Time to see what's in the cards...

[legacydeck]

Who: Clow and Felix
What: Divination and discussion thereof
When: Monday, October 1st
Where: Chimera workrooms
Rating: PG at most.

This was, rather decidedly, not how Clow would have liked to do this. Between not having his own cards to do it with - and that was a deep irony, right there - and the week's events had been, as he had told Felix, inauspicious. But he had the unfortunate sense that the castle was not going to let up - and trying to organize more than one or two mages together for something was generally about as easy as herding cats. Or getting Keroberos and Yue to agree to anything. So it might as well be now, and if he was particularly lucky, he'd know where his own cards were after this. For now, a tarot deck would do - it was one of the methods he'd learned, and they had, in a way, been a precursor to his own cards. So the slow shuffle, his magic pouring through them, was a familiar exercise as he waited for Felix to arrive.

Comments

[legacydeck]

Clow grinned. "If you understand that much of symbology already, you're leagues ahead many of the mages I knew. I find with divination, trying to force conscious order on the symbols is particularly unhelpful - it's better to let your sub-conscious find meaning freely. Intuition, rather than logical thought - which is more difficult for mages of some schools than others."

He gathered up all the cards, and started shuffling them again, letting his magic run through them as he did so. "And yes, I did have a few questions I'd like to ask about this place - and one Howl requested. Did you have any?"

[lord_wizard]

Felix waves the compliment away with a smile. The reasons he was open to the interpretations was mostly as a result of being fortunate enough to encounter people that could teach him to alter his ways of thinking - people like Iosephinus and Thamuris.

"Maybe. Can I ask what you were after, in the likely event that our interests coincide?"

[legacydeck]

"Good point," Clow said, grinning. "I'm hoping to find out a little more about the castle - and if possible, what's happened to our 'losses'. These cards may serve well enough for divining, but they aren't my cards, and I'd feel more comfortable knowing someone wasn't misusing them."

[lord_wizard]

"Fair enough," he said, though he wasn't sure how wise it was to delve into the castle's motivations - he knew that dissuading Clow would be next to useless. It would have, had their positions been reversed. And it was just divination. The answers weren't solid. It might be open enough that it could give them a clue.

"I admit I have quite a few questions, but most of them are based on guesses. Do we ever truly go home? Why does it choose the people that it chooses? Did this world exist before it did, or is it part of the world? Where does it's power come from?"

A wry smile spread on his lips.

"But perhaps we should start easy."

[legacydeck]

Clow chuckled. "I think we'd better, yes - best see if we can get anything at all before starting in on two many specifics." He cut the full deck into three stacks with one hand, and then stacked them back up in a different order.

"Do you have a particular spread you favor, out of curiosity?"

[lord_wizard]

"I've typically employed a nine card spread in a cross, as was taught to me by the original owner of the cards, at least when using the full deck. I actually found it was more useful to me to work with a three card spread with just the trumps, when divining for stronger symbols. Marvortian would probably call me something uncharitable for employing something that simplistic."

He smirked to himself as he watched Clow's hands work.

[legacydeck]

Clow laughed. "That sounds like most of the diviners I know. For people supposedly so open to the patterns of the future, they can be terribly close-minded about the methods used to scry it. The trumps alone are a powerful set of symbols, and three-card spreads are plenty adequate for some sorts of work. If it gives you good results, stick with it."

One final mix, and he dealt one of his usual spreads, a pyramid three cards tall on it's base. He set the remainder of the deck face-up on the table, looking at the bottom card first. He gave it a wry grin, and then flicked it out so Felix could see as well.

"Seven of pentacles, reversed - impatience and suspicion. I suppose I should be glad this deck knows me that well already."

The top of the pyramid came next, revealing the ace of cups. "The background knowledge for our problem - that of the losses. Inflexible wills... that could be commentary on the castle, or on my own stubbornness on not letting the matter drop. Hard to say as it stands."

He skipped the second row, and moved to the third. Four of swords, nine of pentacles, and The Star, inverted. He frowned, and then a vision took him, his eyes rather abruptly seeming to look at nothing at all. It was brief, just a glimpse - his book, sinking into a darkness that seemed nearly living in the way it coiled around it - but a glimpse was enough. When it passed, his lips thinned.

"I don't think I like that one bit."

[lord_wizard]

"That's odd," Felix said, casting a concerned frown at the other wizard over the table.

"It's a conflicting reading, that's for certain. The Four of Swords. Meditation and respite from conflict. A reassurance that we're safe, or a warning, maybe, that this is our time to prepare for a battle. The Nine of Pentacles. Material wealth and comfort. Material reward. The representation for your cards, maybe? But this..."

He prodded the Star card with a finger and felt a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. "An inverted Star. The opposite of a future. There is no hope..."

[legacydeck]

Clow nodded. "I don't think there's any way to interpret the reading positively, even from the cards alone. And... I sometimes get glimpses of precognition, usually in dreams, but occasionally waking. It's rare that it's deliberately triggered while trying to do some other form of divination, but it happened now."

And even just the memory of what he'd seen is enough to spark a twist of fear - a rare feeling for him - and make his displeasure clear on his face. "I saw my cards being swallowed by darkness."

[lord_wizard]

His brows knitted together in sympathetic worry.

"Yes, I see what you mean."

He swept the spread of cards into a pile again, uncomfortable with looking at them all of a sudden.

"I hope that fate is only temporary. For both our sakes."