Harrow

Harrow. She has always wondered why her parents chose to name her so. It is by no means a traditional Light name, more suited to perhaps Shadow or even Plague. Maybe they took one look at her eyes and knew - though neither of them were gifted with foresight - what she would go through, how she would struggle. She supposes she will never know. But what she would give for an insight to their thoughts at the time, would be too high a price to pay.

For whatever their reasons were, she has lived up to the name she was given.

She always knew she would be a Necromancer, before she even really knew what that was. A parting gift from the Lightweaver that she should always know more than she should. The Trials she passed in a strange calm, with none of the anxiety of her peers. She thought it would be easy, and it was, but it came with another gift, another curse.

Alien, pale eyes began sprouting from her wings, her crest, everywhere on her body, each just as functional as the two she was born with. For days after she had laid abed, overcome with the sensation, the inability to not see, the pain of the development. She was too young then to have been assigned a Necroservus, only months out from passing the trials, but her familiar remained at her side, the one thing to ground her.

Recovering from the shock came with little improvement. She had always known more than others, known where things are going, if not why, but that had been with only two eyes to aid her. Now, with more than she cared to count, it was impossible to keep the premonitions from taking over her mind. She spent long hours lost in the spinning paths of the future, and of the past.

Every mystery she had been unable to solve folded out in front of her with the solution, as if they were attention-starved pets and they needed her to know what they were. It was overwhelming, and in her few moments of clarity she thought that she would surely be lost. But her familiar stayed with her, ever concerned and loving, ready to help her any way it could.

Eventually she worked out a grounding excersize with it. A delicate dance of claws in fur and gentle touch that could drag her mind from what could be, what had been, to what was. But by then her fate was sealed.

She had passed the Trials, become a Necromancer, and found a place within a clan she could serve, but the months of delusion and fever-dreams took their toll on her reputation and her place within the clan. Coming back to reality was a slap in the face. For all her struggles, she had been replaced with a different Necromancer, only allowed to stay out of pity.

So she left. There was no place for her there, and she would not remain subordinate to someone who saw her as nothing, weak. But it was the same wherever she went. Word had spread of her plight, and the clans wanted nothing to do with a helpless Necromancer too out of it to even fend for herself. It stung, for there were needles of truth to it. Harrow had never been a fighter, she was tiny, and now she spent hours of the day lost to the world.

It was a world without a place for her. But like always, she knew what she needed to do. Some of the most renowned Necromancers were Oracles, blessed by the Mother in interpreting Her will. The eyes that had cast her to the brink of destruction were but a test of her own power and will.

Together, she and her familiar worked. She delved into what she saw as she never had before, actively looking and learning, asking questuons and seeking answers. Her stoat stood by her side watching over her, pulling her out when they were threatened, when she was in too deep. And she made the gifts given by two deities work together, work for her, and she got the distinct sense that the Mother was pleased.

It was not easy. In a world of larger dragons, she was often a target of roaming bands of mercenaries, supposedly easy pickings. She had to run from a feral ghoul more than once, and more than a few native creatures tried to eat her and her familiar. But she succeeded where any other might have failed.

Her newly mastered sight drove her to the edges of the plaguelands, a place where she knew she would find a home for herself. And she sat down to wait. Her reputation within this domain was tarnished beyond saving, but she would serve the Mother still. All she needed to do now was wait until midday, and her new clanmembers would be along to welcome her.

She ran her claws through her stoat's fur, humming to herself as they waited. Without it, she would have died long ago, and the bond they now share is an unbreakable one. This harrowing journey has come to an end, and she knows to look forward to what will come.