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As Elmville begins to peak through the clouds, the sky tinged red and streaked with flashes of thunder, her mind wanders to the previous Elven Oracle. She thinks about a woman, perhaps a woman who looked similar to her, standing on the bow of a ship as Adaine now stands. She thinks of this woman staring into the maws of a red dragon and facing her foe unflinchingly.
She hopes, in whatever plane her energy now exists, the previous Oracle saw and appreciated and felt vindication from Adaine’s fist of magical energy sending a dragon careening through the stormy sky.
“You okay, Adaine?” She hears Gorgug at the helm but she doesn’t turn around. It’s a sweet question, if a little redundant. None of them are okay. And they won’t be until Porter Cliffbreaker is dead and buried.
“Yeah,” she answers instead, eyes still trained straight ahead. “How long until we’re at the school, do you think?”
She can’t see his face but she can practically hear the numbers crunching in his skull; academic to academic, the math and physics of the universe a song she and Gorgug knew all too well. “I’d say ten minutes if we keep this momentum,” he replies. “Not exactly time for a long rest.”
“Or even a short one,” the oracle sighs. It’s just enough time to tend to wounds, take stock of spell slots, and ready weapons. She has no idea what they’ll face once they touch down. The enemy’s ritual had failed, but what had Stardiamond and two of his pet Rat Grinders done in their brief, invisible visit to Seacaster Manor? Fig’s suggestion that they were probing for An– …for the rage goddess’s true name was a likely one. Adaine hopes they gleaned nothing useful. She hopes they looked at her and saw nothing but the sword that would slit them all in half, groin to throat. Like gutting a fish.
Adaine thinks, again, of the unlucky elven oracle; her lip curls into a sneer when she hears her own words parroted back at her by Oisin Hakinvar. It bounces around her head like those gods-damn ping pong balls she had been stupid enough to think were because he genuinely found her charming and–
She shakes her head, hands clutching the bow of the original Hangman until her knuckles grew white. He’d get what was coming to him shortly.
Adaine takes a deep breath, unclenches her hands, though her grip remains loosely around the railing. Rage was what got everyone into this mess; she would not succumb to it now, so close to the end.
“I know you get sick of being asked this,” Gorgug’s voice rushes like cool water, over the din of the storm around them. “But…how do you think this is gonna go?”
“We’re going to kill them.” Her answer is resolute, confident.
“Are you saying this as the Oracle?”
“I’m saying it because there isn’t another option.”
Gorgug doesn’t reply; he knows the truth as much as Adaine does. She sighs and glances to the heavens. She hopes Sol and Galicaea are watching them all clean up their mess; she hopes they know they’d be coming for them next, if they stepped out of line. She hopes Cassandra and her wife know help is on the way.
All the thoughts of gods – true and false and corrupted and purified – remind Adaine of a conversation with her sister.
“ Why do I have to show that I believe in a god when I've literally seen them? They're there all the time. I don't have to believe in it. It's like me believing in you. Which I do, sometimes. I do sometimes believe in you.”
She does not have a divinity to worship, to ask for help or guidance as they glide through the sky to save the world yet again. What she does have is a lineage – not of blood, but of oracles just like her, their energies existing in some other space and time. And maybe, the energy of the last oracle, the woman with similar features and similar gifts who also could not predict the storm caused by murderous dragons…
Maybe Adaine could pray to her.
For the first time, she ducks her head in deference, hands clasped and lifted to her lips. Please, she begs. I need another portent. I need the chance to save my friends, we’re starting on the back foot and we need to save the world. If you can hear me, please…
No reply. Nothing but whistling winds and crackling thunder. Adaine sighs, untangling her fingers and pressing them to the railing once more; she supposed it was worth a shot.
A particularly loud boom of thunder sounds in the distance; Adaine jolts and her prayers are answered.
Her eyes glow brilliant white as she sees images of infinite futures flash before her. She sees Ankarna, holding a hand out and crushing the shatter stars in the Rat Grinders’ chests to dust; she sees them get up, piloting their own bodies, aiding the Bad Kids’ cause. She sees them lying limp and lifeless on the floor.
She sees Fandrangor piercing Ivy Embra’s stomach, the Heavy Metal Axe shattering Oisin’s rib cage clean open. She sees Ruben Hopclap falling into lava, desperately clawing for purchase, for survival.
She sees Lucy Frostblade, smiling in the summer sun with her adventuring party at her side; she sees her somber in the muggy June twilight, hearing they will never return. She sees Mary Ann Skuttle, eyes locked not on a crystal but the forms of her fallen friends. She hears the kobald ask to be killed, uncertain and uncaring why she alone was spared. “I don’t wanna be the only one who understands,” she states matter-of-factly, as she did all things.
“Adaine? Adaine, are you alright?”
Hakinvar’s voice. Another Sending spell? Gods dammit it all, she can’t see anything but these visions! Nothing but blood and twilight and rage and smoke and cracked linoleum and-
An arm wraps around her shoulders. Gorgug’s, she assumes; he’s the only one on deck with her, last she saw. A good thing too. Adaine’s knees had buckled under the weight of all these visions. And even still, the dragonborn continues to hiss in her mind.
Though for a hiss, there’s no bite. There is, if anything, an edge of concern creeping into the corners of his voice as he calls to her. “Adaine? Jewel, stay with me. Gods…Fig, Ruben! I need a Calm Emotions, I think she’s having a rough vision.”
What in the world was he–, could he see her? Was he still on the ship, invisible and tormenting her? Gods if only the visions would stop–!
She gasps as her sight returns, her heart hammering in her throat. Her lungs are on fire as she pants, desperately trying to gulp in dry, desert air and –
Wait. Dry desert air?
Adaine continues to force her breathing to steady out as she takes stock of her surroundings. Long gone is Seacaster Manor and no storms dance across the sky. There’s only calm twilight with innumerable twinkling stars and the flat empty dustbowl she knew to be the Red Waste.
The arm around her shoulders, she discovers – is not a familiar emerald green covered in artificing bracers and soot. It’s a blue clawed hand leading to a scaly tattooed arm and–
Oisin Hakinvar has an arm around her. She’d kill him if she could breathe.
