"I know." Hushing laughter as he settled to make space for the cards lay. "The Celtic cross. I'm lazy." And, it was a good general purpose reading. The first he set down... "This is you, where you are now. Eight of pentacles." A man, pleasantly engrossed in work, scribing the same pattern over eight times, of course. The card was inverted. "It is a steady and strong path. Boring, some, but you know it well, and it pleases you to do it well." And after Elizas' reading, he wasn't so quick to discount an inversion!
He could have told her that he was setting the cards out hop-scotch and he'd have gotten the same small smile and nod. No clue. Tarot wasn't her usual form of divination.
Hop-Scotch reading takes too long.
A short series of shallow nods, a twist of her lips, and shoulder shrug signalled her acceptance and relaitve understanding. That, and yes it was spot on. "Why do an'thin' if y're not gonna do it t' the best of y'r ability?" Made total sense to the redneck.
And more bouncing?
"The next is what crosses you, what is helping or hindering..." Murmuring as he drew the next card to lay across the first. Four of swords, a stone effigy of a knight lain over his tomb, four blade, one on the tomb, the others at the windows to the tomb. "Static, stasis -- something is sleeping, something is ... gone." Murmuring as he regarded the card. "Waiting for nothing, waiting... Waiting. But for what?"
There wasn't any nodding or shrugging this time, just a small full-framed jolt. That, really could be a lot of things. "For those who were, and now aren't to return. Or for a dreamer to awaken and finally reach again maybe?" Too many possibilities really. Neither of the two she put forth were comfortable.
"Yes." Simply, to both, lifting his gaze, quiet and somber, to her. And, he waited, it seemed. To see if she was willing to go on.
She was, after a fashion, at least insofar as it pertained to the first offering she'd made. "When I went down, there were sixty in here with me." A light tap to the side of her head. Sharing mental space after an interesting fashion. "Then, they brought me back, an' less than a quarter of them are here still." Forced integration 'killed' more than remaining broken saved. "Or, I need to wake up and start deciding again. Deciding for me instead of for the people around me." Either way, well she'd had one hell of a rough year.
There was a faint dip of a nod, a fainter touch of smile. Then, his gaze lowered, moving to draw the next card. Almost as if she hadn't spoken, but oh, yes. He had heard. "Distant past, the foundation on which you build..."
That one, could be seriously painful.
If anyone noticed, he often transposed positions. It was all in whom he read for. To the right of the cross, he laid down a card. "The World." A complex card. Archangel, Hawk, Lion, Bull, clockwise on the edges. A laurel surrounding a blonde maiden dancing apparently holding two rods. "Strange." Murmured, head tilting. "Do you see the apocalypse there, or do you see the four elements? Completion, or a beginning?"
Avian cant of her head to the right, the wrist thick braid swung free, unnoticed. An auburn brow arched in confusion while she waited for the translation and explanation. That, wasn't reassuring Des. Amethyst eyes locked, unfocused on the card. To see what could be seen. "I see, the elements mostly." Mostly because everything had its place in the world, life and death were opposite sides of the same coin. "A beginning." She sounded a shade unsure but not much.
"They are both the same." Quiet with the meet and hold of her gaze. "You stand upon the shoulders of an embarrassment of possibility and ills. And you are still dancing, yes?"
She flinched, a flicker of withdrawal and tension in the hollow of her throat. "Not as much as I was. Least once every couple of weeks though. It..helps sometimes, when I can't get my head around something on m' own." Without the clarity of dancing in a circle until exhaustion drug you to the ground.
"Future influence. What will affect what is to come." Murmuring, attention lowering back to the deck, and drawing six of cups. Two children, peacefully playing with flowers in large urns. A boy and girl, a pretty and lovely card. Inverted, but, this time, he knew why. His smile was sudden as it was warm, his gaze tilting upwards again, the dimple pressed into his cheek. Not a word, yet.
....She's not about to have children.
She has two already.
