TITLE:  An Oracle For All Seasons (part 1/?)
AUTHOR:  Ellen Hursh
RATING:  PG-13
KEYWORDS:  Extreme AU; SF/fantasy; philological antics; "etc."
LAST EPISODE SEEN:  "Dead Again"
TIMELINE:  Somewhere after "Lockdown"/"Chaos Theory" and Luka becoming Dr Slutpants
ARCHIVE:  If you must.
DISCLAIMER:  ER and all its characters belong to Warner Bros.  No infringement of their copyright is intended. 
This story was written for the enjoyment of "ER" fans everywhere, and may be downloaded for your own pleasure.
SUMMARY:  Um... well... <shrug> Beats me how to summarize this. Just play along, m'kay?
SPOILERS: As long as you've seen up to "Lockdown", you'll be okay... FSVO "okay".
AUTHOR'S NOTES:  Inspired by a combination of: "Dark Tower" fanfic that I'd had kicking around in the back of
my head a few years back, Rap's "After" series... and the sheer fact that I'm about as weird as a soup sandwich. But
you all already knew about that last one... didn't you, darlings? :-)
As George Carlin might say, this is the sort of thing I do when I'm home alone, and the TV is broken.




The woman watched the man in black as he approached the city, pedalling the rickshaw with its living cargo bundled
up in pale silk and huddled under the royal green awning, out of the sun; she wasn't sure which of the two they should
fear more.

The guard stopped the rickshaw at the city gates. "Gie me your name and why you come to Shegacou."

"Thou ken who we are," the dark man snapped, glaring from beneath the wide conical hat that shaded his face. The
guard gulped, and knelt quickly, gesturing apologetically.

"I- I beg your forgiving. We were nae abiden ye for another season, at least."

"Hoped we weren't coming for another season, thou mean," he corrected cynically. The guard flushed, and backed
away to open the gates.

* * *

"The Green Lady is early this year. Never a good thing." The woman spoke into her transceiver as she watched the rickshaw
travel down Wicker Street.

"And it gives us even less time for readiness than we thought," the reply quickly came.

* * *

He set the ward around the rickshaw - not that any sane person would dare interfere with anything bearing the sigil of her
house, but Shegacou wasn't well-known for the sanity of its residents - then carried her inside. He was always surprised by
how light she was, considering how much power she had.

He set her down on the bed in her room to undress, then proceeded into the bathroom, where he got her bath ready for her -
he'd been with her long enough that he knew how she liked the water - then carried her to the tub and gently lowered her in.

"Linger with me, bid'ee. Or, you could come in with me. More than enow room in here, Luki," she wheedled, when he would
have left her alone in the bathroom, and playfully flicked water at him. He agreed after only a token resistance - there was no
actual prohibition against their relationship, but he knew that a lot of people thought it was weird (even he tended to agree
with that opinion, sometimes).

She waited until he'd stripped off his dusty, dirty clothes and stepped into the tub with her, then carefully undid his hair plaits -
the braids hadn't been in style for about twenty years, and made him look hopelessly old-fashioned, but it was the only way he'd
found to keep his hair in line without resorting to the lay practice of cutting it - and reached for a comb, in the kit that the staff
had set by the side of the tub, in order to get out any tangles before he washed it. "Hold still, I don't want to pull it. Mm... it's like
silk."

"Dirty, sweaty, slicky silk," he added, chuckling softly as he closed his eyes with a little sigh of pleasure, and let her play with
his hair.

"Well, yai. But I still like it." Her hand made a quick detour, and he gasped in surprise.

"Should we be doing this here?" He had no objections to what she was doing - far from it! - but he felt funny about where
she was doing it... his preference was for a nice stable bed on dry land, rather than sloshing around in a tub of warm water.

"Do what I do: call it part of my legworking." He raised an eyebrow, smiling affectionately as he stroked her cheek.

"And what does that have to do with your legworking?"

"Done right, it's good for the health."

"Oh?"

