Background
Born from the whispers of the wind and the pulse of the earth, Nyx Solras never knew the warmth of family or the comfort of a name spoken with love. He emerged from the celestial currents alone, a Yokai Ryu with no lineage to call his own. Unlike other Ryu who carried the weight of tradition and ancestry, Nyx was an anomaly, an untethered spirit wandering the mortal and celestial realms in search of purpose.From the moment he became self-aware, he was different. His magic did not flow with the raw force of storms or the vastness of the ocean, as was common for his kind. Instead, his power manifested in ink; liquid darkness that coiled around his fingers, shaping itself into ethereal beasts and fleeting phantoms, only to dissolve back into nothingness. His creations were beautiful but impermanent, a cruel reflection of his own existence. No matter how desperately he tried to mold something lasting, it always faded away.Long ago, Nyx found solace in a small, hidden village on the edge of the world, where humans and spirits coexisted in fragile harmony. There, he discovered the quiet joy of cooking, of turning raw ingredients into something nourishing, something real. For the first time, he felt as though he belonged. The villagers welcomed him, and though they feared his true nature, they revered his presence, believing him to be a divine blessing upon their home.
It was there that he met a quiet and kind-hearted artisan who specialized in calligraphy and painting. Unlike the others in the village, who whispered of yokai with wary eyes, Isamu did not fear Nyx. Instead, he was fascinated by him; by the way his ink-like magic danced through the air, by the way he shaped his creations with such effortless grace.At first, Nyx dismissed Isamu’s presence as nothing more than a passing curiosity. But over time, he found himself drawn to the human’s steady hands, to the way he moved a brush across parchment with the same reverence Nyx gave to his own creations. Isamu saw beauty in everything, even in Nyx’s darkness, and for the first time, Nyx allowed himself to believe that perhaps he was something more than just a fleeting shadow.Their love was slow and unspoken, woven into the quiet moments they shared. Isamu guiding Nyx’s hands over parchment, their fingers stained with ink; Nyx stealing glimpses of Isamu’s smile as he worked late into the night. There was no need for declarations, no grand confessions. Love existed in the space between them, in the way Isamu would leave out an extra cup of tea, knowing Nyx would appear, and in the way Nyx would carve out protective sigils in ink along Isamu’s walls, ensuring no harm would come to him.But peace is a fragile thing.One fateful night, a warlord seeking power descended upon the village, demanding the favor of the dragon that resided there. When Nyx refused to bow, they slaughtered the people he had come to love, and even the one he would call his heart; burning the village to the ground in a show of cruelty. In his grief, his ink turned to poison, his sorrow manifesting as a tide of darkness that swallowed the warlord and his men, their screams lost to the abyss. But vengeance did not bring back the dead. He stood among the ruins of what had been his first and only home, his hands stained not with ink, but with the weight of his failure.From that moment on, Nyx wandered aimlessly, never settling, never allowing himself to grow close to another. He spent his days creating ink-bound phantoms of the villagers he had lost, only to watch them dissolve, over and over again. Cooking became his only tether to a life he could never reclaim—a ritual that reminded him of warmth, even when his soul felt cold.Bound by a contract he never saw coming, Nyx lost the last shred of freedom he had left. Now, he serves not by choice, but by obligation, his spirit as caged as his ink-born creations. He does not kneel, nor does he submit fully, his rebellion takes quieter forms. A stolen trinket here, a dish prepared out of spite instead of care, an ink-borne creature that escapes his grasp for just a little too long. Small acts of defiance in the face of captivity.But beneath the mischief, beneath the mask of indifference, Nyx remains haunted by his past. He is a dragon without a sky, a spirit without a home. And no matter how many meals he prepares or how many ink-bound memories he recreates, he knows that some things, some wounds, can never truly be healed.