|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 Posted: Tue Mar 01, 2011 5:19 pm
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Sun Mar 13, 2011 6:06 pm
About Kioni  Name: Kioni
Meaning: 'She sees things'
Age: 20
Gender: Female
Birthplace: Unknown, but estimated to be somewhere in or around the Annapurna Mountains, going off of her description.
Birth Season: Spring
Height: 5'4
Weight: 120
Hair Color: Platinum Blond
Eye Color: Teal
Personality: Kioni is very kind and sweet, trying to be friendly with everyone she comes in contact with while at the same time doing her best to hide the fact that she cannot see the same way they can. She doesn't show off the fact, but rather keeps it hidden, as she was taught to do by her elders. She can come off as needy at times, for she needs the sounds that others make in order to see, and will constantly seek out places where other people are for that purpose. She tends to be very naive and cannot imagine anyone wanting to hurt her, since she was more or less coddled among her people.
Friends: Momo
Acquaintances: Reverie, Janus
Enemies:
Special Ability:
While the typical pair of eyes can see by interpreting lights and colors, Kioni's eyes are completely useless at interpreting light and colors and instead interpret sound waves to determine the form of her surroundings. For instance, if something falls in her room, she can use the waves from the resulting crash to 'see' her surroundings as the waves bounce off of objects and determine what fell.
Examples of 'seeing' this way:
http://www.manwithoutfear.com/movie/shadowworld2.jpg
http://www.manwithoutfear.com/movie/shadowworld3.jpg
~As one can see, everything, while exceedingly detailed, is devoid of color and seen in approximately the same blue hue as her eyes. As a result, asking her to tell a red ball from a blue would give her the same disadvantage as though she could not see at all.
~Coupled with her special way of seeing, her ears are exceptionally sharp. She can pick up sounds that are too quiet for others, even going as far as finding someone hiding in a room by their heartbeat, since even a thump that slight still produces waves that can be picked up by her eyes.
~Kioni cannot use her own sound waves to see with. As a result, if she is completely isolated from everyone and in a soundproof room, without any soundwaves to 'see' she becomes truly blind, and will quickly dissolve into hysterics, her loudest screams unable to produce any effect on the darkness produced by the silence.
~ Mirrors seem to confuse her sight; not only do the soundwaves seem to bounce off of them in a completely bizarre way, but looking into the glass allows her to see her markings without the aid of soundwaves.
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Sun Jun 19, 2011 2:39 pm
Your parents have certainly told you that to be born in the season of Spring, the grass-cutting season, is said to be a sign of incredible good luck, for the sun rises not from the East, but a bit further South, thius confounding the enemies who are guided by it to seek us out. Those born during this time are sometimes given great and powerful gifts, and one year, such a child was born.
She was a tiny thing, with hair so fine that it seemed like the sun himself lent us a few rays to adorn her little head, and her eyes were the sparkling blue of the sky on a clear day, above the shimmering sea that is only just visible from our highest tower. We elders thought her eyes were so extraordinary; we were certain she would be able to use them to see ships all the way out to sea, or foes marching to our mountains when they were still days away. But time passed, and the child only cried, grasping at every sound as though it were a lifeline. I myself supervised as the elders and healers attempted to sooth the ailing child, and it was I who discovered her strange and beautiful gift. The child did not see as we saw, but could see with her ears instead of her eyes. Like the ripples in a pool brushing the reeds and showing us that they are there, she could use the ripples that we could not see to see things that we would surely miss. She would have been able to find you lot during hide and seek just by hearing your little hearts beating! And you can bet she would win every time!
Of course when the people realized she needed sound to see, we gave her as much as we could. Little Kioni, for that was the name we gave her, woke up every day to a group of villagers who stood outside her dwelling and sang sweet songs, so that she could awaken and dress and come outside to greet the day. Every scholar in our realm fought for the honor of being her tutor, each claiming to know the best way of teaching one who could not read scrolls or books. Any stand where she stopped and viewed the wares was considered to be of unsurpassed value, and often the merchants would convey their thanks by giving her a sample of whatever they had, whether it was fresh fruit, a lovely dress, or a tiny mechanical dancer that leaped and bounced across her table when she wound it up with a key. For as you know, my dear children, our greatest treasure is our ability to create things the likes of which the world has never seen. Technology, they call it, and it is highly coveted by those who do not have it, and those who do always seek to have the best of it and keep it for themselves.
When the lovely girl grew to a young woman, the leaders of our army asked to see us, and suggested that Kioni use her gift to help them in their battles. Our poor mountains have often echoed with the dreadful sounds of war, and with Kioni's help, we might at last obtain peace sooner. She could 'see' people who were trying to hide, find their location just by hearing the beating of their heart or the whistling of their breath in their nose, and this way she would help them detect any who waited in ambush when they marched the mountain roads. The elders agreed amongst themselves, and so littke Kioni went off to battle. She was given as much protection as though she were a princess, and when they took her onto the battlefields, she not only let her armies know of impending ambushes, but she could hear the rocks shifting before an avalanch, or the whistle of the air as exploding canisters was fired at us. But you know of course, my children, that such things are toys compared to our own weapons, those that fire light and cause explosions in their ranks many miles away. Such things are terrible, but necessary, for if not than we could all be in a camp far away, being made to march and make tools for the ones who put us there.
And so battles were won, disasters avoided, and Kioni became a hero. As customary, she was given the markings of honor, saved usually for our most decorated soldiers and commanders. Every honorable deed in the field earned her another marking, and she was as valuable to our soldiers as the commander himself. it seemed as though she would really bring about peace, and we would never be bothered again.
