Author's Note: This story is NOT CANON. Please read author's profile before proceeding, lest you become very annoyed at the direction this story takes.
Prologue
He woke from rest that day very troubled. The source of his trouble was a dream. Rightly it was more than a dream - vision would be a better word. He had heard of those who received visions and he did not want to be one of them. A vision set you apart too much, and gave you a responsibility to be true to the vision, whatever the cost.
Many times that day, he went over the contents of that vision. First, he had seen a large cluster of lights in a double spiral pattern. Then, an object, seemingly within the lights, such as he had never seen before. It was a disk-shape with three oblong things attached to it, two above and one below. The one below was shorter and fatter than the other two. The vision changed again. Within the disk, he saw a ring of seven beings. At least, he got the impression they were beings. The ring of seven was as it should be, but the beings were not like those he was familiar with.
They had only four arms, instead of fourteen, and they moved weirdly - jerky not smooth. And yet he was sure they were not animals, but sentient beings. They didn't seem to have the colors of life at all, though they did differ from each other somewhat. Mostly, they were a dark red color; the differences were most apparent at the top of each creature. Some were topped with black, others with a shade of brown. They all had some kind of bump on each side of the top, but the shape of one set of bumps was very different - pointed on top, instead of rounded. One of the beings seemed much darker than the others, but that did not seem to make it any less alive.
The vision gave him a clear picture of the top of each of the seven creatures. Apparently, they were to be identified by their unique appearance - a very odd concept. When the vision again showed him the entire ring of beings, a very strange thing happened. One of them, the one with pointed bumps, placed the end of one arm on the top of the being next to him. That being fell over. He got the distinct impression that this had been a form of attack. Then the pointed-bumps one withdrew from the ring, coiled in isolation. The one on the other side picked up the one that had fallen down. What happened next was most strange. Instead of reforming the ring without the one who had attacked, the victim left the ring himself, went to the attacker and drew him back into the ring.
When the ring was again completely whole, the vision changed once more. Each of the beings turned around, breaking contact with each other. Yet he had the sense that their ring was not broken at all. They then moved outward to join with his people, one to each of the seven clans.
As the vision ended, he was left with the pervading thought that these strange creatures had something that his people needed, indeed could not survive without. He was certain that this something was related to the reason the victim had drawn the attacker back into the ring. He didn't understand it, but he knew the vision required him to seek out these creatures, wherever they might be, and learn the key truth they possessed. The future of his people depended on it. And if it cost his life, that was a price that had to be paid. That was the nature of visions.