Inku (Galaxy-Feathers's New Chapter)

Profile

📘 Inku

Species: Enchanted Bookling
Temperament: Curious, clingy, and quietly sentimental
Size: About the width of Tanzan’s paw—small enough to ride in a satchel, big enough to bonk someone in the face if needed

✨ Personality:

Inku is a bundle of fluttery affection wrapped in star-dusted parchment. They’re silent, but incredibly expressive—pages ruffling like a heartbeat, glowing script dancing across their parchment when emotions run high. They’re obsessed with joy—not just Tanzan’s, but anyone’s—and have a habit of gently nudging sad Tatsukoi with encouraging bookmarks or offering a memory they recorded of laughter, pressed between their pages like dried flowers.

Despite their cuteness, Inku is fiercely protective of Tanzan. If someone threatens their creator or dims their light, Inku will literally close shut and refuse to open for anyone but Tanzan. They’re surprisingly good at smacking people with their hardback cover when necessary. Book-fu is real.

🌙 How Tanzan Met Inku:

It was raining in Thistlehollow—not the kind that soaks the streets, but the soft, misty kind that turns the whole town into a watercolor. Tanzan had found shelter under the crooked awning of an old stone bridge. They were supposed to be heading to the healer’s garden, but instead sat alone with a half-finished journal spell pressed to their chest. The day had been long, full of faked smiles and heavy words. Tanzan, usually so good at holding everyone else together, couldn’t find it in themself to be cheerful anymore.

To cope, they did what they always did—wrote. But this time, instead of recording healing spells or market errands, Tanzan wrote a memory: a moment from when they were younger, when their mother had laughed so hard she cried, chasing Tanzan through a patch of silverbloom reeds. That joy was pure. Untouchable. Unrepeatable. Tanzan finished writing, closed the book, and whispered, “I miss that feeling.”

And something heard them. The magic in the book stirred—not from a spell, but from the emotion etched into the ink. A page fluttered. The book shivered. Then, in a quiet flicker of starlight, it blinked open... and breathed. It didn’t speak, but it hovered beside Tanzan with a soft warmth, like a campfire glow tucked into paper form. The crescent on its cover pulsed. Tanzan stared, startled—but instead of fear, they felt… understood. The book gently nudged their arm, as if to say:

“I remember it too. Show me more.”

They named it Inku—because the name felt like a sigh, a giggle, and a promise all in one. Since then, Inku has followed Tanzan wherever they go, recording their joy, replaying laughter when the days are dark, and quietly urging them to never forget the light they bring into the world.