Liyun

A nightmare that has fed enough times to coalesce into a solid persistent shape — but on Painter's world, *every* settled nightmare may be one. In the town the scholars have built around their machine, every face Yumi has lived among for weeks — her attendants, her townspeople, the scholars themselves, and her warden — is a stable nightmare given a human shape and let to *be* that shape by the machine. Removed from the machine they revert to wisps with white-pit eyes. The lupine creature Painter has been hunting in Kilahito is one of these: the warden Liyun herself. STD:YNP:Ch 34

A nightmare that has fed enough times — roughly ten — to coalesce into a solid, persistent shape rather than a wisp of darkness. A fully stable one can act with intent and slaughter hundreds; the city of Futinoro was wiped out by them thirty years before the story. Bringing one down is beyond an ordinary nightmare painter; a specialised corps called the Dreamwatch travels between towns to hunt the few sightings that do occur. STD:YNP:Ch 7

Yumi's warden — kihomaban — a tall, severe woman in a black tobok and a white bow, with hair cut bladelike about her face. Half guardian and half sponsor, she sets Yumi's schedule, vets her supplicants, and quietly keeps her in line. Even at rest there is a demanding edge to the way she stands. STD:YNP:Ch 2