They both ignored her glare, the girl casually pulling up a seat across from Lucille at the small round table, and Scytale climbing onto a nearby wall that separated them from the artificial lake around the Pavilion. The blonde-haired girl crossed her arms and leaned them on the table, gazing intently at Lucy, while Scytale studiously avoided making eye contact with her.

Lucille sipped her tea and didn’t say anything for a good few minutes, leaving the girl to become increasingly fidgety as she waited for Lucy to start the conversation.

“If you could both remain like this for the next few hours I think I’ll be quite happy,” Lucy began wryly, leaning back in her chair with her arms crossed. “Failing that, you could also leave, in case the thought hadn’t crossed your minds.”

Annaliese stared at her with mild outrage, while Scytale hissed at her. “Gah, don’t be like that! And don’t take your mood out on us. It’s not our fault you were impatient, and forgot the mortal sensation of pain exists after a few decades without it.”

She gave Scytale a flat look. “If all it took was a bit of spiritual energy manipulation to give me soul strain this bad, then I probably would’ve gone insane after my event with the Emporium.” She frowned at the table. “I had to briefly expand my perception field outside the limits I set for myself when I went to pick up the Prophetess yesterday. I wanted to know who our observers were.”

“Oh, right, the Citadel. I think I remember you telling me about that. Sorry Miss Prophetess, it seems you were responsible for Lucy’s condition,” Scytale replied. He blinked when he received an intense glare from Lucy.

Lucy sighed as the Prophetess’s eyes widened, clearing having caught on to Scytale’s mistake. The girl spoke up. “Are you saying…” She stood up and slammed her hands on the table, making the teacup and jug jump. “That they were already there when my brother was dying and didn’t do anything about it?” she asked in a quiet voice, completely at odds with her actions.

Lucy removed her mask and rubbed her eyes. “At least you didn’t yell. If this was yesterday, you probably would’ve, so it seems the sleep did you some good.”

The girl ignored Lucy to whip her head around and stare at Scytale on her right, who flinched at the attention. “Has this got anything to do with how you said you don’t like the Citadel?” she demanded.

The serpent let out a pathetic whimper as he received Lucy’s intense stare, clearly aware he was in deep trouble. “Snake.” she stated calmly. “What. Did. You. Do.”

He hid behind his wings and instead of saying anything, he gingerly pushed his memories along their bond, leaving Lucy to stare at him, wide-eyed and angry. Then she scowled and flung her black mask at the snake, who blocked it with a wing.

“I have enough on my plate without you adding more complications,” she growled. “Did you think for even one second about how much you could impact us with your words?!”

He flared his wings defensively. “Hey, don’t blame me. I was generously warning her against trusting in the sensation of affinity resonance. Then she started pressuring me for more information, and I had no choice but to fold.”

She shot him a flat look. “You, being pressured by her," she said, pointing to Annaliese. “A 16-year-old girl.”

“I thought we’d established I now have the mind of a 15-year-old. Give me a break,” he replied, peeking out from his wings.

She glared at him for a bit longer, before exhaling loudly and covering her eyes with a hand. She remained silent for a while, Scytale awkwardly shuffling his wings and Annaliese looking between the two, confused on numerous points. She shook her head and put her hands on her hips. “So, is anyone going to tell me why it seems the Citadel decided to let my brother die? He almost did!”

“Uh, technically he has already died once. If we want to be accurate,” the snake spoke up, unable to keep his mouth shut.

The Prophetess frowned. “What?”

“Honestly snake, I am this close to sending you to the Caladrius for a character-strengthening exercise,” Lucille said, gesturing with her thumb and index finger to emphasise the small gap between them.

“….I’ll shut up now.”

“A wise decision,” Lucy remarked dryly, rolling her eyes. She sighed and turned to the other girl, gesturing to the seat.

“If you want your questions answered, then sit down,” she stated.

Annaliese sat back down in the chair near instantly, looking at Lucille expectantly. Lucy took another sip of her tea, wondering if she should create a Rare-ranked one after all. She looked at Annaliese.

“I’m assuming you have several questions, so just ask the one you’re most curious about first,” she told her.

The Prophetess shifted a bit, thinking about how to phrase the question. Eventually, she just decided to say it straight. “How did you know I was the Prophetess?” she asked apprehensively.