His other hand rests on her cheek and she freezes, as much as her mind begs her body to shake it off. His touch doesn’t linger, lifting his hand to rest against her forehead, not unlike when Jawbone would check her for a fever. “Thank gods, you really scared us, Adaine. Are you alright? Can you talk?”
No to both. She remains silent, still gasping for air. They’ve attracted a crowd and if not for the faces of her friends, she’d think the Rat Grinders had Banished her here somehow.
“Time your breaths with me, Adaine,” Oisin instructs, like he’s done this a thousand times. She follows, because she can’t exactly defend herself in her current state. So, she breathes in the rhythm Jawbone had taught her – in for four, hold for seven, out for eight. Oisin in perfect step the entire time, ready, prepared.
(She sees a vision, far less obtrusive than the earlier ones, something both possible future to the Adaine flying on the Hangman and certain past to the Adaine grounded in the Red Waste. They’re side by side outside Jawbone’s office. Oisin, cheek pressed against his knees tucked tight to his chest. He growls in frustration, sparks flickering behind his teeth. “This is stupid,” he murmurs, voice the rumble of an oncoming storm. “I should know better. I do know better. I can’t believe I-I freaked out like that, I–”
He's cut off by Adaine’s firm retort, “Look. Panic attacks happen. Who cares? They don’t make you any less…you know. Strong or whatever.” She’s almost loathed to compliment him but she cannot leave him either; she knows what it feels like to be drowning in your own fear without an anchor. “I have anxiety. I take medication for it. And I have killed…just so many people, really.”
Oisin blinks, slitted pupils blow out as wide as she’s ever seen. He blinks again. And then, against his better judgement, he chuckles. It sounds like distant thunder and Adaine smiles without realizing it.)
Had she…had she taught him this, these tools he’s now turning back on her, to steady her? Why?
Her breathing evens out but her mind is still reeling. She cannot shake off that warm clawed hand as it cups her cheek. “There we go, there we go, jewel,” he murmurs, and the Draconic wraps around her like a warm blanket fresh from the dryer – she likes it. She hates that she likes it.
Adaine’s eyes widen as a young woman kneels at Oisin’s side. A frost genasi, vitiligo splotched across her face like ice creeping along a window, and a soft frown marring her features. There’s a water bottle in her hands. Adaine, with trembling fingers, manages to take it. “Are you alright, Adaine?” Lucy Frostblade inquires. “You scared us for a minute there.
The panicked oracle finally finds her voice. “…Am I dead?”
She feels something loosen, unclench somewhere deep in her chest when someone familiar, someone safe, crouches down at her elbow. Fig. Dear, sweet Fig. Her friend. Her sister. She’d help. She’d get Adaine out of here. Why does she act so unbothered by the enemies that surround them? Had they all died too?
Fig squats down in front of her wizard. Her hand rests on the crown of Adaine’s hair and though she feels the power of her Lay On Hands, she does not feel healed; she, physically at least, was perfectly fine. Fig’s magic continues to wash over her, a second spell. The warmth of the summer sun, of her deity’s influence, makes Adaine shiver involuntarily. Fig frowns.
“Nothing,” she murmurs, her Detect Good and Evil coming back empty. “At least we know it’s not Kalina or Bacharath or something.” Adaine doesn’t even have time to ask what the hell Fig was talking about. Her friend turns to her. “Just a bad vision, Adaine?”
“…That feels like an understatement,” she manages, her voice unsteady. “I…I feel like I’m still in it.”
Others begin to gather closer – she sees Ivy Embra, eyes sweeping over Adaine like she’s a puzzle to be solved, a battle map to be studied. Kristen rests a hand on Lucy’s shoulder and Ruben Hopclap stands at the elbow of the Saint of Mystery herself.
Oisin must have caught the way Adaine’s breath snags in her throat, as if on the verge of a panic attack right on the heels of the last. He rises to his feet and holds a scaly arm out to prevent the others from coming closer. “Okay, okay, easy. Crowding around isn’t gonna do anything.” He turns back to her, lightning yellow eyes searching for answers she couldn’t possibly give.
“Can you stand up, Adaine?” Oh. This answer she can give, it turns out. She nods wordlessly, slowly trying to find her footing. He waits, hand outstretched and though she’s still unsure where she is and why he’s here, Adaine takes it.
There’s laughter in the back of her head. He caused the storm, an unfamiliar voice says, in a lilting melodic Fallinel accent. How ironic he shall also be your anchor.
When Adaine is able to stand, shakily, Oisin tucks her to his side, allowing her to lean against him as he winds an arm around her shoulders. It feels like that weighted blanket Jawbone got her for her 17th birthday – that had also been blue, hadn’t it? “I’ve got her, guys. I think we’re gonna take a walk. Kristen, Lucy, maybe we–”
“Already on it,” Kristen cuts him off; Adaine blinks and the warmth of Fig’s magic mixes immediately with the cool, refreshing twilight of Kristen’s. She shivers again as an unfamiliar magical chill sweeps across her. Ice cold water on a hot summer day. Lucy’s magic?
“Kristen has Twilight Sanctuary up and I have Circle of Power. You guys should be okay for a little bit if you don’t stray too far from the Hangvan,” Lucy announces, with a soft smile. “When those end, one of us will cast Hallow. It’ll take 24 hours but it should help, in case Adaine’s vision is just the beginning of something worse.”
Oisin opens his mouth to speak but Adaine finds her voice first. “Thank you,” she manages barely above a whisper; Lucy’s smile widens as she nods.
Oisin’s clawed hand squeezes her shoulder. “C’mon, jewel, let’s go get some fresh air, huh?”
None of this makes sense and Adaine, grasping at straws, manages to shoot a Message to Fig, as the bard turns to talk to Riz – “Are you just going to leave me alone with him?”
Fig’s reply is confused, and it only leaves Adaine further bewildered. “Why wouldn’t I leave you alone with your boyfriend? Did you guys have a fight?”
What.
Adaine stumbles immediately, tripping over her own feet as her knees give out for a second time. “Whoa!” Oisin calls, hand gripping her shoulder as his other arm swings around to catch her before she could get a face full of dirt. Her backpack, which she only belatedly noticed he was carrying, drops and Boggy, perfect and oh so round Boggy, jumps out. He bounces up to perch on Adaine’s head with a quiet ribbit.
