council members themselves but otherwise simply enjoys the finer things in life. Of course boredom sometimes overtakes her and woe to the people that become the focus of her impulses then.

Role in the narrative: Were I ever to write it, the Council would only be hinted at in early stories and it would be late in the saga before the reader got introduced to any of its members (lucky you, reading my characters blog and getting this info now!). The Prime Council subjugates the other Electi, deliberately limiting their power and positioning them to reduce the chance that normal humans will ever see the Electi as threats (cloaking the Prime Council’s existence). Given the power levels of the members of the Council, they are basically unstoppable and can achieve about anything. A small group, they don’t micro-manage the world, but do keep the status quo (at least for themselves).

They view themselves as essential to world order and they certainly would need to be overthrown before things could fundamentally change for the rank and file Electi. As revealed in other profiles, Selena has the potential to be a Prime telepath that can unblock other restricted Primes and is therefore a realist threat to form a group that could oppose the Council. Of course first she’d need to survive the machinations of the Council.

Kinesa would be the first target on the resistance. As her abilities require physical contact, she is the most catchable and containable of the Council. Additionally, her disappearance would be a true threat to the Council and she would provide definite leverage. However, Kinesa is not the sort you really want to keep around too long.

Abilities: She is a Prime healer – likely the most powerful that has ever existed. Like Jeep, she can apply her power to herself, but unlike him can apply it to others as well. And her powers dwarf his. She can mend broken bones with a touch in about a minute. Cuts and gashes melt away at her touch. Given a day or two, she can cure cancer, purge any sickness or poison, and generally heal most severe injuries (including regenerating limbs). She can’t do much with a destroyed brain but much below that level is within her abilities to heal.

The reason she is critical to the Council is that she can retard aging. This has meant that the current Council has been in place for decades and will remain so for decades more (barring Council members machinations against one another). This explains her unassailable position on the Council. No Council member will risk crossing her. Even the Prime telepath would be careful about manipulating her for fear of damaging their most valuable asset.

More horribly, she can also cause injury and pain with a touch. The world should be relieved that she has to touch someone to affect them.

Inspirations: Plenty of characters with similar powers already exist (e.g., Elixir, Scramble). I’m trying to limit the powers of Psi High to powers people believe that psychics might actually possess, and this represents the belief in psychic healers (Psi Force, my psychic teenager inspiration, also had one). I was originally going to make her a Nazi (instead of just alluding to it) but even a guy like me who is so willing to borrow inspiration isn’t quite ready to have a semi-immortal Nazi villain (well, yet). And, doggone it! I just remember that Psi Force’s healer was Russian, too! In trying to be a little more original, I’m doomed to be more derivative ;-). I’d keep her powers, relationship to the Council, criticality to the resistance, etc. all the same but if I were to write something here I think I’d change this character quite a bit. I’ll reread Psi Force first to help myself from mistaking memories for creativity.