Rui wondered why people bothered asking, then.
As if reading her mind, Miss Seventh added, “I try to steer them in the right direction. Away from ills. I am able to see the most likely future based on everything I know. At least, as it relates to human bonds of matrimony. And by the by, men come to me too. Though I tend to be less helpful, for the majority of them ask about trifles, not life-altering commitments.”
“Like what?” Rui was curious to know.
“Like sex,” Seventh Sister enunciated succinctly.
Rui found this conversation baffling.
“Men care about that sort of thing?”
“Oh, my dearest little sister, that’sallthey care about,” Miss Seventh intoned with all due gravity, as if it was one of the most important things she could ever share with Rui.
“They are slaves to fleshly pleasures. Their questions invariably revolve around how to get between a comely girl’s thighs. How to swive the maid that caught their fancy, bemoaning sometimes of love-at-first-sight. The young ones confuse love with lust quite easily. Only once in a blue moon dorealmen ever come to me seeking advice aboutreallove.”
“Hmm,” Rui mused noncommittally.
This was all very…educational, but highly uninteresting and irrelevant to her.
“Women are the physically weaker sex,” Seventh Sister went on, obviously encouraged by her politely attentive audience.
“And in most civilizations, across all of time except most recently, women have few rights and little power. For those who seek to help themselves, armed with knowledge, and in this case, foreknowledge, I am willing to lend a hand.”
She slid a wry look Rui’s way and allowed, “I also do it for the sake of the Universal Balance which we all serve. The wrong bonds between humans, especially between men and women, can sometimes lead to grievous repercussions. Take the Trojan War, for example.”
Seventh Sister huffed a beleaguered sigh.
“Now there’s a woman, and several men, who didn’t heed a word I said to save their lives! Literally.”
Rui merely blinked at her. She was not familiar with the reference.
The other woman shook her head at her ignorance and refocused on the task at hand.
“Watch.”
Suddenly, Rui felt as if she was transported into the cottage with the beautiful maiden in the Mirror Pond, even though she knew she was still kneeling at the water’s edge in the Heavens, with Seventh Sister right beside her.
“Witch, the future you have laid out is not one I am prepared to accept,” the woman said in her songbird voice, music to Rui’s ears.
But there was something about the beautiful face and the beautiful voice that seemed false. As if the surface did not match what lay beneath.
“I prefer the title Mage,” the old lady responded.
Rui glanced at Seventh Sister beside her. She was moving her lips, but the words were coming out of the old woman in the Mirror Pond. In the cottage with the beautiful maiden.
“And just because you don’t like what I tell you, doesn’t mean it’s any less true.”
“But it is only a possible future, is it not?” the maiden persisted. “Tell me how to get the husband I want.”
“That’s not how this works,” the Mage replied, her tone edged with the annoyance that was seeping into Seventh Sister’s flawless features on the other side of the Mirror.
“If you are set against my advice, you’re on your own. Do what you want to get the man you want.”
“But you see things,” the maiden implored. “Youknowthings. I am not meant for the powerless nephew. I am destined to be a Queen. Consort to the mightiest King history has ever witnessed.”
“In these parts, and in this age, anyway,” the old woman muttered.
The maiden either didn’t hear or didn’t care.