[color=#ffd500][CENTER][img]https://i.imgur.com/878zjU0.png[/img][/CENTER]
[table][row][/row][row][cell][center][url=https://www.pixiv.net/en/artworks/68428532][img]https://i.imgur.com/bgvdz8g.png[/img][/url]
[color=2E2C2C][sup]_______________________________________________[/sup][/color][/center][hider=// INFO][indent][sub][b]P E R S O N A L  D E T A I L S[/b][/SUB]

[sup][COLOR=SILVER]
[b]Full Name[/b][COLOR=#807B84] - Esfir Konishi[/COLOR]
[b]Age[/b][COLOR=#807B84] - 19[/COLOR]
[B]Gender[/B][COLOR=#807B84] - Female[/COLOR]
[b]Occupation[/b][COLOR=#807B84] - Musician[/COLOR][/color][/SUP]

[color=#2e2c2c]-[/color][/indent][/hider]
[hider=// PERSONALITY][indent][SUB][b]P E R S O N A L I T Y[/b][/sub]

[sup][COLOR=SILVER][b]Diligent[/b]
[COLOR=#807B84]Esfir practices. She practices daily, her devotion to her craft continues whether day or night, rain or shine. There is an obsession in the way she pursues her goal, one that straddles the line between healthy and unhealthy. One's past determines one's future, and one's present determines one's past. With that in mind, the effort she puts in now will only improve her life moving forward, so no effort should be spared. Her craft continues to be honed, each note plucked, each word sung bringing her closer and closer to...[/COLOR][/COLOR]

[COLOR=SILVER][b]Reserved[/b]
[COLOR=#807B84]Esfir endures. Her thoughts are her own, her dreams are her own, and the secrets that others share with her are secrets that she safeguards as intensely as her own. A wonderful confidant, a mirror that only reflects what others wish to see, she continues to listen, continues to watch, all while she plays her music and sings her songs. It is a rare virtue in one so young, to have a predilection towards a comfortable silence, and yet be predisposed towards such a public craft, but perhaps such contradictions only...[/COLOR][/COLOR]

[COLOR=SILVER][b]Charming[/b]
[COLOR=#807B84]Esfir smiles. Her voice is quiet but firm, her gesticulations controlled but warm. When she tells a story, she tells it with the entirety of her being, possessed by her craft. When she whittles away time with friends, her eyes dance to the world around them, drawing in beauty and comedy hidden on the side of the road. Perhaps there's a bit of stinginess. Perhaps there is a bit of selfishness. But those, perhaps, are just the flaws of her youth, fractures that give her friendliness golden veins to endear her to those surrounding her. Every quality has its place...[/COLOR][/COLOR]
[/SUP][/indent][/hider]
[hider=// SKILLSET][indent][SUB][b]S K I L L S E T[/b][/sub]

[sup][COLOR=SILVER][b]The Musician[/b]
[COLOR=#807B84]Esfir plays a four-stringed instrument. She's self-taught. She's practiced for her entire life. Her skill, for all that, is only serviceable but quite imaginative. Unconstrained by prescriptive learning, she draws her inspiration from the sounds of the valley, imitating the scattering of leaves and the trickling of stream with voice and string. With a proper teacher, she could be further along than where she is. But meandering is a pleasure reserved for those who are loved, and she will take full advantage of that.[/COLOR][/COLOR]

[COLOR=SILVER][b]The Liar[/b]
[COLOR=#807B84]A good storyteller is a good liar, and Esfir is both. A solitary teardrop to create a scene of beautiful sadness. A belly-aching laugh to formulate camaraderie. An apologetic wince to encourage others to visit another day. Her reservations and her charm melt together into the fiction she weaves, at once candid and delusory. She does not demand truths, but rather requests faith. Never for harm though; only for the benefits of all. Ignorance is a pleasure best enjoyed alongside validation, and she will gladly offer such to her patrons. [/COLOR][/COLOR]

[COLOR=SILVER][b]The Traveler[/b]
[COLOR=#807B84]Her inspiration comes from around her, but she has long inscribed the sounds of the village into her mind. Esfir, for her craft, has learned to travel out when her patronages allow for it, trekking through the brush of the valley in order to look for what she seeks. A unique sound. A unique scene. Anything that could be used. Anything that could remind. She's neither fast, nor is she strong, but Esfir has learned her own pacing, learned how to move and sleep safely. Adventure is a pleasure best enjoyed when one is equipped to face dangers, but alas, Esfir eschews violence and thus only [i]travels[/i].[/COLOR][/COLOR]

[/SUP][/indent][/hider]
[/cell][cell][b]Physical Description[/b]
[color=#807B84][indent]Standing at 5’1, Esfir cuts a slender figure, her skin sun-kissed and creamy, her eyes a deep magenta hue. She keeps her long, platinum blonde hair in a braid, tuck away under patterned cloths when necessary. Her chest is modest, her legs well-built, her fingernails cut short. Though her small smiles have a certain air of mystery to it, never let it be said that Esfir has a beautiful set of teeth: though relatively clean, they’re misaligned, an overbite that caused her plenty of grief as a young child. As an adult, she just opts to not open her mouth too wide when singing.

