... and overcome adversity.The words that her mother had uttered telepathically to her the day before, the words that had rang like chorus bells of salvation in the Dusk Kuhna's deaf ears, were now but another painful reminder of the predicament that she was in, the predicament she'd been in since the day she was born. Even as she walked blindly--literally--into the caverns of crystal, Nochina could hear the shadow of these words, echoing in her mind's ear as she carefully moved her cane from side to side, making sure not to step blindly into a rock.
Her cane bumped into a small shard of crystal as she continued to walk, her tattered black hair tied into a messy ponytail, and the knee-length dress she wore was black and covered in glitter, to look like the night sky. Her eyes, which were a soft silver, were dull and blank--like they'd been since the day she was born. She could feel herself bump into someone, but she did not hear their infuriated response. It was days like this, where she ventured out of the safety of her trainer's home, that she was oddly grateful for being deaf.
She couldn't hear when people were angry with her.
[1.1]
Luckily for poor Nochina, a human-form Kamo Kuhna happened to see the man that she'd bumped into, and noticed that he was rather angry at her. He was shouting at her, but she did not turn to look at him, or even wince as the man raised his hand to strike her. It didn't take long for Tai'uske to realize why the young woman was not reacting to anything that this man was doing; the cane that she held in her left hand and her obvious obliviousness to the man very clearly indicated to the apprentice doctor that this woman was blind and deaf. He jogged over to where the man was about to strike the woman and intercepted the man's arm easily, glaring at him as he stepped in between him and Nochina.