Chapter Text
Ever since their defeat of Daybreak, the five of them had been minor celebrities at school - it wasn't very often that students were able to kill members of staff and or faculty, and they'd managed to be involved in four of them already this year. In truth, in the chaos of their first fight, Riz couldn't remember quite what had happened to Doreen. Probably Gorgug; he seemed to remember her head being smashed in. But Daybreak had been his doing, and his choice, and he could only feel a grim satisfaction about it.
Not that it had actually helped find the missing girls, in the end.
He was walking home from school one day when he saw her - a girl about his age (and the age of the missing girls) in a ratty Hudol uniform, laying out in the grass between the sidewalk and the road, staring up at the sky blankly. A high elf. He couldn't say that he'd ever seen her before; she was pretty clearly homeless, filthy with matted blonde hair and a vacant expression, but there was something strangely familiar about her. He'd never set foot on Hudol's campus before, but that uniform really did stand out, and rather than crossing the street to avoid going by her he slowed down and looked down at her.
She blinked, her eyes silver, and stared up at him. Then she smiled, and spoke, her voice hoarse with disuse, her breath stinking from not brushing her teeth for quite some time.
"Don't worry. You'll find the ones you know you lost eventually."
With that rather creepy proclamation, he hurried on past her, but the familiarity nagged at him for the rest of the day.
***
Aelwyn listened outside the door as her parents spoke.
She wasn't eavesdropping, of course not. It wasn't like they hadn't known she was in the next room and they weren't exactly keeping their voices down. Besides, they were talking about Adaine, who was out somewhere with her little friends no doubt, and Aelwyn was certain they didn't care about her privacy. So she wasn't eavesdropping. She was just lingering outside the door for other, inconsequential reasons. Not like she even cared what they had to say about her baby sister.
Of course not.
"I just don't know what to do with her anymore," their father said, sounding irritated more than disappointed. That's how Aelwyn knew they were talking about Adaine. "She's never listened to a single thing we've taught her."
"And what is this, the second staff member she's killed?" Their mother said with an indigent huff. "Bad enough she has to go embarrass herself every day but she's dragging the family name through the mud as well."
"Well..." their father said, gravity in his voice so strong it made Aelwyn shiver, "these circumstances are exactly why our great nation has created its fail safe."
"It's drastic," their mother said, but with a tone of agreement, "but if Adaine cannot conduct herself in a way befitting our family then she does not deserve all that we have given her."
Aelwyn had no idea what they were talking about but it sounded like they had made up their mind about something. She let herself hope that whatever it was wouldn't be too bad for Adaine.
Magic began to gather in the room and it wasn't any sort of spell Aelwyn recognized. She had no idea what was about to happen.
And then the next moment she had no idea why she was even standing there. Her parents had been... talking. In the next room. But there was nothing they could have been discussing that would make Aelwyn's heart ache as it did.
She quickly hurried away before they could spot her and headed up to her room. There was a door across from hers that she never opened, storage or something she presumed. She found herself pausing as she passed it now, feeling sad and empty for reasons she couldn't quite understand.
It was probably nothing. After all, there was nothing there. There was never anyone else in the house besides the three Abernants.
***
“Faaaaaaabian.”
Fabian sighed loudly and glanced up from his crystal. The Oracle was staring at him with that unnerving all seeing gaze of hers. Looking straight through him with intensity even as he tried to relax the bench outside of the school.
Fig had brought the girl to see if anything at Agufort’s ‘jogged her memory’ and had promptly dumped her on Fabian as Fig went off to band practice or something that she swore would be ‘real quick’ but had now taken over ten minutes.
“Faaaaaaaabian,” The Oracle said again. Even the way she said his name was creepy. Holding out the ‘a’ much too long and then snapping down on the ‘bian’ like it was going to run away from her.
“What?” Fabian asked, irritated by the kicked puppy Fig had brought in to pair with her wet cat of a father.
The Oracle shoved a book in his face. A small history one Riz had given her to help with her complete lack of memory issue.
Or, it might have helped if she knew how to read.
“No,” Fabian said simply, going back to the bloodrush play he was studying on his crystal.
The blonde elf huffed and the next thing she said was practically a whine as she nudged his shoulder with the book. “Fabi an. ”
“I’m not going to read to you,” Fabian muttered, “I’m not some glorified babysitter.”
She slipped the book in between the screen and his face and gave a pleading expression when he looked up to scowl at her. “Faaaaabian.”
“Fine,” Fabian snapped, pocketing his crystal and snatching the book from her. She beamed at her accomplishment but it quickly vanished as Fabian couldn’t help but needle her. “Say ‘please’ and I will.”
The Oracle frowned and looked down, fiddling with her new jacket (that he had bought her, for the record). “Fabian…”
“That’s my name,” he acknowledged, raising a brow pointedly, “but not a ‘please’.”
