[color=ed1c24][center][h2]Akeno[/h2][/center][/color]

The camp was abuzz with activity when she approached from the outskirts; things apparently getting a lot more hectic as more and more of the runts came back from their hunts. The centre of the activity seemed to be Esfir; the young Orc with the air of a much older person who had all but disappeared once they had reached the caves. Whatever she had been up too back then, it seemed she had made her way back to camp too and had set up some kind of barbeque so she could start handing out cooked food.

The older woman was leveraging her knowledge from her past life from the looks of it; preparing and cooking food that the Orcs here had probably never seem or experienced before in order to set up a little business for herself, a niche within the group. You bring her meat, she turns it into sausages. Would it work? Maybe, but given the conversation she had just had with Shamar it seemed likely that Esfir would need to be ready to defend anything she managed to create for herself; either from people who just wanted to take what she had, people who were jealous, or people who looked down on a ‘runt’ who thought they could make something of themselves.

Things were already getting kind of violent around there.

The free food was tempting, nonetheless, but rather than risk the crowd Akeno decided to wait for things to calm down a bit and hope that there was still something left. When she did, maybe she’d share what little she had learned of how things worked in the tribe with the other Orc; the older woman probably knew enough to take care of herself, but it couldn’t hurt to give a friendly warning.

Other than that, things around camp were mostly the same as before. The farmer had gotten back to his work, the bullies were harassing anyone that caught their eye and the shaman had settled down in a chair. She still had no intention of going anywhere near the chief or those associated with him and still didn’t know anything about farming. Perhaps she could go and hunt something to trade with Esfir, assuming she hadn’t been robbed blind by then, or perhaps she should talk to the shaman and see if there was anything she had that needed doing. Akeno had seen her send another runt off on an errand earlier.

In fact, wouldn’t the shaman, who also looked like she filled the role of tribal elder, be more in tune with the goings on around camp than anyone else? Other than the chief at least. I mean, if she was in the habit of sitting around camp and watching the camp like she was now, then if nothing else she probably saw more of what was happening than most. It might be worth talking to her just to find out if anything significant was happening or had happened recently.

Come to think of it, what [i]did[/i] a shaman actually do? Akeno knew that back home shamans were typically spiritual leaders or sorts, those who dealt with spirits and who handled ceremonial stuff in certain cultures; the same was probably true here as well, but what kind of spirituality did the Orcs have? What kind of rites and ceremonies did they observe? Or was the shaman more like a folk-healer, or a midwife? A storyteller? A historian?

Curiosity pulled her towards the old woman in the chair. As she approached, the shaman caught her eye and gave her a half-smile, which was probably good enough as far as invitations went. [color=ed1c24]“I’m curious. When you’re not watching us all act like idiots”[/color], starting off with humour may not be the best idea, but the words slipped out, [color=ed1c24]“What is it that you do? For the tribe.”[/color]

[@Zeroth]