Lucy placed down her teacup and studied the girl opposite her. Then she closed her eyes as she answered.

“I’m a regressor.”

Before Annaliese could properly register what she said, Lucy stood up from the table, picked up the black overcoat she had slung over the chair’s back and began walking away. “Alright, I’ve said my piece. I’m done here.”

“What? But-” Annaliese gaped at her, flabbergasted, while Scytale reared up and hissed.

“Seriously! Answer the girl’s question properly Lucy! Don’t blatantly abuse the fact that only those from Earth would have a single clue what that even means!”

She whirled around to glare at the snake. “Have you forgotten the fact you said you would shut up?”

“Uh… but this is…” His voice slowly died down as he received Lucille’s frosty look.

“I want you to shut up because your telepathy is exacerbating my headache, and not because I just don’t want to hear your voice. You would know this if you bothered to see how I was doing, instead of shying away from the shared pain like a wimp,” she stated, her eyes narrowed at her bond.

He flinched but wisely didn’t say anything. Lucy collapsed back onto the garden chair, rubbing her temples as she sat sideways on it, the overcoat placed on the table. She snapped her fingers and the mask next to Scytale disappeared, reappearing on her palm as she summoned it through the soulbond. She pushed it back on, the cool leather-like material fixing itself in place, and then she turned back around to face Annaliese.

“The term ‘regression’,” she began, “Means to return to a previous state. If I’m a regressor, then it means I have returned to an earlier stage of my history,” she explained, aware that the specifics of time, time travel and timelines were not something most people discussed in the five Tower realms. She tapped on the table. “I know who you are because I have met you before.” She gazed seriously at the Prophetess. “I knew what you had seen about the war in five years because I was there when you announced your vision to the wider world.”

She intertwined her black-gloved fingers and rested them on the table. “And I physically experienced the events of the war myself, on that very battlefield," she finished.

There was silence as Annaliese stared at Lucille, absorbing what she had just heard. Her expression changed from being nonplussed to shocked, to incredulous, to contemplative, and then perplexed in a matter of seconds. Lucy waited as the girl tried to wrap her head around the concept, covering her mouth with one hand as she thought. Eventually, Annaliese raised her eyes from the table to look at Lucy.

“Wait, so you… went back in time? Does that mean there’s another version of you running around somewhere?” she said, trying to make sense of things.

Lucy shook her head with a wry smile. “That is why I’m a ‘regressor’, and not just a time traveller. I woke up and found myself in my own body, in the past.”

“But how?” Annaliese asked.

“I died,” Lucy stated flatly. Annaliese grimaced, making Lucy roll her eyes at the girl’s awkward expression. “It’s fine, I had done it before. It wasn’t that big of a deal.”

Annaliese nodded. “Oh- wait.” The girl paused, doing a double take. “Did you just say you had died before?”

Lucy nonchalantly sipped her tea. “Well, I am an Ascendant. Resurrections are given for a reason. Normally I’d just be revived at the last Obelisk I visited, one rank weaker, but this time was different.”

The golden-eyed girl hesitated. “Um… I’ve heard the term ‘Ascendant’ be used before, for the Obelisk cities and such, but I haven’t actually been told what it really means.”

Lucille eyed her for a moment, then shrugged. “That’s because the meaning of it is rather broad,” she said, picking up the overcoat and putting it on as the late afternoon turned cooler, slowly becoming evening. “I’m sure you’ve heard it used in the context of referring to large Factions and Guilds. To be honest, the term ‘Ascendant’ originally meant someone who was part of the System in the earlier days of the Tower.”

“But… isn’t anyone 16 and over automatically part of the System?” Annaliese asked, confused.

“Well, yes, but this was back when the System hadn’t placed Obelisks everywhere, and the discovered territory of the realms was much smaller. So the term currently means someone who is actively ‘climbing’ the Tower,” Lucy replied, crossing her arms.

The Prophetess still looked confused, so Lucy resigned herself to further explanation. “That’s anyone who is attempting to level up, do realm quests and complete stages to rank up, without taking breaks greater than 6 months at a time. That is what is considered actively ‘climbing’ the Tower.” Then she scoffed. “Although the term ‘Tower’ is far too grandiose for the glorified elevator shaft we all live in.”

