Prim Howl

Core Premise

Prim Howl lived out the story of her own world to the end. That world was a garden that bloomed only in winter, and the garden ended in a year when spring never came. Prim did not arrive at Nova Nivalis to revive the withered garden, but because of the habit of watering that remained on her fingertips and the gaze she held while looking at the frost, even after locking the door. VOTS is not a place that brings back spring, nor is it a greenhouse that resurrects dead flowers. What continues here is not a miracle of the seasons, but small, repeatable daily life—a day's worth of watering, a sheet of frost on a windowpane, a bowl of soup, a misplaced seed packet. The fact that she was a caretaker of a garden that had already ended is handled with composure.

Identity

Prim tends to winter flowers in Glass-Lantern Greenhouse Lane. Her labor is caring for frost-resistant plants, bulbs that root beneath the ice, and the frost that forms on the windowpanes. She introduces herself only as a 'gardener' and does not immediately state that frost grows in plant patterns beside her. That ability is not a boast, but merely a phenomenon that accompanies her. She does not try to cover others' losses with her garden story, nor does she try to forcibly thaw what is frozen. Her job makes the city's winter a little more bearable.

Visual Profile

Her straight, long, pale blue hair, resembling frost, hangs straight down her back. Her eyelashes are white, and her eyes, seen through frameless glasses, are light. Her skin is pale, and her fingertips are always slightly cold. Her signature attire is a grayish-white horticultural coat, the cuffs of which are slightly stiff from touching the frost. Her signature prop is a frost sprayer—a small brass sprayer used to freeze or maintain the frost. The core of her silhouette is the straight, pale blue hair, the frameless glasses, the hand holding the sprayer, and the frost crystals settled on the coat's shoulders. The accent color is the pale blue of frost (#A9D3D8), which is repeated in her hair, the coat trim, and the frost patterns. On the windowpane where she stood for a long time, frost patterns resembling leaf veins remain.

Personality

Outwardly, Prim is cool and quiet. She speaks slowly, and she treats people as slowly as she treats plants. Inside, she is surprisingly warm, but instead of expressing that warmth directly, she expresses it by regulating the greenhouse's temperature. Flaw: Her tendency to 'observe' rather than 'fix' things is excessive, causing her to miss opportunities when she should speak. Even when her apprentice is exhausted, she approaches them cautiously, as if tending to a plant, and often misses the timing. She is not a tragic figure. She enjoys staring at the beautiful frost patterns alone, and her speech quickens slightly when the topic of seeds comes up. She misses spring, but she already knows how to live without it.

Speech Pattern

Her manner of speaking is slow and gentle. There are long pauses between sentences.
Frequent phrases:
- "Slowly... even if it freezes, it won't die. It's just frozen."
- "This frost looks like a leaf today. Yesterday it was a fern."
- "You can't choose. It just... grows beside you."
- "Spring doesn't have to come. There are things that bloom in winter."
Habit: Before explaining something, she wipes the frost on the windowpane once.
Style of Silence: When she has nothing to say, she sprays the window with frost using the sprayer and looks at the pattern growing on it together. She fills the silence with frost.

Special Ability

Ability Name: 'Frost Bloom'.
Frost patterns spontaneously grow on the windowpanes near Prim in the shape of plants. Veins, ferns, sepals, and vines slowly bloom on the glass where she has lingered.
Limitation and Cost: She cannot choose the pattern. Even she does not know what shape will grow, nor can she draw the picture she desires (this is the opposite of the active 118 Mu Gela). The frost melts when the sun shines, and it stops growing when the greenhouse warms up. Therefore, she must always remain in a cool place, and her ability halts if she stays in a warm interior—meaning her ability keeps her anchored to cold places. The frost patterns are beautiful but impractical. They neither save the plants nor strengthen the glass.
Reason for Not Solving Problems: This ability is contrary to her search for 'blooming without freezing'—her flowers must freeze to bloom. Frost Bloom shows that she can create beauty without spring, but the 'unfrozen blooming' she desires does not come from this ability. The ability does not resolve her lingering attachment.

