Hanaka Moon

Hanaka Moon from Elydian Dawn (2018/19) Character Post 13

Hanaka Moon was born on Terra. She was quiet, calm and intelligent, and she trained as a doctor in an increasingly crowded and overburdened society. She applied for a position on the colony starship Elysian Dawn, never expecting to make the cut. When she learned she'd been successful, she spent her last few months on Terra gaining as much experience as she could. She dived, rode horses and filled her memory with images of terrestrial life, knowing it would have to last a lifetime. At the same time she cut her ties with friends and family. Moon was not her original last name, but one she chose for its blend of mystery and serenity.
During the long period of isolation and quarantine aboard the Elysian Dawn in orbit, Moon fell in love with Han Shuan, a widower two years her senior. Han's wife and daughter had been killed in circumstances Moon never really discovered. She believed it was a stampede during food riots. The marriage was a happy one, and once the long journey was underway, Moon gave birth to three daughters. She and Han named the girls Momoko (peach), Sakura (cherry blossom) and Panji (pansy). They became known collectively as the moon blossoms.
Life aboard the Elysian Dawn wasn't quite what Moon expected. She was equipped to service the medical needs of a thousand colonists elect, but as the years flew by, she realised there was very little to challenge her. The colonists had clean gene charts, and none was over twenty-five at embarkation, and apart from births, and the occasional broken bone or minor injury, Moon's tasks were mainly monitoring the growth of children and recording matches according to their genes. Eventually, in a fit of pique, she stopped thinking of herself as Doctor Moon and adopted the title of Healer instead. 
Having come to terms with the lack of excitement in her life, Moon reached the age of forty as a calm, thoughtful and kindly woman. She did what she could to guide younger people, and raised her daughters in her own image. Unlike most of the Terra-born colonists, Moon did occasionally answer questions from the youngsters in regard to her former life. She did this in very general terms.
When a great and almost unimaginable disaster took the Elysian Dawn Moon found herself with all the drama she could ever have wanted, and she sincerely regretted ever wishing for a challenge. In the hours after the disaster hit, Moon tried her best to tend to her patients, rallying others to help. Exhausted and sad she held her calm for as long as she could. As Hanaka, she might have cried for her children, but as Healer Moon she had no such luxury.
 Moon and her family appear in Elydian Dawn, the first book in the up-coming Elydian Dawn series. You can see more about it at the website.  The picture is a free one from Pixabay, and is quite close to the way she might have looked.

ABOUT THE BLOG

Sally is Sally Odgers; author, manuscript assessor, editor, anthologist and reader. She runs http://www.affordablemanuscriptassessments.com and Prints Charming Books. (Sally is me, by the way, and I am lots of other things too, but these are the relevant ones for now.)

The goal for 2017 was to write a post a day profiling the background behind one of my books; how it came to be written, what it's about, and any things of note that happened along the way. If you're an author, an aspiring author, a reader or just someone who enjoys windows into worlds, you might find this fun. The books are not in any special order, but will be assigned approximate dates, and pictures, where they exist. 2017 is now behind us, but I ran out of year before running out of books. As of February 18th 2018 I STILL haven't run out of books, but many of those still to come are MIA by which I mean I don't have copies and remember little about them. There are more new books to come, and I'll certainly showcase those, but in between times, I'm profiling some of my characters, just for a change. Thank you so much to everyone who's come along on this journey so far!