Her attire is a selection of cheap fabrics that, over the years, she has dyed and patterned until they resembled something exotic and eye-catching. There are a few shiny trinkets and baubles that she wears on an on-and-off basis, depending on the occasion and who she's likely to see. Her shoes are less remarkable compared to the rest of her attire, naught more but than a pair of sturdy jika-tabi, but she treats them more preciously than the rest. Clothing is easily replaceable. A good pair of shoes are not.
[/indent][/color]
[b]Character Conceptualization[/b]
[color=#807B84][indent]Her father left her three things to remember him by.

Her name, constructed of uncommon sounds that did not relate to any particular words.

His instrument, which had one string too many to be a shamisen.

And a half-forgotten memory, a lullaby that arrested her soul even in her infancy.

Sometimes, Esfir would remember it in its entirety within a dream, only to wake up with the vestiges of it slipping through the gaps of her mind. Sometimes, Esfir would catch a bar or a phrase from the song of a bird or the breathing of a mountain, only for the notes to be drowned out by the noise of the world. Never long enough to give it back fully. Always long enough to tempt her to continue.

It’s a worthless pursuit, for a worthless woman.
[hr]
In an agrarian society such as Heiseina, there is no demand for music. The radio tower warbles out music of greater complexity than achievable by a single performer, and the notes of a stringed instrument does little to chase away the more immediate desires of the body. If one had time to idle away, they could fish instead. Hunt. Forage. Till their fields and grow their crops. Any talent for the arts should be used to fuel the pursuit of an [i]artisan[/i]. In a village of one hundred, it’s much too easy to notice when people did not do their part, and easier still to malign them for it.

Brats who besmirched their family’s name. Scions who would not surrender their wombs. Outsiders dark and strange.

But Esfir, a girl with a strange name who did nothing but pluck at the strings of a strange instrument, who could not produce a single physical good, who was dependent solely on the charity of the villagers like an aged beggar with no family to care for them, was [i]beloved[/i]. Was it her openness, her willingness to fraternize with whomever walked past? Was it her filial piety, her desire to care for a bedridden, homebound mother? Was it her dedication, how her music never silenced itself no matter the weather, the season, the occasion? From childhood to adolescence, she sat somewhere in the village, strumming out curious, delightful notes. At the river’s edge, for the fishermen to time their net-dragging to. Out on farmland, entertaining farmers enjoying their noontime respite. In the village’s plaza, melting away time as craftsmen waited for work. When did malignance shift to curiosity to endearment?

No one really knows, and few linger upon such thoughts. Esfir is a strange girl, but a good girl, they say. Her mother can’t teach her any crafts, and no one was certain who her father was. No doubt, there was some family shame, some misery that made Esfir such a private individual, but that was fine, and it wasn’t as if she became rich off her charity. Just food enough to fill out her frame, with some extra gifts when her unique craft suited the unique occasions. The apothecary had more wealth to be jealous of. The Fujiwaras had more power to be jealous of.  And there were more egregious persons within the village to malign.

Her kindness is given for free, her craft is for all to enjoy, her desires are simple and just, and thus, she is loved.

Only in the occasional anecdote does anyone remember her mother, Taeko Konishi, anymore. It is never a good time to visit that bedridden woman, and Esfir is always there to apologetically turn well-wishers and physicians away at the door. Questions emerge, but the desire for domestic privacy too, is a simple and just desire.
[/indent][/color]
[b]Other Information[/b]
[color=#807B84][indent]Occasionally, Esfir scrounges together enough coinage to hire a woodsman to accompany her through the more treacherous sections of the valley's wilderness, in search of fresh inspiration.

Over the years, Esfir's four-stringed instrument has changed greatly. Neither her nor Anayo are experts at the craft, but the two of them have on occasion scrounged through scrap and ruins to find a suitable replacement.

Though cautioned against it by more reputable folk, Esfir plies her craft to those within Heiseina who're considered less favorable as well. In these...exchanges, she asks for nothing, but is always alert for something.
[/indent][/color]
[/cell][/row][/table][/COLOR]