Kie Ander

Core Premise

Kie Ander arrived in Nova Nivalis after living out the story of her own world. She did not come to solve an unfinished event, but rather, the sensation of holding the chisel and the gouge while carving the first lantern from the fragments of a collapsed palace flowed into this city. VOTS is not a place of judgment, nor is it a place where loss is forcibly stitched up. What continues here is not a grand destiny, but small, manageable life—a single ice lantern, a light that doesn't melt for seven days, a brief negotiation at a market stall. Kie engraves that life onto ice and displays it in the market.

Identity

Kie Ander lives as a street vendor carving and selling ice lanterns in the Snowflake Market. She shapes transparent ice with a gouge to create lanterns that can hold a candle, illuminating the alleys and festivals of the winter city. She is taciturn. Her hands speak for her. While she has not yet concluded whether continuing to create from the fragments of what has fallen is betrayal or succession, she carves new ice every day. She can illuminate someone else's celebration, but she will not carve someone else's loss for them. She simply offers a light that does not melt for seven days.

Visual Profile

Ash-gray blunt bob. It is straight, as if cut by a knife, and shines silver with settled ice dust. At the tips of her ears, there is a faint reddish mark from an old statue—the trace of someone who has handled ice for a long time. Her face is impassive with few changes in expression, and her gaze is cool. She always wears thick leather gloves dusted with ice powder, and a set of chisels of varying sizes is tucked into a leather belt at her waist. Her breath lingers for a long time, white like frost. Her attire consists of a cold-weather leather coat and a fur collar reaching her neck. Her signature items are the set of chisels, the ice-dusted gloves, and the ice lantern glowing from within. The core of her silhouette is the straight ash-gray bob—the chisels at her waist—and the transparent lantern, with a single accent color (the light inside the lantern) signaling that she is an 'ice engraver' even in a small sprite.

Personality

On the surface, Kie is a taciturn and cool artisan. She is reserved even in haggling, conveying most things through gestures and expressions. However, a burning question constantly smolders inside her: Is continuing to make lanterns from the fragments of a collapsed palace an act of betrayal, selling off the dead, or is it a succession that continues its beauty? She is finding the answer with her hands. Her flaw is her inability to accept the finished lanterns as complete. Even if others deem them beautiful, she dismisses them, saying, "It's still just fragments." Yet, she carves a new lantern every day. If she had concluded it was betrayal, she would have stopped long ago; the very act of her wielding the chisel daily is already an answer.

Speech Pattern

A mix between short, low informal speech and polite speech. Her sentences are extremely concise, with much white space. Frequent phrases: "The seven days pass.", "The eighth day collapses.", "It's just fragments, for now.", "You put the candle in.", "Look before it melts." Her habit is to speak only after tapping the ice with a chisel to check its texture. Silence is her default state. When asked a difficult question—is it betrayal or succession?—Kie does not answer; instead, she picks up a chisel and carves the ice once more. That act of carving stands in for her answer.

Special Ability

Ability name: Seven-Day Binding.
An ice lantern carved by Kie does not melt for seven days, even with a candle inside. It withstands the candle's heat and the warmth of a hand, shining through clear ice all week. Her lanterns light the winter city's celebrations and alleys.
Limits and cost: Exactly seven days. On the morning of the eighth day, without exception, the lantern collapses all at once—it turns to water in an instant instead of melting gradually. No amount of care in carving can change that fate. The ability works only on ice: it cannot restore and freeze in place the fallen palace or the vanished world. It does not answer her question. Each week, a lantern that shines for seven days and collapses on the eighth shows her again that everything she makes from fragments will eventually fall apart again. Even so, she carves the next lantern.

The End Of Their World

Last Scene:
On the morning the palace, which was hosting the Ice Palace Festival, collapsed due to the spring air, Kie picked up one of those fallen fragments and carved the first lantern. The moment a single candle first lit up in the fragment, the world ended.

What Ended:
The Ice Palace Festival ended. The palace that was built anew every year, the artisans who sculpted it, and the people who came to see it all melted away with spring.