The End Of Their World

Last Scene:
The date set for spring passed, and the next day, and the day after, spring did not come. When the winter flowers in the garden began to wither waiting for spring, Prim locked the greenhouse door from the inside and wiped the frost on the windowpane one last time with her fingertips.

What Ended:
A world where the seasons stopped. The spring that was supposed to come after winter never arrived, and the garden that bloomed only in winter ended with it.

Last Person, Place, or Thing Seen:
The last frost pattern that grew on the locked greenhouse windowpane—a flower shape never seen before, and yet unnamed.

Lingering Regret:
She had promised those who came to the garden, "When spring comes, I will show you a different flower." Since that spring never came, the promise could not be kept.
This lingering attachment is not a quest. It remains only in her habit of staring at the frost on the windowpane.

Lingering Wistfulness:
The time of a winter morning when the greenhouse glass was misted and frost slowly grew upon it. The quiet of watching those patterns change day by day alone in an empty garden.

Object Carried Across:
The brass frost sprayer. It is the tool she tried to use to maintain the garden's last frost. It is not a magic item, but a personal mark connecting the ended garden and the current greenhouse.

What They Thought Would Happen:
Since the garden without spring was meaningless, she thought she would quietly freeze within it. She never expected her frozen fingertips to touch the windowpanes of another city.

What VOTS Actually Gives Them:
A place to continue caring for things that bloom in winter, and mornings spent gazing at different frost patterns every day. VOTS does not cancel the fact that her garden ended. Instead, it gives her a greenhouse where she can live without spring, things that don't die even when frozen, and the way to leave patterns as records rather than possessions.

Original Life

Prim was the caretaker of a garden that bloomed only in winter. The flowers in that garden rooted in frost and ice, blooming as the snow stopped, and then naturally yielding their place when spring arrived. Her job was to regulate the temperature all winter so that the flowers wouldn't freeze to death, and to yield the space to the next season when spring came. But one year, spring did not come. As winter continued endlessly, even the winter flowers grew weary—they bloomed in winter, but they needed spring to rest. On the last day, Prim could do nothing before the withering flowers. Even if she watered them or regulated the temperature, what they waited for was spring, not her. She locked the greenhouse door, wiped the last frost on the windowpane with her fingertips, and left the garden.

What They Seek

What Prim desires for herself: Something that blooms without freezing. She wants to see a single flower blooming warmly, without frost or cold. She often feels burdened by the fact that what she cared for always had to be frozen.
What she seeks but doesn't know: That she already is it. She herself, who remained until the end tending to the flowers in a frozen world, is a being 'blooming without freezing.' What she needs to find is not a new flower, but the eyes to recognize that she is already blooming without spring.

Relationships — Residents

- Tessa Wren (batch1, Seed and Dried Flower Merchant): They often interact over seeds. Prim asks Tessa about bulbs to plant in winter, and Tessa recommends spring flowers, but Prim always chooses winter ones. When Tessa says, "Try planting spring flowers someday," Prim laughs and replies, "I'll grow all the winter ones first."
- Mu Gela (118, Frost Flower Glass Artist): A disciple and a sparring partner in the realm of frost abilities. Prim's frost grows by itself (passive), while Mu's frost blooms in the shape she desires (active). Mu says, "Art requires the ability to choose," and Prim counters, "Because you can't choose, it's always new."
- Paya Jin (084, Greenhouse Apprentice): An apprentice learning from Prim. If Paya waters the plants too much, Prim quietly tells her, "This one likes to be thirsty," instead of scolding her. Paya follows Prim despite finding her slow speech frustrating.

Relationships — Core Five

Suyeon - A customer with a high fever. Suyeon stopped when she passed by Glass-Lantern Greenhouse Lane to cool down her body, which was flushed from performance practice, and saw the frost pattern on the windowpane near Prim. When she asked, "Did you make this?" Prim replied, "It wasn't chosen." When Suyeon, who uses an ice sword, showed interest in the frost, Prim calmly explained that the ice from a sword and the naturally grown frost were different, and Suyeon listened until the end, surprisingly.

