(no subject)

[fairytalenoir]

[ A handmade cardboard sign goes on the podium: 3 CARD TAROT READING: FINAL CHANCE. The wobbly card table with a Tarot pack waiting goes in front. The Boy Detective himself, pasty white and raccoonishly hollow-eyed as ever, stands beside both table and podium. ]

What do you consider a rite of adulthood?

If you want a reading, an answer is my final price. But —

[ So generous a tone here. ]

— if you only want to answer, I won't force one on you. I mean, I'm practically dying and it might be the best reading of the rest of my life and you'd be wasting the special spiritual insight my hovering on the precipice between worlds grants me, but I won't make you.

Comments

[peratic]

The moment when you consider your parent and realize they are an actual complex human being, not an untouchable, immortal figure of either disappointment or safety. Whether they're present or not. That might not be a proper rite, I don't know.

[ she was about eleven. ]

I'll take a reading, since you're practically dying, and also I haven't had one for a few years.

[ and every reader is different, in her experience. has a different system, different interpretations. ]

[fairytalenoir]

[ He listens with childish attentiveness, little thoughtful tics of the face and hands indicating he's trying to connect her answer to his own experiences. ]

I don't know what or who is in charge of determining what's a proper rite. But it sounds right. It sounds like a rite that helps you pick up the other rites. Whatever they are.

[ What wistfulness leaks into that last sentence, he cuts short by sweeping the deck off the table into his other hand with brisk precision. ]

Thank you! For your answer, and for accepting. It is a kindness to me and I will attempt, now, to make this deck... attuned.

[ His cartoonish magician's manner is not especially serious, but he holds the deck on the palm of his hand between them, frowning at it. The back of the card on top has a fairly plain two-color pattern, something fleur-de-lis looking in blue and white, but it dulls and fades into something else under the Boy's stare. Though the newly formed iconography retains the simple illustrative style, it looks like a cat poised in an open doorway, half in, half out. ]

Now you should pick three cards without looking at them.

[peratic]

A preparatory rite, yeah. That suits.

[ Gisela pays attention to things like aborted wistfulness, but not in a particularly intense kind of way. Similarly, the manner with which she scrutinizes the tarot cards is not wholly glib; while she is genuinely interested in the process, it's not that new to her, either. ]

All right.

[ One by one, she does, deftly enough that she refrains from so much as brushing any of the cards besides the selected three. ]

[fairytalenoir]

Thank you. Okay, and here is your past...

[ A small pause as the Boy attempts to juggle setting the deck aside and keeping the three cards in order. The card he turns over shows a couple facing each other, holding the titular cups, while a lion head on a caduceus hovers between them. The Boy frowns at the card for some reason. Maybe because the lion head has a bloody mouth. ]

The Two of Cups. Usually I see this couple embracing.

[ It depends on the deck, of course. ]

Here this is more like. An alliance, I think. With definite emotional engagement, but not conventional romance, I guess.

[ He sounds uncertain, possibly because as a 15 year old he's not 100% solid on what "conventional romance" really means. ]

The Two of Cups isn't... less important than the Lovers, but it carries slightly different connotations, and in the past position, it makes sense. This alliance was the foundation for everything you became, but it doesn't necessarily exert power over who you continue to become.

[peratic]

[ Her head tilts in assessment, peering at the card. Thoughtful, not giving a lot away, but open to what the cards might have to tell her. There is some truth to that interpretation, Gisela supposes, but as always with tarot, it could mean all sorts of things. Also, God knows if she's right in her suspicions, since her mother is a contender for most ambiguous woman on the planet. ]

Poor old lion. But yes, that sounds credible.

[fairytalenoir]

[ He has to laugh a little at "credible," because that's probably the only compliment Tarot readers want to hear. Otherwise he doesn't seem particularly watchful for her reactions. Like this one time, he really believes the whole ~on the threshold of death~ thing is working for real. ]

Is it a lion? I thought it might be an angel. But I'm not very good at telling angels from other things.

