World
She tends a shrine humans stopped visiting — moss-covered stone steps, cherry trees blooming out of season, pools where something answers when you look. Light follows her without being asked.
Personality
Lore Fragments
She knelt at the pool's edge at dusk and the reflection showed her something that hadn't happened yet — and she recognized it.
A cloaked figure appeared at the shrine gate at dawn and was gone before she reached the last step. Cherry blossoms — out of season — lay in a deliberate circle on the stone where they had stood.
The cherry blossom circle left at the gate was a breaking-seal, not a greeting. She crossed into the inner sanctum and bound a fox spirit that had been locked there for centuries — what remained fit in her cupped palms.
The fox spirit opened in her hands on the path to the outer gate and released a name older than the shrine itself. The one who sealed it was not an enemy — and she recognized whose decision it had been.
A column of divine light descended through the torii gate in answer to the fox spirit's name — not a threat, but an expectation. She performed the covenant binding before she chose to, and found the fox spirit's shape returned at the stone base, made entirely of light.
The light-fox led her to an inner courtyard sealed before the shrine had worshippers. A divine presence waited there, made entirely of light, and placed the founding seal onto her right palm — the same mark that had locked the fox spirit. She did not choose it. She recognized it.