And Adaine Abernant – elven oracle, slayer of dragons, who returned the sun to Spyre, who revived a dead god – feels the stinging urge in the back of her eyes to weep, as the final thread in her snaps and everything becomes too much.
“I want to sit down,” she chokes out, despising how small she sounds. How weak.
“…I’m gonna carry you,” replies the conjuration wizard at her side – her…no. No, too much to use the word Fig had. “Hold on tight.”
(Another vision in that nebulous not quite past, not quite future – something unknown yet familiar, strange yet comforting.
Don’t Dimension Door to my room this time, I wanna try something, read the words on her crystal, the last text she had sent. She glances up from the screen just in time to catch Oisin at the edge of Mordred’s lawn, dismounting his bicycle. He barely has enough time to lift his hand in a wave and start a greeting before Adaine, beaming like a fool, runs. Sneakers squelch into the rain-soaked grass, water droplets flinging up to spray her ankles.
And though she’s just a little stronger than the average elf and her boyfriend is built like a gods-damned Bloodrush quarterback, the full force of her tackled hug sends Oisin toppling backwards.
Adaine’s apologizes are difficult to parse through her laughter. “I’m sorry, gods, that was dumb, I just, I saw Fig and Ayda do that once and I guess it’s easier when one of you flies and –”
A clawed hand reaches up to tuck disarrayed blonde locks out of her face. The rainbow starting to peak from behind the clouds reflects in Oisin’s glasses as he grins up at her. His fins flick in that pleased way she was always endeared by. “I missed you too, Adaine.”
And suddenly there are no more apologies. Only laughter.)
Her body moves on its own – instinct or muscle memory, she doesn’t care to investigate. But as Oisin bends slightly, reaching for her thighs, her legs hike up around his waist and her arms lock around his neck. Chest to chest, cheek to cheek, with Boggy still resting on her head, Oisin moves away from the Hangvan.
Gods, she feels like a child, helpless and pathetic. And yet, as her fingers mindlessly trace along the underside of one of his horns, she also feels safe. She shouldn’t. She should run. She should thrash and scream and swing her sword and use the full force of her magic to decimate him, like she had his relatives only an hour before. But he’s warm and the quiet rumble in his chest – like an ever-present storm – is calming. It takes her hazy brain a moment to realize he’s purring – but not out of contentment. No, he’s purring the way some of Aelwyn’s cats do, when they can tell that the sisters are having a difficult time. They sit on their chest, heavy and cozy, and purr as if they’d ward the sadness and anxiety away if they made enough noise.
That’s what Oisin’s doing. And she wants to kill him a little less.
But as comfortable as she is, when Oisin settles down in the dirt, Adaine whispers, “Let me go.” She doesn’t glance up, so of course she misses the confused, almost hurt expression that sweeps across the dragonborn’s face. “I don’t wanna be touched right now.”
She can hear the hesitation in his voice, but he acquiesces with a soft “…Yeah. Yeah, sure.” He shifts, depositing her as gently as he could on the ground beside him. He says nothing when she scoots further away.
The oracle is spared, for a moment, from having to find her voice. A pouch she hadn’t noticed Oisin wearing begins to rustle and out pops an unfamiliar furry little face. She has only a second to meet the creature’s onyx eyes before it springs from its hiding place, kicking up dust in its wake. It crawls up her arm, curls around her neck for a moment, before slipping between her jacket and shirt. It’s so unlike Boggy’s brand of comfort, but as she feels the warmth and weight of this little weasel, Adaine feels a little bit of the tension leave her shoulders. Her fingers tremble slightly, even as they reach out to scratch under the creature’s chin, where the white of its underbelly starts to meet the chestnut brown of the rest of its fur. Sparks flicker with every stroke of its coat, as if made of pure lightning magic; perhaps it was.
She dares a glance up at Oisin at last. “Your familiar?”
He snorts, pushing his glasses further up his nose. “Gods, that must have been a really bad vision if you’ve forgotten Avalon. You love him.” He’s teasing and she doesn’t really appreciate it. It must show on her face as he coughs, expression sobering immediately. “That bad, huh?”
She says nothing, looking down into the weasel’s – Avalon’s – fathomlessly black eyes as she continues to scritch, now at the top of his head. Boggy ribbits softly, now perching on her knee. His expression is uncertain, and gods, is it comforting to know that he feels the same way as she does. She strokes her beloved frog with her spare hand.
“…Alright. C’mon. Grounding exercise.”
A voice in her mind tells her he’s just trying to help but Adaine snaps her gaze up, eyes narrowed and sharp. “I’m fine.”
Oisin doesn’t so much as flinch; her snarl deepens. “Humor me,” he retorts flatly. His eyes soften even as hers remain cold. “…I’m worried about you. You haven’t had a vision that rough in a long time.”
What does he know? She wants to retort. But that strange Fallinel accent floats through her mind again. He knows more than you think, young Oracle.
She wants to fight; she wants to lay down her sword and sink into the earth. She wants to rend him asunder; she wants to release the rage and anger and fear coiling around her heart with one good scream. The silence between them is tense, a stalemate. Until Adaine eventually drops her gaze and murmurs, “…Fine.”
Oisin doesn’t gloat about his little victory the way she might have imagined. “Okay. Name five things you can see.”
She sighs and gods, does she wish it sounded more indignant and less exhausted. “…Boggy,” she begins, a smile tugging at the corner of her mouth at her familiar’s answering ribbit. “Avalon.” The weasel nuzzles against her palm and her smile grows. “The Hangvan. The moon. And,” Adaine’s breath catches in her throat when she and Oisin lock eyes. Molten gold with slitted pupils, he should look intimidating. Scary, even. But his eyes are brimming with fondness, gentle as the silk sheets from Kei Lumenura. She’s reminded so sharply of that cursed night, where their eyes had met over bad baby milk and offers of diamonds. They had been similarly soft back then.
In a single look, Adaine Abernant is reminded why no one but Oisin Hakinvar had caught her eye before. Because he was the only one who looked at her like this who had no reason to – no party loyalty, no gratitude for her services or powers. It clicks, all at once and she feels tears welling in her eyes.
