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roguecharmerOr at least I think we do
We can always use our voice
I thought this to be true
We can live in fear
Extend our selves to love
We can fall below
Or lift our selves above
Fear can stop you loving
Love can stop your fear
Fear can stop you loving
But it's not always that clear
She was just a peddler woman in the marketplace. He wouldn't even have taken note of her but for the bright colors she was wearing. The golden colored jewelry in her ears, around her neck, her wrists, her ankles. It was out of place in this dour village with mud walls and offal in the streets. He remembered a time when humans had more care for themselves than this, or perhaps that was just them and the humans only lived in cleaner surroundings because they made sure of that. People walked with their heads down, barely meeting the eyes of strangers. Hard faces. Lined with care and old earlier than he thought they should be. He walked among them sometimes, mourning for the world they'd lost, lamenting their defeat by the Milesians that had led to this. Today was such a day, though he moved invisibly. These people feared magic, hated it with the poison in their heads. He would not have fit in, and he didn't care to don a disguise this time.
The woman crouched there on the side of the street and the colors of her clothing seemed to shimmer in the sun brightening her drab surroundings. She fascinated him and he drew closer to her, looking at the cards she was dealing in strange patterns. She muttered slightly as she looked them over. A tilt of her head as he stood before her, then crouched down. She looked up frowning, eyes staring through him, unable to pierce the Veil around him. He looked back steadily, but she finally shook her head and looked back down at her cards, shuffling them from hand to hand.
She drew one out. A King with a wand beside him. She laid it on the ground.
"The King comes calling from time to time, leading them, stirring them up, pushing, always pushing. Love him, hate him, he is what he is and it will take much to change him. Some say it ought not be done."
Her voice was light, conversational, younger than her face. People stopped and stared as she spoke, then made the sign to ward off evil and moved away from her.
"This covers him." She lay down a second card, then chuckled. "The Magician. Smooth, charismatic, using his tongue and his guile. Knows what needs to be done, guiding the King inside, but too charming for his own good. Got himself into it, he's got to find the way out."
Midir settled, seating himself across from her, staring, fascinated.
“This crosses him.” A third card placed down. The Moon stared back up at him implacably. She hissed a little, an indrawn breath. “Primal magicks welling around him, pulling at him, seeking to draw him under. He swings between them, caught in emotions and passions. Dark desires, his and others, stealing into his heart and distracting him from what needs to be done. But out of this can come…light. Beauty. Or destruction and madness. He teeters between them.”
Her hand trembled slightly as she drew a fourth card. “This crowns him.” The five of pentacles lay there. She studied it. “He has lost much. He can wallow in it, but he won’t. Hope. The trials seem never ending, but he hopes and he waits. As long as there is life, there is hope and he keeps hoping. That’s good. He should. Despair will drown him.”
She lay the fifth card below the others. “This is beneath him.” He saw her pale as the third of the major cards to show itself was revealed. “The Tower. Everything fell apart. His world. His life. Shaken, broken, torn apart, tossed asunder. Adrift. Destroyed. Everything he held dear, gone. Everything he thought he knew, a lie. His world, gone.”
Midir was the one who drew in his breath sharply this time. He wrapped his arms around his knees, clinging tightly to his own solidity because that was all there was most days. But he couldn’t go. He had to stay. See it through. Had to. There was no doubt now she was talking about him.
She sighed softly, as she lay the sixth card to her left. “This is behind him. What came most recently, but is passing away.” Wands again. Seven of them. “He has been under attack by forces greater than his own. But it is passing. He has fought, he has refused to surrender. He is tired, he has been vulnerable, but the fight is almost over and he has not been beaten.”