Well, not of her own birthing. "So...What influences my future is something I want, but don't like to admit to wanting that I'll have t' work m' ass off for?" Her interpretation of the card and it's inversion yes.
"Yes. And, I think, literally, William and Dorian. --Family."
Her lips moved forming words without breath to carry them 'but I already admitted to wanting them.' She shook her head, smiling brightly at the end of it. "Family, the kind that matters, 's damn important t' me." Like that wasn't completely obvious to anyone who looked. Or paid attention.
He did read lips, sign language as well. A nod dipped, a slight touch of shrug. "What they will be, will be of more importance soon. To guide, and guard, and love. I think, too, what you had said."
No greeting, yet, for Eleanor, though he knew she was there. Focused, yes.
"T' work m' ass off." She nodded in time with the words. Flag of a wave Elle's way for a greeting. Rather absorbed, just not as much as Des was. "To tend what's close t' m' heart." Murmured with broken warmth like liquid gold. "T' do f'r them, t' help them, like m' gramma did f'r me. Only more, 'cause 've got more."
His smile was sweet, for the moment it lasted. A nod more implied than actual. And drawing the next card, yes. "Recent past events." This, below the cross. Funny she should mention her Gramma. High Priestess was set beneath. A woman in ceremonial and simple robes throned between black and white pillars, palms. A headdress of the triumvirate moon, three pomegranates overhead. A scroll in her arms. "What you have decided, it was true." He offered. Because... Well. If she wanted more, she might stuff a sock in his mouth.
Recent past, is a very subjective term isn't it? Head tipped to the right, she'd decided a lot of things that, that might apply to. Obviously, she was missing something. "Need a better map Des." She wouldn't stuff a sock in his mouth. Really. She didn't have one handy at any rate.
"I think, this was an influence, yes, your grandmother." He agreed with a hushing of laughter. "But she is self reliance, objectivity, the taming of emotion, platonic relations." Though, as she asked, he did reach for a second card to clarify, opening the deck to the middle for it.
...And promptly started to laugh as he laid the Queen of Pentacles over the Priestess, the sound clear and alien, joyful, for its few moments.
She didn't like that map, at least that would be what the sharp downward tug of her lips at their corners might have meant. "I really do hope that that doesn' mean 'm gonna hook up with a dark haired woman anytime soon." Not that she preferred the romantic company of women. But, well she had to make a joke to go along with the youth's laughter.
"No, no. This is past. It's because Miss Ella was sending you love notes." Lying, yes, but he took another card. "I think, there are deep connections to your grandmother, perhaps you haven't drawn out yet." Picking on Ella, well, because she was there.
And there was only a lift of brow when he set down the Tower over both ladies. A stone tower, struck by lightning, a crown and two figures falling from it.
Shattering glass and the earthy epithet drew her attention with a flick of amethyst to the man digging through broken glass. At least for a moment. No comment however. That, didn't look good. "Who else 'm I gonna take down with me when I crash an' burn this time?" At least, that was the way the card looked from her view point. The rest, well she'd drag it back out in a moment most definitely.
"You already did."
"This is recent past. Complete, sudden change. Severing of ties. Abandonment. Adversity." Quiet and calm, a fanning of fingers to indicate position and the card, itself.
"You died. You were broken. You turned away, you were turned away."
The redneck perched on the railing flashed a quick, lightly warm smile in his direction -Solomones- that is. An attempt to convey the feeling of 'no worries.' And, Des had all of her attention now. A curious thing for some to be under that oddly warm amethyst gaze on the rare occasions that she actually focused completely. It wasn't something she did often. "Oh." Well, at least in theory, she wouldn't drag anyone along for the ride if she burned out and broke again in the future. Let her keep her theories. "That, doesn' sound like Elias and I. The, pattern's off for that. Devin or Cooper maybe." They'd both made ill-timed bids when she hadn't been ready for either of them. Or, well someone and something else entirely. The events at the tail end of January sprang to mind.
