Damien carefully sat beside them, legs crossed again, back stiff.
“You gotta know, Iambummed for you,” said the oraclewith a sigh as they lay their pipe to the side, smoke fizzling out. “You came all the way up here, but, like, that prophecy? There probably isn’t anything you can do about it.”
“Yeah, you said.”
“I just don’t want you wasting your time, man.”
Damien grunted, eyes flicking upward to watch the strange bird make a lazy loop in the darkening sky.
“And if you obsess over it too much, the gods are gonna get real cranky.”
“I don’t care what the gods think,” said Damien, resting his chin on his fist. “No offense.”
“Eh, none taken. I’m not one of ‘em, just got saddled with one of their powers. Denonfy picked fortune and destiny out the pot and then figured out it’s too heavy having all the answers.”
“If you got all of Denonfy’s powers, don’t you have control over fortune and destiny?”
“He kept just enough to ensure I couldn’t. But can I tell you a secret?” The oracle cocked a deeply indigo brow. “I don’t actually knoweverything.”
With a groan, Damien flopped down onto his back, splaying out on the stone.
The oracle sighed heavily like a weight had been lifted off of him. “Like, I know one of us is about to get shit on, but I’m not certain which.”
“Wha—” Damien went to sit back up, but it was too late, a splat of white falling on him. “Bloody, fucking Abyss, you could havesaid.” He looked about for anything to wipe the bird shit off his chest leathers, but the mountain peak was all smooth stone.
The oracle passed him the linen he’d brought from inside the tent. “Well, I did, but it didn’t matter, my man, it was gonna happen.”
“You just didn’t know to which of us,” Damien mocked, wiping himself off and glaring up at the creature still circlingabove them.
“Nope! But that’s the kinda stuff I like—that’s the stuff worth living for. There isn’t a whole lotta point in doing much when you know exactly what’ll come of it all.”
Damien settled back again but the sneer fell away from his face, the oracle’s words too sentimental to be angry over. “You should have told Amma that, she would have been more receptive.”
The oracle just laughed. “She wouldn’t accept that—once upon a time she might have said okay and just gone with the flow, but she’s changing, and eventually no one, not even the gods, will be able to tell her no. It’ll be right in time too.” They closed their eyes. “Take all the time you need coming up with your question. Don’t tell Val and Geoff, but it’s nice to just sit up here in the quiet sometimes.”
The sky darkened as the sun slipped away, stars winking into existence against the deepening purples as clouds gathered. Damien drummed fingers on his stomach, laying back, no idea what to ask. He was pondering the nature of things, but that wasn’t an oracle’s forte—what does it mean to be evil, to change, to experience an impossible feeling? Those things had been in that unfinished book that Anomalous had given him, but even Soren Darkmore hadn’t found the answers. Or he had, but ripped them out because they were too awful for anyone else to ever read.
The moons hung in the sky so drastically close to one another, and he could feel the impending magic as noxscura prickled at his skin. Where was his mother? How did Xander find him? What did Marquis Caldor have to do with everything? He couldn’t even ask the possible ways to purge the talisman from Amma, only how it would be done in the end, if at all, and he was afraid of that answer.
He’d never felt like such a coward.
Fear manifested in a blurry vision of E’nloc obscuring the future. He’d never thought of a future beyond the moment his father was released, but now he wanted something, even if it was just a filmy, uncertain feeling of safety and belonging. Because that future was where Amma was safe and they were together.
He snorted out a feeble laugh at that impossibility and thought instead about what Amma would ask if she’d not been burdened with Damien’s problems. Now that—that would be much easier.
“You’re really struggling,” said the oracle, and for once they were not smiling as they pushed up onto an elbow to look on Damien. Without that frightening, all-knowing smirk, Damien’s fear abated somewhat.
He nodded and sat up, head tipping down to look into his lap. He felt young and small and wished there were someone around to just do this for him. Then his head snapped back up. “You already know what I’m going to end up asking, don’t you?”
It was the oracle’s turn to nod. “Sure do. Bit of a waste, if you ask me, since it’s so obvious, but it is, uh, delightfully frivolous.”
Damien opened his mouth, but the right question refused to come out.
“If it makes it easier, I can just tell you the answer without you asking.”
Relief flooded Damien’s veins more completely than the noxscura. “Basest beasts, yes, please.”
The oracle sat up to face Damien, legs crossed and fingers folded together. An imposing figure even on the ground, when they straightened their back with eyes closed, Damien could actually feel the arcana that flowed through them, ever-present, seeping out. Sitting straight for once, the oracle cleared their throat and shifted hands forward to point. “You.”