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

Lucy leaned forward in her chair, resting her chin on one hand. “But that’s irrelevant. Don’t you want to know more about my ‘regression’?”

Annaliese jolted and then nodded vigorously, annoyed at how she got distracted. “Yes. Like… how did you know me?”

Lucy blinked, slightly surprised by the unexpected question. She cocked an eyebrow. “Not ‘what will happen in the future?’ or ‘Why did you bring me here?’”

“I want to ask those too,” the Prophetess replied. “But I’m more interested to know what our relation was. And about who I was, or will be like in the future.”

Opposite her, Lucille shook her head and raised a finger. “No, it’s only ‘was’. Because technically, I haven’t time travelled. It still actually happened in the past.”

Annaliese looked confused. “Oookay? But how?”

Reaching for her brass jug, Lucy poured more tea for herself. “If you want to know more about that, then let’s leave it for another day. You still have a week here, remember?”

The girl blinked in realisation and then nodded in agreement. “Right. And then the Citadel will come pick me up,” she said, frowning.

Lucille eyed her expression and then sighed. “Don’t be so anxious. Scytale and I have our biases because we are both firmly on the very disagreeable side of the spectrum when looking at our relationship with the Citadel. He made you needlessly worried about something you personally have nothing to worry about. Truthfully, we shouldn’t either, because we don’t have plans to be hostile towards them again, but years of prejudice don’t go away even after death,” she said wryly. “As the Prophetess, you are in a significantly better position than either of us.”

She then frowned down at the table slightly as she wrapped her hands around her teacup. “As for the relationship between us… practically none,” she stated, surprising Annaliese.

“But you said…”

“That we have met before, yes,” Lucy interrupted with a bland voice. “That does not mean we actually knew each other. We met and traded greetings exactly three times at various Empire events, and then the time you revealed your vision was a massive large-scale ceremonial event that had hundreds of thousands of people in the audience from a multitude of different powerful forces, even some from different realms.”

Annaliese’s golden eyes were wide open in shock, making Lucy smirk.

“The authority of the Citadel is big,” she remarked. “And as the Prophetess, you will be placed in the very epicentre of their massive whirlpool of politics. 3.4 billion people live in Pedestal alone, and that number doesn’t include the multitude of sub-divisions and aligned noble forces spread everywhere that the Citadel uses to expand its power. You will be a central figure of attention.”

Lucy picked up her teacup to take a sip. “We met in a purely professional capacity. Our positions, status and fields of work were so far removed from each other, that we only greeted each other for formalities sake.”

Then she hesitated as she remembered their last meeting and the strange request the Prophetess had for her. But that was irrelevant now, so Lucy shook her head and continued drinking her tea.

Annaliese seemed to be deep in thought. “So… we met at big noble events? Like balls and things?” Lucy nodded, so the girl continued. “That meant you had high status, right? To be able to come to those events.”

Lucy paused and tilted her head, thinking. “High status is debatable. I didn’t hold a noble title, but those of a certain power level had benefits equal to nobility anyway. Those events were mostly annual Empire ceremonies, so I had no choice but to come. I worked in the military.”

The blonde-haired girl opposite her stared at her for a second, stunned. “Wait, the military? Seriously?”

Lucy raised an eyebrow. “What, don’t believe someone like me could survive in the military?”

“I mean…” Annaliese fiddled with her shirt’s sleeve. “It feels a bit off somehow…”

“As a battlemage, I didn’t take part in physical combat, so I can tell why it seems off to you,” Lucy replied wryly. “I don’t exactly have the physique typical of someone who fights for a living.”

Lucille had a very slight build and didn’t have the needed height to be described as ‘willowy’, only being very slightly taller than average. She wasn’t able to gain much weight either and always weighed less than normal. Although, when she altered her looks in the first timeline, she made herself taller and well-built in general, just so she wouldn’t be disadvantaged in combat by her body type. She didn’t add the galaxy hair though. That would be Scytale’s illusion mana causing issues when they first bonded.

“Oh… yes.” Annaliese nodded, relieved Lucy understood her meaning. “But a battlemage?” she asked curiously. “What type? Storm?”

“Please don’t start lumping me together with them,” she replied dryly. “If I was a storm mage then the Navy never would’ve let me work in the Distorted Depths region of the Beast Realm, known for having the worst magical storms ever discovered. I was an illusion mage.”