"Recent." He simply murmured, a lift of thin shoulders. "It is not always a violent thing. It can be as simple as the changing of an opinion."
Pale lids shuttered her eyes once while she canted her head to the right. "Oh." Apparently she really liked that syllable, a lot. It might help if she could wrap her mind around just how recent, recent really was. The filter of the cigarette she'd forgotten sent spinning to the lawn without looking, she brought her bottle of Pepsi up for a long swallow. "An opinion I had, that I changed, an' fucked someone else up in the process." There were two choices there, depending entirely on the level of fucking up she'd done. Flag of a chiming wave for the bruiser as a welcome, that action's tail end caught the guy playing peek-a-boo as well. If she weren't damn caught up in the card reading she'd finally gotten around to asking for, she'd actually speak to both.
"Above that, your goals. What you are heading for." Murmured, moving to place a card, finally, over the cross. He... winced faintly as he lay the card down. If there was ever a self-explanitory card, it was the ten of swords. A prone figure, with ten swords planted in its back. "...I ...rather doubt this is a goal. ..Unless there is someone you're really pissed off at." Well. It was a thought.
In the face of the bruiser's smile, something sun bright and flooded with easy and light warmth flared in return. She sighed quietly, shoulders bowing in self-defeat. " 'S an end right? An' not an easy one? Taken down from behind, by the ones I trust?" Her interpretations, well they can be a bit, fatalistic.
Or, paranoid, one of the two.
"No. It's called the back-stabbers card." A faint flickering of smile. "Betrayal. Not an end."
Faint trace of a smile. "Marks me as the back-stabber? Since 's m' readin', 's what 'm assumin'."
"Nightmares, paranoia, but -- oh, no. Well, in this position, it can mean as much, yes. But usually, it is something done to the questioner."
Well nightmares and paranoia she had in spades really. "Hunh." That, really was all she had to say about that.
He, well, was not terrifically concerned of it, himself. He set down the next card, to the right of the completed cross. "This is your question... Represents it." Seven of swords. A man stealing blades from a battle field.
She was supposed to have a question to ask? Thorn really should have paid better attention to all the other readings Des had done lately. She might have been prepared. "Someone else's leavings?"
"Yes. It does seem there will be a betrayal against you." A faint shrug, really. "Perhaps. To be stolen from. Taken from." He often took what was most confusing or serious in the main part of the reading for question.
For some reason, the question she herself just asked wasn't restful while looking at the card. "I was gonna ask if I'd have something for my heart." Not family, not property. "Guess I've got m'answer." Quiet, hushed laughter throbbed in the base of her throat. A crow's song of self-mockery. The chiming wave she flagged after Elle was an odd counterpoint.
"I get this one a lot there, yes." He agreed, a wry tilt of smile. "Don't worry. There's more." The next card up, above that. "The factors around it..." Well. He paused, but laid the card down without a word. Knight of Swords. A man on horseback, riding headlong in armor on a gray plain, sword drawn, a battlecry seeming on his lips.
And he moved on. Third card over. "Inner emotion. Two of Pentacles." A man pleasantly juggling two coins before the ocean. "You don't know. You have much to juggle and it is not balanced yet. But, it's fun to try."
She fell to fingering the plain ring that crowded one of the belled ones on her right hand again. It took much to not make the offer to Carter verbal again. Her eyes snapped to the guy with the notebook again, her turn to apologize through expressions. She disliked being rude to people she didn't know if they weren't complete asses. "I'm confused over someone who wants t' rescue me?" The words 'rescue me' were nearly spat out. She didn't like the thought of someone saving her ass, unless she seriously needed it.
"You'll know when his fine white charger shows up. "
She snorted wry amusement. "No one wants to rescue me Des. An', I'm the only one who really can anyway. I think."
"I think as well. Damsels are boring." Soft humor, and a slight shake of his head. "But, that one will be there for you. When you do need him."
