multiversallogs | I want my money back.

Entry tags:

I want my money back.

Who: OPEN
What: cheap Tarot card readings
Where: Aspic, on the edge of the bazaar
When: all day!
Notes: Balthazar's permissions, especially important if your character has any supernatural aspects
Warnings: Balthazar is a creep! But he is also pretending to be someone else so he may be less creepy. Who knows.

Divination is an industry in Baedal: seers and those with farsight are fairly commonplace, and if you're looking for reliable, there are better places to go than Aspic's bazaar.

But if you're looking for cheap, or just for entertainment, then this teeny booth is promising. Many of the props Balthazar is using are real; for example, the tent, table, the chair, the deck of Tarot cards, and the sign with the prices ("past/present/future - ₭2") are all real and exactly as they seem. But the person lounging behind the table is covered with illusions. On the outermost surface, which is a thin glamour, it's a young lady with long red hair and dark eyes. She's wearing a heavy, shapeless black dress made of wool with tights, an overcoat, and a bright yellow scarf.

Beneath that layer is a middle-aged woman with fading red hair and tired eyes, in the same clothing. It's a much stronger illusion, more realistic than the pretty top layer, and has its own scent of bitter tea and harsh soap.

Beneath that layer is Balthazar as he often appears, a businessman in a three piece pinstriped suit, perhaps in his mid to late thirties. And beneath that, of course, is his true self, the rotten face of a demon. Anybody able to see that far in may pick up hints of sulfur. He's sure there are people who can see him as he is; some of them hurry past, some of them don't care. Some of them can only see the aging woman. It doesn't much matter to him. He huddles in the scant protection the tent covers, though of course he's never cold, watching those that pass him by, and tapping his fingers next to the worn deck as he waits.

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Shrieky liked the Bazaar. He liked the peculiar array of objects and businesses, he liked the fact that no one looked at him strangely when he considered buying skirts, and he liked that he had finally found a location where it was socially acceptable for people to shout at each other. It was exhilarating! He could quite happily spend an entire day wandering through the stalls without really spending any money or making any enemies, and that was good, since he still hadn't figured out what he actually should be doing with his time yet.

He's more or less done by the time he comes upon the small booth, and it's curiosity more than anything else that draws him toward it. He's seen a number of similar businesses, even quizzed the proprietors about the nature of what it was they did, but when it inevitably becomes obvious that he has no intention of paying the prices which they charge, he's generally been chased away in favor of paying customers.

He sidles towards the tent carefully, leaning down to peer at the red haired woman where she's seated.

"Good day." He glances down at the table, and then back up to her, "If I pay you to look into the future for me, would you please explain how it works?"

Magic, of any variety, is something Jack tends to give a wide berth in Baedal, or as wide a berth as one can without being an idiot. Much of the city runs on magic, and he accepts that and uses it as practicality dictates, but he doesn't seek it out, certainly not for mere entertainment.

The exception being divination. That's still forbidden, yes, more expressly than the rest, but if the stories he's found here are to believed, he has what you'd call a family history with that particular sin, and every so often it seems only appropriate that a son of Saul should seek advice from a seer.

Of course, he hadn't planned to do so today. Today, he's just walking by on his usual route to the spice market, but something about this particular booth catches his attention. He stops, puzzled, and turns his head to peer into the booth – which tells him nothing; as far as he can see, it's just a young woman with a deck of Tarot cards. Huh.

"I haven't seen you here before." Not...that the bazaar isn't a constantly changing tapestry of stalls, he just feels like he might have noticed, somehow. "New location?"

The young lady studies him carefully, unsmiling, and pulls a pack of cigarettes from beneath her scarf — some brand with Chinese characters, though her hand obscures most of the label. She says, very dryly, as she takes one out, "Sure. No extra charge."

She lights up with the unhurried ease of a much older woman, then gestures for Shrieky to sit, and pushes the deck of cards at him. Pointedly, though, she won't say a word until payment.

The young lady is smoking with the cynical detachment of a much older woman, studying Jack for an intense, awkward moment before she responds. Beneath her forthright sizing up, Balthazar sits very still, keeping the glow from his eyes. He shouldn't be surprised. Anything is possible here, it seems. And he could be wrong.

But Jack feels... old school.

"Yes." The lady finally, grudgingly answers. "You'll probably never see me again."

It's a strange, almost challenging tone, passive-aggressive maybe. Coiled like a snake.

Shrieky digs into his pocket to retrieve the two shekels before sitting down (as experience has taught him that sitting completely changes how accessible his pockets become), and pushes them across the table towards the woman.

"Thank you." He smiles widely, and glances down to inspect the cards. He's not entirely certain what it is she wants him to do with them, but she's clearly pushed them towards him, and he's almost certainly supposed to do something. He takes the top card and turns it over in his hands, looking at the image emblazoned across it.

The top card shows a woman seated on a throne, holding a chalice, but the woman gestures for Shrieky to put it back. She gives the deck a quick, careless shuffle, not taking her eyes off him the entire process, then fans the cards out for him with a practiced motion.

