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Part 6
The world was an interesting place to the blind, Aslilin soon discovered. While Rune had not been able to cure her of her blindness, he had given her an explanation. While her sight was gone, she was far from helpless. Navigating by her other senses, heightened beyond those of a Human, she was still as dangerous as she had been when she had first arrived.
The day was nearing that Aslilin would have spent a month with Rune and his minions. She could no longer look upon their faces, but she could feel them beneith her gloved hands. At first, the gloves dulled her sense of touch, but gradually she incorperated them into her being. To have been without the gloves would have been a pure sensory overload for her body. The shock might have paralyzed her. As she knew it now, Dark Brother was on friendly terms with the Myche and deformed Human she had first glimpsed upon arrival, while she herself found herself frequently followed by Ejo, and his mysterious companion Sceip. She had never encountered Sceip alone, and could never seem to find his face to touch. Ejo explained this away as Sceip's desire not to be touched. Aslilin accepted it. She herself had no desire to be touched either.
Rune's explanation of her loss of sight had been simplex and to the point. Until she had left and destroyed the complex which had created her, Aslilin had lived in an entirely sterile enviroment. Everything had been devoid of bacteria, as some of the creatures like Dark Brother and herself lacked immune systems to deal with it. Aslilin's eyes had never developed the bacteria needed to combat the irritations of every day use outside the compound. Rune reasoned that with time and a properly sterile enviroment, Aslilin's sight might return. In the meantime, she was finding it quite simple to navigate without it.
She could smell the fear on beings when she turned her blind eyes upon them, but she could not tell why. Dark Brother had told her that her eyes, which had been eerie upon their own previously, had grown entirely green. She had no pupils, or if she had, they had turned the same swirling green as the iris. The whites too had become pure green. She could have cared less, it did not affect her in the least. There were many things within Rune's band which caused people to stink of fear, even Rune himself was feared by some. Aslilin thought this strange, as the last time she had seen the human he was far too frail to cause anyone serious damage. How Rune could be a danger escaped her.
His power is in the mind, Ta Bahata. Dark Brother's head lifted from her knee. She had forgotten that the feline was sitting with her as she had mused over the past month. With the absence of his soft fur on her bare knee, a chill swept through her and she bristled the short, inadiquate hairs on her arm in frustration. She hated this body. It was weak.
"Power of the mind," she snorted. The only power she believed in was that in the body. If one could not hunt, they were essentially worthless. Rune, somehow, had managed to live this long. He had also given her her gloves and a place to live. But that did not mean she was greatful or inferior to him. It was altruistic, his action of hospitality. Foolish. She did not intend to mimic his actions.
Dark Brother sighed and placed a paw on her knee. Don't doubt Rune's power until you've seen it, Ta Bahata. I myself have only heard stories, but you must respect him. He has survived this long with such a frail body-
"He is dying." Aslilin stated the fact without emotion. Rune indeed was growing worse recently. The smell of sickness clung to him and he moved slower, his voice a rasp. Soon he would be nothing but a chill corpse lying on the unsanded floorboards of the hide away. Aslilin climbed to her feet and placed a gloved hand on the wall, feeling the crumbling plaster through the fabric of the glove.
The feline moved nearby, she could hear and smell him. Ta Bahata, where are you going?
Aslilin lifted her sightless eyes upward and tested the air with her nose. She could smell open ground not far away. She was sick of wandering the breaking hallways of this building, sick of balancing blindly on broken timbers as she tracked the nest of some vermin. Sick of hearing the cries of amazement as she did so...She wanted freedom. "I am going," she said simply.
As the young girl began to walk barefooted along the dirty floors, Dark Brother scrambled to gain footing ahead of her. She took a sharp turn, following the wall with her fingertips, and sniffing the air as she moved. While all the world was darkness and light only, nothing was going to hold her inside this cramped stinking cage.
Going where Ta Bahata? Dark Brother seemed near panicked in his tone. Rune has told you many times never to leave here, it's not safe outside-
"Perhaps it is not safe for Rune," She growled, and placed a gloved hand against the splintering wooden panels which blocked off a window. Taking a few steps back, she charged the window with her shoulder at full speed. Leaping into the wood, the barrier splintered and cracked under her weight and fell away, Aslilin tumbling out of the window and down several floors...into the world outside.
She blinked her eyes in her internal darkness, conciousness returning. The first of her senses to return was sound. Well and good...She could hear things now. Hear people talking, moving, the tapping of shoes on pavement. Car tires....People. Outside people. Intruging...They did not seem aware of her.
Aslilin gathered her feet under herself and used her nose and hands to identify her location. Sickly sweet rotting smells, like the oppression of old tomatoes and long bad wet cheese. Garbage, then. With her fingertips, she identified a metal rim which seemed to be encapsulating her. A bin? A trash bin? Bits of splintered wood dug into her feet as her weight shifted on the unsteady surroundings. Raiseing her nose to the air, Aslilin decided it was time to explore.
Walking her fingers along the metal rim, she felt it out. It was wide enough to support her if she balanced well... But balance for Aslilin had never been a problem. With a simple hop, she was perched on the narrow ledge of the dumpster, staring with blind eyes, but ears and nose wide awake enough to sense the world around her. A scuttling sound brought her head around to stare down in the direction it had come from. Hard ground was below her then- the musty scent of a mouse running across it told her there was at least enough space for her to balance..if not solid ground completely. With a graceful leap, calculated entirely from auidtory input, Aslilin landed deftly on only the tips of her toes, each foot exactly where teh mouse had moved. Her leg muscles were exceptionally strong- she had learned well how to navigate the tall rafters of Rune's safehouse blindly. This was no trouble.
Crouching down, still on tip-toe, she explored the ground around her with the very edges of her fingers- a semicircle of sensory input. What terrain was this? Was it solid, hot, dangerous? A few more minutes of testing the ground with her fingertips proved that not only was it solid...It was of a substance Aslilin had experienced only once before. Pavement...
How long ago had it been, since she and Dark Brother left? How long had she lain in the dumpster? How long had she lived with Rune? With a shock, Aslilin realized she could give no deffinite answers. Time was distorted. However...it was also unimportant. Straightening and setting her feet down on the pavement in a natural fashion, she prepared to move. It didn't matter. She was ready to explore.
Cloths stained from garbage, torn from leaping out of the building and threadbare from age, Aslilin took her first steps since her escape from the facility into the world. One thing dominated her mind- the small pain in her stomach. She was hungry. Aslilin would hunt.