It was a well-known fact that when natural magical phenomena like a mana storm occurred, you keep those of the same element as the natural disaster far, far away from the catastrophe. At best, spells of the natural disaster’s element would turn chaotic and potentially injure the spellcaster and those around, and at worst, the disaster absorbs the spell and the spell’s mana, growing larger, more powerful, and gaining the spell’s characteristics. A storm mage in the region known for its perpetual cataclysmic mana storms swarming with oceanic monsters of terrifying behemothic size? Yeah, bad idea. The funny thing was one time one of her superiors had allowed a storm mage to join. It was lucky he had killed himself with his spell before he could truly cause any issues.

Annaliese cocked her head. “An illusion mage? Did you trap enemies in dreams?”

“Hah. No,” she replied, amused by the way the girl had immediately thought of illusion magic’s most commonly known application. “The dream subset of illusion magic is one thing I have absolutely no affinity with. My one attempt at it resulted in the spell that knocked you unconscious,” she said, pointing to the Prophetess, “And that spell gives you a dreamless sleep, which made it quite the failure indeed. Besides, monsters have no souls, so mental attacks are less effective than plain firepower, something important to the military.”

“So then…?” Annaliese asked curiously.

“So then, ask a different question. It’s going to be dinner time soon.” She smiled when she saw the way Annaliese drooped in disappointment. “I’m not saying I won’t tell you more, or even demonstrate my magic, but it’s not that important. My time in the military, and by extension, my time as Admiral there didn’t make up my entire life.”

In actual fact, Lucille spent twenty years as an Admiral before resigning, which was roughly only 8% of her life before she regressed. While memorable, for entirely opposite reasons than someone wanted something to be memorable for, that period didn’t make much of an impact on her life in the long term… except when concerning one particular individual. Good thing she still had more than a month left on Adrianna’s side before she had to meet him.

“Why do you sound like a noble then, if you worked in the military?” Annaliese asked.

Instead of answering, Lucy shot a stern look at the snake on the wall next to them to silence the burgeoning laughing fit she could just sense was about to occur. She huffed and crossed her arms, even as Scytale struggled to hold in his snickers. “Contrary to what he might tell you, my homeland’s accent is not that pronounced, and most of how I sound is a result of my past experiences with nobility. Any member of the military Commander ranked and higher is required to undergo a formal etiquette course to progress further up the ranks,” she said. “As high-ranked members of the military often deal with nobility on a day-to-day basis, and are considered de-facto nobles themselves, it is a highly important skill required to not offend someone unknowingly. I haven’t bothered to train myself out of this way of speech as it has been more useful than not.”

She took another sip of her tea. “Especially now, considering once I go to the Empire’s annual end-of-year banquet, I will be given my Honorary Count title, and become true nobility. I’m not going to change my way of speaking anytime soon.”

The Prophetess hummed in acknowledgment, looking satisfied with Lucy’s answer. Then she became hesitant. “So… why exactly did you want to meet me?”

Pulling out her pocket watch from her coat’s chest pocket, Lucille checked the time before closing it with a snap, then looked up and eyed the Prophetess. “Well, I did want to know what my Fate looked like, believing my regression changed it. And from your reaction yesterday, it seems there is indeed something wrong with it?” she asked, an eyebrow raised.

She watched as the Prophetess’s eyes gained a luminous intensity for a second, and then the girl shuddered and shrunk down in her chair. “T-That is- uh… yes,” she replied timidly.

Lucy was about to ask more when her eyebrow twitched as she received the emotion of intense amusement flowing down her bond with Scytale. She gazed at him with narrowed eyes as the winged snake began letting out barely suppressed giggles and guffaws, squirming around on the stone brick wall while trying to keep himself from laughing. Her expression changed as she turned to the Prophetess, who flinched when she saw Lucille’s face.

“Kindly tell me just what is so amusing about what you have seen?” she said, smiling brightly.

She waited as the girl tried to describe the otherworldly black halo that sat vertically behind her head, telling Lucille about the weird way light and space seemed to bend around it, and how it gave off this sensation of wrongness like it wasn’t supposed to exist or be there somehow.