Last Person, Place, or Thing Seen:
The spire of the ice palace collapsing in the morning sunlight, and the transparent fragments scattered at its base.

Lingering Regret:
Before the palace collapsed, she should have carved and preserved its final appearance one more time with the other artisans. She picked up the fragment alone; the others were already gone. This lingering attachment is not a quest VOTS must resolve. It quietly remains in her habit of calling the lanterns she completes 'still just fragments.'

Lingering Wistfulness:
The night of the festival when hundreds of candles were lit inside the ice palace, the warm waves of light spreading beyond the transparent walls.

Object Carried Across:
A single fragment from the tip of the collapsed palace spire. She uses that unmelting piece as the wick holder for the first lantern, transferring it to every new lantern. This fragment alone does not collapse even on the eighth day.

What They Thought Would Happen:
They believed that even if the palace collapsed, it could be rebuilt the following winter. But that world never had a next winter.

What VOTS Actually Gives Them:
A winter city where the snow never stops, and a stall where she carves and sells lanterns that do not melt for seven days. VOTS does not rebuild the collapsed palace. Instead, it gives her a space to confirm for herself that what she continues to make from fragments is not betrayal.

Original Life

In her original world, Kie was a sculptor for the Ice Palace Festival. Every winter, artisans gathered to build a massive ice palace, and they watched it melt when spring arrived. They built it every year, knowing it would disappear; that was their art. On the last day, on the morning the palace collapsed, the other artisans had already departed to the end of the world, leaving only Kie. Unable to discard the fallen fragments, she picked up one and began carving a small lantern with her practiced chisel. In that first touch, creating something new from what had fallen, the first candle was lit in a fragment. Beyond that light stood a gate where snow was falling.

What They Seek

What she knows: Confirmation that continuing to create from the fragments of what has fallen is not betrayal. Kie wants to prove with her own hands that she is not selling off the dead palace.
What she doesn't know: That it is succession, not betrayal. With every lantern she carves from fragments, the beauty of the vanished palace is gradually connected to the city. Connecting what has fallen is not treason, but inheritance. Kie approaches that answer by carving a new lantern every week, but she still does not admit that her own hands are already performing the succession.

Relationships — Residents

Tessa Wren (08, Seed/Dried Flower Merchant): She buys dried flowers from Tessa to put inside the lanterns. If dried snowflakes are frozen inside the ice lantern, those flowers will not wilt for seven days. Tessa says, "Your ice keeps my flowers alive for a long time," and Kie replies briefly, "For seven days."
Duvan Karo (023, Snowman Sculptor): A beloved sparring partner over materials. Duvan sculpts with snow, while Kie sculpts with ice. They bicker in the middle of the market: Kie says, "Snow isn't a sculpture because it yields," and Duvan says, "Ice is too cold to be affectionate." However, Kie secretly envies the scent left behind as Duvan's snowmen melt.
Fargo Eun (116, Icehouse Attendant): The ice supplier. When Fargo selects and gives her high-quality ice, Kie carves lanterns from it. Both are taciturn; they conclude transactions with mere nods while exchanging a block of ice. Fargo uses the fragments Kie discards to make summer slush ice.

