The Many Lives of Theodosia of Zyanya

Friends Stab You in the Front, not the Back

There was the village of Zyanya that was so far at the edge of the Realm of Correnia that it should have been separate from the Realm, but the village held a trait that made them the interest of those in charge. Zyanya was a village of Seers, everyone within that village had the power to see the future, the past, and reality itself. The Maeve who was in charge if the Realm needed their visions to stay in power, so she made sure that she controlled the village.

The village of Zyanya was a simple place to live. No one made choices for themselves. They were allowed to live in they followed the rules set before them. And they could go any where they wanted as long as they didn't leave the village.

The village was invaded and taken over by the crown. Anything that the Maeve disapproved of was destroyed. She took away their individuality She used the village to understand her future to make sure that her power was never ending. There were times when the villagers saw the downfall of the Maeve, she made she that they were wrong. Using their powers of foresight, she would hunt down the next heir so that there would be no threat to her claim.

Education comprised of being trained in their abilities. Their powers were not merely to see the future or the past, they were witnesses to other fractions of realities in the manifestations of what was to come or based on what was experienced before, in many ways they saw the truth. They had to be able to interpret their visions. They learned how to tell the difference between metaphorical and literal visions. It was important to understood what the vision was trying to say because the meaning could lead to a different course of action.

The abilities feel into two categories: the first being ones were visions appeared because it was something that needed to be seen, and the second being able to summon what they desire to see. The second half is rarer and only found in the most skilled residents. Children were taught the theory of how to summon what needed to be seen so that they would have control if they were was one of the few with that power. They were taught how to interpret what they saw, since it was not always how they seem.

Theodosia was a gifted child. She had frequent visions, in both forms. She was skilled but ever since an early age lacked focus. She refused to work to understand them, she never put in the effort to dissect what she saw. No matter what she saw, she knew that nothing was going to change. The Maeve was never to release the power over Zyanya, the current Maeve made it clear that her reign was never going to end. It did not matter what her visions held, for it would only give more power to the crown.

The Seers of Zyanya were already being used to hunt down heirs, by merely providing the information of when a new heir would appear. The power of the Maeve was not passed genetically, every so often someone was born with the powers of the Maeve. The reigning Maeve was supposed to train the heir to take the crown, and fully pas over the power. That changed during the current administration, which was dubbed early on as the Reign of Terror. The Maeve had been ruling for a couple of centuries already and had already disposed of a handful of heirs already. In a way the heirs were being born as a correction course, one of them had to survive and end the Reign of Terror.

By the time that Theodosia came around the village was barely anything. She heard the Elders talking about the ancient beliefs that they had to stop believing after the takeover, but only mentioned in whispers. The Elder Ritzie was the only one who openly rebelled against the Maeve. She was deemed crazy by the others in the village who only wanted to survive, so was allowed to do whatever she wanted because no one would believe her. the villagers kept their heads down. They didn't complain or make waves. They only have to survive, the reign of the current Maeve had to end eventually, they had to survive for that much longer.