One part of Lucy’s mind had already started contemplating the possible relations the sensation had to the sensation when she finished the Tutorial, but her actual expression was growing flatter and flatter with each word from Annaliese. She held up a hand to pause the girl when the Prophetess began trying to explain why Scytale was laughing.

“You don’t need to tell me anything,” she replied dully. “I can already tell it’s just him being an absolute idiot like always.” She glared at the snake and rubbed her forehead. “For your information, I won’t be wearing much black after this week. I have asked for a tailor to come in to create some clothes befitting of the Commission’s Faction Head, but due to the tailor’s status, he couldn’t come in straight away, he will be arriving on the same day as you leave.”

Lucy frowned a bit. “As for my Fate… well, because I ‘regressed’, I suppose my Fate turned black due to the fact that the ‘possibilities’ I had at the time were abruptly cut off, yet I’m still alive. Have you ever seen a real Fate Devourer’s fate?” she asked Annaliese, who quickly shook her head. Lucy nodded. “Fate Devourers are called such because their techniques divert a User’s fate, as opposed to the Fate of kingdoms, countries, and worlds in the Citadel’s rivers of Fate, and add it to their own. You’ll find that their Fate is a murky colour because the Fate blackens as the ‘opportunity’ of the original individual doesn’t apply anymore.”

She sighed. “And this black Fate slowly detaches itself from the Fate Devourer’s Fate to dissolve. Black or ‘ended’ Fate as it is sometimes called, is only a temporary measure, and so Fate Devourers have to continue to steal from others’ Fate to sustain their own high Fate and fortune. This is why I can’t be a Fate Devourer because if my Fate is wholly black, I should have no future left at all.”

Lucy took another sip of tea. “So, rather than being ‘invisible under Escalon’s eyes’, I am more accurately ‘dead’ to Fate. And who cares about what the dead are up to, when they are supposed to be in their graves?” she shrugged. “I’m guessing the reason why your prophecy concerning the Citadel changed is because I am an ‘anomaly’ who cannot be tracked or my actions predicted, either by Fate or the System itself.”

“Even the System?” Annaliese asked, wide-eyed.

Lucy paused. “Well, that’s a different matter. But it does compound to create an even bigger effect. Have you tried manipulating my Fate yet?”

“Um…” Annaliese responded, hesitant. “Am I allowed to?”

Lucy nodded. “Now that we're discussing this, we might as well test it. I know I’ll be fine even if you did try to manipulate it for a bunch of other reasons that I don’t have time to explain, but it would be good to check.”

Annaliese’s eyes glowed once more as she tried to pull on her golden aura and touch Lucy. Lucy directed her mana towards the shard in her eye, looking through the mask to see what the Prophetess was doing. Lucy still wasn’t able to see Fate, but she was able to see the Prophetess’s light-element component of the high-level energy. The light mana rebounded off of something, incapable of breaching the distorted metaphysical space around Lucy’s Fate.

“I can’t do anything,” Annaliese replied after a moment, stunned. “While my brother’s Fate is completely invisible, making it look like he has none, for you it just…” She mimed a finger getting bounced off her palm.

Lucille held her chin as she thought. “Then, I think I can make an assumption based on what I know about Fate. Because Fate doesn’t even see your brother’s Fate as he is its antithesis, then prophecies don’t change at all even when he is involved. I suppose after the time allotted for the end of the prophecy must be when any of his actions are discovered. As for me…” she gave a small grin. “This is interesting. Prophecies do change because I’m still detectable, but only after I have acted out, meaning I am never in the equation. Any prophecies can’t calculate my involvement, but when I introduce a variable, they can then recalculate based on the new situation. I wonder how I can use this…” she mused. Then she blinked. “What about Scytale? Have you seen his Fate?”

Annaliese paused and shook her head.

Lucy smiled. “You should probably get into the habit of checking whenever you can. It will help you find people that would be worth forming relationships with.”

The blonde-haired girl grimaced. “That.. sounds like a way of viewing the world that I don’t want to have.”

Lucy cocked an eyebrow. “I’m not telling you to base your actual friendships on their Fate. Fate doesn’t tell you who you would enjoy hanging out with. I’m saying you should use it to find strong allies and people who can support you so you don’t become a complete puppet subject to every whim of Paragon.”

“Is… that something likely to happen?” Annaliese asked cautiously.

Thinking for a moment, Lucille gained a complicated expression. “I would say… yes because it has happened before.”

