The Inkwell

Beyond the lancing blue plumes, beyond the supernatural orange of the leaves--the black portal yawned before Chronas, its fathoms inviting him, a million suggestions of eyes winking playfully back. Something approximating music battered at his ears as the very air seemed to suck wisps of life off his being; but it would be disappointed, as the black spirit of death would not be so easily dispersed. He peered down, eyes drawn into a sharp squint, his tail lashing irritably at the grass beneath his hooves.

Darkness, mostly. Different than what one might find in a dank basement or dismal cave, although a child staring into her nighttime closet might find something related. But the trick was in the waiting: the longer one looked, he knew, the more there was to see. Shapes like sunspots swirled in the same patterns as the twisting flesh of those around him. He tuned out both, focusing only on what was directly before him, letting all other ideas fade to silence.

There, in the ink--he'd been hoping for a vision of the future, but this could be mistaken for the past. A white figure materialized, all wavy lines and half-formed edges, wings spread wide as two inviting spirals seemed to pierce through time and space to meet him. There was the acuity of his old master, the deft hands tying strings of fate; but something was different. Red was not so unfamiliar on the Astrean, but this was far more than simple fringes. It seemed to pour from the figure, blooming like stains through fine white fur until it actively dripped, washing like a fountain from newly cupped hands. Those hands reached out to Chronas, up towards the 'real' world, to the surface of the well, offered with a cold crescent smile--

The satyr moved to splash the reflection to pieces, but at the last second thought better of it. Best not to dip his tail into a void without end. Even he in all his troubles preferred his corporeal self intact. Instead he turned with a sharp huff, leaning against the gravitational grip of the inkwell to march away towards the trees, passing the caterwaul of terrified mortals with little care. A whole lot of nothing, he griped to himself, just symbols of the past. It had been an abstracted window into those long-gone days, hadn't it? Surely nothing like this laid in his charge's future.

Not as he was now, that was for certain. But....

He let the thought trail off, not willing to entertain its destination.