"You pick three cards, any three cards from this deck, and you put them —" She hesitates. "— with the pattern side up, so the picture's hidden." Her voice is not unkind. "We'll do one at a time. Past, then present, then future."

Shrieky doesn't really pay any mind to the woman's eyes staying on him as she shuffles the cards, he's far too interested in what she's doing with her hands. He glances up only as she fans out the cars before him, his expression quietly intrigued.

"How does it work? How do they know?" He glances back down towards the cards, bringing his hand up to cradle his jaw thoughtfully. It seemed like an important decision if it was going to determine his future. Then again, it wasn't as if he could pick cards which would do anything about his past or his present, so he grabbed his first two fairly quickly. He frowned, considering his third choice as he studied the remaining cards, "Are they ever wrong?"

The Bazaar reminds her of Braavos. Without the constant smell of water and fish, mayhaps, but the crowds are there. The Bazaar feels like the harbor, and the first time she walked through these streets, Arya felt as if she should be calling out her wares and pushing her cart; cockles, clams, mussels for sale!

But she had nothing to sell, and a great deal to learn. Most of the things here were tempting, but she was conserving her money. That wouldn't be a concern for long; as soon as she found herself an appropriate finger-knife, she wouldn't have to worry about gold. Or rather, copper.

Nymeria was with her today, despite (their admittedly very odd) arguments to the contrary. She'd left the direwolf cooped up for too long recently, and Nymeria had threatened to claw down the door if she wasn't allowed out. So Arya had caved, because it was so easy to give in to Nymeria, as it wasn't to anyone else. The wolf stayed close as she walked through the crowds, occasionally growling in the back of her throat when people pressed too close. Which was frequently.

"I told you you wouldn't like it," she muttered, and pulled her hood up a little higher. In some places the crowd thinned, and Nymeria had room to shake herself from tail to toe. It was mid shake that she froze, turning toward something that had caught her eye. The growl started at the same instant her lip curled over very sharp teeth, and she refused to go any farther. It was only seconds before Arya realized the wolf was not with her, but she still had to push people aside to reach Nymeria again. "What is it? Come on, I told you not to attract attention!" As if a pony sized wolf could avoid that.

It wasn't until Arya caught a whiff of something unpleasant - she was never sure anymore if it was something she smelled or something Nymeria smelled - that she looked up. She blinked hard at the woman, young and old and - she closed her eyes, saw through Nymeria's and almost immediately snapped back into herself. She didn't like what she saw any more than Nymeria did, but unlike the wolf, she felt compelled to walk up to the - the thing behind the booth.

Arya nodded to the cards. "What is this?"

"They don't know," the woman says, implacable. "They are just cards. But if you pick them, then I show you their meaning. You cannot tell me everything about your life. I don't care. But I give you the meaning, you apply it to your life. You see this?"

She taps the first card he picked and turns it over. A hooded man in a dark cloak rides a white horse through a forest.

"This is Death. It shows your past. It does not always mean literal death. It means that you underwent a change, that part of your life ended. You were transformed and now your life begins again."

Shrieky feels a small thrill of excitement as she describes the card, because that does make perfect sense when applied to his life. However, as he leans forward to study the image on the back of the card, a thought occurs.

"But... considering that this city is populated largely by the victims of kidnapping, wouldn't there be an extraordinarily high likelihood of that card describing the past of anyone who came to sit here with you? Since being relocated to a strange city where you know no one certainly counts as undergoing a change and ending a certain part of your life? Does that card come first often?"

Because it would make total sense if it did. He stares at her fixedly, awaiting her answer.

The thing slowly grinds out the cigarette, smiling a corpse's smile, twisted and slimy.

"A game," Balthazar says, spreading the deck over the tabletop in front of Arya. "A diversion. One card tells your past, one your present, one your future."

He ignores the wolf. What could he hope to do against it, if it decided to attack? But wolves don't walk with humans, which means that either they're both wolves, or that the wolf is really a dog at heart. Arya is the one talking for them, so he focuses on her. Without asking her, for it's clear pretending is of no use right now, he nudges one card out of the spread and turns it over: a young man in armor rides a charging horse, sword in hand.

"You see? The Knight of Swords, that is your past. You were daring, you were brave. Impulsive and rash at times, but well-meaning. Your determination could not be shaken. You stood against those who would hurt you and others, a youthful warrior."

She laughs, again not unkindly. "But is it true? It is two shekels' worth of truth, is what it is. Still, you are correct. This could be anybody's card, except for those who are born here. It is not all that common, though. This card, this is major arcana. It means more than your arrival here."

Putting the cigarette back between her lips, she turns over the second card. A disembodied hand holds a leafy stick against a peaceful countryside. "This is your present, the Ace of Wands. It means you are self-reliant, you are rising to the challenge of living in Baedal. Perhaps once you were ruled by impulse, by emotion, but now you are using reason. Whatever you are planning right now, it's a good idea. You will accomplish much."

Shrieky props his elbow on the table, resting his cheek against his hand thoughtfully. Reaching forward, he taps his fingers against the table, in front of the first card, "You said it means transformation?"

