Faun

Faun is an original fictional character who first appeared in New Mutants: Last Class.

Background
Born to Indian immigrants, Amira Dasari was the first in her family to be born and raised in Canada. She grew to love life in her hometown Toronto more than her parents and older siblings, who had a harder time adjusting to life on foreign soil. Intelligent, though not particularly hard-working, Amira held dreams of joining school clubs and teams, or maybe even the cheerleading squad, but rarely had the passion to see any of these plans through. Instead, she learned to coast and enjoy the finer things in life, and had a rather uneventful future planned out for herself... until a school field trip changed everything.

Though she didn't know it at the time, Amira has since worked out that her powers came to the surface during a field trip to the Toronto Metro Zoo. She recalls "spacing out" while looking at the Thompson's gazelles, lost in a sense of complacency - a feeling, she would later realize, she was reading empathically off the gazelles.

The following morning she awoke with a strange headache and, to her horror, discovered two strange protrusions growing from her forehead:  Amira was growing horns. Covering them up with a hat was a temporary solution at best, and her family soon found out. Worse yet, Amira's ability to read the minds of animals also began to blossom, giving her unwanted insight into the thoughts of everything from her pet cats to rats scurrying in the alleyways to pigeons nesting on the rooftops.

When her eyes began to change, adopting horizontal pupils like those of an antelope, Amira lost hope that her mutation was simply going to go away on its own. Not knowing where else to turn to for help, she reluctantly agreed to enroll at the Xavier Institute.

New Mutants: Last Class
Even among fellow mutants, Amira was the target of no small amount of teasing at Xavier's. Blessed with a snarky witt, she gave back as good as she got, but was unable to hide her own insecurities over her appearance. To make matters worse, she was coaxed into joining the Institute's "squad system", in which mutants trained together in teams and clashed in weekly competitions. Amira felt ashamed of her powers, unable to imagine ways in which communication with animals could come in handy, especially compared to what other students could do. On the other hand, backing out seemed like an even greater humiliation, and so Amira gritted her teeth and did the best she could for her squad. She chose to join Surge's "Waywards" squad, and was granged the codename "Faun".

Timeskip and the Last Stand
Amira managed to surprise even herself in the weekly squad competitions. Fervor, her squad leader, turned out to be the competitive sort and worked closely with Amira to come up with ways to use her animal telepathy to their advantage, particularly when it came to scouting. They also discovered that her powers included slightly increased agility and stamina, as well as sharpened senses, which she capitalized on as often as possible. Her self confidence grew steadily with time, causing a bump in her grades and social life at the same time. By her second year she confirmed pervasive rumours that she and classmate Joe Beaudry were dating.

Amira did not participate in the events that would become known as the Last Stand of the X-Men. Teleported into the future, Amira declined Anole's offer to help him build a safe haven for mutants in Wakanda. Instead, she and her boyfriend Joe chose to strike out on their own to live a life in hiding.

Amira's first choice was to try to take shelter with her family in Toronto, but as laws criminalizing the X-gene passed in North America and throught most of the world, life in the big city seemed too dangerous, and she dared not risk dragging her family into her problems. Instead, she reluctantly agreed to follow Joe into the wilderness of Northern Canada.

Powers and Abilities
Amira is a Beta-level mutant, and may possess a rare secondary mutation.

Her primary mutant power is that of animal telepathy. Amira can contact and manipulate only simple or instinctual minds, such as those of animals. Her abilities work most strongly with mammalian minds, but she has demonstrated the ability to direct the alien minds of insects. Accordingly, her abilities may extend to the minds of more intelligent beings when they are in an instinct-driven state, such as extreme fear, panic, or disorientation. Thanks to training she received at the Xavier Institute, Amira can read and implant thoughts and emotions, share or alter sensory information, and even subsume direct control over the motor functions of minds within her purview.

Additionately, and perhaps separately to her telepathic powers, Amira possesses the ability to "awaken" mutations in animals. The exact nature and scope of this ability is not yet understood, but it appears to work both ways, allowing her to take on characteristics of animals with which she has been in contact.