At a Glance:
Name: Meki Lan
Age: 17
Gender: Female
Species: Human
Height: 5 foot 2
Occupation: Prophet for the Duhjari Crow Tribe
Not-So-Basic Information:
Looks:
Meki looks as fragile as she is. At only five foot two and ninety pounds, you would be right to underestimate her. Her copper skin matches her eyes. Don't be mistaken, though, as normal as her eyes may look and even move about, Meki is actually blind.She has have wavy, dark red hair that falls to about her mid back. While she does have the typical markings on her skin, most of them are painted on due to her sensitivity to pain. Her arms and legs do have some actual tattoos, being the spots that are least sensitive. She is most commonly adorned in a leather dress, seeing as she doesn't need to move around a lot. She also carries a wooden staff around to help her not run into things.
Personality:
Under most situations, Meki is calm and quiet. She enjoys conversing, but won't be the person to go around shouting or talking to random strangers. Her voice is soft and at times hard to hear but she always has nice things to say. While she may not be able to do much to help the tribe, it is clear how much she loves it. Also, people don't normally notice she's blind. Her hearing makes up for her lack of sight, so she can 'look' at people straight in the eyes when they're talking.
While having a vision, Meki's personality completely changes. She always looks straight ahead while speaking, as if she's staring at something in the distance. Her voice get's louder and louder as her fortune telling continues, reaching a volume that one wouldn't imagine coming out of such a frail girl. If you interrupt her while she's speaking, she won't hear you. If she's trying to summon a vision and you interrupt her, she'll probably yell at you.
Magic/Abilities:
Meki can see, more or less, the future. To be more accurate, she can see riddles of the future. More often than not, these moment of propheting come out of nowhere. Anything she says while seeing the future might not mean what it at first implies, but even she doesn't know what it means. However, she does have more future telling abilities than just to have riddles thrust into her mind. She has a keen sixth sense and can often predict if something good (or bad) is going to happen. She might know if somebody is going to get into trouble and should avoid talking to somebody, or things of the likeliness. In other words, she can accurately predict seemingly trivial facts that could potentially save somebody.
Both of these things—the riddle hearing and the small predictions—usually come to her randomly. However, there is a ritual that often helps her invoke these things. It requires solitude—with the exception of whoever she's trying to foresee the future of—wind, a complicated dance, beads, and, most of all, luck. The ritual, whether it works or not, drains all of her energy, causing her to collapse in the end (after the future has been told, if the future will be told). The amount of time she stays collapsed for changes every time.
History:
Meki was born weak and frail. She grew up feeling like a disgrace to her tribe, though not many people treated her this way. Her parents loved her and constantly told her how proud they were, but even she knew they wished for a strong warrior boy to help the tribe grow. She wished she was that person, for she always wanted to help her people.
Meki's first memories were ones of peace, but this quickly changed. As she started to get older, she heard talk of her tribe attacking the Adela. And the attack that was being planned wasn't just the normal raids—it was a full on display of military and attempt to ruin an Adelan settlement. The chief's plan worked, but Meki was upset she wasn't able to help with it. She couldn't even help take care of her newborn brother, Shank.
But then Adelan assassins came into the tribe in the middle of the night. Meki was eleven when this happened and she was woken up by the sound of the near silent assassins. She knew that they weren't normal people—nobody in her tribe walked like they did—but she didn't know what to do. So she did nothing, assuming what she heard was just her imagination.
When the morning came and all the elder warriors of the tribe were dead, Meki was devastated. She felt as if she could have stopped their deaths if she had just taken action. And, worst of all, her dad was one of the warriors killed. She was debating committing suicide like some of the wives of the tribe (including her mom) had out of grief, except she was going to do it out of guilt. But then something stopped her. Or, more accurately, someone stopped her. When Ala Shan had boldly made herself chieftain, Meki realized that instead of dying from guilt, she could live and make the tribe prosper.
From that day on, that's exactly what Meki devoted herself to doing. She started learning magic and stories from whoever would tell them to her and trained her senses. While she might not be strong, Meki became smart and gained a unbreakable bond with nature. She became able to take care of herself without the help of others and even took her little brother under her wing. Eventually, one year ago, Meki formed a deal with a spirit in her dream. The spirit had learned of Meki's will to help her people and saw into her heart, deciding to give her the ability to see into the future. Of course, the ability didn't come for free. All of Meki's dreams are replaced by nightmares, with the exception of a few. Those few are the ones in which she can see and converse with the kind spirit that gave her the magic she now has. Nobody in the village knows about the spirit nor Meki's nightmare price, and some still question how she suddenly gained her magic. Nonetheless, people listen to what she says anyway because of one reason: it's always accurate.