His expression is a touch more somber now, as it has finally occurred to him that there is another fairly major change which he's recently undergone. Thinking about it makes him shift his hand from his cheek to the side of his neck, and scrape his nails uncomfortably across the scar tissue which had once been his gills.

His gaze shifts onto the next card with interest as she describes it. It sounds... good. Probably unrealistically optimistic, if he's completely honest. He tilts his head, studying the new card ponderously. "Were you born here?" He asks, declining to give any warning or explanation for the inquiry.

She watches that without comment. Balthazar's ability to tell what people are is occasionally handicapped in Baedal by the sheer variety of entities: humans, mostly humans, xenians, supernatural things, it's a vast sea in which he is but a tiny drop. Shrieky feels mostly human to him, but only mostly.

"No," she answers, because the way he tells it, the truth is almost always more misleading than a lie. Briskly, she turns over the next card. An armored man on a horse carries a long lance, looking forward.

"Your future. The Knight of Wands. It means there's someone in your future — someone unpredictable, with an unusual way of looking at things. He is a good man, a man who inspires with his enthusiasm and gift of language. He can see patterns and opportunities that others cannot. He would be a good ally and friend."

His expression deepens into a frown as she reads his third card, and he leans over the table to study the image closely, as if he'll be able to identify this mysterious man by memorizing the appearance of the knight.

"How will I know who it is? What if I don't recognize him and I..." Accidentally scream in his face. "...Cause him to dislike me somehow?"

Leaning back and taking a long pull on her cigarette, the woman seems to just barely repress a smile.

"You had better be careful then, yes?"

And then she deftly shuffles the card back into the deck, quite unconcerned for Shrieky's memorization attempt.

He frowns, staring a little despondently at the deck into which the card has now vanished.

"So how does it work? How did you learn to do it?"

He glances back up towards the woman holding the cards, not entirely thrilled about her advice (Because how could he be careful? He couldn't just stop shrieking in people's faces.) but still intrigued by what it was she's just done.

"Tarot is a mirror, it is a story told in archetypes and common experiences. Every card has a meaning, and almost every meaning can apply to some aspect of your life."

She finishes the cigarette and extinguishes it on the table, turning her head so the smoke doesn't drift directly into Shrieky's face.

"But you chose the cards, so these are the ones that are most applicable." Pause. "Probably."

Shrieky tilts his head a little further, chewing his lip thoughtfully, as he considers this information. Then he glances down at the cards again, "So, could you apply these same cards to your own life as well?"

He puts his hand to his mouth, then glances up at her and smiles, "If I pay you again, then will you pick three for yourself? We could compare?"

And maybe her cards would apply to him as well! Comparing things was fascinating.

Now she laughs again, the real amusement in it strangely discordant, but it's over quickly.

"I could." She holds out her hand, already dealing herself three random cards seemingly without much thought at all. "But I am the one who knows the meanings, so you'll have to accept my interpretations."

Shrieky squirms forward in his seat, wincing as he tries to jam his hand into his pocket from this new angle. He watches her dealing the cards as he finally catches hold of two more of the coins, and awkwardly extracts them.

"How do you know the meaning of them? Is it in the pictures?"

He puts the shekels on the table and pushes them towards her, so that there's no doubt about whether or not he thinks her interpretations are acceptable.

"Sometimes. They all have names. I'm not going to teach you. There are too many and I don't care." It is, for her dour demeanor, a comparatively cheerful statement. She uses one finger to flip the first card over. A winged man in the sky blows a trumpet while naked people rise from graves in the earth. The woman smiles, more sardonic than pleased.

"This card is Judgment. Do you know of the Bible? The day the world ends? The dead rise up, and other various tiresome things. But for our purposes, it means resurrection. This is my past. I too was reborn, called to a new purpose. It is different from Death because it is not just personal, but speaks of new philosophies, of looking back on the life I lived and coming to a decision. You and I, we both changed. This is a common story for anyone who is not a child."

One thing that Martha really did love about Baedal was the bazaar. The bazaar reminded her of places that she couldn't reach anymore, and it made her feel a familiar sense of possible adventure and the slight (but safe) bit of danger. It wasn't quite Nestin 6 or that place that the Doctor had said was the inspiration for Mos Esley, but it was interesting and fun.

She had a bag over her arm, one that was too small for the amount of things that she'd shoved into it, but it didn't appear to be in danger of spilling. Passing the booth, Martha simply had a 'hell why not moment, and decided to pause and consider having her cards read.

Shrieky leans forward, to stare at her first card with the same intensity as he had done his own. It's an especially beautiful image, he thinks, and what she says about it makes it sound somehow... more important than his first card had been.

"I got death, you got resurrection." He points out, although it may be an inane observation, "My change... apart from coming here, it was what you might describe as being a lateral step, rather than being definitely an improvement. Was yours certainly an improvement?"

He looks back up at her from the card, searching for her response with an earnest expression.

Caught in the middle of taking out a cigarette, the woman behind the table hurriedly finishes lighting up, and gives Martha a slightly sheepish smile before turning her head to let the smoke out somewhere not in Martha's face.

"Hello," she says, but politely refrains from the hard sell. People who stop by impulse generally don't need it. It is, after all, only two shekels.

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