"Very boring, broken winged little birds either get crushed under foot, 'r wind up married t' the man of their dreams." Sarcasm was such a fun one to play with oneself. " I can't argue with the cards kitten." Well, she could. But Thorn could argue with a rock if she needed/wanted to get her point across. "We'll see what happens when it happens." Sunnily smiling yes, dimples flanked the curve of plump lips.
"And outcomes. These aren't forever, it's usually just within a few months, if that." He added in a murmur, and an amused tick of glance. "I argue with them all the time."
Last card, he set on top, Ace of Swords. Really, quite a lot of blades, but considering all the sharp things Thorn favored, it was of no great surprise. A single drawn blade in a shaft of sun, wreathed with a laurel. "Success."
"Well, s' long's 'm not gonna wind up startin' a Save Thorn trend, life's all good." She was plainly teasing. "Carter, still think y' might wanna have a healer look at'cha." A quiet aside to the bruiser for tilting her head for the final card Des turned. Just a minute while she sorted through the other cards and their meanings to put them in order properly in her mind.
He waved a hand over the spread of cards with a faint shrug. "You will continue. And though guarded, you will prosper. Now you can ask if someone's going to ask you out on a date." Impish, briefly.
Des, just derailed her thoughtful ordering thanks much. The redneck crowed with full throated, bright laughter bred by his comment about a date.
"Ask." A sudden sunshine of smile, dimpled and warm, kittenish as his eye closed. The deck he took into his hand, fingers curled around it.
"When it's all said an' done, will I be happy?"
The deck opened, and he simply held up the card without looking. The Empress, a woman crowned in stars, alert, but at her leisure, seated in wheat and flowers.
How was that for a pain in the ass question to ask? Chime of a flagged wave Jarsyk's way, her attention centered almost completely on Des and the cards he'd been laying out. "As long as I'm willing to work for it, to work at it, to do what I need t' do t' earn it, yes?"
"Yes. And -- to accept it." That, more seriously, yes, the brow arched, his gaze steady. "To take it when you have set it before you."
Oh listen, sounds like sparky's back. "So, the things that've made me what I am have shaped me a bit too much, or not enough depending on what I'm tryin' t' do. The choices I've made, once I stepped back and thought about them they way I should have from the beginning, were the right ones. I'll be betrayed and have something stolen from me." And well that would be where her train of orderly thoughts petered out almost completely. Cue the confused bunny look.
"You second guess yourself very much, in matters of the heart and head. Not so much of the hand." Murmuring, thoughtful, in the gaze over the cards. "The quiet lay you are in now will not last, and will break apart to find that you're probably depressed, disgusted. And you'll get rescued, and you'll hate it and love it." He, well, he had to flare a smile to that. 'And, you will go on, strong, tempered steel."
"But you will have to believe you are worth that, yes?"
"You stab yourself in the back a lot, you know." She must be double jointed. But there was a real note of aggravation to his voice.
Mouth opened, mouth closed, no words though. At least, not right off the bat. Instead she took a moment to find, pull, and light a cigarette. "Well hell's bells." The darkly amused murmur was wreathed in smoke. "Dude, I sound like a chick." Blinkblink, head tilt, brow quirk. "The second guessin' thing? Or, som'thin' else?"
"The second guessing. No. You're just human." A soft laughter, his head shaking faintly. And then, finally, his head turned. Finally realizing, yes, more people had arrived -- and Ray was bailing. "Oh. Good evening.."
"Guess I should stop doin' that then." Much easier said than done, second guessing herself was as much a part of her make up as tending the people she cared about. Or, more precisely, the ones she thought were worth their skin.
"...I say that to me, all the time. I never listen. "
"Oh. And a date, for sissy?" He crooned it to the cards, wicked little imp dancing in the remaining eye, and again, he didn't bother looking, simply opened the deck to thrust the card out at Thorn: King of Cups. Looked ever so much like a certain hairball of their acquaintance, no?
