using the the official inktober prompts
People say opposites attract. People also say best friends should be like two peas in a pod. Maybe starting with what people say isn’t a great idea, because people also tended to say Deanna was a weirdo. And those were the people Isadora ended up punching.
Rubbing the other woman’s back with one hand and the other laid flat on the duvet, Isadora waited. For Deanna to stop shaking slightly, for her hand to grasp back in a sign she was back from the other side, for her eyes to roll back to the front of her skull, whichever came first.
Being an Oracle wasn’t easy. Deanna took it with extreme dignity.
A sharp gasp brought Isadora’s mind back to the present: The hand on the duvet was swiftly squeezed as Deanna grasped for an anchor and the other reached back for the glass of water they’d brought with them when Deanna felt “another one on the way”.
“Hey, it’s Isa. I’m here. You’re home, you’re okay.”
Deanna nodded, eyes still shut and sipping the cold water through the metal straw, the clinking of it against the glass the only sound in the room.
When she spoke, it was a bit hoarse, barely over a whisper. “It’s one of yours again.”
Isadora sighed. Being a Chosen One wasn’t easy either.
It certainly helped that her best friend had an insight on just what she was Chosen for. In the same way it helped Deanna make sense of her visions if she had been present for most of the life of the subject.
Opposites. Peas in a pod. Take your pick.
Once Deanna was back on her feet, she drew aside the curtain on the far wall of her room, revealing a white board full of two very distinct and equally tiny types of handwriting, a couple books worth of post it’s, and the occasional news clipping. The board was used for most prophecies, but only the really important (and unrelated to them) stayed.
“I do not know! Ask your weirdly big family if they have a tradition of signing fates off to the supernatural!”
“This is what, the third time this year? Fourth?”
“Yea remember that time I changed my mind and we went rock climbing instead of on a beach trip?”
“Yea?” Isadora raised her head from where she’d flopped down on the bed.
“Ugh! How do you block the Universe’s number?”
“I’ll tell you what, when I find out you’ll be the first to know.” She basically sighed the sentence.
Isadora got up. She didn’t really know how to answer other than slide her arms around Deanna and hold tight. “I’m sorry, Dea.”
“It’s fine, it’s not like you made me an oracle. And it’s not bad when they’re you. It means I can help you.” She tilted her head, lightly headbutting Isa. “Dodging time?”
“Okay, so! What do you have?”
“I have the sun, moon and rising constellation of your birthdate.”
“Yeah. I also have…” She trailed off, brow furrowed.
They’d been doing this for years, so Isa knew not to push. Dea didn’t really have prophecies told to her as much as she was shown flashes of scenes culminating in a giant domino effect that was usually saving or ending some part of the world. Not always, though. Sometimes the prophecies were small like “Mr. Forin will be pissed off next Wednesday and deliver a surprise exam” – illustrated ever so helpfully by a family home, a detailed image of an explosion followed by falling drops and a roulette wheel- or “Old lady Ori’s cat will get tangled in spider webs and wander the neighborhood” – and nobody wants the vivid description of an anatomically correct spider-cat hybrid shared over lunch.
“The first daughter of the first daughter of the first daughter.” Dea almost yelled. But her enthusiasm was short lived, “Wait, that’s doesn’t fit you.”
Isa thought for a bit. “Oh that’s low.”
“It does fit. My dad’s the oldest kid.”
“Your da- fucking transphobic prophecies!”
Isadora reached into the sides of the board and pulled in her picture and one of her dad to the small open space where they had for figuring out today’s message.
“Wait, we’ve established they don’t care about blood lines right?”
“Yea, there was that one about your witch aunt that turned out to be your mom’s best friend.”
“The thing I will do. Is it dated?”
“I mean, there are definitely early summer vibes to the scene, why?”
“Because!” Isadora reached across the board again, this time picking up a picture of a woman in her forties, the name ‘Allison’ scribbled in blue ink “My dad is marrying my stepmom in three months on the 20th! And she has-”
“She has two kids older than you!!”
“So in summer, I will be the youngest child!!” Isa grinned.
“And the second daughter!” Dea smiled back, raising her hand. “Dodged!”
“Dodged!” Isa high fived her.
That was their thing. Sure, it wasn’t always this easy, especially when the visions weren’t about Isa. But they’d gotten good at figuring out the who and the what, and if it was worth making the effort to dodge. Sometimes they couldn’t. That’s what the news clippings were for. For every catastrophic train accident there was a front page spread on a miraculous save borne of chance. For every post it with scribbled out names when they got it wrong there were small notes thanking one or both of them for suspiciously well timed advice they’d given someone.
