No one came to bother Tali for the rest of the day. No doubt the shaman had begged everyone off from bothering him. His hut might as well be a seclusion chamber now. He had aaaall day to lay on his bedding and think about the vision that had so unnerved him. Right now he lay there holding up a worn wood carving of a lizardfolk female holding a basic spear that was basically a toothpick in its tiny claws. It was his favorite carving, even if he could still see the crudeness of his early days.
Staring at the figure, he thought on his vision. He didn't want to, but knew he should if he ever wanted to figure out what it meant. The first thing that stood out was the eyes. They were the last thing he saw, and they unnerved him deeply. He had no experience with visions. Maybe it was normal, but it felt like those eyes were looking directly at him. Not the creature whose perspective he'd inhabited, but himself, Tali. It was ludicrous, but so was the whole Sight business in general so he couldn't shake the feeling.
As his thoughts drifted away from the eyes, he realized they must have belonged to a lizardfolk, but he didn't know anyone from the village with eyes that vividly yellow. Sure, yellow eyes weren't uncommon, especially from the black-scaled within the village, but it was always more subdued than the figure in his vision. Something to consider further later.
Moving further back, he thought on the rushing through the swamp and the chase. He'd felt distinctly wrong in that part, like his body was wrong in some way. It felt like he was moving far faster than he normally could and like he barely had arms and was hunched forward. A vision, not the mystical kind, of a creature from his youth appeared in his mind. A predator that stared him down but ultimately left him alone as he guarded a clutch of hatchlings barely 3 years old.
That memory always gave him a shudder, but he thought it fit. It seemed the thing got itself killed by someone with a spear, but his master said things weren't straightforward in visions, so he thought more on that point. Ultimately he fell asleep that night without coming up with anything convincing, even to himself.
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In the following weeks his master had him practice achieving the Sight several times. When he told her about his thoughts on his first vision, she looked concerned for much greater things than he would have thought, but ultimately didn't tell or help him much. She insisted that while it was useful for shamans to share visions after they'd come to their own conclusions, he was too new to hear her own visions and opinions yet.
While he tried several times a week to achieve the Sight again, it didn't always work. His master said that sometimes Fate has nothing to share with us, and that this was normal. She advised he only try for the Sight when he saw omens worthy of note in the days prior. This helped him achieve it more easily, but he realized it was about the same amount as before. He was happy enough not to waste his time in the stuffy seclusion chamber so often, anyway.
The visions he did have were often of mundane things. He predicted the rain a couple of times, which got him much thanks from the potters who stocked up on clay beforehand as well as the weavers who gathered more grass to work indoors for the rain. He even found a lost grass doll for a hatchling. His master said that they shouldn't use their gifts for such small things, but Tali still remembered his own beloved straw doll as a hatchling himself, so he went ahead and did it anyway, which surprised his master that it even worked in the first place.
Beyond these mundane visions, which really did help him get a better handle on understanding what he saw, he continued getting occasional ominous visions from the swamp. He never fully grasped his first vision, and the following ones were always about as ambiguous. They weren't as violent or abrupt as his first, but he would see shadowy figures he reckoned were Night Terrors passing through the trees in the distance or the remnants of a bloody feast from above through a bird's eye.
Which is what lead him to now, standing before the swamp. He was still terrified of the Night Terrors. They rarely attacked the village, but they always lost a few when it happened and he was still scarred from that first night when he and Renal had led them back.
Maybe I should've brought Renal. He's the best warrior in the village now. He could probably handle those things no problem. Tali thought wistfully.
It was too late now. He only hoped he didn't lead them back to the village again. If he even made it out alive, that is. Something in the visions felt like it was pulling him into the swamp though, so he knew he had to confront it. With that thought, he stepped forward and into the one place everyone knows not to go.