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Your father had the onyx eyes of prophecy, as had his father before him, and his before him. It was a trait all of the sons and daughters of Earth shared. But you were born different, and the stories tell of the great wail that echoed through the mountain when you first opened your eyes, warm as honey, to start the countdown on Armageddon. 

The supplicants start pouring in the day after the comet, even before the great quake. Sons and daughters of water and sky, even a few children of fire, though they’re mostly a dead clan now. They all flock to your door, through the great gates down into the throne room your ancestors carved out generations before, all to kneel before the great oracle of the mountain, that prophet of the Earth and ask… what do we do?

You wish you could tell them what your father had told you, five years earlier when a flu had cut his life short and placed you on that glittering crystal throne at 14. What he’d grasped your hand and used his last breath to communicate… "Never let them know the gods don’t care. You’re the Oracle now… and now you must learn to lie." But instead you sit on that ice-cold throne, that massive chair that swallows you whole, the man who’s still far too much a boy, and look down, resplendent in your robes of blue and armor of silver and declare in strident tones that this is the gods’ will, that the prophecies of old were written that this would happen, as you knew they would… when the amber-eyed oracle reigns on the mountain. Small words that offer some palliative comfort to the people… your people… that will all soon be so many broken corpses on the ground.  

———————-

You hear the sons of the sea before you see them. You know that sound, the jangle of war bells in their braids, the clash of their boots against the stone of the Mountain. You like that sound, you remember that sound from when you were a child and you trained with the sons of the sea. When you first met their prince, the man who like you was cast upon the throne before his time, one year after you took the crown. It takes restraint, more than you thought you had, not to run straight into the Tide Turner’s arms when he marches his men into your throne room, brown hair twisted into the braids of war with the bells of his people singing a prelude to the bloodshed to come. There’s a history there, behind your azure robes and his armor of burnished gold, when the crowns are set aside and the torches burn low. There’s a past that bleeds into the present; the swordsman and the sage, built up over years of late nights and early mornings, on the blind side of duty and in the shade of prophecy.

There’s a reason he’s there, the King of the Sea. He’s the first but the Children of the Air will be close behind him, honoring the oath their kingdoms made centuries earlier… to protect the Oracle at the end of time. There’s another reason, behind and to the side of the primary reason, a reason that spans hundreds of letters sent between the Mountain and the Shore, words in ink and emotion, late night pleas from miles away when the loneliness of the throne became too much to bear. Your speech of welcome is form perfect, but rushed, and as soon as is acceptable you’ve sent them to the Barracks to settle in and you’ve whisked the Tide Turner out of the public eye and back to your crystal-roofed room.

"You came." You’ve missed that smile, and that intensity in his eyes as you slowly unbuckle his armor, resting the gleaming gold on the stand by the bed, revealing the crimson robes of his people underneath. 

"So we swore, and so we did." The bells in his hair ring softly as he moves, grasping your hand and stopping your anxious small twitches. "I would not let you face the end of the world alone."

There’s a kiss, chaste and loaded with meaning, but it’s only the first kiss and as you’re stretched out before him in the pale moonlight, fingers running down his scarred body you say things; whispered apologies and murmured adorations, wrapped around him you beg forgiveness for being the end of the world and his ever-burning lips on your flesh, at least in the dark of the night, absolve you of the sin of your birth. 

You look back at him, as in the gold of dawn he reaches up and unknots a small bell from his hair, twisting and braiding it into your own shaggy nut-brown locks, “At the end of the world, even the Golden-Eyed Oracle must wear the trappings of war.”

You weep then, in that moment, out of fear and bitter choking anger, because now your body sings his song, and all too soon that music will be broken and silent. 

————————-

There are only two days left. You feel the weight of the mountain in your armor when you buckle it on under the carelessly watchful eyes of the Tide Turner in the morning, you feel the weight of all the lives that will end as the Serpent’s army marches to your door. It is a weight you’ve worn for nineteen years but under his gaze it feels even more shameful. 

You do not hear the armies of air approach, but then again, you never expected to. You knew the Zephyr would have anyone’s head who broke the tradition of near-silent movement the assassins had built up over the centuries. She is presented to you, beautiful and deadly as you remember, a grin like a hurricane and wit that you’ve seen devastate armies. She smiles, as she walks towards her throne next to yours, privately in the language you’ve constructed over years of friendship, when she sees the bell in your hair. 