Alas, it was not to be. From a faraway land came a people different than the ones that had attacked us before. They fought us with a strange sort of abandon, not caring that their soldiers fell like wheat, as long as ground was gained. They were like the ants from a thousand hills in numbers, and did not care that they lost so many. We did not know how to handle such a driving, careless force, and they swallowed the bulk of our army like the lot of you swallow bags of chico nuts. When they saw Kioni, they knew she was special, and opted to spare the rest of the army in return for her. Not wanting to see any more death, Kioni agreed, and let the enemy soldiers lead her away.
As she walked with them, she was amazed at all the destruction her captors had wrought just to get as far as our mountains. Houses were burning, fields lay desolate, and animals and people alike were scattered like once-living rubble. Kioni stood among them, silent and proud, and though her captors showed signs of wanting to, they did not lay hands on her save to lead her to their destination; all the way to the sea, where it was said that a ship would be waiting to take them across the ocean. Kioni knew that that would mean she would never see her people again, but once more she held her head up and her tongue in, even as she was placed in a small boat and rowed out into the vast ocean, a true enigma to her strange sight. Even on the waters there were signs of battle; floating wreckage and the reeking stench of oil and burned metal mixed with the salty smell of the sea. It was when they were passing such wreckage that Kioni was jolted from her stony silence, begging the oarsman to stop the boat; she had heard a weak and faint heartbeat below the surface of the water. Pointing the source out to them, she watched as the crewman formed a chain to reach down into the featureless depths and retrieve a man, unconscious and nearly drowned. A cry went up from the boat's crew, for the man they had almost left to die was none other than their own colonel, who had presumably been killed in the battle on the sea. If Kioni had not pointed the man out, they would have passed over him, close enough for him to touch had he been aware of them.
With the injured colonel safely secured, the boat made its way to the waiting ship. Kioni was locked into a room and left there, to contemplate her fate and cry for her lost people, staring out the porthole as the land began to recede. Before the night had fallen, she received a visitor; the colonel himself, his head wrapped in bandages and his eyes masked from her 'vision' by a pair of dapper glasses. He wanted to thank her for saving his life, his inferiors having told him who had been responsible for finding him in the wreckage. Now children, if there is one good lesson in this world, it is that you should not believe everything that you hear. But our poor Kioni was so hungry for any sort of kindness, that she latched onto that man's words as though they were the very breath of life. He told her how lovely she was, and how it saddened him that she should be plucked from the earth of which she was born like a rare flower, to be placed on a rusty craft such as this, when a queen's sailing boat would suit her better. When Kioni implored him to let her return, he merely smiled and sent for a dress to replace the much-soiled one she was wearing from her capture, remarking that he would visit her again.
When he returned, he told her his own story. His land was also plagued by war, and he was seeking an advantage that would bring it to an end. Word had somehow reached him of the maiden who could see things that others couldn't, and he had sought her out to ask for her help in ending his war, that he could live a life of peace without fear of death. Now remember what I said before, children, about not believeing all that you hear? What this man didn't tell Kioni was that while he did want to end the war of which he spoke, it was not a life of peace he craved, but a life as absolute ruler of a conquered land. But he kept this from her, only telling her that once she had helped him win, he would send her right back to her home across the sea, back to her anxiously waiting people. As the ship sailed on, the colonel visited her often, bestowing gifts upon her and constantly commenting on her beauty and talent. Many times Kioni asked him his name, but he would always refuse to tell her, nor would he remove his glasses, that she might see his eyes. He was mysterious and, Kioni believed, her only friend on board the ship.
Many days later, the ship pulled into harbor in a strange land that to Kioni was already hostile from the colonel's stories. He was there to escort her off of the ship and to a waiting car, something that in spite of her people's technological advancement, she had never seen before. But before she could enter inside, the air was filled with the sound of gunfire, and cries went out that hostiles were attacking the harbor. Kioni was shoved into the car by the colonel, who told her in the harshest tone she had ever heard from him to be still and not raise her head. With a roar, the vehicle started up, and for the longest time, Kioni's world was full of bumps and rattles and roars. Even when the sounds of battle died down, the colonel did not allow her to raise her head.
After what seemed like hours, the vehicle stopped, and Kioni was helped out of the car. She could see little of her surroundings, only that they appeared to be in front of a very large building, larger even than the largest building in her mountain realm. She was taken by the arm and walked to the front door, where evil-looking figures stood like monsters, ready to pounce on them all. The evil man who had brought her here leaned close and whispered with his honeyed words for her to enter and find a place for herself, for she would be safe there, and when the threat was gone, he would come back for her. The colonel paid the men at the door, bidding them to tell no one that she was there, and to keep her safe, before departing in the vehicle, not even bothering to look back.
But he really should have looked back, my children, for he might have had one last glimpse of the girl he had lied to so badly. He didn't know then that he would never get a chance to come back for her. He received word that very hour of a rare chance to obtain the enemies' greatest weapon, but it was a more desperate gamble than he realized, and in the ensuing struggle, the colonel and all of his men were killed. The battle he had obsessed about was over, but no one who had survived thought to mention the poor blue-eyed girl that had been spirited across the sea to be used in a battle that she had nothing to do with.
And there she remains, to this very day, wandering the halls of a building filled with monsters and demons, waiting and hoping for the day when the colonel, her false friend, would return for her and take her home. I only mourn his passing, dear children, because now he cannot retrieve her and bring our Kioni home, where while we still have desperate need of her as he did, she can be given the love she deserves.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Reply