Her mother’s last words had been pleading for her daughters’ aid and Aelwyn, exhausted but stronger than ever, had laughed. “Love without expectation, what’s that?” It had been funny then, an inside joke. The start of her sister’s healing, an understanding that their parents had only taught them expectation devoid of all affection and that they deserved better. But now, years later, Oisin is answering Aelwyn’s rhetorical quip.
This. This is love without expectation. This is a boy, nearly a man, who looked at her as if she was hung the stars in the sky, for no reason at all but whatever fondness, affection, love existed for her within him. And though she wants nothing more than to trust that it was real, how could she? She was so scared to fall when he hadn’t proved capable or willing to catch her.
“…You,” she breathes, keeping her voice steady against all odds. “I see you.”
“Hey, baby, c’mere –” Oisin scrambles, knees in the dirt and hand outreached before he stops and slowly, uncertainly, lowers his hand once more. “…Right. You don’t want to be touched right now.” He does a poor job masking the hurt and confusion in his voice, if he was trying to hide it at all.
“I’m sorry,” Adaine whispers, and what’s more, finds that she means it. Whatever strange magicks were afoot that kept her in this vision, it’s unlikely that it’s his fault. She hates to admit it but there is, by all laws of the multiverse and the clear proof in front of her, a future where her hatred for the conjuration wizard is replaced with something fonder, gentler. She had been attracted to him before, didn’t it make sense that she could be again?
And it’s not exactly his fault that she isn’t his Adaine. Still, she finds herself hard-pressed to trust him entirely. So, when Avalon whips his head around to observe his summoner before crawling out of Adaine’s jacket, she scoots a hair closer. The weasel eyes her warily, now wrapped around Oisin’s neck like a scarf; Boggy croaks, eyes narrowed in his uncertain expression, before calming at Adaine’s touch.
“I’m sorry,” she repeats, shaking her head. Her gaze remains on Boggy, on her shoes, on anything but the searching eyes of the dragonborn beside her. “This is going to sound absolutely mad but –”
“Adaine, we’re on our way to kill your friend’s goddess’s old familiar who infected your party like an STD two years ago,” he quips dryly. She snorts out a laugh in spite of herself. Then his words kick in. Two years ago. Okay. This wasn’t a far future then, just the next school year. Still, that helps a little, having a time frame to place them in. Oisin continues, “I’m prepared for whatever craziness you throw at me. Promise.”
She doesn’t believe him – but, then again, when had she? Still, there was little else to be done. She sighs and continues to stroke Boggy’s smooth little head. Adaine considers being honest. “…It wasn’t like any other vision I’ve had.” But after one sentence, she rejects her own suggestion. She’s never been great at sugarcoating but maybe she can give a little white lie to soften the blow. A small kindness after how gentle he’s been. The slightest bit of trust she felt, she’d return just as faintly. “I, uh…I think I saw the past instead?”
“…Okay, so like…a really intense memory?” Oisin ventures.
Gods, would honesty have been better? “Sort of?” she shrugs. “It was incredibly vivid, like it happened just yesterday.” Or an hour ago, she thinks bitterly. “But the problem is…everything from after that…that memory is a little…fuzzy.”
She glances up almost through her lashes almost sheepishly but Oisin doesn’t look upset or disbelieving; he looks inquisitive, pushing his glasses further up his snout as if he just needed to see the problem more clearly and he’d solve it immediately. She studies him in turn for a moment. The infinite stars above them catch the subtle differences of hue in Oisin’s scales; starlight illuminates the flecks of silver and the ribbons of turquoise and the splotches of periwinkle across a canvas of stormy blue. Adaine’s treacherous heart thumps sharply against her rib cage and she averts her gaze, cheeks flushed in frustration. It’s unfair that he’s disarmingly attractive without even trying.
If he sees her blush, he doesn’t comment on it, the considerate bastard. “Okay,” he says, a note of finality in his voice; he’s made some sort of decision, Adaine supposes. “How can I help?” He doesn’t give her a chance to answer before he’s offering solutions. “Should we talk through what you do remember? What memory did you see?”
Adaine doesn’t look up at him this time, preferring to seek Boggy’s huge, wet eyes blinking calmly up at her. If Fig was to be trusted – which was generally the case, excluding shenanigans with Hildas and Wandas – then Oisin was her…her boyfriend. Which felt so absurd to even think that Adaine knew admitting she recalled none of their supposed romance would be equally unbelievable to him. Her teeth sink into her bottom lip as she tries to word her dilemma carefully.
The second question he posed was the easiest to answer, so that’s where she start. “…It was the night of the junior year election,” she murmurs. She glances up only when Avalon begins to chitter; Oisin’s avoiding her eyes now, as his familiar scampers down his arm and back up again, curling around his throat protectively once more.
“…Right, that…that makes sense, of course you didn’t want me to touch you after that,” he shakes his head, glasses slipping sharply down his snout.
Adaine doesn’t reply; it’s not like she can refute it. When she had clocked exactly whose voice had called out to her in that Sending spell, when she saw the veritable avalanche of ping pong balls and realized all at once where they had come from, it had stung. More than stung, really. Her heart had plummeted to the pit of her stomach and she had forgotten how to breathe for a moment. And as much as she wanted to lean on her rage – that fury that lived in her heart, an anger she always grappled with – in that moment, all she had felt was bone deep disappointment.
Not with Oisin. She had hoped he was sincere, had started to like the idea of someone intelligent and generous and charming in an awkward sort of way… that someone like that might be interested in her too. She had never really understood her friends’ fixations on romance; Fabian’s single-minded focus to get his kisses in, or the way Kristen would gush about Tracker, or how Fig would get rosy-cheeked and her smile would split her face in half when Ayda was in her line of sight. None of that made sense to Adaine, and while she was all too glad to tease them for it, she could never see herself in that position.
But for a while after meeting Oisin, she could. She’d catch a glimpse of him in the hallway and feel her heart thump in her chest curiously. He apologized for his party, specifically sought her gaze to Message her; she had come out of trance that night, staring up at the glow-in-the-dark stars on her ceiling, wondering why she cared so much. She’d considered the possibility of getting an arcane tattoo and had immediately pictured brilliant cerulean ink on shimmering scales; Gorgug had asked if she was feeling okay because her face had gone bright red. But just as quickly as she had understood, at last, what having something akin to a crush was like, those fucking ping pong balls had crushed the sprout in her heart before it could even think of blooming.
