Thread of Fate - 3. Chapter 2.5

‘I ken ‘ye have really fecked the goose this time, eh?’

Eyes of palest violet opened wide, a sea of hawthorn branches raining snow white petals down around him, the serene realm of Mag Mell. Here spring reigned eternal and the tinkling of bells shook on the ghost breezes which trembled the hawthorn trees.

Here in this realm in between realms, Oberon presented his truest form. Pushing himself to sit among the blossom rain, he turned to face the source of the voice who intruded on his personal paradise.

Long hair of silver and white floated out behind Oberon on the eternal invisible breeze, long pointed ears tipping gracefully through the moonlit strands. Lavender eyes fixed upon the great red stag which towered before him, tiny bells tinkling from where they hung amid his antlers.

“Why are you here, Cernunnos?”

Friend. Fiend. Both.

For centuries they’d cross each others paths here in the realm in between realms. The stag hid behind as many faces to suit his needs as Oberon did.

The bells jingled with a merry eerie madness as the horned god shook his head with mirth, lowering his head until intelligent eyes, the green of new shoots of grass met his own.

‘Blood binds, binds tie, what ‘ye have mote, fate nae denies.’

A burst of anger welled up inside of Oberon, rushing up to his feet he got in the stag’s face, wings vibrating with rage, shaking out behind him.

“Why?! Why now do you come before me with your goddamned riddles? Do you think I do not realize what I’ve done?”

Even though he was screeching at the top of his lungs, at the closest thing someone like him could get to an ‘old dear friend’, it was almost no more than a scared whisper imbued with the thoughts that truly plagued him most, almost mockingly his angry outburst was muffled by the snowing petals.

He had no fucking idea just what it was he’d actually done or the myriad effects it was sure to have but the one thing he had known was that if that boy had died there in his arms, it would have ended him. Some part of him told him deep inside with a certainty that if he’d slipped away, Oberon’s eons of life would have been as nothing.

“Stars are crossing, my old friend.”

A stag’s somehow secretive smile was the last thing Oberon saw before the blizzard of hawthorn flowers blinded his sight. His time in this realm was done.