2412, Diori 16, Jyda

Cirasa's cheek had been acquainted with the dirt so much he couldn't remember what it felt like without it. His vision blurred and sharpened, slowly building a silhouette with wine red hair and gray robes. How long had he been lying here?

A hand reached out and pushed his damp hair off his forehead. That brief touch sent a shiver gripping his arms and legs as his systems restarted, reminding him of the pain he sought to remove.

"You passed out again," a gentle yet stern voice blared in his ears, rising and falling along with the pounding in his temples. "I told you to let it flow while still maintaining control. Instead, you let go...completely."

A groan rumbled low in his throat as he pushed himself up. "How am I supposed to do that at the same time?" he ran the back of his hand across his chin. His pale skin came up smeared with red. It's that bad, huh? "You're asking me to do contradicting things."

Rutoria's aquamarine blue eyes came to focus and the hardness couldn't have told Cirasa enough. "The future isn't always meant to be seen, yet here we are," she said.

Cirasa edged away from the oracle and scooted closer to the lumpy mattress dumped inside the tent for him. It looked like he wasn't going out of here any time soon. If Rutoria's prediction was correct, he's also supposed to go insane today. Fun.

"Can't you show me how you do it?" He exhaled, jarring his lungs in the process. He doubled over, a coughing fit racking his shoulders and driving tears into his eyes. By the time his airway relaxed, Rutoria's expression had staled into a passive stare.

"If I could, I would have since the first day you've been here," Rutoria drew back and sat on her stool again. "What I could do, however, is to induce a vision instead of waiting for them to come. That way, you will know what to expect and maybe you'll have a better chance."

Better chance, mind. There's still a huge percentage it would all go wrong. Cirasa squeezed his eyes shut as another pang knocked against his head. He hadn't much of a choice now, had he? It's either trying Rutoria's method or spending the rest of his days in Umazure with his pieces knocked around.

Cirasa swallowed against the dryness scratching his throat. When was the last time he drank something? Or have eaten something, for that matter? He plopped against the mattress and ran a shaking hand across his face. "Fine," he said in a voice that quite died half-out of his mouth.

Metal clinked and robes swished. Soon, Rutoria joined him on the mattress and placed the lamp in front of his face. The faint green light almost seared his eyes through his lids even though he kept them closed. He felt a hand against his head once again.

"I'm going to channel some of the throne's power into you," Rutoria was saying but all of that was lost in the thrum of Cirasa's abnormal heartbeat and the raging nausea gripping his gut. "Remember what I said—let it flow and maintain control."

If Cirasa could whimper, he would have. A wall of white-hot magic slammed into his system. He felt his limbs buckle outside of his control. His mind flared with images flickering, searing, tearing. Too fast. He's—

Let it flow. Cirasa had been doing that for the last three days and he always ends up passing out. Divination was rarely a pretty thing to have as a synnavaim. So, he gritted his teeth against the band of pain squeezing his head and exhaled. Let it flow.

The images in his head raged so fast it seemed like they're howling. Gibberish conversations, unsynchronized explosions, and flitting faces whose expressions changed too fast to remember swept across his memory like a sped up gallery. He stopped feeling his limbs. His lungs felt like it was slowly catching fire.

Rutoria's voice floated above it all, almost like she's talking to him through the visions. Let it flow.

All the other times he passed out, what was he doing then? He let the visions flow...but he, too, went along with it. What's going to be different this time?

Let it flow.

But open your eyes.

Cirasa let himself sink inward into his soul where his synnavaim pulsed against his form. The visions scratched against his mind without respite and the only way he could let them flow was to remove himself from it. Completely.

So...he did. Tried, seemed to be the best word.

The visions now felt like a telmaus being played in front of him, still too fast to catch anything significant but at least they didn't feel like part of his memory and his person anymore. Did he succeed?

The second part would then be to maintain control. Now, how in Umazure was he supposed to do that?

Another slap of pain slammed into his gut. The vision wrapped around his mind as he scrambled to rearrange what little progress he made. How did his form look like now? Leave it to the gods to figure out.

His mind raced through the visions, knowing full well it's the future. Not just the future but a thousand possible routes the future could take. Maintain control. What did Rutoria mean by that? Should he control where the vision would go?

He turned his attention back to the playing visions now scarring his soul. Every second he spent in this throne-induced vision storm was another second his soul was exposed to this kind of pure magic. Hurry. He should hurry.

Cirasa steeled his nerves. Here goes nothing. He focused on the first image he could recognize and it's...of Reeca. Closer. He must get closer. Almost as if hearing his thoughts, the vision sharpened and zoomed towards the varichria. The thousand other futures sped out of the surface but still continued to flash and flicker.