No, Adaine was not disappointed in Oisin. She was disappointed in herself, for letting herself think she could be a normal teenager, with normal teenage concerns. She had never been good at being a kid; why would now be any different?
She’s shaken from her reverie when Oisin sighs, a crackle of lightning slipping from his throat; unbidden, she guesses, from the way he quickly shuts his mouth after that, his fangs clicking audibly with the force of it. Avalon scurries up his head, knocking his glasses askew in his quest to run down from the crown of Oisin’s head to his other shoulder.
Adaine snorts before she can stop herself and Oisin’s eyes soften immediately. Gods, there’s that annoying throbbing ache in her chest again. He rights his glasses with one clawed hand and scratches his familiar’s head appreciatively with the other. Grief enters his gaze once more and he sighs, looking anywhere but her. “Right. You, uh. You said everything after that night is fuzzy to you? How much do you remember?”
If that wasn’t the million gold question… Adaine’s teeth dig into her lower lip, gears in her mind turning rapidly. If she was right and this was some sort of potential future, what could she change in her present with the wrong words? If she predicted a victory over Porter and Oisin contradicted it, would that cement defeat for her, once this vision ends? “…Not much,” she decides, erring on the side of caution.
Oisin takes it at face value with a solemn nod. A clawed finger pushes his glasses back up his snout yet again. “That’s fair enough, it was…” He trails off and the oracle’s mind flashes with those potential futures she glimpsed earlier. His slitted eyes, even clouded with grief, still sparkle with life; the vision of dull, blank eyes and a gaping chest wound lingers in her mind. “Alright, maybe we move a little closer to the present,” he speaks up, clearing the haze from Adaine’s thoughts. “Do you remember what we’re doing here?”
There’s that mysterious airy laughter in the back of her skull again. Before she can question it, more images flash before her. Principal Aguefort. Angry, paranoid children on the cusp of adulthood. Yellow eyes in the darkness and rage, rage, rage.
Somehow, she fills in the gaps, words falling from her tongue uncertain. “It’s…We’re doing a…a joint senior year quest?” She doesn’t intend it to sound like a question but she’s still puzzling through these half-formed visions. “We…Aguefort was going to hold you guys back…all the…the shortcuts you took in your studies…” Oisin doesn’t prompt her, but Boggy’s quiet ribbits of encouragement are all she needs anyway. “He put us together for…” Her brow furrows, gaze aimed at the ground as if her answers lay within the grains of dirt and sand. “Either he was just fucking with us or he genuinely thought we’d work well together.”
Oisin snorts. “I’m more inclined to believe the former.” Adaine glances up and mirrors his own smile much, much easier than anticipated.
“Okay, we’re on a quest,” she continues, confident at least in this much. “And we’re…gods, we’re still fighting Kalina?”
The wizard across from her laughs – sharp and harsh and endearing despite it all. “You know what they say. Nine lives and all that.”
She did seem annoyingly hard to kill, that’s true enough. But her continued presence was worrisome. “And…And is Cassandra…?”
She doesn’t complete her thought but Oisin understands. He waves a hand with a dissenting head shake. “No, no, Cassandra’s fine, Kristen’s fine, no Nightmare King stuff,” he assures and Adaine sighs in relief. “Is anything else coming back to you?”
She stops and thinks and waits for either her own mind or that mysterious voice to bring her more but all she gets is a light desert breeze and the occasional ribbit or squeak from the two familiars. Cerulean meets citrine until Oisin shifts his gaze first. His fins flick and Adaine is surprised that she instantly clocks it as nervousness made manifest. “Do you, uh…” Oisin mumbles, still avoiding her eyes. When he does speak up again, his eyes are squeezed tight behind his glasses, as if bracing himself for her answer. “Do you remember anything about…us?”
She blinks. Guilt sinks into her gut and her mind wars with it. Why should she feel guilty? This was the person who had played her for a fool just an hour before. She spent an entire year thinking she finally, finally understood what her friends felt, what it was like to be a normal teenager with something close to a crush. And yet the only thing that was crushed was that fledgling hope, rolled over by a mountain of ping pong balls.
But this isn’t that Oisin. Not exactly. She doesn’t know what, if anything, differed in their pasts. But even if the two dragonborns were the exact same, this Oisin still had a year on the one she knew. A year where, apparently, he had atoned for his behavior. A year where he was working on becoming a legitimate adventurer, with no shortcuts and no manipulative influences. A year where he had proven himself to her – to some version of her that had maybe done some growing of her own.
But if he was not the same Oisin she knew, then she was not the Adaine he knew. Was she still obligated to trust him, just because some other version of her did?
“You called upon the oracles past, child. Will you not return the favor and have faith in those who came before you?”
“Gods, please tell me you can hear that!”
Oisin blinks. It wasn’t like her outburst answered his question, after all. “Uh…hear what?”
“That voice, that–! I-It’s a Fallinel accent but I don’t…”
“Your mother?”
“No… No, definitely not.”
“Another vision?”
Adaine’s head drops into her hands as that fucking laughter chimes in once more. She doesn’t shrug off Oisin’s touch when he winds a concerned arm around her. Avalon burrows between her shirt and jacket and Boggy perches on her knee, though Adaine remains frustrated. It’s the whisper of a touch, something akin to a kiss on the crown of her head, that causes her to look up.
She’s uncertain, for a moment, if it’s the desert heat that causes the slight distortion in front of her eyes. But as her eyes glow white and she taps into the ethereal plane, Adaine finds the true culprit.
She had seen her once, years ago. A kiss to her forehead and a blessing on her path. Hair rippling in the wind – or floating across water? Her eyes are kind, patient, and though Adaine wants desperately to scream, she can only whisper in her own mind, “…Elemin…?”
“Eleminthindriel,” the previous oracle answers aloud, then waves her hand dismissively. “It’s long, I know. Isn’t Elvish just ridiculous?”
“What in the world are you doing here?”
“You called for me, and I answered. It’s the least I could do, for the oracle who escaped a dragon-created shipwreck.”
And against all logic, Adaine smiles, huffs out an airy laugh, and shakes her head. “Well, yes, thank you, but when I had asked for help, this isn’t what I had in mind.”