...."I've already been on a date with Zeth." So neener. Right down to the prissy little facial expression too.
(This and the next are from logs of actual play, thanks to Des' player for this, and all the great 'play! Posted with permission, mildly edited.)
He could have told her that he was setting the cards out hop-scotch and he'd have gotten the same small smile and nod. No clue. Tarot wasn't her usual form of divination.
Hop-Scotch reading takes too long.
A short series of shallow nods, a twist of her lips, and shoulder shrug signalled her acceptance and relaitve understanding. That, and yes it was spot on. "Why do an'thin' if y're not gonna do it t' the best of y'r ability?" Made total sense to the redneck.
And more bouncing?
"The next is what crosses you, what is helping or hindering..." Murmuring as he drew the next card to lay across the first. Four of swords, a stone effigy of a knight lain over his tomb, four blade, one on the tomb, the others at the windows to the tomb. "Static, stasis -- something is sleeping, something is ... gone." Murmuring as he regarded the card. "Waiting for nothing, waiting... Waiting. But for what?"
There wasn't any nodding or shrugging this time, just a small full-framed jolt. That, really could be a lot of things. "For those who were, and now aren't to return. Or for a dreamer to awaken and finally reach again maybe?" Too many possibilities really. Neither of the two she put forth were comfortable.
"Yes." Simply, to both, lifting his gaze, quiet and somber, to her. And, he waited, it seemed. To see if she was willing to go on.
She was, after a fashion, at least insofar as it pertained to the first offering she'd made. "When I went down, there were sixty in here with me." A light tap to the side of her head. Sharing mental space after an interesting fashion. "Then, they brought me back, an' less than a quarter of them are here still." Forced integration 'killed' more than remaining broken saved. "Or, I need to wake up and start deciding again. Deciding for me instead of for the people around me." Either way, well she'd had one hell of a rough year.
There was a faint dip of a nod, a fainter touch of smile. Then, his gaze lowered, moving to draw the next card. Almost as if she hadn't spoken, but oh, yes. He had heard. "Distant past, the foundation on which you build..."
That one, could be seriously painful.
If anyone noticed, he often transposed positions. It was all in whom he read for. To the right of the cross, he laid down a card. "The World." A complex card. Archangel, Hawk, Lion, Bull, clockwise on the edges. A laurel surrounding a blonde maiden dancing apparently holding two rods. "Strange." Murmured, head tilting. "Do you see the apocalypse there, or do you see the four elements? Completion, or a beginning?"
Avian cant of her head to the right, the wrist thick braid swung free, unnoticed. An auburn brow arched in confusion while she waited for the translation and explanation. That, wasn't reassuring Des. Amethyst eyes locked, unfocused on the card. To see what could be seen. "I see, the elements mostly." Mostly because everything had its place in the world, life and death were opposite sides of the same coin. "A beginning." She sounded a shade unsure but not much.
"They are both the same." Quiet with the meet and hold of her gaze. "You stand upon the shoulders of an embarrassment of possibility and ills. And you are still dancing, yes?"
She flinched, a flicker of withdrawal and tension in the hollow of her throat. "Not as much as I was. Least once every couple of weeks though. It..helps sometimes, when I can't get my head around something on m' own." Without the clarity of dancing in a circle until exhaustion drug you to the ground.
"Future influence. What will affect what is to come." Murmuring, attention lowering back to the deck, and drawing six of cups. Two children, peacefully playing with flowers in large urns. A boy and girl, a pretty and lovely card. Inverted, but, this time, he knew why. His smile was sudden as it was warm, his gaze tilting upwards again, the dimple pressed into his cheek. Not a word, yet.
....She's not about to have children.
She has two already.
Well, not of her own birthing. "So...What influences my future is something I want, but don't like to admit to wanting that I'll have t' work m' ass off for?" Her interpretation of the card and it's inversion yes.
"Yes. And, I think, literally, William and Dorian. --Family."
