Devick sipped her tea, still slightly unsure of exactly what was happening. The air in the delightful gazebo with its pillars decorated with carved flowers stayed meek due to the influence of the three women in front of her, yet outside small pieces of scrub brush and pebbles were blown around by wild winds. The dome of Nether generated by Nether King Hungry Eye howled, visibly darkening as time passed.

Whatever occurred within was not a kind process.

Devick blinked in surprise when the tea registered; the flavor of the hot liquid was surprisingly wonderful. The main body of the tea was light and floral, seeping out across her tongue. Yet after holding the liquid in her mouth for a few seconds, some very compelling orange notes revealed themselves. She took a second sip.

All three women studied her. A plate of sandwiches with their crusts cut off sat in the middle of the table. The woman on the left, with the lavender hair, ended up chuckling. She plucked up a brush and began to paint on the small easel set up next ot her. The woman on the right sighed. Devick felt strangely nervous to have three powerful individuals appear out of nowhere and invite her to tea.

The middle woman who so thoroughly resembled Nether King Hungry Eye, who called herself Neveah, smiled directly at Devick. If she minded the silence of the last few minutes, she didn’t show it. She jumped right into a new conversation. “What do you want your Class to look like?”

Devick sucked in a breath. “How did you-”

“If there is something Randidly- the one you call Nether King Hungry Eye- knows, assume I know it also.” Neveah airily waved a hand.

“Honestly, assume she knows it better. Or at least understands the consequences,” The lovely right woman muttered. When Devick glanced at her in shock, she winked at her and held up the bottle. “I’m Tatiana. I’m in charge of sundry messes and fallout. I don’t suppose you’d care for a little kick in your tea?”

“I’m err- okay, well why not,” Devick pushed her cup across the smooth table. Meanwhile, her gaze flicked back to Neveah. “Ah… are you and the Nether King… involved?”

“It is a cold comfort, but your affections will have no competition from me,” Neveah said rather dryly. She folded her arms across her chest, the gesture quite graceful. “Although again, I assure you trying to be anything but friends with him is a fool’s errand.”

Tatiana smoothly poured a few fingers of the amber liquid into the cup, once more pushing the mug to fullness. Unsure of how to respond, Devick took the cup back and took a sip. Her eyebrows rose; this was some of the best liquor she ever tasted. Just enough sweetness and heat to really better up the experience of the tea.

“Anyway,” Neveah smoothly pivoted back to the original conversation without pressing her point. “Randidly will be indisposed for a while. He is in one of his bouts of furious training activity. As such, we are willing to assist you, if you want. Speaking very candidly… I suspect we will do a better job than Randidly ever could.”

“He is wary of you, or of what you might become,” For the first time, the woman on the left spoke. She caught Devick’s eye and offered her an enigmatic smile. “For that reason, he would not be able to drag out your full potential. But we will. I am Lucretia.”

“Why is Hungry Eye wary of me?” Devick fixated on that fact, almost feeling hurt. She tried to tack on a joke to lighten to the mood. “I’ve done all of my murders out of earshot.”

Neveah gave Lucretia a sharp look. The other woman shrugged. Neither acknowledged Devick’s attempt at humor and Lucretia started by addressing Neveah. “It is easier to explain the gist of the situation than dancing around the issue for the entire meeting. Girl, listen to me. The Ghosthound had seen a version of what you may become, a monstrous, overwhelming being that stands at the very top of the Nexus. For this reason, it is very simple for us to guide you to a Class and image that will endow you with amazing potential.”

“What?” If anything, that explanation just made Devick more confused. “What do you mean, he has seen a monstrous version of me?”

Maybe that’s why they didn’t respond to the murder joke… note to self: humor that kills amongst Hobfootie players might not always be suitable for tea.

Second note to self: stop using the term kill so often in thoughts. Pass this information along to other, more outwardly murderous versions of self.

The three women exchanged several lightning-fast and lightning-charged glances, leaving Devick to spiral for a bit. Neveah seemed even more annoyed, while Lucretia refused to even acknowledge she had done anything wrong. Tatiana took another long gulp of her tea.

“...it might be easiest if you consider Randidly to have a very particular form of prophecy,” Tatiana eventually interjected. Neveah leaned back from the table, conceding the point. Tatian’s cup clicked against its saucer as she set it down. “Specifically regarding the actions that happened around now. He saw how you would develop had he not been there for the attack on your city, he saw what would happen to Malloon if he hadn’t intervened. He’s seen a few other things, too, that will soon happen. It’s why he trains so furiously; because the future will be rough. He needs power. As, I suspect, will you.”

Devick felt her pulse physically slow in her body. Despite how rosy her picture had been of the Nether King’s treatment of her had been, several small details clicked into place. The way he had been so shocked when they first met, the way he seemed to know things about her that she hadn’t even known yet, the way sometimes he would smile at something she did almost in spite of himself.

She had always believed it to be the stirring of intimate feelings in his chest… but he had just known who she might become?

Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

“Are… he and I involved in the future?” Devick managed to force out the words.

“Yes, but not in the way you meant to ask,” Neveah replied. “That possibility for your future… will also not compete for his affections in the manner you desire.

Devick squeezed her eyes shut for a second. Have I been a fool? Is chasing after him pointless, because some other version of me dominates his awareness? But yet why-

As soon as she brought her attention back to the boiling, erupting core of what made her Devick, all her doubts fell away. Or perhaps it was better to say her passion burned them away. She lifted up her chin. Resolve emerged, fully formed in her chest. Just like she had taken a group of misfits and created a Hobfootie team that could walk into Malloon and trounce their storied franchises, she could accomplish anything. So long as Devick truly wanted something, and she was very certain she wanted to be in the life of Nether King Hungry Eye, she would find a way.