No one had any idea why her vocabulary was so… weird. She could speak in full sentences, but only if they were vague ramblings of the future. Trying to function in just the present left her with maybe a handful of words she could say, though she seemed to understand all of the ones spoken at her.
The Oracle pouted. Folding her arms and glaring back at him. "Archdevil Figerouth Faeth."
"Yes, we could just wait for her to get back." Also, no one knew why the Oracle only referred to everyone by long nonsense titles. Except Fabian. He was just Fabian. Annoying. "Because I'm not reading anything unless you give me one new word. And don't try and bring anyone else into this, they'd agree with me and you know it."
She groaned, tilting her head back and letting her arms drop. It was honestly preferable, for her to be whiny and annoying and normal like this, than the glassy eyes rambling prophet she had started as a few weeks ago.
Speaking of which, her head rolled until her eyes locked with his once again, though they certainly weren't looking at him, not now. "The warlocks of wealth beg for deliverance. The son begs for glory. Begs for mercy."
Riz would have scrambled to write that down or decipher it or something but Fabain could not care less about what the future may hold. "Hmm, that was close and I do see what you were going for, Oracle, I really do, but I don't want a prophecy about saying please. I would like you, currently, to say please."
The Oracle's gaze snapped back into focus and she stamped her foot like a little kid, causing Fabian to laugh despite himself.
"If you're giving up I'm going to go back to my crystal now."
He did just that, setting the book on his lap, and left her to fume silently to herself.
Eventually, she slumped onto the bench next to him, elbows on her knees and head held in her hands. "The warlocks of wealth beg for deliverance. The son begs for glory. Begs for mercy." She practically mumbled it this time, as if talking more to herself than him.
"You said that already," Fabian said, not looking up.
She huffed again and in the corner of his eye he could see her face screw up in concentration, eyes scrunching tight. "...the son begs for glory. Begs for mercy. Begs for mercy."
This distracted Fabian enough to raise his gaze back to her. She had never… changed a prophecy like that. Repeated a phrase or failed to say a part. It was almost all or nothing with those.
She was practically trembling now and her breathing was coming harder as she concentrated on… something. "Begs for mercy… Begs for m…"
As he watched she clenched her hands into fists and grunted like she was physically fighting against something trying to get the words to mold to her will and not the other way around.
"B-begs for… begs… Begs!" Her eyes popped open, wide with the shock Fabian was feeling. "Begs! Begs, Fabian, begs!"
"Whoa," Fabian breathed, honestly impressed she has managed to wrestle one of her prophecies into a singular, functional word, "still not a 'please'."
If looks could kill Fabian would be ash. The Oracle picked her books back up and wacked him repeatedly with it. "Begs! Faaaabian. Begs begs begs."
"Ow!" Fabian said, flinching away from the strikes, "Okay, okay, you're begging I get it. That's close enough I guess. "
He wrenched the book from her hands and flipped it open to the bookmark as she eagerly leaned over his shoulder, all anger instantly forgotten.
Fabian rolled his eyes affectionately and began to read.
***
"One thing I'm almost certain of is that she's a wizard," Riz said as he sat, perched, on the arm of Gilear's couch, scribbling away at his notebook. Always count on him to be caught up in a good mystery and boy was this a doozy of a mystery.
They had all pieced together that there had been something missing from their memories a few days back. Too many events hadn't made sense when compared against each other and it became rapidly clear that there was a person sized hole in all their heads.
Fig had walked past the rambling homeless girl three times before making the executive decision that she was what was missing and dragging her home.
She hadn't known why she was so certain this was the right girl but Fig was always one to go with her gut instinct and her gut was pointing towards this weird elf.
Also she kept calling her Archdevil Figerouth the Infaethable, King of Hell, even before Fig had introduced herself, which was metal as fuck.
So Fig had brought her home, cleaned her up, and called her friends over to figure out if she had actually uncovered anything.
“Oh?” Fabian said from where he was lounging on Gilear’s couch next to Riz, arms spread out and looking annoyed, “And how’d you come to that conclusion?”
Riz either didn't notice or didn't care about Fabian's tone and answered his question thoughtfully. "Well, first off we found her in a Hudol uniform, and Hudol is almost exclusively a wizardry school."
The subject of conversation was no longer in said uniform. That thing had been dirty and tattered to the point of almost falling apart so Fig had quickly chucked it and given her some old clothes from when Fig was first entering her punk phase. The new outfit hung loosely around the girl's half starved frame but she hadn't protested losing her old one and absent mindlessly kneaded at her shirt, as if enjoying the texture. Or maybe she just liked the feeling of being clean.
