>>58877103>The line between adorable and extra depressing is very thin with this iteration of Kiki...I don't think its hard to make an adorably depressing Kieran. He's ripe for the picking, with a tragic backstory and the rogueish looks of a pint-sized warrior, all wrapped up in a childrens' game. The Brothers Grimm did write a book or three on haunting fairy tales, after all, and Ring Around the Roses is about the Plague.
Kieran is possibly the last child of Kitakami, pureborn or otherwise, and other than his older sister, secluding him from even the rare visitors to his lands, he has no one to talk to or to play with. Religious rites only he doesn't understand the history of, signs only he can't comprehend the reasoning for, a festival only he has to be taught how to perform during. It's a Carmine-shaped wonder he hasn't grown mature for his age, with all of his examples being older folk.
And then you come along. You, the sword that slices his Gordian Knot and leaves him to tie the strings back together. How he doesn't hate you, I do not know.
Do you think he's cried himself to sleep at night, thinking about the stories he's read from the local Library, wondering what a friend is? Are they as nice as the pages say?
Don't break his heart. For what little he's been gifted, it would make quite the mess.
