<< Windmill - Lor >>
Kaius left for the mountain of Mirai the moment that the sun first broke over the horizon.
A round trip to the summit of the mountain and back would take at least ten hours to complete and so he hoped he would make it home in time for dinner, avoiding any necessity to explain his whereabouts.
His father and sister would be home that day and would hopefully assume he had left early for a work assignment. To avoid suspicion, Kai had followed the same early morning routine for the past few weeks, on this same day.
It wasn't that he didn't trust them to know that he was seeing the Fate today, of course, but he did not wish for the conversation to reach Rameses' ears.
The way that his heart had raced when he kissed him, the low, seductive tone to his voice and the way in which his body had reacted when he touched him, simultaneously confused and excited Kai.
But as complicated as his feelings were becoming for Rameses, he certainly did not trust him.
'I never thought about other men before, but even so...I can do better than a man who would betray my trust like that. We did everything for him, we gave him a home, a family, and he just -'
Kai gritted his teeth as he began his ascent. The worn stone steps, weathered and narrow beneath his feet, were carved into the side of the mountain at a time long before the current generation of humans. A single railing had been installed along the final leg of the path, but for the majority of the climb, he would have to watch his every step.
As he climbed, Kaius began to ruminate on everything that he knew about the Fates. Which, in truth, was minimal.
The Fates were strange and elusive beings.
Always appearing as a beautiful woman, with only one Fate residing in each region of Zenin, their existence was seemingly immortal and singular as though they had always been there, never appearing to age, to feed or to reproduce.
Or at least, not in a way that any human had seen; their love of gold and knowledge, a mystery that remained unsolved.
Because the Fates were also proud, and did not hesitate to punish those who might overstep.
For example, it was a known rule that you were never to touch a Fate.
The few men who had tried, driven by an insane desire or malicious intent, were discovered at the foot of the mountain; unceremoniously tossed from its summit, their skin blue and their lungs filled with water as though they had been drowned before they fell.
Nobody touched a Fate and lived to tell the tale.
Kai gripped the handrail tightly and pulled his already tired body up the next step, willing himself not to look down, knowing that the trees of the forest were now mere pinpricks of green and brown beneath him.
When Kai reached the summit of Mirai, he was already panting; the muscles in his legs aching and burning in protest against the strain of the long climb, and the lack of oxygen severely impeding his ability to regain his breath.
Kai's round, hazel eyes surveyed his surroundings whilst he slowly collected himself.
The summit was just as he remembered.
The layer of mist that hung lazily over a glassy, mirror-like pool of water; the harsh, rocky terrain juxtaposed with the bright patches of lush grass and vibrant swathes of crimson flowers; and the colossal willow tree, with vivid leaves of emerald green.
And just like before, the thin air caused his head to swim in a way that made him wonder if it was all simply illusionary.
Once his body had acclimated to the altitude enough for him to stand up straight, without his head swimming with nauseating dizziness, Kai slowly approached the large pool of mirrored water.
He knelt down on a patch of grass at a respectful distance to its edge, and awkwardly cleared his throat, "Err, hello?"
The surface was still and quiet for a long moment, before suddenly, a gentle ripple spread from the centre and a dark head began to emerge.
Kai's heart was pounding in his ears by the time her figure fully materialised, swimming slowly towards him with a small smile on her ethereally beautiful face.
The Fate's skin was so pale and near translucent in a way that showed every vein beneath its surface, giving her skin an inhuman bluish tint, overlaid with a subtle radiance that shined from beneath it.
Her eyes were unnaturally wide and glassy, with bright blue irises and piercing silver pupils set into a heart-shaped face of small, delicate features and full, pink lips.
She was clearly naked beneath the water, beads of clear droplets glistening against the tops of her shoulders and saturating her dark, flowing hair so that it flowed like a black river, stark against the paleness of her complexion.
Kai had lived this scene already, he had seen her face before, but it did nothing to dull the anxious race of his pulse and the feeling of wrongness that twisted his stomach. His fingers twitched on the grass as though he were itching to push himself up from the floor and run back the way he came.
