I am entering for Buck 1!
Guardian name: Seathi
Chosen name: Shen Juhua (in Chinese order, so her surname is Shen)
Entry: She had never been one for traveling. She had, in fact, expected that once she’d arrived, she wouldn’t want to leave her cozy shop in Palisade for a while. But just as she was unpacking her bags, she felt it -- an inexplicable pull that settled behind her sternum and caught, like an invisible fishhook.
For a day, she resisted, hoping that the whirlwind of tasks that needed to be accomplished would distract her until it faded. She needed to foolproof her finances and contracts, learn more than snippets of Common, make the acquaintance of her neighbors and fellow shopowners. And slowly, her shelves filled with merchandise -- fragrant sticks of incense, delicate blue-and-white teacups, and short, stout teapots possessing their own sort of elegance. She fought the current in her own way, determined to work through it.
But if anything, the pull grew stronger.
Her reflection in the mirror seemed as if it wished to speak. The incense that wafted through her shop seemed to carry the scent of some far-off destination. Even her windchimes sighed and murmured in foreign tongues. Whenever she thought it might have faded, the invisible fisherman tugged a little harder.
And then, one day, her shop remained closed long past its usual opening time, and a small, foreign woman strode resolutely out of Palisade. She wasn’t quite sure where she was going, but she trusted that she would know it when she saw it, that the hook stubbornly lodged in her heart would guide her to its far-off caster.
All that remained was a single nagging worry, the fear that when she reached her destination, she would be pulled out of the water onto strange shores for a second time.