The Generally Held Belief Was That Tunnel Dwellers Were Unsuited To Life On The Surface

The tunnel dwellers were in an uproar. You could not see their eyes, if indeed they had any, which peered through slits in the white bandages that covered their faces, and their entire bodies, beneath the strange rough clothes they wore. They whispered the rumours from behind the bandages, from mouths that could not be perceived by shape or movement, only by the sounds they made.

Except for her, of course. The broad displayed no sign of the excitement and anger that filled her compatriots. And there were no white bandages for her. Her mask was black, and clung to her features like elastic, yet betrayed no indication of her appearance, save the pure white garments atop it.

She also wore clothes that signalled her as a Priestess-King of the tunnel dwellers, a long white coat, marked with three patches of power sewn onto the lapels. The first was an image of the neck and upper chest, concealed in the same black fabric, the next is of a round stomach, full with child, and the last is of two hands, shaking in friendship. Chastity, Fertility, and Diplomacy.

The tunnel dwellers parted like ocean currents to let her pass.