Northern Oracle

"And if I am?" she challenged.

"Then the children are going to have some very interesting questions about what happens next."

"I love you," she said as he opened the door.

"You'd better," he said, closing it behind him.

Varia was beginning to rise, contemplating what to wear on a pleasant summer day, when a sudden dizziness overcame her. She lay back down, rubbing her temple with one hand. Clutching tightly at the sheets, she could only hold on as the room spun around her. Something isn't right, she thought.

"Come back," she called to Erabus, but it came out as only a hoarse whisper. The sounds of their children's laughter faded, replaced by a swelling hum, like bees buzzing in her brain. Varia shut her eyes tightly.

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Waking, she blinked tears from the corners of her eyes, vision wet and blurry. She lay on her side, soft pillows under her head, warm weight nestled behind and before her.

"What did you see?" whispered Aeolis, his lips beside her ear.

"Something that can't be true," she said, surprised by the pain in her voice, the sob she had to choke back. "My friend Erabus. We were married. We were parents. But I watched him die today."

"A possibility, then," rumbled Uralis. His handsome, dark-bearded face swam into clarity before her, those feral blue eyes holding just a sliver of sympathy. "What might have been, if you took a different path. This too is part of augury."

Sandwiched between them, wrapped in two identical sets of strong, comforting arms, Varia caught her breath, forcing down her grief. How can I long so badly for something that isn't real? She and Erabus had been comrades, colleagues, nothing more. But his kiss, tasting of steel and sweat, still lingered on her lips. Was there something more? Something I closed my eyes against?

Like a dream, the vision faded now that she was awake, details merging into impressions, feelings half-remembered. She breathed deeply, centering her mind as she did before battle. There was still a task before her. Norden's head. And the means to get it.

Sensing her alertness, Aeolis began to kiss her neck tenderly, stroking his hand up and down her side, grazing the side of her breast and the curve of her bottom. Sighing, she relaxed into him, wriggling against his firm flesh, feeling his hardness nestled betwixt the globes of her backside.

Uralis leaned in and found her lips. His kisses were hungry, yet lethargic, unhurried, the frenzy from earlier drained after the terrific pinnacle they'd reached together. His manhood was caught between their stomachs, pulsing hotly as it grew.

She grew lusty from their touch, and the Soul Uralis had put in her belly before glowed warmly inside her. Her loins throbbed, and wetness made her thighs slick.

Their attention grew increasingly needful, as Aeolis licked her shoulders and caressed her breast, pinching a nipple between thumb and forefinger. His brother reached between her legs, cupping her sex and then probing it delicately with a thick digit. She gasped as his finger twisted and curled inside her, stroking at her most sensitive spot.

Behind her Aeolis shifted, adjusting himself lower. His length moved below her backside and slipped between her wet thighs. She squeezed her legs together and thrilled at feeling him harden for her, thrusting against the vice she made. He panted and groaned and became like iron in her grip.

"It is time," he said in her ear, half-growling it. It excited her to hear his calm, composed demeanor fracturing with his need for her. "I'm anxious to mate with you."

She couldn't suppress a chuckle at the erudite way the Elder put it.

"Fuck me," she hissed crudely in response.

Reaching downward to where their hips met, Varia moved Uralis' hand aside, sighing a bit as his finger left her. She found Aeolis' manhood, caressed it lovingly, and angled it towards her sex. A pang of apprehension passed through her as his considerable girth parted her netherlips, and then...

Gods above!

Holding her tightly from behind, as though to stop her from escaping, he took her slowly, firmly, deeply. She gasped at the intensity, wriggling in his grasp, no more ready for Aeolis than she'd been for his brother. After the initial thrust, the Elder held still, planted deeply within her, allowing her precious moments to acclimate to their joining.

Uralis smirked at her, then pulled her face in for a possessive, sensuous kiss.

"You look like you enjoyed that," he said between sucking and nibbling her lips.

"You Elders are too much," she moaned. "You'll kill me at this rate."

"We have only just begun," said Aeolis behind her.

The golden-haired brother moved inside her with measured and steady thrusts, probing deeply before withdrawing almost completely. Varia's eyes widened each time, a little yelp or a gasp escaping her lips as she went from empty to full. Uralis continued to kiss and caress her skin, his member still trapped hotly between their stomachs, growing harder until a bead of golden essence smeared wetly against her belly. The rune Aeolis had painted on her earlier absorbed this drop of Soul and glowed softly.

