The day slowly crept along its specified path, not minding anything around it for they were too minute to have any influence on such a large entity that was life itself. In the small tribe life followed the same path as the day had set it up to: different groups hurried along their short lives in order to prepare for the festivities later on in the day - however, among these busy little individuals sat an alien-looking girl alone in her tent, well, she wasn’t really alone anymore as a small group of her fellow tribesmen had huddled up right next to her tent and out of sight from the rest of the tribe.
Alkina had stayed silent ever since the group of tribesmen had gathered near her tent. She used the silence to focus her attention on whatever the group was doing - and while she might have been blind, her other senses had been honed to such a degree that even without the ability of sight she could understand what was going on, albeit without the same clarity of someone who could actually see what happened in the world around them. Because she didn’t require her eyes to follow what happened half dozen feet away she didn’t have to turn her head towards the group in order to ‘see’ what happened. Instead Alkina used her heightened senses to follow what the group were doing without showing any signs that she was indeed following every little detail of what was happening - in fact if you were to look at her you would only see a helpless blind teenage girl sitting straight up in her tent, with her head turned towards the sounds of the ceremonial preparations, while her hands were folded around a simply crafted clay cup.
However, Alkina was in fact buried deep in her own thoughts. It had soon come to her understanding from what she had observed that the group couldn’t be much older than herself - and one of them had discovered something - something which had filled the others with mixed emotions, though in their huddled voices Alkina could easily hear an undertone of excitement in most of their voices as they discussed this, apparently, odd object the one called Kwelak had found.
Now, because Alkina had lived most of her short life imprisoned in her own little routines set up by the Elders she hadn’t had much contact with the rest of the tribe, so while she had a good idea who some of the people in her tribe were, she really had no close connection to any of them, but this small group of youngsters around her own age had caught her attention as they continued their discussion surrounding this foreign object.
Alkina could barely sit still as she began to understand what was going on: the object had been discovered outside of the tribe - and it possessed traits that neither one in the group understood. Perhaps this was an ancient artifact? She had understood from the Elders that now and then odd objects had been discovered which all possessed signs of an ancient culture too different from their own - and ever since she had first heard of this her jailed spirit had ached to follow whatever trail one of these ancient artifacts would lead her on.
Could this be the one…?
She could barely keep the excitement inside of her. Perhaps this was her chance to try something new? Perhaps she could finally experience the outside world? Perhaps this artifact was a way for her to experience what it felt like to live? If it truly was, she couldn’t shy away from the opportunities it presented - that would be a grave mistake, she determined for herself.
“You know,” she interrupted their little talk as she moved one side of the tent’s canvas out of the way, “you guys are quite loud…” she added with a teasing smile that surprisingly were aimed directly at them with a precision that only one with the ability of sight should possess.
“It seems to me that you guys are trying to hide from something - or someone, perhaps?” she continued before they could interrupt her little speech that she had gathered enough courage to begin on and while she couldn’t see their specific individual features from that distance, so she could only hope that her sudden intrusion hadn’t scared them too much.
The small shifts in their individual postures more than confirmed this for her.
“My guess would be… perhaps the Elders of the tribe?” She kept her cheeky smile painted on her face as the words sprawled from her mouth, as she made sure that her face was always pointed in their general direction so not to creep them out - she had for the longest time had the problematic habit of not looking directly at the individuals she spoke to, which had often had the unfortunate result of creeping said individuals out: it was apparently hard for others to converse without looking directly at them, young Alkina had mused after noticing the differences in speech patterns of the Elders she spoke to. Needless to say she quickly got rid of this habit, but she still caught herself in the act now and then.
“Ah,” she commented without thinking about the repercussions of her own actions: no one in the tribe knew that she could ‘see’ to such a degree in her own special way. “It would appear that I was correct” she added quickly with a smile.
“Well, it is a good hiding spot I will agree - but you mustn’t stay here for too long: the Elders tend to keep an eye on me and my surroundings - but I heard you guys speak of Kwilana” she quickly added to not be interrupted, “I’ve heard various things being mentioned by the Elders, sometimes they mentioned her name in the same conversations as strange artifacts or phenomenons… If you want to speak to someone about that,” she waved her free hand towards the item the group had gathered around - though she kept the gesture vague enough not to draw too much attention to it: who knew what they would do if they knew she wasn’t completely blind? A chill went down her spine from the memories of last time someone had found out.
“Then she might know something even the Elders do not know…” she added before anyone would notice anything odd in her speech pattern.
“And…” she continued her speech, feeling like she had spoken too much already, “and if you want… I can perhaps be of help to you…?” The last part was added with less authority as she began to realize how stupid it sounded: who would want help from the blind ‘Snow Demon’, though she did share a few traits with Kwilana so she could more easily connect to her.