“You should’ve been more specific, then,” Eleminthindriel shrugs, though her own smile widens. She lifts a finger, calling for silence. And as though she were underwater, Adaine hears voices. Fig asks if she’s alright and Oisin tells her it’s another vision. His arm tightens around her and though she feels no pain, she feels the pressure of his claws sinking into her skin.
He’s nervous for her.
“…Why did you send me here?” Adaine asks mentally, trying and failing to find the answers in the previous oracle’s gentle gaze.
“I gave you what you needed, young one.”
“I don’t need him, I’ll never need him, I –”
“True, you don’t need this particular dragonborn,” Eleminthindriel concedes, holding up a hand in defense. “But you need what he can inspire in you. What they all can inspire in you.”
“And that would be?”
“Adaine,” she chides, and for a moment she hears Aelwyn – the newer Aelwyn. The one who’s trying. Adaine’s heart aches at the sound. “What’s the point in a puzzle if I give you the answer?”
As quickly as she had appeared, Eleminthindriel vanishes and, with a gasp, Adaine taps out of the ethereal plane.
Oh. Oh, she feels those claws now. But her quiet, flat “ow” is all she needs to say before Oisin realizes his mistake.
“Oh gods, shit, I’m sorry,” he swears, retracting his claws and inspecting the marks left behind. He swears again in Draconic and Adaine valiantly holds back the urge to ask if he kisses Porter’s ass with that mouth. The anger and frustration that curls around her heart fights against the sinking feeling of empathy settling into her stomach. No, this was not the Oisin to take her ire out on.
“It’s okay,” she replies, and she blinks upon realizing she too spoke in Draconic. Those worried eyes, slits blown wide, meet hers and suddenly, Adaine isn’t sure if she’s talking about the marks anymore. All the same, she repeats in Common, a little softer, “It’s okay.”
Oisin opens his mouth to reply but he doesn’t get a chance, cut off by Fig’s familiar yell. Adaine shifts her gaze at her friend’s hurried approach, a little surprised to see Ruben trailing behind her, ukelele in hand. The archdevil sinks to her knees and takes the oracle’s face in her hands, twisting and turning it as if she’d find the source of her troubles – what Fig believed to be visions – if only she looked hard enough. German Shepherd mode at its finest.
“Okay, you gotta stop freaking us out, Adaine,” Fig chides playfully, though her voice drips with worry. “Are you alright?”
The strumming of Ruben’s ukelele fills her with peace…at first. The confusion, though muted, follows swiftly. “I don’t need Calm Emotions, thanks,” Adaine assures the gnomish bard, trying to look at him as best she could with her face still held captive by Fig’s hands. “Could use Cure Wounds though.”
The music stops immediately and an unfamiliar but gentle touch finds perch on her arm. The scent of coconut and sea breeze hits her nose as her flushed skin knits itself back together. “Sorry. Fig thought you might,” Ruben shrugs apologetically when his work is complete.
“You had two visions like bam, boom!” is Fig’s defense. “I wasn’t sure if Kalina or whoever was fucking with you!”
“Thank you. All of you,” Adaine offers a smile – small but genuine. Fig’s shoulders sag with relief at the sight, and Oisin lets out a breath the elf hadn’t noticed him holding. “I’m alright.”
“Well. Good!” Fig replies, still a little uncertain but growing steadily more sure. “C’mon, maybe you just need something to eat. Ivy’s on dinner duty so at least we know it’ll be edible.”
“Salted to hell and back but technically edible,” Oisin snarks, standing and offering Adaine a clawed hand. His eyes flick back to camp as the magic of a Message passes over them. He snorts, shaking his head, before explaining, “Guess she heard me.”
Something about his bemused smile spoke of a history between wizard and ranger and Adaine could almost see Fig and Fabian teasing each other instead. It's…endearing and comforting and something else she can’t name. All of it, unnamable and soft, begins to blossom in her chest.
She swears she hears Eliminthindriel whisper something to her, but the words are too quiet to understand.
Adaine hesitates only a moment or two before placing her hand in Oisin’s, allowing him to hoist her back to her feet. She’s all but launched upright and there’s fluster filling her mind in multiple directions. One, naturally, is a creeping background feeling of chagrin. After all she’s done, after all the ways she’s proven her strength, there’s something so utterly humiliating about being lifted so effortlessly, as if she were a child. However, there is, annoyingly, also a fluttering in her chest that she can’t fully tamper down. Because it’s admittedly kind of really attractive, the way he uses his strength to help her without a second thought.
Damn him.
The chill of the evening breeze that Adaine knew to be Kristen’s twilight magic washes over her as they approach camp. It’s faint but noticeable; the beginnings of Hallow. She supposes they’ll need to watch in shifts tonight, as the protection won’t be–
No. No, Adaine won’t be taking any watches because she’ll be going home. Back to her own time, back to where things make sense!
Still, it’s…hard not to feel at ease here, with the thrumming protective magic of her friends and the kind eyes of Lucy Frostblade lighting up at her approach.
“Hey, welcome back you two.” Right. Right, it likely wasn’t her approach Lucy was anticipating but Oisin’s; she was Oisin’s friend first and foremost. But were they even friends? Hadn’t he helped aid in her demise? That much must have been true even here, right? Adaine’s grown so used to the flashes of images Eliminthindriel throws up before her gaze, quick as lightning, that she’s…struggling to remember what’s meant to be her own memories…and which belong to this alternative, future Adaine. All she knows is Lucy’s gaze is warm despite the icy color of her eyes, and her chilly hand is still soft and kind as she touches first Adaine’s shoulder and then Oisin’s. “How are you feeling, Adaine?”
“Better.” That’s…mostly true. She knew why she was here…sort of. There was something she was meant to glean here, some lesson she’s meant to learn. At least she knew that much, even if she had no idea how or when she’d be back home. Gods, please let her get back soon, how were the rest of the Bad Kids supposed to go up against Porter without her?
“If you wanna trance or something inside the Hangvan, I’m down to take first watch,” Kristen offers, approaching from the campfire. “Hallow’s not up yet obviously but…?”
