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The sun beats through Adaine’s window like it’s trying to break it down. Her old box fan whirrs like a helicopter, fluttering the edges of the papers on her desk. Adaine flips through her “Humans in Solace, 1200-1299, D” files box looking for Ian Davidson, again. He’d been involved in so many of her visions recently, an arsonist on the prophetical level. She still hadn’t been able to track down Ian’s parents to warn them about their son, if they’d even been born yet. She misses working alongside Riz.
Adaine is lost in thoughts of how her life would’ve been different (worse, probably) if her parents had known she was going to be the oracle—which of course leads into her daily struggle of “maybe all this meddling is doing more harm than good”—when a spell nudges the edge of her mind. It feels tentative and nervous, poking at her psyche just enough to get her attention. Her secretary Alissa, then. It’s been decades but the girl still treats her like a god. Maybe one day you’ll be one; the voice in her head is bitter, biting. Adaine presses her palm to the arcane eye on her forehead. It’s a permanent fixture there now, much to her displeasure. Not because of its impact on her face, but because it made it so much easier for people to identify her as the Oracle and ask her to read their palm in the grocery store. She accepts the spell and Alissa’s voice blooms in her head:
“Good afternoon Oracle O’Shaughnessy. It is 12:56pm on Thursday, the 8th of July, 1124.”
Adaine checks her watch, wall clock, and calendar. Good, they all match up.
“There is a girl here asking to meet with you,” Alissa renews the spell and then continues, “She wants to ask you some questions for a book her family is writing. She does not have an appointment.”
Adaine looks down at the yearly report she was working on. She couldn’t remember whether it was for 1217 or 1271; had forgotten to write it down. Doesn’t really matter. It’s boring and she could use a distraction. She used to wonder why the old oracles wrote out their visions as convoluted riddles and prophecies, but she was coming to realize more and more that they were onto something. Trying to actually decipher and take meaning from the flashes of future she was privy to was exhausting, especially because half of them were only potential futures and would never come to pass, and an annoying number of them were for things that were going to happen only a couple seconds after the vision itself. Spitting out nonsense was much easier, although significantly less helpful to the general public, and she had branded herself as the people’s oracle, after all.
“Let her in,” she replies out loud. Alissa opens the door and Kristen Applebees walks through it, which is weird, because Kristen hadn’t visited her office in over a century.
“Hi, I’m Kristen Applebees the third!” Kristen says, bounding over to her desk and shaking her hand enthusiastically. The third? Oh, that’s right, Kristen is an angel now, had died, what, 22 years ago?
“Everyone calls me K3 though. Thank you so much for meeting with me, wow you look the same as in the pictures! Except for the eye, of course.” K3 pulls a faded, yellowed picture from her bag and brandishes it, arm fully outstretched. It’s weird to see herself in a picture that looks like it belongs in a museum. Adaine has a newer looking version of this photo at home; it was the only official family portrait they’d taken, standing outside Mordred Manor in the dew at sunrise.
(To say all of them are there would be correct, though it feels like an understatement. Jawbone and Sandra Lynn are right in the center, Tracker and Fig in front of them. Kristen is next to Tracker, Ayda next to Fig, Adaine also next to Fig, and Aelwyn next to Adaine. Gilear is on Sandra Lynn’s other side, and next to him Hallariel. On Jawbone’s other side are Zayn and Lydia. Ragh, Gorgug, and Fabian stand behind Lydia and Zayn, and Cathilda, Digby, and Wilma make up the front row. Gorthalax looms behind the whole group with a gargantuan smile and huge thumbs up.)
K3 retracts the photo.
“My family is writing an official biography of Saint Kristen, my great great grandmother. We found a draft and some notes for an autobiography that she never finished, but lots of the stuff about her early life is really confusing,” K3 says. She pulls a crumpled single sheet of lined paper from her bag. “So I thought, why don’t we just ask someone who was there? And I saw you in the picture, and I recognized you because, you know, and I have a list of questions, if you’re okay with answering them? I know you’re probably super busy—“
“It’s alright, I’ll answer any questions you have,” Adaine interrupts, eager for an excuse to forget about Ian Davidson of 1217 or 1271. “Would you like a coffee?”
K3 lights up.
“Oh uh, yeah, please! Could I have a cortado?”
“The tea kind, or the normal kind?” Adaine asks on reflex, almost (almost, but not quite) forgetting that this is not her Kristen Applebees, and telepathically drafting an order to send to Alissa. K3’s jaw drops.
“There’s a kind other than the tea kind?”
“I’ll get you both,” Adaine says.
“So she wrote a lot about something called the ball—“
Adaine laughs softly.
“That would be Riz,” she says. “Riz Gukgak, private investigator. Although at that time he was still unlicensed. He’s an angel now, although I think the technical term is celestial soul. You should ask Figueroth Faeth about it, she’s more tuned into the outer planes goings on than I am.”
“Faeth, Faeth…wait, the archdevil?”
“That’s the one. Actually you know what, let me just call her, it’ll be easier than trying to get you in touch with her.” Adaine pushes a single button on her crystal and presses it to her ear. It had never occurred to K3 before that one could have a devil on speed dial.
“Hey Fig, it’s me. Uh huh. Yeah she’s fine, always at work, you know how she is. Are you busy? One of Kristen’s great grandkids is here—“
Fig appears in Adaine's office in a flash of flames and smoke. Adaine waves a hand in front of her face and opens her window.