She smiled wider then, in a way that she hadn't done before, in his first life.
The sight froze his insides.
He thought back once more to the stories of men who had been found drowned and broken at the foot of the mountain for daring to touch this being, and Kai felt a newfound sense of incredulity towards it. Who would ever dare to touch such a creature?
Her teeth flashed, each one sharp and jagged as though they could tear the flesh from his bones with ease and the silver in her pupils pierced into him with a near tangible, prickling sensation.
She spoke then, and her voice at least was exactly as he remembered; like a hundred echoes of beautiful, lilting voices, forming each word in unison with each other:
"Hello, Kaius. I am glad you chose to live, your death would have been far less entertaining."
He stumbled back then, his behind landing firmly on the ground as she came closer and closer until her hands were out of the water, resting delicately on the grass with sharp, talon-like nails.
When it became clear that she was not going to approach any further, and appeared to only study Kai with an odd, relaxed familiarity, his heart slowed and he sat back on his heels.
This was - unexpected.
He assumed that her reading would be different now that he held knowledge of the future; his actions would change of course and with that, hopefully, the outcome. Not to mention that his Artifact was now, once again and permanently, a useless chunk of metal around his neck.
But he had not expected that she would hold the same knowledge as he did; that she would remember their first meeting. How much could her eyes see?
Kai swallowed hard and replied to her, deciding at that moment to play along, using the name she had given him during their first meeting, "H-hello Katesch. It's...nice to see you again." He lied.
Katesch smiled, flashing those infernal teeth at him again that sent a shudder down his spine.
And then, she lifted a pale, taloned finger and beckoned for him to approach, "Come closer to the water."
There was no trace of malice or deception in her layered, inhuman voice, but Kai could hear that this was not a request.
He kept his eyes on her sharp nails and pointed teeth as he slowly and gradually crawled closer, only stopping when she raised her hand in front of her chest, "Now, close your eyes and clear your mind as best you can. When you open them again, look into the water."
Kai grimaced, he didn't like this one bit.
This was new and nothing like it was in his first life. She had never asked this of him before, and as far as he could recall, no other human had ever described this form of reading from a Fate.
Nevertheless, Kai followed her instructions. If, as she said, she would find the concept of his death to be lacking in entertainment, then he was at least somewhat confident that she wasn't going to drown him in her pool.
Clearing his mind, however, that was the hard part.
It took him a long moment for his head to stop reeling with thoughts.
Thoughts of death, thoughts of a certain, infuriating man with startling blue eyes that were far too reminiscent of the inhuman eyes of the Fate, and thoughts of drowned men lying at his feet, now with chunks of flesh torn from their oxygen-starved bodies with razor-sharp teeth.
But finally, after several minutes that felt like an eternity, Kai emptied his mind of all thought; allowing him to drift into hypnagogia, that calming state that hung between consciousness and dreams.
His hazel eyes fluttered open and the water reflected back, mirrored and clear with no trace of the beautiful creature that had been lazily lounging in its depths just moments before.
Instead, only his own image stared back - his self.
Except...
The longer that he stared, the more he noticed small inconsistencies.
The sharp line of his jaw was even sharper than it should be, covered by a thin layer of light, golden stubble, and there were thin lines around his eyes that appeared just a little too hollow, a little empty.
He was closer in appearance now to the age that he had been at the moment of his death, and just as that thought flitted through his quiet mind, the reflection grimaced in pain.
Abruptly, the point of view shifted and expanded as though his mind was falling head first into the bottomless water.
For a moment, all he could see was fire and all he could feel was intense heat, like flames licking over his skin. But bizarrely, there was no pain.
In its place, however, a gnawing pit of despair began to claw its way through his body, when his eyes finally registered where he was.
The cracked, barren earth, the two suns burning in the sky, the black, looming figure of the colossal Demon just ahead of him.
This was Asmarata. Why was he back here? Had he even left to begin with? Had he imagined it all?
'I never left. I'm still here. Everything was a dream. Zenin, my family, Rami...'
But before that thought could seep into his very soul, icy and lacking any shred of hope, a familiar voice called his name.
**