As not to become an unintended spoiler for the novel, I've confined my characters to those who begin the story with Yitzen.
Yitzen is a seventeen year old Ipper Qurl who loves swimming and is the youngest Four Beat dancer in her country. Snowy white hair and gray eyes on a slender dancer's body doesn't hurt her popularity either. She eagerly looks forward to a career in dancing, starting with a prestigious assignment to a top dance troupe touring the planets. Raised in the cosmopolitan city of Bridge, she is no stranger to humans, and mourns the absence of Sarah King, a close friend raised in her culture and now seeking her fortune off planet with a mysterious employer. Yitzen suffers from periodic nightmares that she cannot remember. She lives with her family, and has both an older brother Haral and a younger sister Donya. Haral has recently married and works on a secretive void ship with his wife. Donya shares a bedroom with Yitzen.
Tenzen is a calico Dathia and childhood friend now serving police duty on Bridge. The tall and powerfully built soldier has a quick temper, but Yitzen knows how to navigate around her best friend while still teasing her. Tenzen is also an accomplished dancer, having practiced with Yitzen, and also looks forward to an assignment with the offworld dance troupe.
Yitzen's younger sister is an exitable dark haired Cothra still trying to decide between being a cook or a chemist. She is both happy for Yitzen's new offworld assignment, and sad that her older sister will be leaving as her brother had.
Yitzen's Cothra parents. Relen is an engineer working with underwater technologies and Forel tends to be her test subject as he works in the shellfish farms.They are both proud of Yitzen's accomplishments, her father tending to be the one to encourage her to try new things and take risks. Relen is more cautious about her daughter.
Both Tenzen and Yitzen are in sort of a friendly competition to win the affections of this handsome Shanda male. Things have changed, however, as Kaden has undergone a physical change to become both Shanda and Cothra. He is a Sur - a hybrid and now candidate to become the country's next ruler if he can win the heart of the one Suria when she makes her appearance.