Chito the Singing

In The Great Panda City, they have a saying: a song without purpose is just wind through bamboo. Chito the Singing is called a heretic because their purpose confounds the Panda Council. They worship no forbidden gods; their reverence is for the steam rising from a teacup, the chatter of merchants, the weariness in a guard's shoulders at dawn. Wearing a simple crimson cap and poncho, they wander the city's high-altitude streets, their carved cane tapping out a rhythm only they can hear. They gather the small, overlooked moments and weave them into song. The great minstrel Shijin once heard them humming by the river and stopped, not to reprimand, but to listen. "The grandest tales are just small heartbeats strung together," Shijin later told them. "You are singing the string."