Her lips moved forming words without breath to carry them 'but I already admitted to wanting them.' She shook her head, smiling brightly at the end of it. "Family, the kind that matters, 's damn important t' me." Like that wasn't completely obvious to anyone who looked. Or paid attention.
He did read lips, sign language as well. A nod dipped, a slight touch of shrug. "What they will be, will be of more importance soon. To guide, and guard, and love. I think, too, what you had said."
No greeting, yet, for Eleanor, though he knew she was there. Focused, yes.
"T' work m' ass off." She nodded in time with the words. Flag of a wave Elle's way for a greeting. Rather absorbed, just not as much as Des was. "To tend what's close t' m' heart." Murmured with broken warmth like liquid gold. "T' do f'r them, t' help them, like m' gramma did f'r me. Only more, 'cause 've got more."
His smile was sweet, for the moment it lasted. A nod more implied than actual. And drawing the next card, yes. "Recent past events." This, below the cross. Funny she should mention her Gramma. High Priestess was set beneath. A woman in ceremonial and simple robes throned between black and white pillars, palms. A headdress of the triumvirate moon, three pomegranates overhead. A scroll in her arms. "What you have decided, it was true." He offered. Because... Well. If she wanted more, she might stuff a sock in his mouth.
Recent past, is a very subjective term isn't it? Head tipped to the right, she'd decided a lot of things that, that might apply to. Obviously, she was missing something. "Need a better map Des." She wouldn't stuff a sock in his mouth. Really. She didn't have one handy at any rate.
"I think, this was an influence, yes, your grandmother." He agreed with a hushing of laughter. "But she is self reliance, objectivity, the taming of emotion, platonic relations." Though, as she asked, he did reach for a second card to clarify, opening the deck to the middle for it.
...And promptly started to laugh as he laid the Queen of Pentacles over the Priestess, the sound clear and alien, joyful, for its few moments.
She didn't like that map, at least that would be what the sharp downward tug of her lips at their corners might have meant. "I really do hope that that doesn' mean 'm gonna hook up with a dark haired woman anytime soon." Not that she preferred the romantic company of women. But, well she had to make a joke to go along with the youth's laughter.
"No, no. This is past. It's because Miss Ella was sending you love notes." Lying, yes, but he took another card. "I think, there are deep connections to your grandmother, perhaps you haven't drawn out yet." Picking on Ella, well, because she was there.
And there was only a lift of brow when he set down the Tower over both ladies. A stone tower, struck by lightning, a crown and two figures falling from it.
Shattering glass and the earthy epithet drew her attention with a flick of amethyst to the man digging through broken glass. At least for a moment. No comment however. That, didn't look good. "Who else 'm I gonna take down with me when I crash an' burn this time?" At least, that was the way the card looked from her view point. The rest, well she'd drag it back out in a moment most definitely.
"You already did."
"This is recent past. Complete, sudden change. Severing of ties. Abandonment. Adversity." Quiet and calm, a fanning of fingers to indicate position and the card, itself.
"You died. You were broken. You turned away, you were turned away."
The redneck perched on the railing flashed a quick, lightly warm smile in his direction -Solomones- that is. An attempt to convey the feeling of 'no worries.' And, Des had all of her attention now. A curious thing for some to be under that oddly warm amethyst gaze on the rare occasions that she actually focused completely. It wasn't something she did often. "Oh." Well, at least in theory, she wouldn't drag anyone along for the ride if she burned out and broke again in the future. Let her keep her theories. "That, doesn' sound like Elias and I. The, pattern's off for that. Devin or Cooper maybe." They'd both made ill-timed bids when she hadn't been ready for either of them. Or, well someone and something else entirely. The events at the tail end of January sprang to mind.
"Recent." He simply murmured, a lift of thin shoulders. "It is not always a violent thing. It can be as simple as the changing of an opinion."
