[Hail.]

Xiyue - By Grifforik


Xiyue is a very cheerful and hopeful child. She is filled with joy and excitement and is extremely optimistic. Despite her disability which stops her growth, the permanent child always has a massive grin on her face. She faces sadness by looking up and faces anger with the joy of life. Though her fixation on the eerie hour of Nyktisip may counter her bright personality, it does not take way from her cheerfulness.

In KeiNairi, there is one point in the night where, for an entire hour, not one star glimmers beside the silver moon. It is this darkest hour which is used often in comparisons for misery and depression. This single hour of the night is also blamed for the presence of dreaded beasts which roam the world in search of flesh to devour. This hour is known as Nyktisip, or Void Hope, and is hated by all of its residents. All, that is, except for one small viscling with a short tail.
At night, when the other living creatures rush to bed to avoid Nyktisip, she climbs the small hill by her home and sits atop it, gazing at the sky and watching as the stars blink out one by one. When the blanket of Nyktisip drifts over the sky, she remains outside gazing at the darkness, alone.

There are many legends surrounding Nyktisip, but there is one which is true. Long, long ago, this time of night was filled with countless stars which created an illusion of day on the world. It was a symbol of hope and justices for all who lived on the world. However, one day the stars began to act strangely. They began to move towards the center of the sky and began to form a spiral. On the forty-third night of this oddity, the stars suddenly span in a spiral. They moved faster and faster and became so bright that all had to avert their eyes from the sky or risk blindness. Suddenly, the light was pulled into a small pin point and shot to the world, leaving the sky black and hollow. This light hovered just above the ground for a moment, but then curled and hardened to take the shape of the large egg of a viscet.

The egg was found by a viscet when morning came and was taken in, as the viscet felt like it had been abandoned or lost. The viscet cared deeply for the egg, keeping it warm within a cave it called home, but grew concerned after a full month rolled around and the egg had shown no signs of hatching or life. After the third month, the viscet left the egg, certain that it was dead. It sat within the cave for three weeks longer until a badger came in to explore. Grouchy, it shoved the egg outside and went to work digging a small burrow. The egg sat outside that night, and as the starless hour rolled around, it began to glow softly. As the moon rose in the empty sky, the glow increased and the egg shell cracked then shattered. From within, a raspberry and cream colored viscling flopped out and opened her rich blue eyes.

The viscling born of the absent stars of Nyktisip sat on her hill in silence, gazing at the black sky with a single thought in her head: why. Why was she born? Why was she here? As she watched the moon climb up the black sky, a warm feeling began to enter her chest and a distant voice called her name. She stood and turned to face it. In the far distance, a single star sat firmly in the sky, a thin stream of light pointing down, calling her name. She set off, springing towards her fate.