"Where did you go?" Ash questioned, softly. His head was swirling with confusion. What came over his queen this past hour? Negotiations were tough with Mab, Winter knights were hell, but Meghan held an expert mask throughout both. What had shaken her while she had left?
Meghan almost sobbed. Her breathing felt shallow, as if the air were thin. Her head, unable to take all the information and devastation all at once seemed to be collapsing.
She had visited the Oracle when she walked away from Ash. The husk of a woman was bent and shriveled, her voice like the sensation of spiders crawling up her legs. She flew to her to find she was waiting for Meghan with possible futures in hand. The Oracle had shown Meghan all the possible futures. Glimpses of the Wyld fading into existence, Mab cursing and destroying the Iron Realm, Oberon the last existing Fae of the Summer Court. She saw Puck in his last moments, fading and clinging to Meghan's hands as if his existence could stay if he squeezes hard enough. The most horrible of them all, Ash fading, Ash leaving her, Ash being forgotten by the humans, Ash's existence being simply erased because the threat and uprising of technology was so strong, even he with a soul, could not go on. It had all shaken her to the core. She was determined to fix the problem until the Oracle sprung a devastating fate on her. Meghan bartered for another only for the Oracle to simply state that she couldn't change the impossible, and disappear. Meghan was shaken and frustrated flew back to her kingdom. She was misinformed by her icy majesty and flower father, who both had said nothing until just that moment. Glitch sent a flurry of messages that minute alerting her that the Summer and Winter court now demanded her presence. Meghan knew she wouldn't sleep until the whole problem was fixed. Grimacing at her terrible days coming, Meghan's mood went from annoyed, to sour, to distressed.
She looked at Ash. Her knight and husband sworn to her by his true name and his love. Meghan could not imagine a life without him, his presence assuring her, protecting her, loving her. She would not let the Oracle's futures come true.
"I visited the Oracle," she murmured. Ash stiffened. Good things never came after visiting the Oracle.
"And?"
"And," she paused. Meghan's informed fate was still unknown to Ash, and if she told him it would tear his heart. She did not want to face him when she said it. Meghan was a coward. She felt like one, and she was going to speak like one. She hated herself for it, but she didn't want her memories of Ash to be tainted by his grimacing. "she was her cryptic self, scaring the light out of me."
Ash only frowned and furrowed his eyebrows giving Meghan a stern look.
"Alright, I'll explain everything later in front of Mab and Oberon later, I need rest. I need to think." Meghan chewed the inside of cheek hoping Ash would now say anything. "I promise Ash, I'll explain the Oracle's futures." She gave him a pleading look.
Ash wondered why she was shaken and it seemed the Oracle was the reason. He could hear it when her voiced quivered even though Meghan tried to be lighthearted. She was withholding information, but he didn't press her. Not when she was in a fragile state. He simply nodded and kissed Meghan's forehead goodnight as they went to sleep. Tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow.
