[ RPJournal: Kanta ] :: A Great Change

Parting, parting! Oh, she was quite tired of her hair. For years, she had worn it the same way; a plain part in the middle, and the rest of it free-flowing. However, ever since she had started her travels, she'd noticed the others: others who had more life in their hair. No matter what she did, though, no matter how much she fluffed it, her hair just. Wouldn't. Stay. However, never had she had the urge to visit the small barber shops, and, therefore, had kept it the same.

Until recently, of course. Then, circumstances rose that made her change her mind... although, she wouldn't have chosen it to occur that way.

Western Plague Lands: A month ago.

She had been combating the plagued creatures of Western Plaguelands. The whole of the land made her skin crawl; the disease, the corruption... even the air was changed up there. The voices that called to her, while they still answered her call, felt changed. As a shaman, she knew the balance of nature and of the Elements, and, to her, there was more chaos than normal, an offset of that balance. She hated it, and the more time she was spending in those lands, the more conflicted, the more moody she got. But it was a duty bestowed upon her by the Argent Dawn, and by the Cenarion Circle, to end the lives of the plagued beasts and to free them. Return the balance of the land...

It was one of those plagued creatures that did it. She understood their pain; as a shaman, she was granted power over most diseases, but this was not a disease she knew how to cure. The plague made muscles stiffen, and for the flesh to rot -- a very painful process, the Elements tell her. Despite their pain, they had not been too far gone to defend themselves; their claws still hurt, and their bites still required bandaging. She had been slow -- too distracted, too haunted, and too darned slow -- and it got her. A claw managed to reach her face, and she had been overwhelmed by pain, wheeling back and somehow landing a lucky, crushing blow on the bear's skull as she flailed about.

Pain. It was all she had been able to feel; the voices of the Elements still spoke to her, but she couldn't hear them over the overwhelming, agonizing pain. Through one eye, she could see the waves of blood that was gushing down from her hands... the hands that were holding the left side of her face. It was unlike any pain she had previously experienced: her wounds always hurt, yes, but most times she was able to think through the pain long enough to ask Nature to heal her wounds. But this!

Slowly, Water's clarity got through to her, and she was able to see past the pain long enough to seek its restorative qualities, and the pain started to recede. She knew, innately, that something was wrong; there had been far too much pain for it to be a normal scratch, and, through her constant honing of her skills, and, through it, the familiarity with her body, there was an offset of balance. There was little pain now, but her vision...

Tentatively, she raised her fingers to her left eye... and paused as they reached scarred skin and... nothing.

Nothing.

Fear clawed at her. She was a fighter, one that took full advantage of all that her body and the power the Elements offered her and merged them together to form a deadly force. Without an eye, however, her depth perception would be off, her peripheral vision would fail her, at least, on that side...

She had to get out of there; the fresh blood was attracting unwanted attention from the nearby wildlife...

Away she had gone, to Shattrath, then back to the land of her roots, in Azuremyst Isle. There, she consulted with her mentor, a priestess that had taken her in many years ago, sometime after the Crash and her loss of memory. It was there that she had taken time to listen to the Elements, relearn all that she knew, adjust to her new disadvantage, and had to become comfortable with herself and her image once more. She finally allowed herself to go to a stylist, and it took all of the resolve she gained from Earth to endure the stares she got, both from the stylist, and the other customers in the shop. But the deed was done: it was cut stylishly to cover her left eye, and the rest of it coming to a neat V resting on her back. The right side, she tucked behind her ear, emphasizing the contrast of the dark and the blue points. She spent much of the time when she wasn't out with the Elements, or with the priestess, in front of the mirror, practicing and learning just how to manipulate both the light and her hair to her fullest advantage, working on how to hide her eye from view.

A month later, the priestess felt that Kanta was ready to go back into the world and resume her given duties. While she felt confident enough in her abilities to hide her disfigurement and knew that she could fight almost as well as anyone who had command of both of their eyes, now, she was reluctant to leave. It was the stares, the questions, that she feared. But, with the urging of the priestess, she left her home once more. The Elements continued to whisper guidance and comfort to her, and there was a light breeze floating around her, giving her the courage to return to the Plaguelands. Her head was held high as she made her return, her one good eye daring anyone who gave her a second look to ask just why she had gone missing, to ask why that side of her face was covered.

She had a duty to do, and, no matter how uncomfortable she may feel, she knew that she had to persist, and that, over time, her discomfort would fade away into pride.

Yes, it was time for a change, a new start...