𝐂𝐑𝐀𝐕𝐄𝐃│✔

𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐏𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝟑𝟒

Pandora

♡

"How dare you step into my temple, uninvited?!" the gruff voice of the old blind man or woman curses viciously. The Oracle was a being beyond mortal understanding. Born as a child of the House of Aelfdene, its face is one of a woman, yet it had the body of a man, and the feet of a goat. Where its eyes should've been, is covered by a white blind fold, since it's said that the one eye it was born with can see further than the Stars reach, and that isn't meant to be possible for a mortal.

Its long streaks of grey hair that reach the floor next to its hooves kept the young girl's mind too busy to realise that the hateful words were directed at her young body.

"I beg of you," The panicked voice of the Cat-Eye Lord fills the high roofs of the small temple at the end of the Tiger forest of Aelfdene. Where the being resides in isolation. "We've traveled all the way here from our home, please just tell me what's wrong with this child."

The Oracle pauses then, and for the first time, from its seated position on its throne, does it look at the child. Silence spreads over the clay building. After long moments of nervous awaiting does it speak.

"Explain, Maximus," it orders finally. The one word weighing the Lord's life on its shoulders with the casual use of his Holy Name. A secret too many would kill to know.

"I-it started at her birth, s-she - her hair was white," the slightly more youthful version of Jonathan Felidae explains, "Pure white."

"You mean to tell me you bothered me with your offspring because she may be an albino? You-"

"Her eyes were golden!" He finally confesses, making the Oracle ignore the sin he committed by interrupting it.

"Golden?"

"Y-yes! It was like there was the sun burning in them. A-and that's not all, she can do...things. Things that no mortal should be able to do."

"You better explain the whole truth, Lord of Cat-Eye, or I'll have it pulled out of you," it threatens. The even cadence it has been speaking in for the last centuries slightly off. Anyone who would care to listen carefully would've noticed the panic in it.

"One day, we were teaching her, when she started to cry. That same night, there was a rain of shooting stars befalling down our sky. Whenever she laughs, the sky is clear of clouds and the sun seems to shine brighter. At first, we called it coincidence, but then it happened again, and again. It's a-almost as if...as if..."

"As if the Heavens listen to her," The Oracle finishes in a whisper, standing up and slowly walk towards to quiet girl who's attention finally shifts to its face. A bony finger traces her small face, chubby cheeks, before circling her golden eyes.

"I received word from Goddess Chantara that you would come to us," it speaks in the old language of Holy ones, rendering the Lord clueless to watch from the side lines.

"However,I never expected it to be so soon." Taking a step back and slowly pacing back to her throne, at safe distance from the incarnation of Sol's child. "Welcome to the Mortal Realm, Eldest daughter of Sol."

"This child was never meant to be born in our Realm," it finally speaks its truth. Leaving it to the receiver of the words to interpret its message however his heart desires.

Its job is to be the messenger of the God, not their interpreters.

"Does that mean we have to get rid of her?"

"She is your first born is she not? You would've had to kill her either way, unless you want to anger your King."

"I know, but, I just thought that, maybe-"

"The interbreeding you plotted with my Clan would finally bear its fruits," it finishes to speak the words his heart bear not to speak out loud. "Mortals are ever so greedy creatures, are they not?"

"What do you suggest we do?" The change is tone of the Lord doesn't bypass the Oracle, but it knows that fate already payed his price. No need for it to intervene.

"The sooner you kill her mortal form, the sooner she'll go back to Heaven." With its middle finger, it draws the circle of life on its throne. A smile preying on its lips. Chantara warned it to keep the daughter of her former lover, and now greatest enemy, on this Realm for as long as possible. But, where would the fun in that be?

"Don't you think we haven't tried that before? She just wouldn't die!" He combs his fingers through his platinum hair, the aggravation clear in his features and wrinkles on his forehead. He didn't just travel oceans for this blind monster to tell him what he already knew.

"There are more ways than one to kill a mortal, mortal. But I am not the one to seek for that kind of information."

"Who is it then? The ones we have to go to."

"Les Maîtres de la Chair et des Ombres."

"You want me to bring her to the Masters of Flesh and Shadows? The Circle that was banished over a century ago - You've given me an impossible task!" His raised shout is met with a waiting silence, the echo of his anger dying out in the back of his throat when he realises whom he just screamed at.

"I have given you no task, only an answer. It is your decision that will mark her fate. Now go. I have no more time for your selfish heart to feed on."

As they're walking out of its temple, its voice stops the man one more time.

"Did your Priest give her a Holy name," it asks, cautiously inspecting the young girl.

"He wouldn't, saying that her appearance is a traitor of the Gods." Disinterest is clear in the ears of the Oracle, the voice of the man who has no hard feelings towards the church that practically cursed his child's existence. He wouldn't care, for that child has no other meaning to him that to be used or disposed.

"Come here," the wise voice finally speaks in the Holy language of Gods, so that only the child walks hesitatingly to the throne.

"I could never forget."