Biography:  

A displaced child of the forbidding frozen wastes of the North, Naqi seeks to find her way back home to the family and people she grew up with.  Born first to the hearth of her father Jaipiti, her smaller siblings were as likely to be carried on her hips as that of her mother Meriwa's.  Naqi's people, they have no name for themselves as a race or culture, live in the far North among the great floes of ice and they follow the migrating herds of reindeer in the short warm season.  When the nights that last all day close in they settle inside their snow-covered hide huts, supported by the great curving ribs of the whales they hunt in the frigid ocean, and tell stories, laugh, and love by the flickering seal and whale oil lamps.  Her people possess no metal, working instead with bone and stone and antler, and while utterly primitive seeming to the denizens of the warm lands, they survive in a land where death and demons stalk and claim anyone else.

 

Like her grandmother Sedna, Naqi is a healer. The lore of the vast carpets of plants that spring up in the warm seasons was taught over countless winter days.  Young Naqi listened to the description of each one, holding the dried stems and flowers Sedna placed in her hand, and leaning close to capture the whispered preparation and uses of each.  Such knowledge had magic in it and must be treated with the same awed regard that the spirits were awarded. 

 

Naqi, like many of her people, has an innate sense of direction.  It was a necessary talent when trekking across the dark calm ocean in a kayak, hunting seals and whales among the ever shifting islands of ice.  Always, no matter how far she traveled or how blinding the swirling snow, Naqi and her kin could head unerringly back home.  Also like every one of her people, Naqi has no concept of lying.  The concept simply does not exist in their culture and the Warmlanders who find out about her inability to comprehend such a thing could take savage advantage of it.

 

Naqi can still always point to the directions of Sun Rising and Sun Setting and can find her way back to any place she's ever been; she just can't tell you which way her home is.  Whenever she tries, vertigo sweeps through her and drives the dark girl to her knees.  Naqi doesn't clearly remember how she came to be in the hot lands, only vague impressions of a circle of stones guarding green grass in an otherwise sere landscape of snow and ice, stepping into it in wonder and then feeling a sweeping sensation lift and carry her away into the darkness.  She awoke in the blazing heat of the Warmlands in a similar circle of stones, this one guarding snow and ice among a lush meadow bordered by forests. 

 

Naqi is Lost though she can never be lost. 

 

While she's been in the Warmlands, Naqi has been taken in by Anthea.  Some call her a wizened woman, some a haggish crone, and still others mutter darkly about witchcraft.  To Naqi however she is a gift of the spirits.  She has acclimated Naqi to the culture of the Warmlands and, more importantly, recognized Naqi as a sister herbalist.  The two of them spent much time teaching each other about their various methods and applications of healing, cooking, and preventative medicine with herbs.  To Naqi it is simply natural that a lost person be taken in and given shelter so she thinks nothing of Anthea's real reasons or motives for doing so.

Though she learned much from Anthea, Naqi's life lies in another land; a realm of swirling snow, fantastically wind-carved ice, and the oily still black waters of the frigid ocean.  She has set out to find her people and to fulfill the last request her little sister Hiti made.  "Hurry back, Naqi!"  Though she has no idea what direction home is, she will find it.

 

Personality Description:  

Laughter and compassion flow freely from Naqi's soul.  She is utterly without artifice and some mistake how she speaks the truth without reservation for a lack of tact.  They soon realize Naqi has no hatred in her no matter how blunt her words seem.  Though she longs to find her way home again, Naqi lives each moment for the joy in it and doesn't let herself slip into melancholic brooding over her path in life.

 

Physical Description:  

Everything about Naqi is dark; her skin the color of tanned hides, her coal black straight hair, even her eyes are gems of jet perched in the slightly slanted settings of her eyelids.  Though quite lovely, Naqi's face is free of marriage tattoos; unusual in a maid of her age among her people.  A small, slightly curving mouth that was born to dance with smiles and laughter sits below a nose dashed with a spray of dark freckles across it's bridge.  Though small compared to many, Naqi is not frail but simply compact and adapted for living in the frozen wastes of her homeland. 

 

While in the blasted heat of the Warmlands, Naqi has set aside her traditional clothing so necessary to survive in the cold of her homelands.  Though the climate is cool and wet by Warmlander standards, Naqi finds it almost unbearable and wears but a short sleeveless kirtle of supple roan leather that leaves her legs bare from the mid-thigh down.  It is slit up both sides a bit to allow for free movement.  She wears loose leather foot wrappings bound in place with thongs, and keeps her hair back in two braids she wipes down with palmfuls of animal fat to make them shine.  A loose belt holds the kirtle cinched about her narrow waist and from it hangs a scabbard holding her flint knife.  Naqi's sling is usually tucked into it as well.  When Naqi needs a pocket she folds the items in a bit of loose rabbit fur or other small skin and twists it closed with a wrap of grass then stuffs it beneath her belt.  The other constant of her attire is a skin pouch made from a baby seal with the head left intact but the bones all removed from a narrow slit in the throat.  This water tight contraption, head folded over to secure it, holds her collection of herbs and other medicinal items.  

Foamfoot, her dappled grey mare, and Naqi share an uneasy relationship.  If asked now what she'd look for in a horse Naqi would reply "No teeth and half-blind."  Very unused to horses at all, much less sitting one, Naqi spends more time arguing with the spirited mare, dodging nips and head swings, then she does riding..  Often she simply gives up and can be found walking, Foamfoot following behind trying to step on her heels or make a lunch of one of Naqi's braids.  Naqi plans to eat her if the opportunity ever arises.