The Many Lives of Theodosia of Zyanya

She Should Have Guessed the Cup Would be Poisoned

When Theodosia woke up in a tomb roughly a quarter of a century later, the world was completely different. The isolated village of Zyanya was taken over and outsiders invaded. What remained the same was the tomb, Theodosia had only seen it a handful of times but she recognized quickly when she saw the stone room when she woke up. There was also the clear evidence of the bones that laid around the room. The previous events came flooding back to her, she remembered finding the red blade with Fern who ended up diving the blade into her chest. She remembered dying. She should have been dead, and yet she woke up. Somehow, she continued to be alive.

She needed to get out the tomb. She didn't know how long she had been dead for, it only felt like she slept over the course of a night. Maybe no time had passed, she hoped, but she feared that she had lost so much more time. Though she could worry about timing later, her first worry was getting out.

She thought back the to Zyanya death customs. They didn't not truly believe in any sort of afterlife, they saw death as unavoidable, when someone died the death was accepted because it was their time. When people have the ability to see the future, they have to accept what they could not change, death fell into that category. There was little time to grieve, it was accepted, at one point they would all be dead, and that would never change.

Theodosia was faced with the classic problem that everyone is faced with at least once in their life, she had to find a way to escape a tomb in which where she was supposed to be lying dead. Theo feared that she would not be able to get out. When someone dead in the village, everyone gathered since everyone knew everyone, since they would morn together. There was a possession through the village that ended in the tomb. The person was laid in the tomb, and the village proclaimed that the person was claimed by reality. She couldn't remember if the doors to the tomb were ever locked, though locks were unlikely. There was virtually no crime in the village, and no one had any locks on their doors. The only building that Theo was sure that locked was the building that housed the people working for the Maeve.

Something told Theo that the doors out to the tomb would not be locked. No one would be trying to get out, since everyone inside was dead. No one from the village went into the tomb else someone had just died. There was no reason to lock it. Theo felt confident that she could get out.

She moved across the stone floor heading to leave. Pushing with all her strength she was able to just barely move the doors. There were not exactly weightlifting training in the village, so Theo never worked to build up her strength, a plus the doors were heavier than she expected. After some time, the door was able to open. She squinted as she stepped into the outside world, but she felt her lucking turning around. She may have been killed by her closest friend, but that she in the past, she was getting a second chance.

The Village was completely different. There were more buildings to house a larger population. The simple designs that were used in the basic form of shelter were gone, replaced with larger structures that were meant to look nice but did not have a purpose beyond decoration. Theo looked around. the streets were busy, there seemed to be some sort of market going on, that was something that Zyanya didn't have before, growing up in the village everything was shared, there was a garden that fed everyone and each person took turns working in the fields. What really made Theo afraid though was looking at the streets full of people that she didn't know. Everyone in Zyanya knew each other, it was a small village, they were a community. This was something different. Everything had changed. How long had she been gone for?

Theo didn't recognize where she was. How long was she gone for? She was utterly confused, she remembered dying and yet she was alive, the village was completely different from when she last saw it only moments ago, nothing was making sense.