You love the Zephyr, with the strength and perseverance of your mountain and the ferocity of her wind. In another world, another time, another life when things were different, when you were allowed to love, or loved women, or weren’t doomed to die at nineteen you could have married the Zephyr. She is strength and grace wrapped in emerald and silver armor; deadly and tender, brutal and loving. You remember the first time you met her, when you were sent to train with the children of the air; nine years old and fierce as the winter wind, hair flying out behind her as she dominated on the obstacle course. Then the next year, when the scions of the three clans cycled back to your mountain home, you saw her calm as springtime breeze, meditating and reading the prophecies with the care of your father’s oldest scholars. She became your confidant and shield; the Tide Turner swept you away, pulling you into him with the force of the tides… but the Zephyr wrapped you in her warmth, shaping you with gentle blusters and the occasional sharp gust from the timid boy scared of the eyes in his head, into the man who could lead a kingdom. 

United you are a formidable force, even as teenagers. The Zephyr, the Tide Turner, and the Oracle on the Mountain; rulers of three kingdoms, united under the doom you bring. You speak in turn, to the supplicants before your thrones; the rumble of stone, the howl of the wind and the crash of the tides in your voices, promising hope and a light at the end of the tunnel, when the strength with which you clasp each other’s hands across the dais communicates, at least between the three of you, how hopeless your situation truly is. 

——————————

You watch him from the crystalline room you inhabit at the peak of the mountain, drilling the combined forces of your three kingdoms in the courtyard. The final exercise in futility. You toy with the dagger he’d given you, years ago, eleven years old and more in love than you would admit even to him. Its cold burnished silver sits heavy in your hand, its razor sharp blade digging gently into your skin. You hear no footsteps yet the door clicks open and you smile softly to yourself as she breezes up behind you, a hand warm on the small of your back.

"Did you really think that a viable option, S-…. Oracle?" It is a slip-up on her part, you all had names once, a very long time ago, but those names are gone and dead, as are your carefree pasts. 

There’s a sigh that escapes your lips, echoing the noises her elemental domain taught you. “Did you know, in the last nineteen years, there have been 58 attempts on my life.” You pause, cocking your head to look into her bottomless eyes, “I’ve had visions of every one in advance, and have taken no precaution against them, in some blind hope that if they succeeded you all would be spared this end. Every attempt failed, in some nearly laughable way, some grand karmic manner of keeping me alive.” You look down at the blade in your hands, “I imagine if I tried to drive this blade into my heart the metal would shatter apart.” 

She huffs a sigh behind you, wrapping her arms around your waist, hands clasped over your heart, “You did not bring this upon us. And you did not force us… force him… to come for you.” You feel her breath on your back as she rests against you, your dearest friend, “You cannot control the fate of the world, even you, who sees more than your life, all our lives… your eyes are perfect because they belong to you. The world was always going to end. It is not your fault.”

You turn into her hug, as wonderful as you remember and keep your back to the dying sun, setting on your last evening. 

—————————

There’s a somber note to the night, as you lay with your head on his chest looking up at the full moon. You both know that this is the last night there will ever be, the last time you will lay curled together, heartbeats syncing up. There are conversations you could have, last-minute exaltations you could give him, grandiose speeches of love and devotion to the end but it all seems gauche in the face of oblivion and when silence falls over your bedroom, it doesn’t seem wrong. The door opens and she flows in again, sliding into your bed on the other side of you and curling close. 

"It has a certain symmetry, I guess." she murmurs as she grabs your hand and reaches for him across you. "How many nights did we spend like this? Going from kingdom to kingdom training."

You don’t have an answer for her, but the Tide Turner does, and it breaks your heart.

"In the long run? Not nearly enough."

——————————

You feel the armies of the Serpent before you hear or see them; a dull thud that shakes the foundation of even your eternal mountain. 

The Zephyr left before dawn, perhaps to give you a final morning with him, but it had been a quiet morning. He’d fastened the armor around you, as you had to him, the soft jangling of your bells mingling for the last time. 

You stand with him, on the ramparts of your fortress as the army approaches, your glaive clenched in hand, chin raised defiantly to the Destroyer of All who has come to kill you. As he smashes a giant fist against your gate over and over, eventually shattering the doorway to your home and leading the charge the Tide Turner presses against you one last time, his lips urgent against yours. 

"You always knew it would end like this, didn’t you?" He shakes his head, and for a moment you think he might cry, "What a burden that you didn’t share."

You can see the waves of the enemy approaching, undying and overpowering everything before them on their way to you and in the face of it all you smile at him.

"The sound of your bells were the first vision I ever had, before I had words for what I saw. The flash of your sword and the curve of your smile were in my dreams before I first drew breath. I would bear any burden a thousand times over because in the end, you were the vision that came true the best… and for that gift I stand at the gate of death with a smile on my face."

—————————

You die with his name on your lips. Not his title, but the name you whispered to him in the night. 

You die with the sound of his bells in your ear, and his roar cascading over you and filling you with the strength to die like the Oracle you are. 

You die with the sight of him filling you to the fullest, a warrior of the sun in gold and crimson, laying waste to all before him. 

You die with the taste of him on your tongue, mixed with the blood bubbling from within you and you know you will carry that taste to the next life.