Chapter 10:A Blessing,a burden

Days rolled into days, and Tiara continued her life of great toil and sweat. 

From dawn to dusk, she did menial jobs, trying to make ends meet. Still, the people still whispered behind her back.

And though she still lived in a broken cottage behind the arena, Tiara now walked with a quiet strength in her step.

But something had undeniably changed. She started to have a series of visions which began with flickers of memories, shadows holding to the edges of her thoughts.

At first, she thought it was as a result of being overworked during the day, but then she began to see that it was way beyond being overworked.

She saw wolves she had never met, running through burning forests, their eyes glowing with desperation and fear.

She also had a vision of a child being born with the glow of the moon illuminating it.

-----

Tiara was walking by the riverside, making her way to the river to get a cold bath, very early one morning when she saw the butcher’s wife weeping alone by the riverside.

She was startled as she had never encountered anyone that early at the riverside.

"What is she doing here this early? Crying so much?" She thought, walking briskly to the sobbing woman.

"Ma'am," she called, a few steps away from the woman.

"Why are you here this early? Why are you crying? Is everything okay?" She bombarded the woman with a series of questions.

"Are you asking me if everything is okay?" The woman replied, in between sobs.

" What sort of question is that when it is no news that my husband passed away," she said before turning her face towards Tiara's direction.

Tiara's eyes widened in shock, "But....but..I still saw him yesterday before heading home. How is he dead this morning?" She managed to ask, out of panic.

And just then— 

Low rustling was heard behind her, making her shift her gaze towards the direction where the noise came from. Goosebumps were now visible on her body.

After observing for a few seconds, she turned to the woman and, to her surprise—

There was no one by the riverside, it was only her, she was all alone by the riverside.

"What is going on?" She moved backwards, almost not believing her eyes.

"The butcher's wife was right here a few....." She paused before looking around, out of fear.

Three days after this, the butcher died in his sleep. 

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Sometimes the visions came in dreams, vivid and painful, shaking her awake in the middle of the night, making her breath shallow and her heart racing. 

Other times, they would flash through her eyes and head in the middle of her chores—unpredictable and unavoidable.

After so many occasions , she started to keep a small notebook beneath her pillow. 

In the quiet hours of dawn and whenever her sleep was cut short by the visions or dreams, she would scribble down what she could remember: a face, a phrase, but even then, some dreams slipped through her grasp like water, slipping through fingers.

---

One morning, while sweeping the front of an old building that served as an inn, she suddenly paused, her hands tightening on the broom. A sharp image burst through her mind like lightning across the sky:

A young girl was drowning in a well, and a red scarf, floating just above the surface, her voice muffled beneath layers of earth and water.

Tiara dropped the broom and ran desperately.

She followed the image through the winding alley, following in the direction where her legs took her. 

She carefully observed as she ran and to her dismay, it was beyond the edge of the market. Her feet continued to move with instinct, not reason, until she reached a crumbling old well near the arena’s edge.

“Help!” came a faint, yet, frantic cry.

"Please, help me," 

The scarf, just as she had seen in her vision, her eyes caught on it.

Without hesitation, she screamed for help, drawing the attention of nearby workers and residents. Together, they pulled the child out of the well, all soaked, and barely conscious.

After saving the child, no one bothered to ask her how she knew. Some stared in awe, some with suspicion and curiosity in their eyes.

By the next day, whispers and rumors began to circulate once more.

---

“Did you hear about yesterday's incident?”

“I heard that she is cursed, and that she sees death, way before it comes.”

“Maybe she is a witch.”

“We do not know anything about her aside from the fact that she wandered in here, all tattered.....

Tiara walked by the people who were gossiping and at that instant, the murmurs died down and the gift that once felt like a blessing began to feel like a burden.

"I just hope that all of these dreams and flashing visions do not eventually land me in a boiling soup of trouble," she prayed in her heart, walking away like she did not hear the gossip and talking about her.

She continued to have dreams and visions. However, some visions she forgot, and some she remembered.

No matter how hard she tried, some dreams usually dissolved in the morning, leaving her with only the ache of knowing she had seen something important, something she was meant to remember.

She wondered if the woman from her dream—the glowing one who gave her an apple-knew how heavy this gift would become.

Yet despite the exhaustion, despite the fear, her gift of sight continued to wax stronger and clearer.