Kayame

Kayame remembered the feel of wet clay under their fingers, cold and yielding, long before it was fired into the shape of a grinning fox. They were an artist then, a maker of beautiful things, not a warrior squinting through the perpetual fogs of the scorched plateaus. They copied the design from a fleeting, chilling memory of a powerful deceiver, hoping an echo of that power could fool the ghostly illusions that plagued the valleys. The fine haori they wore was meant for ceremony, not for shedding the endless rain that slicked the skeletal remains of ancient beasts. But survival demanded a new art. The mask worked, turning aside the phantom dragons and trickster spirits. The artist's hands learned a blade, and the gentle eyes learned suspicion. The clay no longer remembers their touch, but the warrior behind the mask remembers everything.