Pale lids shuttered her eyes once while she canted her head to the right. "Oh." Apparently she really liked that syllable, a lot. It might help if she could wrap her mind around just how recent, recent really was. The filter of the cigarette she'd forgotten sent spinning to the lawn without looking, she brought her bottle of Pepsi up for a long swallow. "An opinion I had, that I changed, an' fucked someone else up in the process." There were two choices there, depending entirely on the level of fucking up she'd done. Flag of a chiming wave for the bruiser as a welcome, that action's tail end caught the guy playing peek-a-boo as well. If she weren't damn caught up in the card reading she'd finally gotten around to asking for, she'd actually speak to both.
"Above that, your goals. What you are heading for." Murmured, moving to place a card, finally, over the cross. He... winced faintly as he lay the card down. If there was ever a self-explanitory card, it was the ten of swords. A prone figure, with ten swords planted in its back. "...I ...rather doubt this is a goal. ..Unless there is someone you're really pissed off at." Well. It was a thought.
In the face of the bruiser's smile, something sun bright and flooded with easy and light warmth flared in return. She sighed quietly, shoulders bowing in self-defeat. " 'S an end right? An' not an easy one? Taken down from behind, by the ones I trust?" Her interpretations, well they can be a bit, fatalistic.
Or, paranoid, one of the two.
"No. It's called the back-stabbers card." A faint flickering of smile. "Betrayal. Not an end."
Faint trace of a smile. "Marks me as the back-stabber? Since 's m' readin', 's what 'm assumin'."
"Nightmares, paranoia, but -- oh, no. Well, in this position, it can mean as much, yes. But usually, it is something done to the questioner."
Well nightmares and paranoia she had in spades really. "Hunh." That, really was all she had to say about that.
He, well, was not terrifically concerned of it, himself. He set down the next card, to the right of the completed cross. "This is your question... Represents it." Seven of swords. A man stealing blades from a battle field.
She was supposed to have a question to ask? Thorn really should have paid better attention to all the other readings Des had done lately. She might have been prepared. "Someone else's leavings?"
"Yes. It does seem there will be a betrayal against you." A faint shrug, really. "Perhaps. To be stolen from. Taken from." He often took what was most confusing or serious in the main part of the reading for question.
For some reason, the question she herself just asked wasn't restful while looking at the card. "I was gonna ask if I'd have something for my heart." Not family, not property. "Guess I've got m'answer." Quiet, hushed laughter throbbed in the base of her throat. A crow's song of self-mockery. The chiming wave she flagged after Elle was an odd counterpoint.
"I get this one a lot there, yes." He agreed, a wry tilt of smile. "Don't worry. There's more." The next card up, above that. "The factors around it..." Well. He paused, but laid the card down without a word. Knight of Swords. A man on horseback, riding headlong in armor on a gray plain, sword drawn, a battlecry seeming on his lips.
And he moved on. Third card over. "Inner emotion. Two of Pentacles." A man pleasantly juggling two coins before the ocean. "You don't know. You have much to juggle and it is not balanced yet. But, it's fun to try."
She fell to fingering the plain ring that crowded one of the belled ones on her right hand again. It took much to not make the offer to Carter verbal again. Her eyes snapped to the guy with the notebook again, her turn to apologize through expressions. She disliked being rude to people she didn't know if they weren't complete asses. "I'm confused over someone who wants t' rescue me?" The words 'rescue me' were nearly spat out. She didn't like the thought of someone saving her ass, unless she seriously needed it.
"You'll know when his fine white charger shows up. "
She snorted wry amusement. "No one wants to rescue me Des. An', I'm the only one who really can anyway. I think."
"I think as well. Damsels are boring." Soft humor, and a slight shake of his head. "But, that one will be there for you. When you do need him."
"Very boring, broken winged little birds either get crushed under foot, 'r wind up married t' the man of their dreams." Sarcasm was such a fun one to play with oneself. " I can't argue with the cards kitten." Well, she could. But Thorn could argue with a rock if she needed/wanted to get her point across. "We'll see what happens when it happens." Sunnily smiling yes, dimples flanked the curve of plump lips.
