Despite the larger-than-life persona she tries to project, Keiko is in fact quite the opposite. Standing at only five feet in height, she is shorter than most girls in the valley, and fittingly lithe. Her features are soft and child-like, accentuated by her large, chestnut colored eyes that twinkle with a usually playful mirth. Framing her curiously innocent profile is an untidy mane of dark, lustrous brown hair, always sticking up this way and that, just as wild as the girl who bears it. The thick locks help highlight the relative paleness of her skin by comparison, smooth and unblemished despite the dirt beneath her fingernails or the devil-may-care manner she carries herself—an indication of her scholarly background, and one of the few she bears.

In spite of her potential for beauty, Keiko does not consider herself to be especially feminine, and does not dress as such. Her wardrobe is typically comprised of loose, comfortable kimono of a subdued color paired with the typical, tucked hakama of the village's laborers. Knee length black tabi and accompanying straw sandals clad her delicate feet, and she usually dawns a long, sleeveless haori when out and about in the village, the mon of her adoptive family painstakingly sewn into its back.

Keiko's story is one of an outsider. Having been born beyond the idyllic peace of the village, in a hamlet that as far as anyone knows—or will never know—befell some sad fate or another, Keiko was dealt the black mark of a stranger despite having only ever known the lake and fields of Heiseina. She was but a toddler when she arrived, brought home by the village's Signkeeper one chilly fall day and taken in as a daughter in spite of their lack of relation.

In all ways, she was raised as a Seimei, a respected family of lore keepers who had for generations carefully catalogued and disseminated the Signs that kept life in Heiseina running smoothly. Yet she was never quite afforded the respect of her mother or late grandfather. In a community so small and traditional, any external entity was met with suspicion. Suspicion which colored the young girl's view of the utopia she called home from the earliest years.

It made raising an already difficult little girl all the harder. Precocious from the get-go, Keiko proved herself to be a bright, willful child. One aware enough to recognize the scorn that was leveled her way and respond in kind. She quickly developed the reputation of a troublesome little nuisance, in spite of her mother's best attempts to keep her in line while simultaneously fulfilling her own duties as Signkeeper.

Acting out was all the young Keiko could do to rebel against the injustices she felt—Heiseina was a picturesque settlement, where everybody knew everybody and everyone got along. But nobody seemed to want to get along with her. Just as they rejected her, she rejected them, and her developmental years were marked by an ever growing divide as her own actions worked to further ostracized her from her peers and their families. It wasn't until she was ten or eleven years old—when she began her Sign training—that things began to change, however slightly. Rambunctious as she was, her mother had deemed that she should begin putting her excess energy into learning the family's trade, an excellent decision in hindsight.

Inquisitive and curious, Keiko took to Signcraft like a duck to water. It occupied her keen mind, and provided her an avenue for praise in place of scolding she had become accustomed to. More importantly, it also sent a message to the community; she would be a useful contributor to the village as a whole, and would one day succeed her mother in her capacity of Signkeeper. As she grew from troublesome girl to quarrelsome young woman, Signcraft became her outlet and safe haven, something she excelled at that gave her worth, and made others acknowledge her even if they had misgivings in accepting her.

But no longer is she a girl. Now a woman grown, Keiko must contend with a fast approaching future. One of responsibility and dignity, of finding acceptance and belonging among those she had subtly railed against her entire life. If only she knew just how important finding that acceptance would be, in the trials to come.

Cooler than you.