[Lo-W4] Leaf Hakuda I

I love them so much that I forgot that the 4-row finned ones are actually the rarer ones when drawing them oop lol

Appearance:

Leaf Hakudas are long, but thin fish. They have a resemblance to eels, but aren't eels. They can also come in any length from very short to very long. 1/4th of Enchanted's hair is their maximum length.

They have three rows - one to each side and one row at the top of their body - of small fins that look like round leaves. They also have the outlines of such leaves, but not the texture of one. They feel however a fin would feel like.

These fishes come in a variety of colors which is usually based on their diet and are more vibrant the further south you look. Their fins are usually also in a green, like a clover.

If you tear off a fin, they can regrow, but only up to three times.

 

Habitat:

These fish are most common in bodies of water around trees and other leaf-bearing plants. They can survive away from it, but that's a very very rare sight.

Diet:

Leaf Hakudas are strictly herbivorous. In fact, Leaf Hakudas don't even consume what's in the water. These fish consume the leaves and petals that fell on the water surface. This makes them a very common occurance in fall.

When there are no leaves or petals around (aka winter), they will begrudgingly eat algae and whatever else is around in the water, but they really don't like it.

Miscellania:

Leaf Hakudas are born white, or transparent, and only develop their colors with the food they're consuming. So, if you were to feed your Hakuda only transparent or colorless food, then they would stay transparent/color-less. You'd be able to see their innards then.

When it comes to food in spring and summer, Leaf Hakudas are actually able to jump out of the water and literally eat the leaves off of the trees. They can jump quite high, but how high they can jump out of the water depends on how deep the body of water is as they speed from the ground to the surface and then burst through the surface.

Sometimes, very very rarely, there are Leaf Hakudas born with four rows of fins instead of three which are even faster and much more agile than the three-row finned ones. Nobody quite knows why this happens and why this doesn't happen more often since the four-row finned Leaf Hakudas are much more likely to survive than their three-row finned counterparts.

Leaf Hakudas glow when they come in contact with a greater amount of Grifix magic. It's mostly their fins that glow, but with enough magic, they can glow entirely.

Grifix Use:

Leaf Hakudas are a very crazy thing. These fish start to reproduce the essential oils and whatever other good medicinal properties the flowers and petals they consume have, making them more part of the medicine than a consumable. The good stuff is usually stored in the fins, but some very rare properties are stored within the flesh of the body.

As such, Grifix have tried cultivating Leaf Hakudas and keeping them on a strict diet with just a select few plants as their food source. This has especially been tried to be done with very rare healing plants, but it hasn't always worked.
It's also not completely clear as to why glowing Leaf Hakudas are a thing, but it seems like glowing Leaf Hakudas make for higher quality medicine than those who don't. As if the Grifix magic is enhancing those medical abilities.

 

Legends and Rumors:

To spot a four-row finned Leaf Hakuda is said to bring good luck. As these fishes are especially fast and agile, if you manage to even touch one of them, then you are literally blessed. But if you try to catch one, then that's considered bad luck for you as you must have used very underhanded and dirty methods to catch it.

If you own a four-row finned Leaf Hakuda and were to feed it only four-leaf clovers, then it is rumored that the fin shape changes into the shape of a clover leaf.

There was a pair of the Herbalist Guild who were wanting to catch a Leaf Hakuda for their studies, but as they took the fish out of the water, they suddenly realized it had four rows of fins instead of three. The one Grifix panicked and wanted to throw it back into the water, but the other Grifix - the one who had caught it in the end - refused and their eyes gleamed at their catch. They took the Leaf Hakuda with them and started experimenting with it right away, but still didn't tell anyone about it, for even in the Empire, catching a four-row finned Leaf Hakuda was considered bad luck. The second Grifix was delighted, but the first soon noticed strange things happening to them. Things breaking that were never meant to break and injuries caused through incidents that never injured them before. The first Grifix, being as superstitious as she is, immediately thought this had to be because of the Leaf Hakuda and decided to bring it back to the pond where they had gotten it from as soon as possible. She spent the entire night out in the cold, praying and apologizing. When she returned the next morning, the second Grifix immediately knew what she had done, before they even looked after the fish, and chased her out instantly. She was devastated for she lost a dear friend, but it was nothing compared to the second Grifix for they lost literally everything except their life. It started with their friend, followed by their status and sanity. However, it is said that she never lost her life.

Deep within the libraries lies a tiny scroll, hidden in the furthest cranny behind many, many shelves. Back in the days, such a long time ago that no Grifix knew how to write, they still thought to write this story down. Perhaps it was a warning for future generations, perhaps it was the path to enlightenment, but nobody can make out the really bad scribbles and decipher what it reads