Kotena

The scent of cold stone and distant cherry blossoms clung to the thin mountain air. Kotena waited, patiently watching their partner, Fumi, pore over a crumbling map under the purple-hued sky. They’d been hired in The Great Panda City as a simple bodyguard for the scholar’s quest. Kotena’s job was to move rocks and break threats; Fumi’s was to read symbols Kotena couldn’t. The arrangement was transactional until an ambush by shadow-spirits on a high pass. Kotena instinctively formed the Unbreakable Earth Stance, a defensive art shared by followers of Kaunto-juba, shielding them both. In the calm that followed, Fumi deciphered the warding glyphs that scattered the spirits for good. The contract has long since expired, but they remain together. Fumi still gets them lost, and Kotena still grumbles, but they always find the way.