A particularly deep plunge brushed against her womb's tight mouth, and a violent tremor coursed through her in reply. Her glyph shined brighter, and now her skin was aflame, her loins burning, pushing back desperately against her lover, begging for release.

Maddeningly, he stilled her hips with strong hands and unsheathed himself completely. An animal growl rose in her throat, and she twisted backwards, prepared to wrestle him back inside her if necessary. It wasn't.

Uralis ambushed her, rolling her to her other side so she faced his grinning brother. As Aeolis snared her scowling lips in a kiss, the dark-haired Elder sank smoothly into her from behind.

"Oh, you bastards," she cursed into Aeolis' mouth.

Savage strokes rippled the globes of her backside. Strong arms gripped her chest and hips for leverage. Teeth bit into her shoulder hard enough to break the skin. A wanton thrill took hold of her, trapped in the wolfish Elder's rough embrace.

Meanwhile, Aeolis kissed her tenderly, his own unspent member hot against her rune-emblazoned stomach. She squirmed impotently, at the mercy of the oracles, barely even thinking now about her purpose in coming here.

The furious pace Uralis drove was sending her quickly towards the precipice. Her hips moved to meet his thrusts, to coax him deeper. Squeezing, clenching, she felt the pressure in her loins cresting. Trembling, Varia tipped her head back, thrust her breasts out, moaned wantonly, surrendered to the oncoming storm...

Again they denied her. On the very brink of release, Uralis released her from his possessive clutch and withdrew himself. It was like being plunged into icy water.

"You fucking monsters," she practically shouted into the placid face of Aeolis.

"Patience," said the blonde-bearded man in a calming, somewhat patronizing tone. "This is to prepare you. Your flesh is nearly ready for our final gift."

"Then make it quick," she spat back. "I'm dying."

"We yearn as well," growled Uralis. "You have no idea how much we have been holding back."

Varia craned her neck around to meet the darker oracle's smoldering eyes.

"Then stop holding back. Your final gift. I'm ready for it. I need it."

Uralis looked past her, to his brother, and raised a questioning eyebrow.

"Very well," said Aeolis, sighing contentedly at the end, like a weight was lifted from him. "But there is no turning back now."

Now they moved in tandem, rolling her easily between them so she faced Uralis again. His cock, slick with her own moisture, throbbed insistently against her belly. Aeolis arranged himself behind her, parting her wet thighs, giving a few preparatory thrusts. Taking hold of himself he angled towards her now quite puffy slit, only his aim seemed off. He was a bit too far back...

"Oh," she said, realizing his intent, her heart dropping with sudden anxiety. Not fear, exactly, but certainly apprehension. "That's... not something I do very often."

"You said you were ready," Aeolis reminded her.

So I did. Suppose I should have asked for clarification.

She bit her lip as he found his target, the puckered flesh between the globes of her backside. Warm, golden essence smeared against the aperture as he made tiny thrusts, probing, testing. Sighing, Varia willed herself to relax. After all, it wasn't anything new for her. She was no prudish noblewoman, doing it only on their backs with all the lights out. She'd lived a full life. This was nothing she couldn't...

Fucking gods!

A more serious push now, slipping past the breach, shocking her with the sudden intense fullness. Gasping, eyes flying open, she tried to wriggle away, but Uralis caught her firmly and pulled her into a tight embrace. He kissed her forehead in a surprisingly tender manner. The glyph burned hotly on her stomach. There was some pain, but beneath it a pleasure so sharp it was almost unbearable.

Almost.

"More," she groaned in a voice that hardly sounded like her own anymore. Was she still Varia, the fierce warrior, the respected mercenary? Or was she something else, changed as the oracles had predicted? She found she didn't care.

Ages of gentle pushing, rocking of hips, slow progress of inches. It should have been too much, but her body was uncannily open, inhumanly receptive. They held her close between them, kissing her lips and neck, nibbling her earlobes, stroking her flank, gently brushing the jewel atop her cleft. His hips came to rest against her cushion of her backside.

"Fucking bloody gods above," she swore. "You're going to break my arse with that thing."

