Reaching for the Psychedelic Thesaurus

Recently, Ian was working on some project - most likely his long-running Pokemon writing/drawing effort, with its reams of new Pokemon diagrams and descriptions - his own contribution to the genre - being amassed on the bookcase in his bedroom.  In any case, he needed help finding the perfect word for a quality that somehow wasn't really very familiar to me:

"I'm looking for a word that's kind of a mix between 'shy' and 'feisty.'"

(October, 2013)