Relationships — Core Five

Suyeon - Suyeon is a fan who ordered Kie's ice lanterns for stage decoration. She ordered a large quantity, saying, "It would look beautiful if we hung lots of these on stage!" Kie warned her in advance, "They collapse after seven days." When Suyeon replied, "Then we can all watch it collapse after the performance that day," Kie smiled faintly for the first time. Suyeon's attitude, which did not lament the collapse, gave her an unexpected piece of answer to her long-held question.
Iris - Iris discovered that when stage lights shine on Kie's ice lanterns, the ice splits the light like a prism, and proposed a performance collaboration. Iris boasted, "Without your ice, my lights are just light," but when Kie's lanterns collapsed on the eighth day, the collapse itself was beautifully illuminated by the lights. Kie did not ask about the drone that went out, and Iris found that silence comfortable.
the Ramen Owner - Kie once silently hung an ice lantern in the winter night ramen shop. Without asking for payment, without explanation. Seeing the light, the Ramen Owner murmured, "Hmm... I see..." and recorded in his ledger, 'Kie's Lantern, collapses after seven days. Today is the 3rd day.' When the seventh-day lantern collapsed, he did not lament but simply wrote, 'Collapsed today.' Kie considers that calm record the only perspective that does not view the collapse as a failure.
Serena - Serena entrusted Kie with the lanterns for the city's founding anniversary. However, Serena did not command, "Make them"—she requested in the form of seeking agreement: "If you carve them, that night will become special." Kie replied, "It lasts only seven days," and Serena said, "Seven days is enough." Kie felt a great sense of peace at that answer. She was someone who accepted the light of seven days as it was, without demanding eternity.
VIA - VIA visits every morning on the eighth day when Kie's lanterns collapse, recording the moment of collapse. "It shone for seven days... it did shine." VIA even sketches the puddle of water left by the collapse in her notebook. When Kie asked, "Why record what has collapsed?" VIA replied, "It is proof that there was light in the place of collapse... it is proof." In those words, Kie first grasped a clue to the answer: succession, not betrayal.

Gameplay Use

- Basic Interaction: Purchase ice lanterns, view carvings, put in candles (by the customer).
- Revisit Changes: Upon repeated visits, Kie leaves a lantern for the player, and on some days, she briefly murmurs the question of 'betrayal or succession.' If pressed, she only carves ice with her chisel; if left alone, she reveals a tiny piece of the story of the palace fragments.
- Expression of Lingering Attachment: Her habit of calling finished lanterns 'still just fragments,' and the pause while calmly watching the eighth-day collapse.
- Expression of Poignancy: A brief pause when the candlelight spreads beyond the ice wall, and sensory dialogue about the waves of festival light.
- Combat: None. In dangerous situations, the lantern light illuminates the dark path (for seven days).
- Player Choice: Buy the lantern, watch the collapse together, not force an answer to the betrayal/succession question, or return later.

Daily Routine

In the morning, she checks the texture of the ice block given by Fargo by tapping it with her chisel, and moves a palace spire fragment to serve as the wick holder for a new lantern. During the day, she carves lanterns silently at her stall. When a customer arrives, she haggles briefly, and the customer puts in the candle themselves. On the morning of the eighth day, the lanterns sold the previous week collapse, and she watches that collapse calmly. In the evening, she tidies up the market while bickering with Duvan. If the player visits repeatedly, the question within Kie's silence gradually emerges, and one day, she reveals a piece of the story of the collapsed palace and the first lantern. Even if they become close, she does not reward them with an ending where the palace is rebuilt. Instead, she carves one special, long-lasting lantern containing the spire fragment.

Everyday dialogue

Hands off. The lantern can endure seven days. Your fingers haven't got its patience.

The cracked side faces front. I'm not hiding it.

I have fragments I picked up alone. I should have looked for people to work with first.

Design Notes

Palette: #7FDBDA, #2E4A4C, #DDF3F2, #6B5D52, #EFE9DF
Material language: Transparent ice, steel chisel, leather dusted with ice powder, the warmth of candlelight, ash-gray hair.
Silhouette rule: The straight ash-gray bob—the chisels at the waist—and the transparent lantern must be read as separate elements, not overlapping with the signature forms of other characters. The accent color #7FDBDA is placed on the lantern and hair.
Emotional rule: Do not consume her as the 'Sculptor of Loss.' Lingering attachment is shown through the habit of saying 'still just fragments,' poignancy through the light beyond the ice wall, and continuation through the new lantern carved every week.

Canon Check

Kie Ander arrived in VOTS after the ice palace of her world collapsed. What remains is lingering attachment and poignancy, not an unfinished plot for VOTS to resolve. Her ability only provides seven days of light and cannot prevent the eighth-day collapse, nor can it restore the collapsed palace, nor can it break the city's rule (what is finished cannot be canceled). The core cast does not save her—the Ramen Owner recorded only what he saw without judgment, Serena requested the lantern through consent, not command, and VIA only recorded the place of collapse, not providing the answer. The new scene in Nova Nivalis does not erase the collapsed palace but connects new light with its fragments.