"You will not break, Varia of Maruba," predicted Aeolis. "You are changing. Becoming. This is all as the gods have written it."

Slow movements stirred a tempest inside her like nothing she'd known before. Apprehension became acceptance, and then surrender. Varia met his thrusts, and he sensed she was ready for more, needed more. Aeolis let the mask of control drop away. Forceful now, insistent, his pleasured grunting beside her ear as he drove into her with purpose.

Uralis had a ravenous look in his eyes, and his manhood swelled against her stomach, growing a bit larger with his arousal. He pinched her nipples, stroked her pearl, thrust his tongue between her breathless lips.

"I can wait no longer," he growled, feral and predatory. "Roll her over."

Confused, drunk on bliss, Varia could only squirm limply as the blonde Elder rolled onto his back, taking her with him. She settled onto his solid flesh, head nestled in the crook of his neck. He stilled his movements, yet throbbed hotly within her, so deep and yet agonizingly separated from her needful core.

Uralis pounced, yanking her legs apart, his body covering hers. Another thrill of doubt struck as she realized the dark-haired Elder's intent. His maddened gaze told her how desperate he was for release, how holding back had been as excruciating for him as it was for her. He leaked Soul abundantly on her flushed nether lips. She swallowed her fears, gave into desire, and mouthed the word "yes."

A howl of triumph, and he claimed her with a savage thrust. Varia's back arched violently, so terrifically and stupendously full, a pleasure beyond what she'd thought possible. Her womb's gate lowered to kiss his head, so swollen and ardent. They'd kept her at the edge for so long and now she tumbled over it, coming violently, painfully. She screamed, as primal and bloody a scream as she'd ever let out in the throes of battle.

As though it was a piece of music they'd rehearsed countless times, the Elder brothers moved in perfect harmony. When one withdrew, the other filled her to bursting, and rapture burned through her veins unabated. She had no strength to flail or struggle now. They took turns kissing her parted lips, twisting her head between them, staring into her eyes glassy with bliss, stroking her hair slick with sweat.

Rhythm shattered into chaotic straining and heaving. They grew harder, longer inside her. Their fruits, replete and rumbling with Soul, became heavy and tight. The Elders moaned, grunted, their animal sides taking over as they desperately sought release, slamming into her with abandon. They spoke impassioned words in the Old Tongue, a chant, a prayer. Their eyes shone blindingly bright with golden light.

An instant of diamond clarity, like the calm before the storm, arrived as they hilted their cocks one final time. It stretched interminably as Varia gasped breathlessly between them. Then they flooded her ass, her cunt with molten Soul.

Golden essence filled her like a wineskin, spreading throughout her body. It pooled in her stomach, flowed up into her ribs and breasts, down her arms and legs, seeping into the tips of her fingers and toes, and then at last her neck, her face, her eyes, her mind itself.

Liquid fire filled her brain. Baffling images flashed before her vision as more and more of the oracular essence streamed into her, and she struggled to comprehend what she was seeing. They were like paintings held in front of her face and removed before she could make heads or tails of them. An intense pressure built in her skull, until she thought her head would explode. She screamed, desperate for relief. Some part of her was aware of gentle voices urging her to stop fighting, to accept it.

She gave into the raging maelstrom. Her mind expanded, swelling like ripening fruit. Varia evaporated into the storm.

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She was as vast as the ocean, as boundless as the sky.

An endless green plain lay beneath her. She floated suspended in the clouds, gazing down at the world below. Movement caught her eye. Her focus tightened, brining into clarity a pack of wolf-things, standing upright like men, thronged about a stone well in a meadow carpeted with wildflowers. Inscriptions of eldritch runes shone on the surface of the stone, and a low keening howl echoed up from within, a weird song that the creatures joined, a dolorous tune that rolled over the plains. A gargantuan crag of ice loomed on the horizon, a perpetual blizzard humming around it like a raiment. As Varia gazed at the scene she could see thick coils of energy pulsing beneath the earth's surface. They glowed in various hues - cerulean, viridian, burgundy, indigo, all intersecting under the well. Leylines, she realized. A nexus of power where they intersect.

