A Windswept Pass

They are a being of light, phantasmal and shimmering against the night sky. A silver star, one amongst many, drifting through the cosmos and painting the darkness with constellations. Each motion of their hand creates a solar system, every exhalation breathing vast nebulas into existence.

They see a woman, golden wings outstretched and reaching to the heavens above. She smiles.

They reach out.

The image fades. They are a nomad, of flesh and fear and blood and bone. They falter, tripping over pebbles, running their hands along the edges of a hollow cavern. It is dark, not like the darkness of the night sky. No stars are here, no galaxies to guide them home. They hear voices, on the edge of their mind, echoing indistinctly through still, rotten air.

They see Khepri, as warm as the first time they saw her. She is crying.

They reach out.

And the sudden chill of cold iron wraps tight around their wrist. They look down to see chains, lashing forth and binding their limbs one by one, dragging them back. They struggle, crying out, but the chains only grow tighter, their voice drowned out by the cave. They open their mouth one last time to scream, but the nomad is silenced by one final chain, wrapping around their throat. And then, they are gone.

Swallowed by Mist.

—

Nomi awoke with a start, clutching their chest and struggling to catch their breath. They clamped a shaking hand over their mouth to keep from crying out in the dark. Its over now, they reassured themself shakily. They were here, now.

Nomi and Khepri had left the Ironwolf Settlement behind them a few days ago now, heading south through the mountains that divided the inlet from the rest of the Isle. Even with the warmth of the island’s sun at their backs, snow still coated the peaks of the mountains around them. If the island were much colder, the snow would have made the journey nearly impossible. It was fortunate that they were able to make the trek during the summer - or at least, the island’s approximation of summer. At the rate things were going, the island could have an entirely different definition of seasons. Perhaps one devoted to the raining of dead animals from the sky, or to the entire sea turning to chocolate for several months. After what they had seen thus far, any outlandish suggestion seemed more or less on par with their own peculiar reality.

It was that night that the travelers found themselves in the mouth of a small cave, sheltering themselves from the chill of night. The Nords of the settlement were generous, wishing them well on their travels. They had helped them stock a pack containing rations and some spare blankets, the latter of which they had bundled themselves in to sleep.

It was not yet dawn when Nomi awoke, rubbing sleep from their bleary eyes with a resentful moan. They glanced over at Khepri, hoping that their commotion hadn’t been enough to wake her too.

At first, Nomi's shoulders tensed at Khepri's touch, but that tension just as quickly melted away. They smiled apologetically at Khepri. "Sorry. I was trying to give you a few more minutes. I'm ok." 

They grumbled again, wrapping themself tightly within the blanket and scooting over to the cavern's wall. They chuckled softly at Khepri's claim. "That seems like a generous estimate, though I'll admit it certainly feels like it. If I had known we would have to endure such cold, I would just as soon have suggested we swim to our next destination." 

Nomi had a low tolerance for cold weather. Though the Dunespeakers were said to have taken their name for their origins in the Painted Sea, Nomi's caravan had traversed a plethora of different climates, from harsh deserts to swampy bogs. But with much of the northern reaches of the continent having fallen to crystalline corruption long ago, their tribe's elders had thought it wise to give the whole of the region a wide berth. Shivering now in the frosty mountain air, Nomi recognized that perhaps such an absence in their travels was all meant to be.

The nomad rifled through their bag, reaching for an item as they often did after a particularly bad night - their cards. They held the clasped leather in their hands, feeling its familiar weight resting in their palm. Nomi stared at the item, releasing a deep sigh. Their readings as of late had been... well, about as illuminating as their dreams had been. It used to be that the cards acted as a tool, one they could to make sense of the visions, but everything was so frustratingly muddled recently. They wished they were in possession of a second set of eyes.

As they moped, their first set eyes wandered towards their companion, still massaging the muscles in her legs. Khepri looked so silly in pants. Not that Nomi would ever tell her that, of course. They thought it over for a moment, then finally asked.

"Khepri... Would you like a reading?"

So quickly did Nomi forget how far from home they truly were. They smiled at Khepri with eyes alight, displaying the cards in a spread front of her. The backs of the cards were pale blue, a faded gold star decorating each at its center. "This is a deck of fate. My people use them for advice, of a sort. The cards can offer insights we have yet to consider, guidance when we aren't certain what path to take. Sometimes, they can even offer a glimpse into the future - if you believe in that sort of thing," Nomi corrected abruptly, forcing a distracted smile.

They still hadn't shared the knowledge of their sight with Khepri, though at this point they weren't certain why. At this point, Nomi trusted her just as much as they would have any Jilí. Perhaps it was something more deep-seated. After all, they had always been warned of the importance of keeping their gift a secret from outsiders. The advice had certainly served them well in the past. Demonstrating such magic to the wrong people in Komali was an excellent way to find yourself at the mercy of those who carry malice in their heart. Or perhaps it was something much simpler - that they were scared that Khepri would become frightened and leave them if she ever learned.

