Peace in Ignorance

When telling the story of holding her daughter for the first time, Mbali's mother lovingly described it as being like spring had come early-- the joy had led the pyro parta to melt the snow outside her room in the dead of winter. The only damper to the story being that the reaction was likely to the pain of contractions she was experiencing not 10 minutes prior. That was just how Sibongile Tshabalala chose to operate, highlighting positives to ignore a negative. As a toddler, Mbali saw her as the sun; warm, welcoming and safe. Though she was calm around her dad, Vusumuzi, it was obvious she loved her mother best. Only Sibongile could make her daughter squeal with joy by smiling. As soon as she was able to walk, she toddled after her around the house. When her mother would use her fire, Mbali would watch it with wondering eyes. Close friends of her parents were convinced they were watching the incubation of a pyro, following in her mother's footsteps.

Maybe they were right, but the direction of Mbali's life and magical development changed very suddenly when she was almost five. A couple years before Mbali was born, a portal to Sanapeccum had been opened in a major city on the other side of the country. Through a combination of censorship, slow travelling, and the insanity of that claim to begin with, the idea of demons roaming around was seen as spiritual hoo-hah by a lot of Mbali's close family. That, and Sibongile's optimistic outlook on the world kept her family from taking the warnings of passing travellers too seriously. She practically rejected the notion as being possible any time it was brought up, more for her own sanity than careful thought. This would prove to be unwise.

Though her father assumes she was too young to remember the incident, it was more like she was too young to realize the danger at the time. Mbali was with her mother when she was possessed by a passing demon, but had no way to understand what had happened. All she knew was that something entered her mother, and now she was sick or forgetful or something. The imposter lived inside her mom and within her family for almost a week and a half before the oddities were too much and Vusumuzi took action. It wasn't just her, too, multiple people in town had been showing signs of change since the month began. Not knowing who to trust after getting confirmation that his wife was no longer herself, he took Mbali and fled town that night, not giving them the chance to stop him.

Later, Mbali would ask what pushed her father to check her mother for possession, seeing as her parents used to be so adament that it wasn't possible. With a sigh, Vusumuzi explained Mbali stopped smiling when her mother looked at her. As if she were a stranger. Though he didn't understand what he was noticing, it was the first alarm bell to go off in his head. He got in communication with a nearby resistence group (one that the townspeople formerly saw as either eccentric or insane) and they helped him escape the area, promising they would return to save Sibongile when they got the materials to fight back against the invading force. That promise remaiend unfufilled for over ten years. Mbali grew up without a mother.

Daughter Earthshaker

Sadly, at the time especially, Mbali's story was increasingly common.

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