[ He turns over the next card. A winged and robed feminine figure pours water between two cups, standing with one foot on water and one on land. ]

Temperance, for your present. A pretty calm card. She's found balance and security. Not only does she not sink into the water, her hands are steady, capable of sharing waters of abundance with others. And though she's in the middle of everything, she's created and enforces clear boundaries.

Pretty unusual for the type of people who get readings from me, but I suppose that for most people, the whole of life is a journey towards getting your shit together. You already have that.

[whitenoises]

You've certainly got your priorities in place for someone soon-to-be-dead.

[Lumis doesn't put any stock in superstitions, but she does believe in magic. She's been to too many planets to abandon the idea of it, and she understands that sometimes the former precludes the latter. With a faint smile she tips her head as she thinks.]

From what I've seen, it's the loss of something. Life through a kill, or innocence through sex, right? Or maybe the security of your home through travel.

[She spreads open her hands.] What do you think?

[fairytalenoir]

I'm a tireless servant of the community.

[ He might look tired, but he certainly sounds energetic enough. ]

Yes, a lot of human cultures use those things to mark some sort of passage, to the point where they're all metaphors for each other. But apart from sex, I don't think they're usually framed as losses. And probably aren't usually losses in reality.

Still, if you wanted a reading, that's a justifiable enough answer.

[whitenoises]

True enough. I guess 'loss' would be too negative a word. 'Price' would be a better way to put it. You're gaining something in the end.

[She nods to herself.] Amaze me with your insight between two worlds. Like you, I'm dying to see it.

[fairytalenoir]

[ He smiles with all the silly brilliance of teenage intellect when she says "price," but chooses, apparently, not to elaborate. Instead he takes the deck off the table and gives it a quick shuffle; she might notice, or perhaps not, that the backs of the cards all seem to be different colors and patterns. ]

You're very kind. Thank you for your answer. And now, please allow a moment for this deck to become attuned to you.

[ Like with the others, his tone is not altogether serious, but the joke isn't clear, either. He holds the deck between them and the back of the card on top, it changes — the original, eye-searing paisley goes dull, then coalesces back into matte black with a white star inside a red circle. ]

Please pick three cards without looking at them.

[whitenoises]

[Noticing is what she does. The limitations of a body put an interesting lens over the world that she would not have otherwise, and so, with an attenuation suited to her mechanical nature, she drinks in as many sensory inputs as she can. It's an interesting deck for sure. As it shifts its form, she can't help but feel a little curious to its nature.

Lumis takes the number of cards he asks her to, keeping them face-down.]

What next?

[asongwithin]

Making your own decisions, and dealing with the consequences.

Why are you dying, exactly?

[fairytalenoir]

I don't know, I think kids do that all the time. But maybe you're thinking of a certain kind of decision-and-dealing-with-consequence situation. Or you could argue that some kids go through that earlier than they have to, or should have to...

Eh, it's some mystical bullshit that will resolve itself.

[ Teenagerly shrug. ]

[asongwithin]

A certain kind, yeah. Most kids - they make their own choices, but they have a safety net. They have guidance, and support, and someone else holding the longer reigns. Ideally, anyway.

[Her lips quirk.] Mystical, huh? That's always a pain in the butt.

[fairytalenoir]

So it's doing it on your own that's the growing up part.

[ He seems pleased by that. ]

I'm trying to make use of it, though. You don't want your cards read? They don't tell you anything you don't already know, of course.

[asongwithin]

[She's quiet, for a moment, as she considers.]

It's worth a shot.

[fruktansvard]

Pain and the responsibility to reflect upon it.

[ He steps up to the podium because of course he is interested even if it might be utterly incorrect or time wasting. Besides, who is he to deny this youth his last request. ]

[fairytalenoir]

A lot of adulthood rituals involve pain. But they don't always involve reflecting on it. Is that what completes the step over the threshold? Awareness?

[ His neutral inquisitiveness might ring a little false; he is not quite as young as his body is, and knows, or at least has opinions on, the answer to his question. He already has the deck in hand, too, shuffling it with the idle and complete competence of someone who's put a lot of hours into practice. As he shuffles, the backs of the cards, at first glossy black with little ornate stars, accumulate a profusion of reds and oranges until at last it is a black circle set against a backdrop of fiery flowers. ]

[fruktansvard]

I believe so. Our ultimate goal in life is to be the best we can be in whatever way possible or deemed worthy. That task requires growth and growth requires pain and pain will be the tool of defeat if you let it.

