Mash didn’t get his fight and watched as Ythass’s mother flew away. It was impossible to look away. The only people that weren’t looking were Ythass and Toroken, who seemed unimpressed. He still wanted a fight and couldn’t stop feeling a little disappointed. However, he did have several things he needed to do, so this was probably for the best. The figure grew distant in the sky, and Mash turned back toward the rest of the people here. A few others had elected to get sent home by Fate, but some remained. Fate herself stood around watching the group from the tree line. Mash walked over to her.

“What do you want now?

While his tone was friendly, the words themselves were more direct than he intended. It might sound like he was being disrespectful, but in this case, he wasn’t trying to be rude. Fate didn’t seem to care though.

“I want to help you guys.”

She sounded a bit too peppy and lackadaisical for someone of her level. That was the thing that made it hard to believe what she said. She seemed too carefree for someone who could see the future. To him, that sounded like the kind of ability that should make someone a lot more paranoid.

“How did you level?”

Mash couldn’t stop the question, even if he knew that it was a rude one. His curiosity drove him to it. Fate seemed to be caught off guard by it, and she started fidgeting a little. A bead of sweat ran down her forehead as Mash stared at her, waiting for an answer. His gaze was definitely pressuring her, and she broke after a few seconds of awkward silence.

“I pushed things mostly. Foresight plus teleportation let me kind of just cause things to die. A push here, a bit of poison there. You can kill a lot of things just by moving a little.”

She said it bashfully, though the words bothered him. There was a casualness to that way of thinking that he couldn’t understand. When he fought or killed, it had always been a personal experience. This was something he couldn’t accept, and he decided to let the matter drop instead, he nodded toward the others.

“Okay, you need to convince the others to trust you, if you want to help them.”

She shook her head quickly, so fast that her own hair smacked against her eyes causing her to flinch.

“What? No, I meant you. I’m here to help you with your plan.”

Mash’s instincts told him to question her, claiming that she couldn’t possibly know. Then he thought better of it. He eyed her more carefully and nodded slowly. He still nodded toward the others though.

“Still, I’m going to ask them.”

Fate smiled and took a step backward so that she could lean against a nearby tree.

“Perfect! I’ll wait here then.”

Mash turned and walked back to the others, not exactly sure what to think of Fate. An elf not much older than himself, but one that distinctly seemed off. He went to the person who tended to be the best in these situations and talked to Red.

____________________________________________________________________________

Fate P.O.V

Fate watched Mash and let out a sigh. Sweat ran down her back, and she slid against the nearby tree to hide it. Being around him was far more terrifying than she had imagined. The dragon was amazing, but Mash was just depressing. It might have been the effects of his aura or something, but Fate couldn’t stop seeing visions of death. Her own had popped up several times now. There were few people with the ability to completely shut down a teleportation skill, and Fate knew that two people here had that ability.

She shuddered seeing her own death, but that image was quickly drowned out by a much more likely future. After getting a few more glimpses of her future, she stopped using her skill. She had been warned more than once about the dangers of keeping her skill active. All those with foresight-based skills tended to go insane at some point or another. Elves had a long memory, and she wasn’t their first prophet. They had guidelines for her that had felt suffocating before. She had broken them more than a few times and leveled faster than her people had thought possible because of it. With that in mind, she still listened to some of the advice given though. Like how she should use her foresight sparingly, especially regarding herself.

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Looking at the others in the group, she wasn’t sure which future would end up occurring. The most likely one would wind up with her getting rejected. While that was disappointing, it was also a little relieving. She shook her head slightly. That shouldn’t be relieving. She came here to help them. More like she needed to be here with them. One possible future hung in the back of her mind. She looked at Mash and shuddered at the memory. Don’t think about that now. She pushed the thoughts aside. She couldn’t think like that. No matter what happened here, she would find a way to change that future.

Her stomach rumbled, and she remembered that she hadn’t eaten anything yet. It wasn’t like she didn’t have food on her, but she had been so nervous that she didn’t want to eat. She always felt like she would vomit when she got nervous, and no amount of levels or stats had rid her of that feeling. Now that she was fairly certain that she would live, her hunger returned. She held out a hand and teleported an apple from her storage space.

