Rogues

Episode 7 | Sprite

The grass felt soft beneath their feet as they bolted across the field. They had never put so much energy into anything before.

They were desperate to get to the portal before it closed and they were beginning to fear that they wouldn't make it in time. Despite having started their journey towards their destination much earlier than they necessarily needed to, a small hint of worry was festering that they would somehow be too late.

Anaye was a Xosza seer, pronounced as xosha but the x made a clicking sound in the language Xossa, pronounced as it was spelt with the rule of the x.

The Xosza seers were a tribe of generationally born seers that lived their entire lives viewing their visions as gifts. They would never fight off a vision, no matter how painful or how horrific the insight, and would instead thank the Ether each time for the warnings. The Ether, in return, granted them all the gift of peace of mind, meaning they would never loose their sanity to their visions. A side effect of the Xosza tribe's way of life was the hesitance of physical aging. While their minds would age normally, their body's would take a season and a half to age just a single season. It caused them to live longer and, therefore, offer refuge for even more of the Ether's gifted out visions. The tribe had prospered for centuries until the Council, which had been mostly under the influences of humanity at the time, decided that they were too powerful and, therefore, too much of a threat. The camps, where they had lived, were bombed and the Council left no survivors. The Xosza way of life had been completely destroyed.

However, Anaye's parents had been ghoulish historians who had worked for years on recovering the remnants of the Xosza tribe after the revolution had ended so, when they'd been born a seer, they had raised them in the ways of that tribe. They had grown up having never denied a vision and were eventually also granted the gift of peace of mind. But, if they were to ever fight off a vision at any point in their life, they would loose that gift and risk insanity from the high amount of visions they'd let in while still having it. Anaye was very aware of this though and had made sure never to interrupt or deny a vision, no matter how inconvenient the moment of arrival was.

As a result, they had also seemed to gain a strange sort of ability: Certain visions showed events that were definitely going to happen and could not be changed. They had a different essence to regular visions of futures that only may be that allows the seer to recognize the difference. Anaye had somehow gained the ability to keep hold of that essence and bend it to fit whatever scenario they wanted. They could alter reality to a certain extent as if that version of reality had been shown to them in an 'unchangeable future' vision. It was limited mostly to transportation as if they had to be at that other place at that time according to a vision so they simply faded over to that location and changes of placement for smaller objects or features of their environment. That had been how they'd properly adapted their sleeping ledge to fit their needs. However, reality bending in that way required a large amount of energy and had to be used scarcely, otherwise they could risk completely loosing consciousness and getting trapped in their own changed reality.

When they had first mentioned the plan for self purging, their parents had been very skeptical. It was a crime, after all. However, after a while of reassurance and a few comforting visions, they agreed to let Anaye leave and promised not to report them or any of their friends, under one condition: that, if at any point they got the safe opportunity to, they would return to the ghoulish dimension to visit them. Anaye had gladly agreed.

Now that the portal was finally in sight, they began to almoust regret their decision. They had a great life with their parents and, if they left for Earth vier self purging, they'd risk never getting the chance to see them again.