Nomi recognized that they were beginning to think too much of the matter, and turned their attention back to the cards instead. They shuffled the deck effortlessly, ruffling the edges before holding them out for Khepri to take. "If you would like me to read for you, shuffle these however you see fit. The only rule is that you have to be the last person to manipulate the deck before I draw the first card."

"Do you have a question about your future? Your surroundings? Or, if there is nothing at the front of your mind, we can simply let fate decide what it wants to reveal."

Nomi blushed - because, well, of course they did - but the display was replaced by a gentle chuckle, their eyes alight with genuine amusement. They didn't know why they were surprised. As long as the waking flesh of the world contained a beating heart to shepherd it along, so too would mortals yearn to know what manner of love awaited them. It seemed that Khepri was no exception, no matter how put-together she might appear. Nomi had performed such readings countless times before; such questions were far from uncommon to any fortune teller worth their salt.

Then again, Nomi was far from any fortune teller.

They smirked playfully at the duralam, turning their own embarrassment on its head and shifting to the offensive. No amount of flustering could change the fact that Nomi was very much in their element. "Love? My my, Miss Goldenfeather... is there a special someone I should know about?" Their grin turned impish, hoping for a reaction from their fine feathered friend. (With emphasis on the fine, Nomi thought to themself.)

As the moment passed, Nomi unfurled a length of worn vermillion cloth, placing it on the stone floor before resting the deck on top of it. "My people borrow from the wisdom of the old gods. From the Moon..." At this, Nomi drew the first card from the deck, placing it face down at the cloth's base. "...We learn reflection. Matters of the mind, the concealed, the unconscious elements that bring us to where we sit today." The nomad flipped the second card, placing it face down above the first. "From the sun, we learn presence of heart, of body. The here, and now."

With each new card placed in the spread, Nomi was relieved to feel a familiar feeling dance at the tips of their fingers. It was if their magic was waking up after a long sleep, its weary eye fluttering open and banishing the sands of dreaming that sought purchase within. 

"From the stars..." Nomi continued, hovering their hand for a moment above the deck before drawing the final card... but stopped. Interesting. Their golden eyes glinted briefly with a silvery light, invisible threads of fate holding it taut there for a moment. It would seem that Khepri's was not a future so easily set in stone. Nomi instead drew two cards, placing them side by side at the top of the spread. "We dare to question what lies beyond both that come before them. Matters of soul, those things that crest the horizon just beyond what moral eyes can witness, until time decrees it so."

Nomi glanced at Khepri before continuing, intent to gauge her reaction before flipping the cards face-up.

Nomi smiled at Khepri, the woman's intensity its own reward. The oracle considered what she said thoughtfully - Khepri spoke about the gods of the Duralai every so often, and each time Nomi was reminded of how different they seemed from Komali's own pantheon. Romance between the Gods was a topic approaching blasphemy to the majority of their worshippers. How many more gods had once existed, across how many countless drowned worlds?

They wondered, whimsically, whether they had all known one another. Perhaps they even had a secret handshake.

"Well - let us hope that you have more luck in the ways of love than your Gods." Nomi said with a wink. "Forevermore is an awfully long time to wait, don't you think?" 

They flipped the first card. The past. It depicted a figure clothed in sickly yellow, two cold blue eyes peeking out from behind a helm of twisted iron. In its hand, an empty iron cage. Not the most optimistic draw, to be certain.

"The Withered King." They spoke aloud. "One of the boogeymen of Komali folklore. A harbinger. The shadow antiquarian." They paused for a moment, ruminating on the visage of the abomination. This was the card that chose to pair itself with Khepri's past. Nomi looked up at her, a flicker of sympathy passing over their expression. 

"The Withered King appears in a reading when someone is... stuck. Stuck on the wrong path, a path that leads to... well, nothing good. I see..." They paused, smiling sadly. "A child. Eager to impress her mother. Her people. To do whatever it takes to be the woman she is supposed to grow into. Her whole life ahead of her, predetermined and inflexible from the moment she was born. Love, as she experiences it - it shackles her. A mask to be worn, a role to be played. But always, always, there is something else, something intoxicatingly new - just out of reach. Not on the path in front of her. It is never on the path in front of her. 

The second card turned. The present. A resplendent comet trailing behind it a pink and blue aurora, streaking across the night sky. One of Nomi's favorites, obviously.

"The Comet. It watches over you now - and I should say, it watches over all of us in this place. Visions from another world. Possibility, endless possibility. Perspectives you or I could have only dreamed of. She looks around and sees people from every walk of life. Love - it is not just one thing, after all. Ask a thousand people, from a thousand worlds, and she will receive a thousand different answers. She looks at her own answer, holding it against the rest like a feather of truth. Is it mine, then? The true answer?" 

Nomi smiled, wholly lost in the message of the card. "The Comet encourages us to open ourselves to different ways of thinking. It is easy to fall back upon what we know, what we have been raised to believe. You do not owe loyalty to a heart that does not beat true. A thousand heartbeats exist here, in this place. The Comet asks only that you listen."

Two final cards remained - possible futures. Nomi steadied themself. This was most commonly the part that people didn't want to hear.

Nomi looked up, nervous. "I - sorry." They shrunk a bit.

