Shikishi

The endless drizzle tastes of rust and old bone on Shikishi’s tongue, a flavor they know intimately. Everything in The Dragon Wastelands eventually rots, but their helmet, marked with the sigil of an unknown faction, does not. They awoke wearing it, mud in their throat and memories scoured clean, the strange metal already feeling like their true skull. It’s a prison and a history book with all the pages torn out. Every dawn, they trace the forgotten war paint across their face, using the helmet’s rain-slicked surface as a mirror. Their form is unstable, a chaotic echo of the outcast Hen'i-tai, and only the crushing weight of the helm keeps them from dissolving into the fog. The sigil on its brow is flawless. The face reflected beneath it is anything but.