Isadora and Deanna had been best friends since the day they’d met. Isa had been there when Dea had her first vision, when the doctors couldn’t find reason for the “seizures”, when they finally realized her vivid dreams would step out into the world and when they stopped the first one. And she’d been sitting on this same duvet the first time Dea had a vision about her. And the second. And the third. And the on average 4.6 times – now 4.8 – she was featured on some big catastrophic event.
The world was still standing. This was their thing.
Many months after Isa’s dad’s wedding (which Dea attended obviously) and after the supposed coming of the vision (Dea tried to not give her details of the action if she had them, or even of the specific day, but she had looked up to Isa one late spring day, and said from where she rested her head on her lap “it would’ve been today” with a small proud smile, before returning to her book) , it happened again.
They were in Isa’s dad’s kitchen. He and Allison had gone out for the weekend and Alex and Charlie were still at work, so Isa had dinner on her hands; which is to say Dea had dinner on her hands and Isa was on cutting veggies duty.
The speed with which Isa put down the knife and caught the bag of noodles off of Dea’s hand would’ve made records. And then she waited.
When Dea came back to herself, she was… different.
They did all the rituals and reassurances and then Dea wouldn’t really look at Isa all of the sudden. Eyes shifty and face flush and the nervous finger tapping was back, that had left around highschool, why was that back?
“So… Is it someone you know?” She tried
“Oh that’s nice! Is it one to dodge?”
Okayy then. “Do I know who it is?”
“Oh cool, is it someone from work? That Jayce fellow in the lobby has biiig Chosen vibes.” Nothing. “Or maybe Tessa? I mean I wouldn’t say I know her since she’s your boss and all but-“
“Oh! Why didn’t you say so?”
“It’s- it’s also me… It’s tricky.”
“Ah. Well if it’s anything big, we got it right? I mean unless I have to go out into a tick infested backwoods somewhere to appease some fae anthropologists, that was not a fun month.”
“You always say ‘tell me about it’ when I talk about that month, and then you tell me one more ridiculous excuse you came up with for why I wasn’t at uni then.”
“Right, yea. Tell me about it.” Dea’s eyes were unfocused. Far away.
That seemed to do something. Dea snapped her head up, looking right at Isa.
“If it’s something like I’m meant to leave you or hate you or hurt you consider it Dodged! I would die before I did that.”
Dea opened her mouth a couple times, but her voice got lost on it’s way out and she closed it again. Isa took her hands in hers. “I know you can’t always tell me but- I’m geeing worried here.”
Dea closed her eyes for a bit. “It’s… You’re meant to… Sit alongside me.”
“Ha! Little late for that, started doing that in 6th grade!”
“No, that’s too literal, you’re… not supposed to leave!”
“Pretty sure we just went over that actually.” Isa chuckled.
Dea shook her head violently. Isa’s easy smile fell, she could see her friend was distressed but to not be able to help-
“Dea, I know it’s hard. But I can’t help if you din’t describe it to me, I need to know what I’m aiming for when i say stuff or I ca-”
“Marriage!” She almost yelled. “The closest definition in the english language is… marriage. And all it entails.”
Dea still wasn’t looking at her. And that just wouldn’t do, not now! I mean sure it was a tricky situation, it wouldn’t do that Dea was uncomfortable every time Isa was around for the rest of their lives, and Isa was pretty sure step one of a marriage was falling for someone and she had had that one down pat for ages so- wait a minute…
The nervous tapping. The flush. The silence at whether or not she wanted to dodge it. The way she wouldn’t look Isa in the eyes goddamnit.
Isa lifted one hand away from Dea’s own to curl it around her chin and gently turn her gaze back
“Hi.” Still nothing. “I have a question.”
It was silent permission but it was permission nonetheless.
“What would happen if I didn’t want to dodge it? Just this once?”
Turning Dea’s eyes to her was the best decision Isa could’ve made because the way the woman’s eyes widened was just about the most precious view she’d ever experienced.
“But it wouldn’t- It’s not you that wants it, it’s the-”
“Dea, you’ve known me for over ten years. In those you’ve had visions of me a total of 65 times. We dodged 57 of them, and the ones we didn’t were a choice. I think we’ve established the existence of my free will.” Isa smiled at Dea’s barely contained eyeroll, even now, at her head for numbers, “so I am not asking about the grand scheme of things. I’m asking you. What would happen if I didn’t want to dodge it?”
Dea took her time: searching Isa’s face, cataloguing every micro expression she’d grown up with, every millimetre of skin waiting for a catch she knew damn well wasn’t coming. And when she was secure enough, she finally answered, voice tiny and hopeful:
And Isa didn’t need prophetic powers to tell her that was the best decision they had ever made. Through that night’s dinner, holding hands under the table, through every kiss where they melted into each other as if it was their first again, through every night for the rest of their lives, from the one where they finally did a real proposal to the one where they exchanged teary eyed vows.
