THE MAGICIAN. "tapping into one's full potential."
❝what are your talents/capabilities specific to your dr? do you have powers? tell us the specifics! can you sing? show us your discography! can you act? show us what you've performed in!❞
day two of the tarot deck event.
by typical grisha standards i’m a tidemaker — an etherealki who can manipulate water. but that isn’t what makes me stand out, it isn’t what makes me important.
every few centuries, somewhere across the globe, a seer is born. a person (typically grisha) with the ability to see events that are yet to come. their ability can be called subjective precognition or the sight, and allows them to see possible futures based on decisions made by those related to a situation. the ability is not perfect, and the seer’s visions will change depending on actions taken, but it is still an incredibly useful and highly coveted skill, so seers are often inclined to hide their abilities in order to protect themselves.
for years, the darkling searched for a seer who he could use to help him take control of ravka, and in 1860, he finally found one in a ravkan village called sikursk. the girl was only eight when she was taken to os alta and trained privately at the little palace, and she grew up knowing the darkling as her father and mentor.
as far as i can remember, there has never been a time without the visions.
at first, when i was young, they had been blurred and unintelligible, and i had worried that something was wrong with me, so i had never told anyone about them, but keeping a secret like that wasn’t easy, and i could only hide my gift for so long.
when the grisha testers came to my village, i had wanted to run. the other children would spread all sorts of rumours about the test and what happened to those who were revealed to be grisha, so each night i would pray to the little marble saints that stood at my bedside, i would beg for them to let me be normal, to let me stay with my family. they didn’t listen.
when the tester took my wrist, amplifying a power i hadn’t known i’d had, the water in a nearby glass rose from its vessel and evaporated into the air, making it undeniably clear that i was grisha. frightened, i was attempting to run when the vision overcame me.
a dark hall, an unfamiliar face, a raging fire.
the next thing i knew, i was alone in a carriage headed for os alta, never to return to the place i had called home or the family i had loved.
even after i learnt the truth about the rare power i had, and the history behind it, i struggled to control the visions. they would be jumbled and unclear, and often irrelevant to what i had been intending to see. but it didn't take long for me to learn to harness my abilities properly under the guidance of the darkling, and soon i could monitor and relay decisions made by enemies of ravka; not long after that, i could see anything that might pose a risk to the darkling, essentially serving as a personal alarm system.
✷ how do visions manifest?
whenever they come on, the visions will take over my body. most often they cause me to stop what i’m doing and remain statutory as they run their course. other times — when they’re at their most intense — they can cause me to stumble or lose my footing and fall to the ground.
sometimes disjointed words will spill from my lips, but there’s rarely anyone there to catch them. my eyes gloss over, going a milky white, and then the visions commence.
when they happen at night, they can last anywhere from a few seconds to over an hour, but the longer they last, the harder they are to remember when i finally jolt awake. that’s why i keep my journals, they’re the best way for me to record whatever i see.
unfortunately, my visions don’t come without setbacks — they can sometimes cause headaches and fatigue, and the visions themselves aren’t always particularly pleasant to witness.
as well as this, my visions aren’t always right, in fact they’re rather subjective, since they’re related to decisions made by those i’m watching. if a decision is uncertain, or multiple possibilities are being considered, the futures i see can be unclear or be plural. typically, the visions become more clear as an event draws nearer, as decisions are solidified and plans set in stone.
notes : i only started reworking this dr this dr like two days ago so this is more of a lore dump than a coherent explanation but it fits the prompt sooo 😼