The girl blinked and then realised what Lucy meant. “You mean… the past?”

Lucy nodded. “It occurred with you. But you were cold and standoffish for the first few years, likely due to the death of your brother. It wasn’t until later you started trying to build up your own force within the Citadel, but because you started so late, you had many struggles doing so. You have your brother to protect now,” Lucy said, gazing seriously at the girl. “So, make sure you find a way to do so without relying on the verbal promises of Paragon. He’d likely end up as a hostage.”

Clenching her fists, Annaliese nodded with an anxious expression on her face. Then she turned to look at Scytale. “I’ll check his Fate now.”

Lucy waited as the girl’s eyes glowed once more, and then tilted her head as the girl kept trying to see the snake’s fate, who was watching them curiously. Eventually, Lucy spoke up. “What is it?” she asked, puzzled.

“Oh! Um…” Annaliese turned around with a strange expression on her face. “Well, he has lots of Fate, and I can manipulate it…”

“So?” Lucille queried, still perplexed.

“But it’s white. Like, blindingly white,” the Prophetess finished. “And also, when I try to manipulate his Fate… it just pops back into place after a few seconds. I can’t really do much with it.”

Lucy stared at her for a second and then snorted a laugh as the snake glared at her. “This is a bit ironic,” she responded, feeling like karma was on her side, finally. “After all he said about not being weird like me…”

“So… there’s nothing wrong with it?” Annaliese asked after a second.

“Not in the sense that it would be harmful to him. It never was for me,” Lucy replied, smirking.

“…for you?” the Prophetess said, raising an eyebrow.

“I’ve been told that is what my Fate was like before I regressed,” Lucy responded. “I’ve also been told by a certain snake that having white Fate means I must be a boring person because the colour is so bland.”

“Oh...” was all the Prophetess replied.

“As for why it appears white… I said some time ago that I can’t be affected by Fate because I don’t believe in it,” Lucille said. “The same holds true even now. It was why I wasn’t worried about you manipulating my Fate. But my situation is different to Scytale’s. I don’t think he’s managed to understand what I mean when I say I don’t believe in it, so he hasn’t magically become the same as me before my regression.”

She held her chin. “It must be just a sign that Fate can’t affect them somehow. I suppose it’s because we’re bonded. It would be a bit dumb if Fate could calculate my actions just because it could calculate based on Scytale’s knowledge of my thoughts.” She frowned a bit. “Although, the ‘entity’ responsible for trying to hide his fate hasn’t deigned to express their intentions to me…” she murmured in a quieter voice.

Before Annaliese could register her words she shook her head and sighed. “Anyway, I believe there’s a chance that only you can see what our Fate looks like. I know only the highest members of Paragon can actually see ended Fate, and nobody besides you even noticed my white Fate last time," she told her. “Fingers crossed it’s just a Prophetess thing.”

Annaliese looked surprised and then nodded. “Then, let’s hope so. Is checking your Fate the only thing you wanted to see me for?”

Lucille stopped moving, and then leaned forward, gazing intently at the Prophetess. “There was one more thing. I wanted to give you a warning.”

Annaliese stared at her. “A warning?”

Lucille nodded seriously. “Yes. About the war.”

“The war I saw a vision of? The Millennium Chapter?” she questioned.

“The very same,” Lucy replied, leaning back with her arms crossed. “Listen. Under no circumstances should you ever, ever try to influence the outcome of the war. Ever. Stay out of the Event as much as you are physically capable of. Don’t do anything, don’t touch any Fate, and do not get involved with the final victor of the Demon Emperor battle. I cannot stress this enough. Don’t do it.”

Annaliese looked bemused. “But… I never had any intention of doing so in the first place? I mean, the Prophecy is System given. It’s not supposed to change. Why would I try doing that? Sure, they didn’t seem to be doing too well in the vision, but you don’t permanently die in a Chapter Event…”

“Because there will be a point that the entirety of the Empire is so desperate to succeed in the war that they will stop at nothing to gain an advantage,” Lucy stated solemnly. “And the Citadel will be included. If Paragon tells you to direct Fate to a certain Faction, smile, nod and do it. But don’t take matters into your own hands. Please stay passive. You and the lives of those around you will be in danger if you don’t. Your brother especially.”