He narrowed his mind's eye at Reeca's face. Follow her. Maintain control. What's going to happen to her?

An arrow whistled from the sky. Somewhere from the battlements of Penleth. It hit Reeca square in the back. Cirasa's physical eyes flew open. What—

A beam of greenish light tore through his face. Before he could scream, he plunged back into his vision. Let it flow. Remove himself. Zoom in on a specific future. Follow Reeca again.

The same arrow slammed into Reeca's back while astride a paulsare. She fell. A white flare speared towards the endless blue. A single face flashed in Cirasa's memory. Xanthy. What had she done?

Garbled voices. Metal clanging. The sound of fabric ripping. Traitor. Spy. Voices...voices from other realms. Oaths. Whips cracking. Cirasa screamed. Was his real form doing the same? Control. Maintain control. He had to see what's going to happen.

A tree only found in myths now stood before him. Three people were in its vast root system. Blood. So much of it stained the water and the ground that a rusty taste filled Cirasa's throat. Or maybe that's just from his own blood gurgling out of his throat.

One of the three people was Xanthy. She looked dead. Not her. Why would she shoot Reeca? Why was she there?

Then, as if sensing Cirasa's presence, Xanthy turned to him and smiled. Through the haze of the other visions competing to be seen, all he could recognize was the sadness shining in those lifeless brown eyes. Before he could cry out, Xanthy and the other two people leaped into the light and it swallowed them, soul and all.

A gasp tore out of Cirasa's throat as his consciousness slammed back into his form. Once again, his cheek felt the rusty earth. This time, something salty joined it. He pushed himself up and a tear dropped from his eyes, trailed down his cheek, and soiled the dark soil. What was...?

Cirasa reached up and wiped his eyes. His fingers came up wet. Slowly, he found Rutoria's eyes glued in on him. Surprise gripped the oracle's jaw and colored her entire expression. "How...are you able to do that?" she breathed.

"Do what?" Cirasa sniffled and cradled his head with his hand. He felt like sleeping. It's...too much.

"Predict the future with such accuracy," Rutoria said.

A stone dropped in Cirasa's gut. He did that? Then, that meant...

"They're going to die?" Cirasa searched Rutoria's eyes for any indication that what he saw was only one of the possible futures and not the one bound to happen no matter what choices they make.

Rutoria narrowed her eyes. "Seems like it," her tone was grim. Final. Cirasa hated it. "Don't interfere. Don't tell any of them. Keep it to yourself."

A bud of anger unfurled in Cirasa's gut. "Why?" he drew up and leveled his gaze at the oracle. "They're going to die and they could do something to avoid it. I could do something!"

"Don't make the same mistake I did, boy," Rutoria said. Cirasa paused. The bitterness and regret in her tone...

Rutoria averted her eyes and rubbed her arm. "As oracles, it's not our job to change history," she said in a voice quiet enough to rival a whisper. "It's our job to make sure it happens that way."

Cirasa blinked. More fresh tears dropped from his eyes. Why was he even crying? "You mean..." a lump formed at the base of his throat, making his next words crack. "What are we here for?"

"If I knew, I would tell you," Rutoria ran a hand over the edge of her throne. "Alas, I am only a vessel of Fate's machinations. Now that you've gotten how the divination synnavaim works, you are, too."

His nails dug against his palms. Had he been clenching his fists all this time? "What am I supposed to do now? I can't face them like this. Reeca...she..."

Rutoria sighed. "It's an oracle's cross to bear," she said. "We may act like we're on people's sides when we talk to them but at our core, we would only be ensuring our visions happen as Fate dictated it."

"What about that multiple possibilities crap you told me?" Cirasa said. "Was that a lie, too?"

"No," she lowered her hood, giving Cyrdel the full view of her face. Even though she's almost the same age as Denara, there's not a line of wrinkles in her youthful skin. "Oracles see the future in different facets but they're all true. They all comprise a single future. A single truth. Without knowing the whole story, doing something about our limited knowledge could prove to be more disastrous than just sitting back and letting fate move in its course."

Cirasa cursed then bit the inside of his cheek. There's not much he could do now, was there? Rutoria had tons of points made and they were all valid. He exhaled. For the first time in forty years, he didn't feel an onset of pain waiting to spear through his chest. He felt...free. Like a huge weight was lifted off his magical shoulders.

That didn't erase the brewing guilt and frustration now clawing their way up his throat. He dragged his gaze up and forced it to land on Rutoria. "How do you carry this...responsibility?"

Rutoria's smile was saccharine. "Sacrifices," she said. "All the way through."

Sacrifices. In this war, it's the only choice any of them could make. One way or another, they would have to sacrifice something. For Cirasa, what could that be?