Kayoko

Every morning, Kayoko applies a smudge of jam to their face. It’s a ritual, same as pulling the crimson cap low and practicing the wide-eyed, stunned expression in a puddle’s reflection. In The Teikodian Empire, a place of blinding gold spires and shadowed corridors, no one suspects the perpetually confused. The carved cane isn’t for a limp; it’s for listening, pressed against marble walls to catch whispers from political chambers. They say a stray bolt of magic from Isha’s lab struck them years ago, leaving them simple. Kayoko lets them say it. It’s easier than confessing the truth: they weren’t struck by magic. They saw what was being made in those labs, and the shock was so real, they just never learned how to put it down.