This was one of the few things she needed. She couldn’t imagine living without these fruits. They were a specialty of the elven forests. Each apple was about the size of her head, and its skin was a bright distinct shade of green. She dug her fingers into the bottom of the apple and pushed it to the top with her palm. The apple snapped in half cleanly, though some juice ran down her hand. She licked it before it could pass her wrist. The sourness that hit her first stung a little, as only the first taste of the day could. The sweetness that followed was just as intense but made mellow by the earlier sourness. Before the flavor could fade, she took a bite. It crunched loudly and echoed within her head with each bite.

She ate slowly watching Mash and the others stare at one another. They didn’t talk verbally as far as she could tell, but their bodies moved like they were having a conversation. Even knowing that they had the ability to communicate telepathically, it was still an odd thing to see. She continued to eat the apple, taking her time with it since there wasn’t much else to do.

Eventually, Mash walked back over. He didn’t seem hostile, but then again, he never did. Not even in the few visions she had seen of him killing her. The person in that vision looked nothing like the man approaching her now, but she couldn’t help but overlap the two figures. He nodded when he got close.

“You can come with us for now, but you have to keep this on you.”

His voice felt like it came from all around her as he spoke. It gave her the sensation that she was somehow inside of his grip. He held something to her. She stared at the object and then flinched when it moved. It was a snake with rainbow scales that shimmered in the light and a pure white beak that should’ve belonged to a bird. It was one of the most beautiful creatures she had ever seen, and she couldn’t help but stare at it.

“What is it?”

She asked the question, but slowly began reaching for the snake.

“Huh, I assumed you would know. This is Priscilla.”

Mash thought about it for a moment and turned toward the others. He shouted toward Valeria and Luke.

“Luke! Tell Valeria about Priscilla!”

He probably didn’t need to shout, but Luke nodded and began whispering into Valeria’s ears. Fate wished she could hear that explanation since Mash didn’t seem like he would explain anything to her. He just thrust his hand forward, and Valeria reluctantly took the snake. It moved wrapping itself around her forearm like a piece of elaborate jewelry. She wasn’t a big fan of jewelry, but this was something she could accept.

“What does she do?”

Priscilla sounded like a girl’s name, though Fate wasn’t sure how to judge a snake’s gender. The fact that Mash didn’t comment on it made her think she was right.

“She will let you communicate with me from just about anywhere and can watch you. She can do it in both directions.”

Fate nodded and considered what she could do to best get on their good side. Telling them of the others was probably a good start.

“Do you have more snakes? Other people will come up with the same idea as me.”

That comment seemed to surprise him.

“Wait, others? Why?”

Fate looked at him incredulously.

“Mash, you are powerful. Powerful enough that most kings and gods have told their people of you. With that much attention, you will get plenty of people who want to follow you.”

Mash took a step away from her and spoke. His eyes narrowed as if he was straining against something.

“No, you are not following me. You are doing what you want and so am I. That’s all. I won’t, or rather, can’t accept followers.”

He shivered after speaking as if the very idea had disgusted him. Fate stared at him, her eyebrows crossing with confusion. Why did that idea bother him so much? Then she considered his aspects and remembered. Freedom. That would explain why the idea of followers bothered him so much. She couldn’t help but glance at the snake wrapped around her arm and wonder what made that any different from a shackle.

“She won’t harm you. She is only there for communication, and you can remove her if you want.”

Seeming to notice her glances, Mash quickly amended his earlier statement. Fate nodded slowly; not quite sure she understood the nature of his aspects. Although, it seemed like he wasn’t much better off than she was.

“What are you by the way? I mean, are you a god, king, or classer?”

“Oh, yeah, I’m a classer. I don’t want to talk about it if that’s okay?”

This was one of the topics she had been worried about. Her secondary class was useful, but it would lose a lot of that usefulness if people knew about it. She really really didn’t want to share it. Mash just shrugged.

“Yeah, that’s fine. I mean it's not like we are just gonna tell you about our skills either.”

Fate smiled a little, her shoulders sagged a little as she heard the sentence that indicated that her plan had succeeded. Even though she could really see Mash’s destiny, she could look at her own and knew that Mash wouldn’t kill her right this moment. She would take what she could get, and this was about as good as she imagined it could go.