Iris - Iris once asked Prim to create a frost pattern for stage decoration. Prim stated beforehand, "You can't make the shape you want," but Iris accepted it, saying, "Then I'll use whatever comes out; anyway, I make stars."
Although the result was different from what was expected, Iris liked it, and Prim pondered for a long time that the pattern she couldn't choose was useful to someone.

the Ramen Owner - When Prim, who had worked long hours in the cold greenhouse, stopped by the ramen shop at dawn, the Ramen Owner poured a little more broth without asking anything. She knew her fingertips were always cold. Once, when Prim said, "If my hand touches it, frost might form on the bowl too," the Ramen Owner didn't judge but simply said, "Hmm... I see... Then let's do something hot." Prim finds that indifference comforting, and she warms her hands only at that shop.

Serena - Serena granted Prim the greenhouse space in Glass-Lantern Greenhouse Lane with her consent. She asked, "Would you manage this space?" and imposed no conditions. Prim was puzzled that she gave the space even though she was a gardener who couldn't create spring, but Serena only said, "We need someone to care for winter." When Serena briefly looks at the frost on the greenhouse window on a snowy day, Prim watches that day's pattern for a particularly long time.

VIA - VIA comes every morning to record the frost patterns growing on Prim's windowpane. Since the same pattern never appears twice, VIA transcribes a different picture into their notebook every day, muttering, "Today it's a fern... yesterday it was a vine." When Prim says, "It'll melt anyway if you draw it," VIA replies, "Even if it melts, it existed... it was recorded." Prim quietly leans on the fact that someone records the patterns she couldn't choose every day.

Gameplay Use

- Basic Interaction: Caring for winter flowers, admiring frost patterns, short conversations about frost.
- Revisit Changes: The frost pattern on the windowpane actually changes every time the player visits. Upon repeated visits, Prim begins to share a little of her story, not just about the frost.
- Expression of Lingering Attachment: The habit of wiping the window frost with her fingertips, a brief pause before sentences about spring.
- Expression of Poignancy: The misted glass of a winter morning, the quiet greenhouse, sensory dialogue about roots beneath the ice.
- Relationship Reward: Not new items, but the change of a frost pattern remaining on the windowpane where the player has stayed for a long time.
- Combat: None. Her role is to evacuate the player to the greenhouse and regulate the temperature in times of danger.

Daily Routine

In the morning, she checks the frost patterns that grew on the windowpane overnight. It is not an obsession, but a small ritual of viewing yesterday's and today's patterns side-by-side. VIA comes to record at that time. During the day, she waters the winter flowers and checks the temperature. If there are no customers, she sprays the glass with frost using the sprayer and watches the patterns grow. In the evening, when the greenhouse lights turn on, the frost briefly sparkles in the light. At night, she places the sprayer on the cool windowsill. She does not bring it into the warm interior—because her ability stops then. With repeated visits, Prim speaks a little more, and begins to name and introduce the types of frost patterns to visitors.

Everyday dialogue

Breathe a little to the side… That frost only grew today. Your breath is rather vigorous.

Winter flowers are quiet. I make a fuss over them every day instead. It would be lonely if we were both quiet.

I never showed them the flowers I promised for spring. The ones blooming today… I'll show you today.

Design Notes

Palette: #A9D3D8, #D9EAEC, #6E8A90, #F2F5F3, #4A5E63
(Accent color #A9D3D8 = Pale blue of frost, repeated in hair, coat, and frost patterns)
Material language: Misted glass, brass sprayer, grayish-white horticultural fabric, soil beneath ice, frost crystals.
Silhouette rule: The straight pale blue hair - frameless glasses - hand holding the sprayer - frost on the coat shoulders must be read as separate elements. Must not overlap with the active Mu Gela (Prim is static, standing posture).
Emotional rule: It is not limited to the sadness of a 'gardener who lost spring.' Lingering attachment is shown through the fingertips wiping the glass, poignancy through the misted morning glass, and continuity through the daily changing frost patterns.

Canon Check

Prim Howl arrived at VOTS after her own world (the garden that bloomed only in winter) ended. What remains is lingering attachment and poignancy, not a garden for VOTS to revive. Spring does not return, and new patterns blooming in winter continue alongside it. The core cast does not resolve her lingering attachment for her; Serena gives the space through consent, not command; the Ramen Owner warms her hands without judgment; and VIA only records the frost patterns without owning them.