The Gift
The Voice resounded inside her mind in synchronized multiples, harmonics with errors in pitch and tone just enough to be jarringly discordant. Rune routinely heard strange voices, it was practically in the job description. But she feared it. This one was different. The Voice cried, shrieked, begged, implored, raged, cajoled, sulked. It clung to her thoughts with cloying depth she couldn't push away. It ranged a gamut of emotions that matched the tonal ranges so gracelessly employed. She feared it. The most common emotion was an undertone of seething malice. It felt strange, unlike other angered spirits, cloaked and unknowable in ways she hadn't experienced before.
The thickets nearby rustled with more than a nightly breeze. A shadow formed above the underbrush, beaked head and twisting horns bowing it’s head to the keeper woman.
"It won't become tame. Let it in, you wear the collar, Belasko."
"Don't call me that."
"Don't ask me to fight for you, when the time comes."
Even the thing that came to borrow her sight feared it. The witch wondered at what her course should be. Wondered and cast the bones. She didn't care for how they fell. Beneath a smooth white rune, a small red flower bloomed.