"And outcomes. These aren't forever, it's usually just within a few months, if that." He added in a murmur, and an amused tick of glance. "I argue with them all the time."
Last card, he set on top, Ace of Swords. Really, quite a lot of blades, but considering all the sharp things Thorn favored, it was of no great surprise. A single drawn blade in a shaft of sun, wreathed with a laurel. "Success."
"Well, s' long's 'm not gonna wind up startin' a Save Thorn trend, life's all good." She was plainly teasing. "Carter, still think y' might wanna have a healer look at'cha." A quiet aside to the bruiser for tilting her head for the final card Des turned. Just a minute while she sorted through the other cards and their meanings to put them in order properly in her mind.
He waved a hand over the spread of cards with a faint shrug. "You will continue. And though guarded, you will prosper. Now you can ask if someone's going to ask you out on a date." Impish, briefly.
Des, just derailed her thoughtful ordering thanks much. The redneck crowed with full throated, bright laughter bred by his comment about a date.
"Ask." A sudden sunshine of smile, dimpled and warm, kittenish as his eye closed. The deck he took into his hand, fingers curled around it.
"When it's all said an' done, will I be happy?"
The deck opened, and he simply held up the card without looking. The Empress, a woman crowned in stars, alert, but at her leisure, seated in wheat and flowers.
How was that for a pain in the ass question to ask? Chime of a flagged wave Jarsyk's way, her attention centered almost completely on Des and the cards he'd been laying out. "As long as I'm willing to work for it, to work at it, to do what I need t' do t' earn it, yes?"
"Yes. And -- to accept it." That, more seriously, yes, the brow arched, his gaze steady. "To take it when you have set it before you."
Oh listen, sounds like sparky's back. "So, the things that've made me what I am have shaped me a bit too much, or not enough depending on what I'm tryin' t' do. The choices I've made, once I stepped back and thought about them they way I should have from the beginning, were the right ones. I'll be betrayed and have something stolen from me." And well that would be where her train of orderly thoughts petered out almost completely. Cue the confused bunny look.
"You second guess yourself very much, in matters of the heart and head. Not so much of the hand." Murmuring, thoughtful, in the gaze over the cards. "The quiet lay you are in now will not last, and will break apart to find that you're probably depressed, disgusted. And you'll get rescued, and you'll hate it and love it." He, well, he had to flare a smile to that. 'And, you will go on, strong, tempered steel."
"But you will have to believe you are worth that, yes?"
"You stab yourself in the back a lot, you know." She must be double jointed. But there was a real note of aggravation to his voice.
Mouth opened, mouth closed, no words though. At least, not right off the bat. Instead she took a moment to find, pull, and light a cigarette. "Well hell's bells." The darkly amused murmur was wreathed in smoke. "Dude, I sound like a chick." Blinkblink, head tilt, brow quirk. "The second guessin' thing? Or, som'thin' else?"
"The second guessing. No. You're just human." A soft laughter, his head shaking faintly. And then, finally, his head turned. Finally realizing, yes, more people had arrived -- and Ray was bailing. "Oh. Good evening.."
"Guess I should stop doin' that then." Much easier said than done, second guessing herself was as much a part of her make up as tending the people she cared about. Or, more precisely, the ones she thought were worth their skin.
"...I say that to me, all the time. I never listen. "
"Oh. And a date, for sissy?" He crooned it to the cards, wicked little imp dancing in the remaining eye, and again, he didn't bother looking, simply opened the deck to thrust the card out at Thorn: King of Cups. Looked ever so much like a certain hairball of their acquaintance, no?
...."I've already been on a date with Zeth." So neener. Right down to the prissy little facial expression too.
(This and the next are from logs of actual play, thanks to Des' player for this, and all the great 'play! Posted with permission, mildly edited.)