The pale oracle dipped her quill into the hollow of her eye socket, loading the nib with blood. She wrote upon the roughly bound parchment laid before her, empty glaze still levelled upon her visitor. Time, unbound by clocks, drifted by.
“It is finished,” she closed the book, permitting the ink no time to dry.
“Whatever vileness you have crafted now,” her visitor snarled, “I shall not permit it to warp the hearts of mortals.”
She smiled at him, the image of heroism – clad in shining armour, bearing gleaming blade and shimmering with purest light.
“It cannot warp. It can only reflect. It is not my doing that all have their darkest depths,” she shrugged. “What beings do when they learn their most shameful side is no concern of mine.”
“You have no such power. Some exist without such shame,” the shining defender snatched up the book. She made no move to stop him. “I fear nothing within my heart.”
She watched with a wry smile as he snapped it open. His eyes raked the page. His strangled gasp was music to her.