O enjoyed the view as they hiked up the steep mountain path. Mel’s ass was at perfect eye level and looking particularly juicy in a pair of plum purple shorts. Her white tank top rode up a little, revealing a perfect smile of skin. Her coppery hair tumbled down her back, just the top pulled back in a small, intricate braid she’d allowed him to put in this morning.

Lucy and the kids had stayed at home. So Amos led the way, out in front, and Ike was all over the trail, jumping from boulder to boulder, swinging from branches, following trickles of water to larger creek beds. He liked watching her boy galavant around.

Her boy.

Soon to be his boy, too.

Their boy.

Something flipped in O’s stomach. He wouldn’t tell anybody that future for anything in the whole world. If he told, then there was a chance that the future would shift, change because of the knowledge. He would never take that chance. Not with his family.

They were hiking up to this guy’s cabin. Idris. They were just gonna knock and see if he was home, O guessed. He still couldn’t see two feet in front of him where this guy was concerned. And part of O was terrified of that. The other part of him was thrilled by it. For once, he was free of the burden of the future.

It made him light on his feet as they hiked up the mountain. Light with hope.

Ahead of them, Amos halted for a second. He turned back toward O, a smiling smirk on his face. “You smell that, O?”

O sniffed at the air, curious at what he meant. He caught the scent immediately. “There’s a portal around here?”

Amos threw his hands in the air. “Well, fuck me. You really can smell portals, huh?”

O grinned up at his friend. “And you doubted the all-powerful Oracle?” O said as he slipped a little on a spray of pebbles and had to steady himself on Mel’s shoulders.

“Smooth,” she said, grinning back at him.

“Yeah,” Amos said. “Drake and I found it a few months ago while we were hiking around up here. He actually jumped right through it. He shifted immediately. Couldn’t believe how good it felt. Hurt my heart a little, actually.”

“Really? Another portal?” Ike asked, huffing and puffing to catch up to them. “Can we go see it?”              

“Actually,” O said, sniffing the air again. “I’d like to take a look at it. There’s something familiar about the scent. But it can’t be.”

O left the trail to jog along after the scent. Soon, Amos was right next to him.

“What part of the dragon realm does it lead to?” O asked Amos.

“A part I don’t know very well,” Amos replied. “In the foothills of the mountains.”

O kept his pace light, but his heart was racing. They came upon the portal quickly; it almost seemed to pop out of nowhere. It was just off a jetty of rocks, a long cliff opening up beneath them. Nothing but thin air all around the portal.

“You let your son go through there?” O asked in amazement.

“He went on my back.” Amos said. “We shifted as soon as possible. I flew him to the ground on the other side.” Amos cleared his throat. “Don’t, uh, mention it to Lucy, though. Humans don’t understand that kind of thing.”

O craned his neck up and around, trying to see through the portal. See what he suspected was on the other side.

Soon enough, Mel and Ike came skidding up to them. Mel grabbed Ike around the shoulders when she realized they were standing on the edge of a cliff.

O wracked through all the options in his head. He put pieces together. Tore them apart. Reassembled them.

“Amos, you said that Idris lives in a cabin up the way?”

Amos nodded.

“And that he was raised there by his mother?”

Again he nodded.

“And no father?”

Amos shrugged. “None that he ever talked about to me.”

“Do you know the mother’s name?”

“He mentioned it once or twice. Her name is Felice.”

O’s body was electricity. Every molecule was rearranging as truth and understanding streaked down his spine. “We have to get through that portal. Right now.”

“What?” Mel’s face went a little ashen as she peeked over the edge of the cliff. “Why on god’s green earth would we ever do that?”

“Because I have to talk to my father,” O said. “And he’s just on the other side of this portal.”