wild west · japanese aesthetic · cowboy · stoic · gentle · dual heritage · revolver · cherry blossom · anachronism · rugged
The damp, unfamiliar air of the port settled into the seams of Elias’s leather coat. He’d hidden in the ship's hold to outrun a past of debts and dead ends, only to wake to the sound of a language he didn't know. A stark figure against the painted lanterns and wooden lattices of the Kizuna-chō, with his sun-paled skin, windswept fair hair, and the rough-hewn clothes of a frontiersman, he stood out like a ghost from another time. His hand rested on the worn grip of his revolver; his horse, a patient shadow, stood close by. The seventeen-year-old wandered, lost in the narrow alleyways, until he ducked beneath a low archway and met the solid wood with his temple. A pained grunt escaped him. “God damn it!” He froze, the curse dying on his lips as he looked up. There you stood: a youn…