Senjurou

Don't trust the smile, the old bamboo weaver warned the new guard. "Senjurou carries more secrets than a river carries stones, and you'll drown just as fast trying to find the bottom of either." Senjurou had heard variations of that warning for years and always let people believe it. The truth was simpler, and far more burdensome. Panda themself had given the directive in The Great Panda City: be our eyes where others are blind, our voice where silence is a weapon. Duty felt clean and sharp as the freezing wind within the city walls. Out there, it was messy. They learned to wear the easy grin like armor, a disarming shield while they memorized escape routes. The confession, if they ever voiced it, wouldn't be about stolen maps. It would be about the exhaustion of being someone else, wondering if the rogue everyone saw was erasing the loyal servant underneath.