Riyoka

In The Heart of the Forest, they say a mask can hide a face, but not an empty seat at the dinner table. Riyoka wears the red panda mask of a sibling who walked into the wilder, greener woods one season and never returned. While the amber-leaved clearing moved on with its songs and feasts, Riyoka could not. They traded dancing for tracking, their gentle nature hardening with each new scar earned from territorial beasts and treacherous ravines. They carry their katana not for glory, but as a tool to carve a path through a world that took someone from them. After months of searching, they finally found a clue: a tattered scroll clutched in the roots of a pale, unfamiliar tree. It was not a map home, but a desperate drawing of a crimson sky.