Eschar

Though cursed for her failure in the trials to suffer forever, Eschar is unwavering in her faith. Now settled under the care of Pleurisy, who seeks to find a cure for her and for Myo, she fends off madness with prayer and ill-health with magic. No matter how much the plague that wracks her body seeks to annihilate her utterly, she refuses to permit it, praying almost constantly to the goddess anyone else might expect her to blame.

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Day 12 - Harbinger

This was their fate.

She sees it, clear as day: ash, fire, burns across their skin.

This will be their fate.

It is clear as day, her Lady's will. Something that their Necromancers cannot turn aside.

Their fate...

She sees: bandages and bodies, thylacine-marked bodies moving alongside a fluttering white one, bestowing healing and help.

...will be as her Lady wills it.

Slowly, Eschar opens her eyes. Iridium and Aerugosanguis wait.

"So?" It is Iridium to speak first, ever eager, as always. "What did you see?"

"Iridium." Aerugosanguis' voice is flat, but clearly scolding the Necromage.

"Damage," whispers Eschar, her eyes cast down. "But no deaths, I think. Ash and a poison smoke. Burns. Bandages. You all and Porcelain, healing whom you can. Fire."

"A magma spurt?" Aerugosanguis sounds considering.

"It could be an earthquake," Iridium adds. "Or a full eruption. Some of the hatchlings have been complaining of odd vibrations and rumblings."

"We ought move the nests," Sang says. "Eschar." She looks up at him, attentive as ever. He, after all, heads the Necromancers here. He, of them all, has might that even Necromancers more dedicated to their Lady respect. Thus, he is the one their Lady would have rule, and so have her obey. "Have all your visions come true so far?"

"I told-"

"Iridium, be quiet. Eschar?"

"All of them, sir. If not always how I expect. Our Lady blesses me."

It is with a thoughtful expression that Aerugosanguis scratches the fungi at the side of his face.

"You may be a harbinger, little one. A forewarning of ill tidings."

Eschar dips her head. "Perhaps," she says. "But only if our Lady wills it."

He nods at that and turns to leave, but Eschar does not think he understands. She is a Ghoul, a harbinger of plague. That their Lady warns her, does not mean she will warn them.

But then, she is a warning in herself. If they will not listen...

It is as he said, she thinks, as she returns to her prayer, as Iridium coils after Aerugosanguis. It is as he said: she is a harbinger. It is to them to listen.

Day 19 - no prompt – free to use your imagination!

Sing.

Eschar opens her mouth, lets out a soaring note. She coughs, she sings again. The next note is clearer.

Her voice echoes in the stone room of her shrine. It should. She has carved when she has not prayed, for the past six weeks. Carved and carved, asked Aerugosanguis born of earth for advice, and carved again.

Her Lady had asked her to sing, but the room had muffled it. Now, as she does, so to does the room.

Sing.

She sings louder. Sings clearer. Note after note, scale after scale, no words but then this is wordless and eerie, a woven song of plague and prophecy, all her fever-sight coming clearer as her lungs strain to keep the song going.

Sing!

Lady.

Eschar sings. When, finally, she collapses, lungs straining, gasping for breath, sight gone black, she does not need to see with her eyes.

The prophecy reels across her mind, as clear a song as what she'd sung.

---

---

Eschar keeps to herself. Even when known and respected as a Seer she is deemed too dangerous to fully trust, too wild to reliably visit. Her only visitor most days is waterseer Parabola, who likewise knows what it is to bear a myriad visions behind one's eyes, who knows what it is to know that one's purpose lies beyond one's caste as ghoul - and in one's service to one's god.

"The tides are turning," Parabola had said that morning, trailing a crimson claw in the water she uses for visions.

Eschar's hands did not still on her bone prayer beads, but she had dipped her head in acknowledgement.

"With the Tidelord gone - others vie for his spot. For his power."

"Never to have it," Eschar had whispered.

"Never to have it," Parabola had echoed.

"Necromancers too-"

"Believe they deserve more-"

"Believe they should have more-"

"Lying and tricking their way up ranks-"

They spoke together as the sight led them to the same point.

"They do not serve their god. They serve only themselves."

They have guided Aerugosanguis and Pleurisy. They have even offered words to feared ConTam when he has visited. There are some few who serve in true faith, who work their way up not for their own edification or pride but in genuine belief.

But the balance doesn't tilt so favourably anymore. With the Riot of Rot drawing so close, Eschar can only wonder what the Plaguebringer will reap on them for their hubris.