Fua of the Young Grove

Fua wears a chef's kimono, but the blade on their back was not forged for dicing vegetables. The youngest chimps in The Heart of the Forest know them only as a cook who can make dragon-shaped dumplings. They are the reason Fua is called 'of the Young Grove'—a name earned by nurturing saplings and wild imaginations. Passing warriors, however, see the thousand-yard stare in their chimped eyes and the dragonslayer hilt over their shoulder. They whisper that the wrinkles around Fua's mouth come from gritting their teeth through battles that scarred the land. Neither story is the whole truth. Few remember the affliction that puppeted skilled fighters like them and Taihi, forcing them into combat. Fua’s hands were not their own when they felled those beasts. The blade remembers the fire; Fua chooses to remember the taste of a perfectly ripe berry.