She seemed cheered by this, and so did Midir. The seventh card she laid to the right. “This is before him, those things coming to influence him soon.” She frowned again as she studied it. “The eight of swords…” She was muttering now, rapidly, in a language he didn’t follow, before switching back to the common tongue. “He shall be bound. Caught in his own fears. Damned if he does, damned if he doesn’t. Afraid to fight for fear of loss, afraid to stay for fear of being caught…” She glanced back at the seven of wands, and sighed. “Not free then, but captured, further pulled in by his fears. By a loss that is coming. Possibly of his own making still. He must endure the pain, fight through or all will be lost.”
She was coming again, his mind thought. And he would be faced with the choice. Go to her, or not. Take her or not. Lose her or never have her. Which was better, which was worse? He knew that feeling. Her card then. She was coming.
She lay the eighth card to the side. “This is he as he sees himself in this.” She arched her eyebrow at it, and chuckled under her breath. “The King thinks he is the Devil. Obsessive, yet arrogant. Reaching always for what he wants and not caring for what is beyond. Fixated to the loss of all else. Impulsive. Enslaved to his own design and unable to find balance. He is not fond of himself.” There was sadness beneath the soft chuckle, and her worn finger ran down the face of the card as if stroking his cheek.
One more sigh, another caress and she laid a card above it. “This is his house, how others around him affect him.” The four of swords lay there. She nodded a little. “He needs rest. Retreat. A chance to recuperate from the attacks. A chance to heal. Those around him want this for him. Want to give him this. Want to change that view of himself, but he doesn’t see it himself.”
She seemed almost in a hurry now, as anxious as he to see the end. “These are his hopes, and his fears.” A fifth major card lay there and she closed her eyes briefly. “Judgment. Rebirth. Resurrection. But because of choices that must be made. He fears leaving something behind, but knows that he must if he is to be reborn. It is a choice and it is the choice he fears and hopes for. To have the choice. To be strong enough to make it. To move forward into something new. Not just new life, but new hope and strength. To cast off the trappings of the Devil and forge a new road.”
Tears slid down Midir’s face as he listened, but part of him rejected her words. What choice? The fates and fortune and his wife’s curse had taken it all from him. He had no hope for such a choice left.
“It will be hard,” she whispered. “He will falter. He fears to fail. Fears he hasn’t the strength to do what must be done. Fears…so many fears about the future. And so he stagnates.” Her fingers brushed over the eight of swords again. “But he knows that he cannot always do so. He must choose. A final choice.”
Her fingers shook as she laid down the last card. “If he does, if he can, this is what will come…” Midir was afraid to look. He heard her soft gasp, and saw the smile on her face. Her eyes met his and a shock went through them both, as he realized she saw him, and she realized the presence she’d been feeling, the one tying into her cards was really there. Her fingers reached to touch his cheek, worn and rough, sliding over his smooth skin.
“The King comes,” she said softly to herself. “Behold the King.” He took her hand in his kissing it lightly and she giggled softly, a flash of the girl she had once been who dreamed of handsome princes on white horses.
Still holding her hand, he dared to look down. A man and a woman, entwined on the card, hard to tell where one ended and the other began. “The Lovers,” she whispered to him. “He cannot live without her. He must choose her. Always her. Again and again until the universe is done with its trials of them. Always choose hope. Always choose love. And you will have it.”
He stared at the card blindly, fingers clinging to hers until they seemed to dissolve in his hand. He looked back up, and she was gone. His head swung from side to side, looking for her wildly, but she was nowhere to be seen. Not her colors. Not her blanket.
On the ground lay two cards. Judgment and the Lovers. He picked them up, fingers running over their well-worn edges.
Love. Fear. Choice.
He would remember.
OOC
Date: 2006-04-08 12:30 am (UTC)Good story, and a very good tarot reading. :)
Sorry for the comment duplication. I put it on the TM post rather than the pup's journal.
Re: OOC
Date: 2006-04-08 01:47 am (UTC)I spent way, way too much time on it. lol But I'm pleased with the result.
I'm glad you liked it!!
Re: OOC
Date: 2006-04-08 03:43 am (UTC)Re: OOC
Date: 2006-04-08 03:44 am (UTC)