"For one thing, there's the not drowning."

"Oh."

"And we'll get most clean, too."

"Mmmmm..."

* * *

Her arrival in town had been advertised in the Shegacou Sunne-Tide, and by the next morning the front room of her temple was
overflowing with supplicants - families that had come together since her last visit or had new babies for her to bless, general
devotees, and (Luki thought) the most annoying of all: those who wanted her to answer some question about their futures. Malachi
was in charge of temple security, and his staff required several hours to clear everybody for an audience. "What a bloody bother,"
the man grumbled to Luki after everybody had been processed and put into the waiting rooms.

"Aye, I reckon tis so... but tis better than the ghasthap of another killer."

"Hm... the last one killed her skeld as well as wounded her, yai?" Luki glanced sharply at Malachi for his comment, but the man
shrugged. "Tis right for you to worry, is all I meant. Best to take your sitting with her now."

He hurried to his Lady's side and quickly made a last-minute check that all of her equipment was ready to go, then nodded in
response to the unspoken question in her glance. She reached for the hookah, and inhaled deeply from the tube. The few who were
close enough could see her eyes as the pupils rapidly dilated, swallowing up the gray-green irises in inky pools. They were only visible
for a few moments, though, as Luki quickly used the remote control to dim the lights that were directed at her.

She shuffled the cards in front of her with spiderlike movements of her hands - they flashed in the meager light. "First one," she
ordered tersely. She'd had bad dreams the night before - bad enough for her to wake Luki for comfort - and hadn't slept well.

"I wanna know ef my lady hae been cuckooing me," he said, as he sat in the chair. She gave him a sour look, and began dealing
the cards.

"And I wanna million dollars," she muttered, just loud enough for Luki to hear her; he suppressed a snicker, and nudged her.
"Funeral of a Knight," she announced aloud, as she lay down a card, "crossed by the Broken Wheel. The River Goddess hangs
by her feet, and..."

* * *

"Isn't it... you know... kind of silly to be plotting to kill the earthly avatar of Death?" He fondly chucked her under the chin,
grinning
at the younger woman's disgusted look.

"Hush. Have some respect for our mission, will thee?"

* * *

She woke the next morning, bright-eyed with fever, but - despite Luki's concerns - insisted on performing her duties. He wasn't
surprised, since blessing families and babies was her favorite part of who and what she was, but he became even more worried
when, at the end of the day after everybody had been sent away, she tried to get back out of bed by herself. Naturally, she landed
in a heap on the floor, and he found her weakly calling for her previous skeld. "Jane? Jane, is that you?"

"No, it's me." She peered at him intently, then smiled faintly.

"Hi. Help me back to bed?"

"Yai. Crawl in, and I'll get you some feverbrew, to make you feel better." She shook her head, although she accepted his help
getting back under the covers. "I'm thy medic, nae just thy skeld," he reminded her, but she just continued to smile.

"There's nowt thou can do to help me - I am the only one who can help myself now," she told him with maddening calmness -
no fear of her mortal body ceasing to function. Why should she fear it, after all, he realized with some frustration. She would
return again... in a different body, with a different name and face, but her essence would never cease to be. "You should go
outside for now - tis a fey night." He shook his head stubbornly.

"I want to be with you."

"Luki, go!" He backed away from her, hurt by her tone, and headed outside as she'd suggested... well, demanded. He stumbled
through the sudden rain in a daze, barely aware of the electrical tingle that passed through him for a moment. The first he knew
that anything had changed was when he turned and saw the large object bearing down on him; he cried out in alarm, and tried
to get out of its path. He almost made it: the SUV sideswiped him, and the impact threw him the rest of the way off the road. He
was fuzzily aware of excited voices and people approaching as he lay there groaning, and finally decided to just let himself give
in and pass out.

He was unconscious as Pickman and Zadro loaded him into the ambulance, and remained out as he was delivered to County
General; it was when he was put in curtain area 3 and staff began to work on him, that things began to get interesting.


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