Tarintha knew many things and always had. When she was a little girl and her power newly woken, she told her mother the two-year drought was ended mere moments before the rain spattered across the dying fields of the family farm. But knowing things could be a burden. The morning she sensed death shadowing her father, she clung to him and whispered how much she loved him with tears streaming down her face, hoping with the naivety of youth that her warm embrace could change what she saw. Yet, as the ox shattered fate and skull alike in the fields that day, she learned the hardest lesson of all: even foreknowledge could not always alter the march of destiny. In her years living in the land of Tyrendar, she saw the rise and fall of many kings, rebellions, and even whispered in the ears of lords the tidings of war. She had never been wrong.
The path to awakening greatness and saving the land has always been paved with choices that haunt her. She had accepted the burden of the terrible things she had wrought for the greater good decades ago, and it rarely held her back. Destiny often requires a steep toll.
With these thoughts on her mind, she finally let loose her raven, and then a second with the same message, knowing the first bird would become part of the cycle of life before it reached the edge of the forest, knowing that Zynn the Stormwrought would arrive before evenfall. She knew the words she would need to say to convince him of what he needed to do, and that he would do it, but not what the outcome would be. After eight decades of flawless foresight, she had never been unsure of the outcome of events she set in motion, and she was deeply troubled - a new feeling for her.
Tarintha was no stranger to waiting, such was her craft. As such, she set about her usual daily tasks of tending her herb and vegetable gardens, brewing tinctures, and setting a lamb stew to the fire. This stew, she knew, would be the nostalgic touch, the key, to convincing the Stormwrought to bend to her will. Her words would be powerful, but not enough.
As the sun began to fall beneath the canopy of trees around her hut, the winds shifted and the clouds gathered from the east, as she knew they would. He'd arrive just as the sun fully disappeared, a clash of thunder and lightning meant to strike fear in her heart. If she didn't already know that he would never turn his powers on her, it might have worked; one didn't get the title "Stormwrought" for nothing, after all.
The foretold thunder boomed with a flash of lightning, and a short, hooded figure stepped from the edge of the trees and into the firelight. The shadows cast by the flickering flames gave him a gaunt look, accentuated by the dark circles under his eyes and the hollow cheeks of the starved.
"You dare summon me like some common peasant, witch woman?" Ice crisped the words, and lightning ringed his clenched and trembling fists.
A useless waste of magic, and Tarintha tsk-ed at him. She needed to remind him of who she was, a wasteful but necessary gesture. Delving into the place of madness deep within her core, she bent reality to her will in a physical sense as she had not done for many moons. The familiar pull within her trying to drag her down the shadowed path, she forces it back masterfully. She refused to succumb to the evil she was so often accused of. Lances of Zynn's own lightning whipped from the sky and wrapped around his waist, dragging him forward to the chair she had prepared for him. She was careful not to let the electricity course through him, lest his heart stop beating, and amplified her voice so it rang as a crack of thunder. "Sit down, Zynnthius."
As if he had a choice.
In a rare moment of petty action, she allowed a small zap of electricity to touch him as she released his lightning back to him. The feel of wielding her power once again whispers through her mind, once again dragging her mind toward the shadowed path. She released the magic before temptation could build.
His hood had fallen back during his movement forward, and he was glaring at her, but did not move or speak. His shaggy brown hair fell to his shoulders, matted with what could only be dried blood. His steely grey eyes sparkled with the lightning that was his element. Tarintha turned from him to gather her serving utensils and began to spoon the stew into bowls.
"That will be the last time you call me witch woman," she stated calmly as she worked. She didn't need the Sight to know this was true.
Tarintha held the bowl of stew out to him, which he slowly accepted. "Don't you dare drop this bowl, it's the last I have," she chided.
Taking one last moment before turning the wheel which can not be stopped, she said quietly, "I have found the book."
Her hand was still under the bowl as he dropped it, and she stood patiently as he grabbed it again. The hungry gleam in his eye told her everything she needed to know about his ability to be used for this task.
"Where?"