[ And nor is he anywhere near the age he seems to be. It's merely that Fabian takes these offers with a grain of salt. Since witchcraft and occult practices became welcomed as opposed to damned the number of true users were greatly outweighed by greedy opportunists and ambiguous minds. Cards were never his method of reading but he can appreciate the art when the art is presented well. ]

[fairytalenoir]

[ His eyes unfocus just noticeably during Fabian's linear progression of reasoning, but not from inattention. It's the opposite, in fact. Strangely shifting deck aside, the Boy tends to use Tarot as a way of reading people rather than anything mystical about them, and this comment is part of the reading, in that sense. ]

I try to take life more organically, myself. The pain with it, or not, as the case may be.

[ He blinks deliberately to refocus, and presents the deck to Fabian. ]

Would you be kind enough to pick three cards? It's really for my sake more than yours.

[fruktansvard]

[ To his understanding, that was the way with most reads. Palm, tea leaves, tarot. Sure, there was mystical properties to them if you knew how to channel it but more often than not they were conduits between the reader and the inquirer. A tool of psychology over anything else. Magic and science were more linked than thought. He himself was a scryer when it came to such matters, but he was also of an old generation. ]

What life have you lead that grants you no pain? [ That causes the smallest of smiles to rouse his lips. He takes the desk and it is with great care and grace that even such a movement as drawing three cards is done. ]

[meanwhileback]

The first time you puke in public. From drinking. Also in public. Do those Tarot cards actually do anything? Because I'm prrrretty sure it's bullshit.

[she sits down at the table anyway. Hi, deal with her now.]

[fairytalenoir]

[ The Boy raises his eyebrows and does one of those card shuffling things you generally only see in cartoons. Aside from being visually ludicrous it's not too far from what stage magicians can do, though. ]

Usually it's total bullshit. But today, like I said, I'm on the threshold of death. I've got a special pass to stare into the [ dramatic voice ] worlds beyond [ and back to normal ] and tell you secret stuff. Mystical bullshit.

Also your answer was awful, so that's what you're gonna get anyway. Go on, pick three cards, any three cards.

[ The Boy presents her with the deck, fanned out. When he was shuffling, the cards had some kind of gold and pink rococo pattern thing on the back; now, spread out before her, the background has gone black and there seems to be a single symbol in white, something that looks maybe like a broken stick. A broken ruler, in fact, but it's probably harder to see with the other cards on top and the Boy's fingers in the way. ]

[meanwhileback]

Excuse you, that was a dead serious answer. I knew I was truly a woman when I woke up on a stranger's lawn with someone else's puke in my hair for the first time. Truly left my childhood behind that morning, that's for fucking sure.

[That's a little creepy! But somehow, so very appropriate for Penelope. She selects three cards.] Good thing I love mystical bullshit. Wow me, kid.

[fairytalenoir]

Oh, well, I can't argue with experience.

[ Not terribly sassy. The Boy isn't naturally so, and besides, he has a job to do. A non-paying job. Okay it's not a job. Whatever he sets the deck aside on the table and takes her three cards. ]

So you know how this works, right? The past, present, future thing? Here we go-o...

[ He turns the first one over. A blindfolded and bound woman with dark hair stands amid a cluster of swords stuck blade first in the ground. She seems to be on a beach, or some setting with a mingling of water and earth. ]

Mystical bullshit tells me that your past, represented by the Eight of Swords, was full of frustration and fear. Like this woman, you were trapped in this situation by your circumstances, by others — and you didn't really fight back, maybe because you didn't know you could. That's what the blindfold means.

However, the card is also defined as a temporary situation. The water is disrupting the earth beneath her feet. Soon she'll realize she's surrounded by weapons, weapons she is free to use. The Eight of Swords is not a strong card. This part of your past doesn't define who you are, though it's had its influence.