Of course, such things would have been simple to know if she actually talked like a normal person instead of vaguely rambling half poetry. The girl was currently sitting at Gilear's kitchen table, Kristen across from her trying to coax out any answer to their dozens of questions and having incredibly little success.
"And second," Riz continued, tapping his pencil in thought, "I'm pretty sure almost all her ramblings are laced with divination magic, which means they're prophecies. So she's either a sorcerer or a wizard and I'm leaning towards wizard."
"Maybe she'll answer that one," Fig suggested, optimistically, pushing herself off the wall that she had been leaning on, "hey, Oracle, are you a wizard?"
"Oracle?" Fabian muttered in disbelief.
"Yeah, you know, like the Elven Oracle, they disappeared a while ago, maybe this is her." Fig shrugged. "Mostly I’m vetoing Kristen’s suggestion of calling her Prophet.”
Kristen pouted. “It’d be a good name…”
The elf girl, the oracle, whatever, tapped Kristen’s arm gently and almost apologetically murmured, “Saint of Mystery, Night and Magic.” She then tilted her head at Fig, though it looked like her gaze was staring right on past her. “On an island that isn’t. In a garden that isn’t. The librarian eternally resets.”
Fabian snorted. “Helpful. What is the reason she can’t just give straight answers?”
“She probably doesn’t know the answer anyway,” Gorgug spoke up from where he was standing behind the couch, peering over Riz’s shoulder, “she doesn’t really seem to remember much, right?”
“She knows one thing,” Kristen piped up and, getting the Oracle’s attention back, pointed at Gorgug, “Who’s that?”
The girl's almost constantly blank face and cloudy eyes lit up with a smile. "It's Gorgug, keep going."
“Why is it always the whole phrase?” Gorgug wondered aloud, receiving only a shrug from Fig and Riz writing more notes down.
“Good job, Oracle!” Kristen praised, ignoring Gorgug completely, “do you want more ice cream?”
Since she very obviously hadn't been eating right they had been trying to feed her as much as they could. So far ice cream seemed to be a big hit.
The Oracle hummed in delight and wiggled slightly in her seat. “At the moment of glory frozen confection shall fall like snow.”
“She says that one every time we mention ice cream,” Fig noted, pulling out her own notebook and flipping to a blank page. There were some notes in the earlier sections that were completely illegible and it had been deduced that they were about whoever the group had forgotten. Fig was disappointed to find they hadn't cleared up any but the new ones she wrote didn't disappear or anything so at least there was that. “Do we think that just means ice cream?”
“Are we really trying to decode the crazy girl’s ramblings?” Fabian asked with a huff, rolling his eyes, “Fig, if Gilear isn’t enough of a project for you anymore you could have just gotten a cat.”
Fig glared daggers at him for insulting her dad but it was actually The Oracle who spoke up first, frowning at him. “Blood dripping crown, as the legend flies the son falls.”
“Oooo,” Kristen said, like that phrase meant something to her. It was sufficiently creepy, if nothing else, “She keeps saying that when you’re rude. I think it’s an insult.”
“Yeah,” Fig huffed, still glowering, “stop being such a jerk, Fabian.”
"A jerk?" Fabian stood up and matched her annoyed glare. "Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't realize it was rude to act rational! You just stumbled upon a spacey homeless girl and suddenly decided we're going to take care of her now? " He twisted around, taking them all in. "And everyone's just on board with this? I'm the only one who sees the insanity of the situation?"
“We do know there’s a person-sized hole in our memories…” Riz mumbled into his notebook.
“Okay and?” Fabian snapped, “Last time I checked whoever that was went to school with us and, as we’ve already established, this girl went to Hudol. So it’s not her and this is just a random person!” He crossed his arms and arched his back to better leer at Fig. "Face it. Fig apparently just has a weakness for pathetic elves."
"What's your plan then, huh?" Fig asked, pressing her forehead to his. Fabian instantly drew back as it was no question who would win a headbutting contest. "This girl was obviously dying out there! You want me to just throw her back out on the street?"
"N-no, of course not," Fabian protested, raising his hands defensively, "but there are... places for these types of things, aren't there? We can get her help without having to keep her in your house."
"I think she likes it here," Fig declared, folding her arms, "and I'm okay letting her stay here if she wants to."
"How can you know what she wants?" Fabian insisted, "Goodness, Fig, she can't even tell us her name let alone what she wants out of her future."
Fig turned on her heel and back to the Oracle, who's vision had gone cloudy again. "Hey, do you want to stay with us?"
"She's not going to answer!" Fabian practically shouted, "She's just going to say something insane again."
But the elf girl's pale blue eyes widened and locked onto Fig's. She swallowed heavily and choked like she was fighting against something in her throat. Kristen reached over in concern but the Oracle managed to get a word out, never breaking eye contact with Fig.
" Yes. "