Nearest the well were a pair of creatures that stood taller than the others, one black-furred, the other gold. Aeolis and Uralis, as they were in eons past. The brothers watched along with the rest as the glacier slid inexorably southward, gouging a deep rift in the land as it made its terrible progress. Varia sped the passage of time with a gentle prod, as easy as pushing a cart down a hill. She watched the glacier tear through the plain, leaving desolation in its wake. The wolf-things scattered, departing one by one until only the brothers remained. Then the glacier sundered the meadow and blotted out the well. The brothers vanished, and an icy rift appeared where once had been paradise.

Time raced by. Savage, primitive men appeared in the north, and Varia slowed her vision to watch them. Ancestors of the Yornish. They stalked meager prey across the barren earth, careful to give the canyon a wide berth, evidently fearing what dwelt within. An awful wailing echoed up the icy walls of the ravine, floating ethereally over the frosty plains. They don't mean any harm. They're just sad. Lonely. But the hunters, clad in furs and armed with crude iron, chose not to risk their lives by trifling with spirits, not when life was so fragile already in the north.

A single caribou raised its antlered head above a snow drift and started a limping progress across the wastes. The bull's rack was flecked with chips of ice, and its ribs showed through the muscles on its flank. Meager game, but the ravenous men licked their lips all the same. They moved silently over the snowy ground. It was already too late when the pathetic animal realized its peril. Spears arced through the air, slaying the bull with brutal accuracy. The men, at least, would eat that night.

Varia allowed time to speed forward once more, and it crashed onward like a river bursting a dam. Men lived and died, took wives and fathered children. The Yornish numbers grew, and their chieftains squabbled for power, crafting alliances and betraying them. Brutal giants ranged down from the Peaks of Thule in the far north, laying waste to Yornish villages, slaying their men, stealing their women. Maruba grew in the south, spreading civilization across the good land, pushing the Yornish further into the wastes. They were a haggard people, trapped between the hammer and the anvil. How did I never know how desperate they are?

Thousands of thousands died in generations of bloody struggle until one man, a colossus with long raven hair, united the tribes under his axe. Entire clans disappeared from the earth before his savage conquest was complete, but in the end none opposed him, and the Yornish were united as never before. Norden, she observed. To them, he's a great leader, a visionary who rallied them to a single purpose. The insight shocked her, but it seemed all too obvious now. To the Yornish, Norden was a living legend - a hero.

The great reaver host marched south, towards Hearthkeep, intent on sacking it. Varia pulled back, until she could see all of Maruba stretched beneath her like a map. She focused in on Hearthkeep, where soldiers and mercenaries flocked to the great walled city and Prince Lennart's banner, lured by promises of easy spoils in exchange for the butchering of backwards savages. The Sure Blades marched with the others, Commander Ornet at their head. There was Old Gait, and Forlan, all the others, friends and comrades, laughing and betting on how many Yornish they would slay. She saw her own raven hair bound up in a tight bun, and then there was Erabus' shaggy blonde hair nearby. Lingering on him, freezing that moment in place, she memorized the shape of his smile, the glimmer in his eye, all the scars and lines and imperfections, until she couldn't bear to look any longer.

Time raced ahead. A blizzard swirled over the field as the armies crashed together, making Lennart's cavalry useless. The southerners had not anticipated the incredible coordination of the Yornish forces, even in the deep snow, and fell like wheat before the scythe. It was a massacre. She didn't need prophecy to know that. She'd been in the middle of it.

Norden's army sped onward to the gates of Hearthkeep. This hasn't happened yet, she realized. This is the oracle's prophecy. The walls crumbled like paper before the Yornish onslaught, and soon the city was aflame. Varia slowed her vision, watching in horror as the city was engulfed in violence. The women were taken as slaves. The children were impressed into service. All the men who resisted were slaughtered, and those who surrendered were also executed. Even the dogs were butchered. The carnage was absolute. Hearthkeep was pulled down stone by stone, burned and desecrated until nothing remained to suggest that a city had once existed there. The Yornish collected the spoils and moved on, leaving only scorched earth and bones behind.

Her vision grew foggy as she reached augury's limits. Norden marched south with his host, and though she could not say where, their intention seemed clear enough. They'll do to every city in their path what they did to Maruba. Millions will die before they're stopped, if they're ever stopped. Suddenly vengeance for Erabus and her men seemed insignificant. Millions will die. Unless I can prevent it.