The Seer's Tower (Bianca)

[Bianca Alia Rivera]

Bianca gave a bitter laugh at Xiulan’s last observation. “When I first started at Castelobruxo and heard about Divination, I wondered why there could be any problems in the magical world. It took me a long time to understand…” …to understand that magic wasn’t the solution to everything, and in many cases even created bigger and worse problems that couldn’t be solved. Her Muggleborn background meant she’d been naïve about magic back at the beginning, and it still sometimes showed if she wasn’t careful. When she’d found out that Seers were real, and that it could be possible to read minds or glimpse the future – well, Bianca was a skeptical sort of person and that was something that would never change. But she’d tried a few palm readings, had asked the big burning questions that had been rattling around in her mind, and then discovered that Divination was as uncertain a magic as everything else.

There was no certainty in the world, which was why Bianca had always been determined to make some for herself. She could provide the black-and-white answers that were missing, if only because that’s what she needed to be able to move forward. But it was obvious that Xiulan’s abilities – and she’d observed those first-hand with the prophecy and all the times they’d sat together since then – were more of a problem than a solution. Xiulan had gotten the wrong sort of attention from the wrong sort of people, and she was still running. That was something that would probably always be the case, despite how badly Bianca wanted to be able to help.

She sighed a little and stepped away from the Pensieve. They were useful in her line of work, but she knew that they were only as reliable as a person’s memory. And anyway, she’d seen enough of the cruel realities that Xiulan had had to face. It seemed like the wrong time to jump into a different memory, even a happier one, like her original intention had been. A glance outside reminded Bianca of the Lunar Festival and why they’d started to discuss this subject in the first place. “Give me a list of things to find and I’ll bring them here,” Bianca suggested, even if her long stint in Law Enforcement gave a ring of authority to her statement. “You can tell me what your family used to do to celebrate, and show off the food.” Food, of course, had become a staple of their friendship and the way they spent time together. But this time Bianca was more interested in the stories, and if she couldn’t convince Xiulan to go to the festival – well, she could still bring some of the festival to her.

xiulan zhou

[xiulan zhou]

January 31, 2027

It was interesting to hear what Bianca had to say about how, when she had started her schooling at Castelobruxo, she hadn't been able to make sense of how the magical world could have problems if Divination existed. Xiulan hadn't gone into her magical education as an expert in Divination, either, and she understood what could have led to that thought process. It made sense. Divination was complex magic, and even many grown adults dismissed it instead of choosing to learn more about it.

Xiulan almost wished that the world really did work in the way that a younger Bianca had expected. It was a more innocent view of magic, and it was one that would have been nice to experience. In reality, however, playing with the past or attempting to control the future came with a great deal of risk, and Xiulan took care not to encourage her clients to do anything drastic because of what she had to tell them. The truth was that magic of any kind could be dangerous when used improperly. Time-Turners existed, for instance, but they weren't perfect. Plenty of witches and wizards had sought ways to cheat death over the course of history, too. Sometimes, trying to solve problems only created more of them.

Being able to See and know everything would have been even more of a burden, though, and Xiulan was sure that it would have taken away what sanity she had left. She tried not to let those thoughts consume her, since they would only cause her to obsess over what she couldn't control.

"Give me a list of things to find," Bianca told her, "and I'll bring them here." She was back on the subject of the Lunar New Year. "You can tell me what your family used to do to celebrate," she continued, "and show off the food."

While Xiulan didn't think that she needed to turn the process into some sort of scavenger hunt for Bianca, she was the one who had offered. "Alright," she answered softly. She felt bad about accepting right away, but she knew that Bianca would continue to insist. Nothing that she wanted or needed—nothing that she would put on her list for Bianca, anyway—would be anything that would be too much of a hassle to find, whether she went into magical or non-magical shops.

Growing up, Xiulan never had the opportunity to share her culture with people who were from drastically different backgrounds from her own. There was no time for show-and-tell or bringing in different homemade recipes at a boarding school where the aim was sheer survival. She didn't know how to make it interesting or creative, and she wanted to apologize to Bianca for that.

Bianca Alia Rivera