TurbO

[VoraciousReader]

It is night.

It is the night of the full moon, but there is no moon visible. The wind is whipping through the tree branches, and the scent of a storm is in the air. A lone stranger standing on the edge of the village feels the conflicting forces converging: the one, expectation and potential, bringing perhaps an occult gift; the other, desolation and ruin, ushering in the were curse.

She strikes flint against steel evoking a spark. Rather than immediately sparking and vanishing, the spark is lofted on the breeze and draws in the waiting energy. It coalesces into the Gift of Sight and drifts toward the village, seeking a worthy candidate.

The stranger watches the spark waft away, and wonders if such a tiny pebble can possibly withstand the mighty stream of evil that has been unleashed. She kneels in the dirt, and, with some difficulty, scrapes up a handful of the clay-rich soil. Biting her lip, she draws a curved knife from her waist. She slices her palm, mixes her blood with the local earth, and waits, carefully forming the mixture into two shapes. One is a simple orb, the other resembles a fang. Only then does she bind her wound with the silken scarf from her hair. At last the first drops that precede the coming storm fall.

She extends her arms, one clay form in each hand, and whispers her question to the elements. Lightning cracks through the cloudy sky, and then, for a moment, time seems to slow. The clouds part and momentarily bathe her in moonlight. The stranger watches as two crystal raindrops fall toward her outstretched palms. She catches them at precisely the same instant, and a faint chime rings through the air, followed by the crash of thunder. The outcome is in doubt. Two fates await the sleeping villagers, so precisely balanced that at this moment, no one may know which is to be.

However, even as the faint howls grow stronger in the distance, our stranger smiles, remembering the hope of that solitary spark. She turns, and meets the quick flash of a claw at her throat.

Waiting on the new seer.

It is still night.