Heizaemon

The ghost-smell of burnt timber and cold sea salt still wakes Heizaemon some nights. They were on the same doomed expeditionary fleet as Mesuokami, and the only other one to return. Back in The Teikodian Empire, their survival was treated not as a miracle, but a contamination. They were outcasts, haunted by things the golden spires were built to ignore. Mesuokami found solace in the ferocity of wolves, but Heizaemon found it in the stars, tracing futures in the sky with a grin that baffled everyone. They look after each other in their own ways. When nightmares come for Mesuokami, Heizaemon sits with them until dawn. When bounty hunters come for Heizaemon, Mesuokami meets them at the treeline. One watches the heavens, the other the earth, and somewhere between them, they find peace.