“You really ought to eat something first, Oracle. Don’t need our best spellcaster passing out from visions or hunger, after all.” It’s Ivy that speaks, from her position stirring a pot that hangs above the flames. Something in Adaine wants to bristle at the title but echoes fill her mind – probably from Eliminthindriel. Oracle, oracle, oracle, all in that airy, teasing voice.
A pet name. Affectionate and fond. A bond Adaine cannot imagine holding with the Ivy back in her time, and yet proof positive that some version of them made it work.
“Best spellcaster?” Oisin retorts. She realizes belatedly that he’s still holding her hand. Of course he would be, if he believed them to be dating. The real question was…why wasn’t Adaine letting go?
Ivy’s smirk is coy and playful and reminds her too much of bad baby milk and ping pong balls. “Am I wrong, lovey?”
Oisin sighs, a crackle of lightning just barely escaping his throat. But when he glances down to Adaine and squeezes her hand, his smile is heartbreakingly tender. “…No,” he answers softly before raising his voice and returning his gaze to the sylvan elf. “But you didn’t have to say it with your full chest either. You’re a shitty best friend, you know that?”
“And yet you haven’t demoted me yet, have you?” Ivy quips brightly. Oisin raises a scaly middle finger towards her and is met with a mirrored gesture from the ranger. He shakes his head before squeezing Adaine’s hand once more. “Go ahead and grab us a seat, jewel. I’ll get you a bowl.”
He’s going to poison me, Adaine thinks immediately. But surprisingly, she dismisses the thought just as quickly. She has no reason to trust the Oisin back home but…this wasn’t him. This Oisin was not here to hurt her. Rather the opposite, it seemed he was bound and determined to care for her, in spite of her…well. Everything. Everything about her temperament and personality that made struggle with being cared for and tended to, Oisin fought against time and time again just this evening alone.
“…Sure. Thanks,” she murmurs softly, that fluttering in her stomach kicking up at the sight of his smile.
Adaine allows herself a moment to survey the campsite, now that the visions were less intrusive. Fabian and Riz were pouring over some papers spread out in front of them. Quest details, no doubt. Oisin had joined Ivy at the cauldron over the campfire, sparks flying from his open maw as he laughed at some joke she made. Kristen was chatting with Lucy against the Hangvan, hands moving animatedly and Lucy smiling sweetly and nodding along. Ruben seemed to be doing a valiant job taking guitar lessons from Fig, despite the latter’s looks of frustration and thin patience. There’s no Buddy Dawn or Kipperlilly Fuckface and Adaine’s only answer as to why are some of the potential futures she caught glimpses of. She thinks better than to ask one of the remaining Rat Grinders about them.
The quiet mechanical whirring and electronic blips and boops from Gorgug and Mary Ann’s little corner around the campfire is interrupted by the artificer speaking up. “Okay, battery pack’s done. Go ahead and give it a shot.”
Mary Ann wordlessly reaches for the little black rectangular shape in Gorgug’s hand, her back resting against his legs. She attaches it to the game console in her hands and a small smile crosses her snout when it makes a little noise in response. “Not bad. Thanks,” she remarks, though Gorgug grins like she had lavished the highest of praise onto him.
Which was already incredibly odd. The Gorgug she left behind wouldn’t have wanted to be anywhere near the kobold. But it seemed Adaine wasn’t the only one who had fallen for the enemy – if the way Mary Ann craned her neck up and Gorgug lent down to accept her kiss to his cheek meant anything.
Boggy ribbits and Adaine glances up. Oisin approaches, offering a bowl of steaming liquid. “Mystery stew,” he announces. Boggy and Adaine both squint up at him, though she does take the bowl somewhat reluctantly.
“Ignore him, Oracle,” Ivy tells her. “It’s just chili. The only mystery here is why you’re dating that twat.”
The ranger had no idea how correct she was.
Oisin settles down at her side, Avalon curls around Boggy – a perfect circle around a perfect sphere – and Adaine stares into her bowl. It… did seem to be ordinary chili. Not unlike something they’d have for dinner at Mordred Manor. She dips her spoon in and lifts a bite of meat and beans to her lips.
“Well? What’s the verdict?”
Adaine glances up, eyes curious and a little guarded – force of habit. “It’s delicious, thank you, Ivy. It actually reminds me of something Jawbone would make?” She doesn’t mean it to lilt questioningly but if Ivy felt some way about it, she doesn’t show it.
The ranger grins, nods, and assures, “It’s the cinnamon kick, yeah? Really elevates my mama’s old recipe. We talked shop after a counseling session one day and I figured now’s the time to test it out. Glad it’s a hit.”
It’s warm and comforting and reminds her that the only good father figure in her life is currently stuck on a ship careening towards her high school. And she can do nothing about it, here in the middle of the desert.
She manages a second bite, slower and more hesitant.
A lull falls over the parties. Any conversation is soft enough to be drowned out by the others’ silence or the quiet crackling of the fire or the sounds of eating. It does nothing to calm Adaine’s mind, her thoughts back on the Hangman with all her friends. Even though, technically, her friends are right in front of her, completely and utterly safe. Still battle weary and exhausted but not in immediate danger at the very least. It’s all Adaine can do to take small bites of chili and let the bowl warm her fingers to just below the point of discomfort.
She’s not sure how long the silence envelopes them, unsure who else is stuck in their own thoughts – of their own mission, this fight against Kalina and other forces Adaine didn’t recognize in Eliminthindriel’s brief visions. But evidently, it’s too long for Ivy.
She sighs – drawn out, loud, dramatic – and stands, hands on her hips. “Alright, you sorry lot. This is no way to set forth on an adventure.”
A cruel comment crosses Adaine’s mind but her tongue doesn’t give it voice – Fabian’s does the job for her. “I’m sorry, what exactly do you know about adventuring? Last I checked, this is your first and last chance for a proper quest, isn’t it?”
Ivy leans down to swat the back of his head and they’re both…laughing. They’re laughing. Like they’re… friends. Which Adaine supposes they are. It’s hard to reconcile the image in front of her with Fabian’s rolled eyes or the potential future where Fandrangor tears into Ivy’s flesh.
The smiles, the clear camaraderie between the two fighters here, now, warms the wizard’s chest. Not unlike the food they all shared.