Stupid, stupid - this was the same reason why they weren't allowed back in Dominion lands. Keep it simple, keep it vague, lie if you have to. Never let them know what you can actually do. And they knew that! Its just... Gods, they had missed this. Electricity bouncing through their fingertips, the tingle on the back of their neck. They were always so quick to besmirch their magic before the flood. Always easier to appreciate something when its scarce, they supposed.

"It is! A game, I mean. Just a game." They continued, remarkably unconvincingly. "Its just, ah... sometimes I get carried away."

They opened their mouth, to utter something like: "Maybe this wasn't a good idea. We can stop if you want." But Khepri's eyes, fixated on the remaining cards... no. There was no stopping what they had already set in motion. No way out but through. With the answer to Khepri's questions remaining unspoken, Nomi turned the third card.

A woman. Unassuming. Kneeling at the bank of a stream, basked in hand. Her hair is gray, her eyes dark. Behind her, a village. Her village.

"The Widow." The seer continued. "She will spend her life in the service of love, in a thousand different ways. By taking her hand, you will know love in all its facets. The skipped heartbeat before an admission of affection beneath a moonlit sky. The warmth of a lover's touch, locked in a passionate embrace against the firelight. The contentment of calling upon a dear friend of many years. The memory of them, and the legacy you carry with you after they pass into the next life. The laughter of children, children of a community that you helped create. A community that itself you hold love for, and it holds love for you in turn."

Nomi looks up at Khepri, eyes still flecked with silver motes of light, completely lost in a divinatory trance. They continue, almost rhythmically. "All the love that she deserves. All the love that she could never have. It is overflowing. A chalice, spilling over into her hands."

The final card. Another woman, pallid white skin, sitting on a throne. Blood. It cascades over her in a waterfall, and ruby droplets fall from her cup and her eyes alike. She smiles a twisting, wretched smile, teeth sharpened into points.

"The Queen of Blood." Nomi concluded, shaken. "Never allowing her eyes to wander skyward. These other lives, they are blasphemies. Attempts to distract you, obfuscate you from your own heart. It is blackened, and twisted, but it is yours. You will not be led astray by the whispers of dead worlds. You have a path to follow. You pity the ignorant souls that grovel beneath you - those bred to believe that love is anything more than a blade driven into the back of those foolish enough to leave themselves vulnerable. They would have you believe that the truth is malleable, steel in a blacksmith's forge. It is not. It is the only thing you have left. You are the last of your people, and you will not betray their memory by letting the hypocrisy of love melt the ice that guards your soul."

"Blood... so much blood..." Nomi's breathing hitched as flashes of a grim future assaulted them. They didn't understand what they were seeing. A dissonance. Khepri? Their Khepri? Their eyes fearfully flitted back between Khepri and the card, overwhelmed. It was near-impossible to reconcile the person in their visions with the person they - the person they thought they knew.

With no small effort, they wrenched themself free from their trance. They had gotten too close, nearly lost control. Lost themself. They didn't realize just how out of practice they were. They took a shaky breath, stretching the palms of their hands before offering Khepri a summary.

"The Widow wishes to tell you that the Withered King is wrong. And the Queen wishes to tell you that the Withered King is right." Nomi met Khepri's eyes, an uneasy calm present in their face. "Only you can decide which hand to take."

Nomi might have flinched at Khepri's touch, had the reading not left them drained of the ability to do so. They looked down at her slender arm, then weakly back to Khepri's eyes. It was no small effort to keep their own eyes from falling to the floor. But... she seemed sincere. Evasive, certainly - Khepri was good at masking her emotions, but she was still shaken. Even so, Nomi didn't sense that any potential trepidation present in Khepri was directed at the seer themself. She wasn't even reaching for a torch or pitchfork - always a good sign.

Nomi blinked. "You're not going to throw me off the mountain, then?"

Even as the words left Nomi's lips, they realized how foolish such a thing was. They smiled softly, just embarrassed enough to return some of the color to their face. They pressed Khepri's palm tighter against their shoulder with their own hand, grateful for the comfort it brought. 

"Sorry, sorry. I, ah... its not something I was ever really supposed to talk about? Still a lot of hang-ups." The nomad softened, placing the cards back into the deck and gently shuffling them. "In my homeland, it was important to keep my gifts a secret. If the wrong people found out, it put us in danger. Not just me, but my people too. But I suppose they're all dead, so..."

Nomi smiled that strange, plastic smile they had a tendency to form whenever they mentioned or thought about their drowned tribe. They continued speaking before having a chance to dwell on it for more than a second.

"The Sight has always been a part of me. It guided me from a young age. Though, the word guided is generous... if the Sight could be taught, it might perhaps be a bit more reliable." Nomi remarked with a small scoff. "Once in a generation, the stars select one of my people to be their voice. A prophet of things to come, things that may yet be. Lucky, am I not?" The nomad smirked.

"It is tradition for the tribe to raise the child as neither a man, nor a woman. Something about, ah... being 'free from the shackles of mortal dichotomy?'" They shrugged with a calm, comfortable sense of indifference. "I suppose it suits me just fine. I truly couldn't imagine myself being anything else."