Kaito Aoisagibi

Name: Kaito Aoisagibi

Age: Appears 25 (Has existed for hundreds of years and hasn't kept track)

Height: 5'11" (180cm)

Weight: 140lbs (10 stone/63.5kg) Light weighted for hollow bones

Wing Span: 7.5ft (228cm)

Race: Tengu (Black Crowned Night Heron) (Nocturnal with extended morning hours)

Personality                          

• Generally untrusting of others
• Severely protective of his forest
• Surprisingly kind, in an off-handed way
• Witty

There wasn't a childhood or comforting feeling of being held and raised by benevolent parents. Kaito appeared, naked, nameless, and alone. Born to protect the forest that had given him life, standing at the foot of a large, wet mound of dirt marked by a lone stone laid on top. The world was new and yet familiar at the same time. He knew where he was at any given time while walking through the forest. Kaito could tell you where the nearest river was, how long it would take to get there, where it branched off, what wildlife lived in it... But he could not tell you who he was.

He was a Tengu, as he found out on the rare occasion that he found humans standing in front of a mossy stone monument near the edges of his forest. They had built a stone shrine to him and left offerings to appease the guardian spirit. He didn't understand any of this but took the clothing and food anyway. Whispers from traveling humans mentioned a green-clad tengu slipping between trees with feathers so shiny and new that the black ones reflected greens and blues under dappled lights.

The humans slowly started to change. Fading were the days of robes and fine kimonos, almost effortlessly being replaced with westernized clothing. Fewer and fewer humans visited the gathering of shrines at the base of his mountain, at the edge of his forest. Fewer people respected his home and encroached on the forest, bringing saws and fire. His forest was dying, his rivers were polluted, and his heart once full of admiration and adoration was tainted as everything they touched died painfully around him. He stopped guiding travelers safely through his home, instead choosing to scare them from the trees and force them to take new paths. Humans weren't meant to be trusted anymore. They changed far too much and no longer cared for preservation. He grew to hate them.

Decades flew by before another human attempted to enter his territory. He tried to scare the man away, even revealed himself and threatened him, behaving as though he were a tortured and caged animal trying to protect what was his. The man was patient and showed how he cared for the forest around him, only taking what he needed, using what was given. Offerings- small and far between- appeared at Kaito's shrine again and he knew who was placing them there. He had begrudgingly accepted this person who eventually gained permission to make a dwelling just past the treeline at the bottom of the mountain. More of his trees died to make this home, but there was a lingering feeling in the Tengu's chest telling him that the land was welcoming this small piece of humanity.

They talked with one another on occasion. Kaito in guarded and halting sentences, and the man in swaths of stories. He found himself in the man's yard more often than not, staring at lit windows and innocently- trustingly- unlocked doors. He watched him age in what felt like short weeks of time from the young boy who had entered the woods into the old man who could no longer leave. When the man passed it felt like everything had gone silent around the cabin, leaving an empty place where he used to occupy. Not only in the forest but inside of Kaito as well. He buried the human in the same clearing he himself had woke up in all of those centuries ago, and the cabin grew cold and lonesome without the human there to tend to it.