“You know I hate it when you do that,” Adaine coughs. The fire ward goes off despite her efforts, and she silences it with a practiced snap. Fig takes two long strides over to the elf, takes her jaw in both hands, and kisses the tip of her nose.
“It’s good to see you too, Madame Oracle.” Fig bows dramatically. “You don’t look a day over 100.” Adaine blushes the tiniest bit, and Fig grins from ear to ear.
K3 is having a big, big day. Sure, her great great grandmother was a saint and is an angel had done all these insane things with other world figures and celestial wars, but that kind of life doesn’t happen to everybody, and K3 is just an almost high school kid who’d come to the oracle’s (the oracle’s) office on a whim, fully expecting to be turned away. And now two figures she’d only ever seen in history textbooks and ancient family photos are standing in front of her, and flirting, albeit lightly.
The contrast between them is striking. The oracle is tall, like most elves, but she has bags under her two mundane eyes and frazzled looking hair, which K3 hadn’t expected. She holds herself with confidence, but K3 can tell that sometimes it’s a pain to do so. The archdevil, on the other hand, holds herself with the pride of someone who’d recently had a growth spurt and is reveling in their newfound perspective upon the world. Where Adaine is muted, Fig is hyper saturated. They both are quite sharp, however. Sharp in all the places humans aren’t: sharp eyes and ears and teeth, and horns, of course, in Fig’s case.
Fig pokes her head out of Adaine’s office, orders a ridiculous and intricate coffee from Alissa, who’d only just returned from her first run, and perches herself on the edge of Adaine’s desk, legs crossed.
“Archdevil Figueroth Faeth the Insatiable, pleasure to meet you.” Fig holds out her hand and K3 leaps up from her chair to go shake it. Adaine rolls her eyes.
“I’m Kristen Applebees the third, but you can call me K3,” K3 says.
“You look just like Kristen,” Fig says. Her voice hadn’t dropped its jovial tone, but the hand she’s leaning back on is twitching uncomfortably. Adaine slides her hand on top of the devil’s. It’s almost hot, like always.
“Thank you so much!” K3 beams. “I think that’s part of why I’ve always been so interested in learning about Saint Kristen, since I remind so many people of her.”
The twitching gets worse, and Adaine squeezes Fig’s hand until it burns.
“Riz a celestial soul now, right?”
“Mm, yeah,” Fig nods. “I haven’t run into him in a while though, he’s been on a mission with his dad about some dude called Dick Davidson—“
“What?!” Adaine stands up so fast her chair fell over. “Gods above I knew I should’ve tried to get in contact with him about this one, I’ve been trying to track that guy down for ages. His son is going to be some sort of outrageous arsonist.”
Fig whips out her crystal and taps at it while she speaks.
“The next summit is in a couple months, he should be there. I’ll ask for a copy of his files.”
The two of them get lost in shop talk for a few minutes. It’s like they’re magnetized, K3 thinks, watching the utterly unprofessional display. Fig, still sitting on Adaine’s desk, leans back and Adaine forward until Fig’s back is supported by Adaine’s shoulder. Fig lets her head drop on top of Adaine’s and holds her crystal a little to the side so Adaine can see the screen. K3 feels like they might’ve forgotten she’s not Kristen Applebees the First.
“Why is he called the Ball? Saint Kristen literally never referred to him as Riz, Gutgak was it?”
“Gukgak,” Fig and Adaine say at the same time.
“I think it was Fabian that started it,” Fig says.
“Are you sure? I thought it was Ragh,” Adaine says.
And so it goes for hours, the three of them working through cortados and anecdotes of all varieties. K3 scribbles pages of notes, trying to keep up with the memories spilling out of the oracle and the archdevil.
“Did she write about when she smuggled Aguefort both in and out of heaven in her backpack?” Fig asks.
“Wh- the principal of Aguefort Adventuring Academy?” K3 asks.
“Yeah, he shot himself in the head on our first day of school to bring Kristen back to life after she got killed by some corn, and then she brought him into heaven in her backpack,” Fig says.
“Isn’t that when she made those godawful Buzzfeed gods?” Adaine asks.
“Wait, Saint Kristen made a god?” K3 asks, shocked.
“I’m not surprised she didn’t mention them, she hated them as much as we did,” Fig says.
“And there was that time in Fallinel, remember, in the tower?” Fig laughs so hard she can barely talk. “When she was chasing after your dad and jumped—she just ju- jumped out the window!”
“And it was ten stories!” Adaine laughs.
“And it was ten stories! Oh my god, I can’t believe that’s not one of the times she died.”
“I’m going to be a freshman at Aguefort Adventuring Academy in the fall, do you have any advice?” K3 asks.
“Don’t trust anything Aguefort says,” Adaine says, “UNLESS it’s about chronomancy.”
“Isn’t he human? How’s he still alive?” Fig wonders aloud. K3 shrugs.
“He says he’s human, which I guess since he said it means I can’t trust it? Hm. Weird. See you!” K3 waves, and just like that she’s gone.
As soon as the door clicks shut behind K3, Adaine stands and moves around her desk towards Fig, who slips off the desk and into Adaine’s arms, burying her face in her shoulder, her horn strangely cold against the elf’s neck.
“Thank you for coming,” Adaine whispers.
“Sometimes I forget they’re dead.”
“Me too.”