“It doesn’t matter what prophecy he has seen about me,” Devick announced. “I am not that person. I can become anyone I want.”

Tatiana shook her head slightly, a wry smile on her face. “This is where we remind you not to try and become involved with him romantically. It has never ended well. Randidly… he grows too quickly. He gobbles up responsibilities, and to his credit, puts the responsibilities he has taken on above his own happiness. Chasing after someone too busy to acknowledge you… twists a person. You will experience much emotional turmoil.”

Devick couldn’t stop a smile from creeping across her face. “I understand it will be difficult… but I’ve never shied away from difficult paths. Don’t I just need to catch up with him? Then the problem of chasing him will be moot. I mean, how quickly can he improve, anyway? He’s already so powerful; if growth was infinite, some old monster would have destroyed the universe by now.”

“You-” Lucretia seemed to want to say something else, but glares from the other two women stopped her. She clicked her tongue and shrugged. Her hand moved quickly, painting a few more brushstrokes upon the canvas in front of her. Abruptly, Devick realized the woman wasn’t even using paints.

Neveah steepled her fingers and turned back to Devick. “So, we return to the issue of your Class. What sort of warrior do you want to be?”

Devick shrugged, a strange arrogance overtaking her now that she had set her mind to the task. The details hadn’t revealed themselves, but the result had become clear. She could imagine the look of surprise on Hungry Eye’s face when she, after a suitably long time apart to make her seem cool, mysterious, and inscrutable, returned and defeated him handily in single combat. He would have tried to unleash a massive Nether Ritual against her and she would have shattered it to pieces with the slightest flick of her pinky-

No no, Devick rewound her way the daydream. She reached the point Randidly saw her and shock blanked out his features before beginning again. She purposefully cranked up the tension. The duel is much more… personal than what either of us expected. We fight up close, drops of sweat flung from our limbs and landing on one another. Our limbs inflict glancing blows on each other, friction warming the skin. Then after a long clash, we press close, our muscles coiled and straining. Our faces are so close we gulp down each other’s breath. Yet after a few seconds of a bitter stalemate, our gazes devouring each other’s trembling form, I gradually gain the upper hand-

“Take your time,” Tatiana cackled out the words. “Surely, it’s a hard question to answer. Consider deeply.”

Devick had the strange impression that the woman had seen entirely through her thoughts and flushed. From the carefully schooled expression on Neveah’s face and the smirk on Lucretia’s, her wandering imagination had been perceivable. She took another gulp of tea to calm herself, and almost spat the liquid back out as Tatiana’s liquor burned on the way down.

How strong is this stuff? I almost feel lightheaded. Devick looked down at her cup. Luckily, a slight breeze seemed to rise, even within the area of the gazebo, cooling her off.

Lucretia chuckled and picked up the painting she had been working on since Devick first seated herself at the small table with the women. With a smooth gesture, she spun it around and displayed the delicately made brushtrokes. “Let’s make this simple. Look at this painting and tell me what you see, girl.”

“I see-” Devick sucked in a breath. Every time she blinked, the subject changed. At first, she saw nothing and was about to snap off a witty retort. But once she had closed her eyes once, she saw the paint, white paint on a white background, spread by confident strokes. Another blink dyed the paint into different hues and a fourth created a visible scene.

Sometimes the edges of what Devick observed seemed to wobble, but whenever she looked the movement ceased.

The painting mostly depicted the current situation in heartbreaking detail, with the three women sitting at the table sipping tea. Tatiana’s lovely eyes and the wry humor in Neveah’s half smile, the same expression Devick had seen before on Hungry Eye’s face, were completely reproduced. The swirling mass of Nether had been left out. The other change was Devick herself, not sitting at the table but standing defiantly on a green field.

Gradually, she rediscovered her voice, looking at herself with wonder. She felt vaguely flattered by how lovely she looked, athletic and confident. “...I see me.”

The more she looked, the more nuanced her impression became, however. Expressions seemed to flicker across the painted Devick’s expression in real time, although that should be impossible. The painted figure burned with life, defiant and stubborn, willful and loyal, capricious and cruel, delighted and obsessed. All of her darkness and her light was captured by that figure, so accurately it hurt for Devick to look too closely.

“What else?” Tatiana’s voice prompted. Suddenly, the air seemed to smell faintly of lavender.

A shadow stretched from Devick’s back. The other Devick’s back, not her own, although the skin of her shoulders prickled.

“I see a shadow,” Devick whispered.

Tatiana continued to press. “Does the shadow look like you?”

“No, it’s-” Devick felt strange. The heat from the last gulp of her tea had spread down her throat, filling her entire body. Yet even as nerves and confusion built up in her body, the shadow cracked open and revealed its true form. After freeing itself, it smiled at her. “It’s a white-furred hare. Anthropomorphic. When it smiles, its teeth are needles. It moves like blood spurting out of a wound. When it smiles, its teeth resemble needles. It wears a crimson coat.”

“And in its hand?” Neveah’s voice somehow filled Devick’s head. The words carried resonance and in response to the direction, Devick’s focus shifted to another portion of the hypnotic painting.

“A heavy blade with a single sharpened edge. Curved. A saber. A weapon designed to carve a path forward, no matter who stands in the way.”

The smell of lavender grew overwhelming as Lucretia whispered in Devick ear. “And in your wake? For this, use your ears. Listen, dig deeply.”

Despite Lucretia’s warning to listen deeply, Devick could already hear it. This truth about herself had been lurking below the surface, ready to emerge. She released a slightly breathless laugh. “I hear the clanking of metal on metal. Chains. The rabbit drags chains behind it, each link a connection to the abyss it escaped to get here. A memory, a scar… but also a weapon.”