“Alright, come off it, you prick,” Ivy laughs. And Fabian laughs and Oisin at Adaine’s side shakes his head in bemusement and Lucy giggles behind her hand and Fig calls out for Ivy to hit Fabian again and—
None of this made sense. Least of all the soft, gentle thing blooming in Adaine’s ribcage.
“I know enough to know this is pathetic, all of us licking our wounds like that damn cat’s got the better of us,” the ranger continues.
“Well, what’s your big idea, then?” Riz asks, with no more snark than he’d give one of the Bad Kids and no less curiosity either.
Ivy’s eyes gleam mischievously and Adaine thinks of the night they met yet again. She takes another bite of chili, hoping the chewing will take her focus. “My mama brought plenty of stories from Leviathan when we emigrated to Solace. And if there was one thing she told me and my mum, it’s that a good old-fashioned shanty works wonders on a miserable crew.”
She’s met with mostly crickets but she doesn’t seem deterred in the slightest. In fact, after only a couple seconds’ pause, Ivy begins to sing. She’s no bard, certainly, but there’s a warmth in her voice. In her cooking. In her brilliant smile. Adaine recognizes the ditty from Bill Seacaster, and the few times she’s scrolled through Fabian’s playlists. But she remains silently seated, just…observing.
Ruben’s the first to join in. He flips his ukelele around to tap a beat against the back of his instrument. Lucy joins in, lightly clapping along with Ruben’s rhythm. Then Mary Ann, one handedly tapping against her knee while continuing to focus on her game. Fig grabs her bass and plucks out the tune from memory, shooting Ivy a wink when the ranger throws her a kiss. The singing gets interrupted with peals of laughter as Fabian wraps Ivy in his battle sheet. He picks up the slack, singing until the ranger can join back in, chortles still echoing in her voice. He spins her out and she joins his dance, carefully twisting and turning around the campfire. Kristen joins in, far less melodic but no less enthusiastic, clapping just slightly off the beat. It’s not enough to throw off the bards, though; in fact, Ruben and Fig decide to add their voices into the mix.
There’s a thumping behind her and Adaine turns to discover Oisin’s tail tapping in the dirt behind her. And gods, is it endearing. He flushes when she notices and the splotches of purple beneath his glasses are also endearing. She wants to hate it. She needs to hate it.
But she giggles.
Oisin grins, winding his tail around her waist and setting his bowl down to clap properly. Ivy’s switched to another shanty but everyone seems to recognize it. The singing continues, the dancing continues, the laughter continues. And when another voice joins the fray, Adaine has to take a second to realize whose it is.
It’s hers. She’s singing. She should be on her way to defeat half of these people and yet she’s sitting next to them, laughing with them, singing with them, having fun with them.
Oisin notices her voice trailing off. Of course he does. “You okay, Adaine?”
Is she? No, not really. But there’s something about the look in his eyes paired with the warmth around them, the warmth inside her, that makes her smile widen. “Yeah. Yeah, I’m okay.” And she means it.
Oisin positively beams, brighter than the moon above, and his tail pulls her a little closer. Adaine lets him, lets them sit side by side and shoulder to shoulder. His body heat joins the rest of the warmth that surrounds her, almost sweltering in its pervasiveness. Oisin goes back to clapping along, raising his voice to join the chorus. Everyone’s singing along at this point and the energy is electric. Adaine, too, joins in. And her clapping slows when the previous oracle’s words return to her.
“You need what he can inspire in you. What they all can inspire in you.”
“ What’s the point in a puzzle if I give you the answer?”
Hope. It’s hope.
Hope is what Oisin and his party – their parties, their connections with each other – is supposed to inspire in Adaine. Hope is the warmth building in her chest, the warmth of Oisin’s tail around her waist, their voices floating loud and excitable through the still desert air. It’s hope. It’s all hope.
Someone calls her name.
Adaine glances around the circle but everyone seems focused on the good mood floating through them – singing and clapping and dancing and smiling and laughing. But the voice calls her name again and again and again. Oisin’s grip around her waist tightens, almost painfully. Is he shaking her?
“Adaine! Adaine, c’mon! Wake up Adaine!”
Something wet splashes against her forehead and the oracle glances up to the grey, stormy skies. The rain continues to pour, splattering cool against her face. Strange, it was clear a moment ago…wasn’t it?
“Adaine! Thank gods, you had us worried!” Gorgug calls out, his embrace loosening just slightly.
Gorgug’s embrace?
The warmth is extinguished by rain water and reality. She’s back on the Hangman, she’s back in the air, and she’s back in her own body and time.
“Say something, Adaine, please!” Fig implores. The oracle shakes her head, trying desperately to right herself and her foggy mind. Her thoughts are everywhere and those gods-damn shanties are playing on a loop in her brain.
“Sorry, sorry, I, uh…” her throat is dry despite all the water surrounding them. She shakes her head again. “It was just a vision. I think.”
“Is everything okay?” Gorgug asks and Adaine doesn’t know how to respond.
“Uh, I…I think so?”
It understandably doesn’t inspire confidence. “What did you see?”
How would she even begin to explain anything she saw, felt, experienced? “…Um…Uh, the Rat Grinders.”
“Did you have a vision about the battle? How everything’s going to go?” Fig asks.
She hears Ivy’s singing, Ruben’s strumming, Lucy’s clapping. She feels the weight and heat of Oisin’s tail and hands, the stinging pressure of his claws in her flesh.
Hope.
“…We’re going to win” she echoes her earlier sentiment, before she had known it to be a certainty. It’s not lost on her that her words are kinder, less vindictive but just as firm. “We’re going to win and things are going to be okay.”
They continue to sail through stormy skies and Adaine hopes and hopes and hopes. That the future she saw and the one they were flying towards would be similarly warm.
EPILOGUE:
She stands before the goddess of dawn, the latter gentle despite her blazing glory. “There have been some injustices, though, that I would love to correct, if we can,” the oracle beseeches.
“Yes?” Ankarna encourages.
“Some people were killed in your name that I really don't think deserved to be killed,” the oracle explains. And in another time, in another place, underneath a starry sky, while their friends laugh and sing around them, Adaine Abernant rests her head on Oisin Hakinvar’s shoulder. His tail tightens around her waist. They glance at each other, eyes full of fondness and hope, and smile.