[EP] London Lucida - OTA

[st_ackeddeck]

When the egg meant for Emma had opened to reveal what looked like her entire collection of tarot decks – minus the three she'd chosen to take on her trip to London to visit Sabine, and therefore the only ones she'd had with her at the inn – she'd been tempted to pull them all out at once. But she couldn't use all of them at once, and the anticipation of reconnecting with the various decks was appealing too. So she'd decided to begin each day by pulling one deck from the egg, the one on top or first she touched, as one of her decks for the day. Spread out the enjoyment over the better part of a month, at least. She wasn't sure exactly how many decks she had had. The day she pulled out a Mucha-inspired deck she didn't recognize, and that had a copyright date of 2015, she almost decided not to wait, but really it was more fun knowing there might be surprises still to come.

She couldn't have predicted this surprise. Not without a tarot vision giving her a clue.

Today's deck had still been in its original box with associated book. That was rare. Boxes tended to get crumpled or misplaced, and it was simply easier getting to individual cards when the deck was in a pocket or pouch. And when she'd looked to see what deck it was, it wasn't one she knew. London Lucida, it said on the box, along with artwork that felt familiar but wasn't anything she had seen before. It was the name at the bottom of the box that made her really pause, but she had breakfasts to cook, including her own, so exploring the deck had to wait.

It was afternoon before she took the time. She'd found an empty table in the cafe, had a mug of cafe au lait in reach, and now she sat crosslegged in the booth, the entire deck laid out over the table in order. She wasn't trying to See anything, focusing instead on the cards' art, as she picked up one card at a time, studying it in detail. Some of the paintings were obvious London landmarks: the Eye, the Shard, the Tower Bridge. Others were less obvious locations and people, that could possibly have been from any city with some history, but there was still a very English feel to them.

"I can't..." she trailed off shaking her head, not knowing how to finish the sentence. She couldn't believe it, except it was here, proof. The London Lucida Tarot, by Marie-Ange Colbert.

Comments

[st_unaligned]

"Those are pretty." Bo happened to pass by, but it was hard to miss a bunch of cards laid out on a table. She stopped and leaned over a little to look at them. "Looks like something from Ottawa." She was particularly looking at Tower Bridge.

[st_ackeddeck]

"It's London," Emma said, sort of absently, still more puzzling over the cards. "England." Because there were other places with Londons, including in Canada, although she didn't know enough about its geography to know if it was anywhere near Ottawa.

"And, thanks. They're, um, mine, sort of. Or they would be." She shook her head. Between timey-wimeyness and alternate realities, pronouns and tenses could be difficult. "Some version of me will have designed them."

[st_unaligned]

"Wow. Talk about messing with your mind. Getting something from the future is one thing, but getting something you made from the future." Bo shook her head, almost looking impressed. "Just when you think this place can't get any weirder."

Emma & Bo

[st_ackeddeck]

Emma shrugged. "The future part of it doesn't bother me. I'm used to the future." More comfortable with it than the present sometimes. But it was what this glimpse of the future suggested that was disturbing.

"What will be, is. Sorry. The quirks of being a fortune teller. We're not quite like everybody else."

Re: Emma & Bo

[st_unaligned]

Bo's eyebrows lifted a little. "You're a fortune teller? As in like, Crystal ball, see your future kind? Or is it more like the cryptic riddles of what might come true kind." Bo at least knew enough that Emma wasn't probably of the 'Call Me Now!' kind.

Re: Emma & Bo

[st_ackeddeck]

"As in a mutant with precognitive visions triggered by tarot cards." Emma wasn't going to hide what she was here. She would have thought the tarot cards part would be obvious, given she had an entire deck spread out in front of her, but it made sense Bo wouldn't assume that was the only thing Emma could use. "And if I see it, it's real. I might not interpret it correctly every time, but what I see is true."

Re: Emma & Bo

[st_unaligned]

"So does it work only with tarots? Could you read my palm?" Bo obviously believed her. She slid into a seat on the other side, mostly so it wasn't this awkward standing and talking to someone sitting thing.

Kitty & Emma

[st_alksthroughwalls]

If her eyes still looked a little bloodshot, it was only because no amount of cold-water-rinsing could clear away an entire day of crying on and off. She would've waited another before emerging, but she couldn't. There were things she needed to know.

Which was why she paid very little attention to the deck of cards on the table when she dropped herself into the booth across from Emma. Another day, or maybe after, she would be curious. But for now...

Kitty lay the deep green true jade pendant on the table in a space between cards. Her fingers rested on the leather cord in a way that said she would be reluctant to let go of it.

"That reading we talked about. Would having something that belonged to her help you See?"

Re: Kitty & Emma

[st_ackeddeck]

Kitty had been crying. Or she had allergies currently in overdrive, but Emma was guessing the former. Especially with the necklace and asking about a reading. She began gathering up the London deck as she answered. "Touch psychometry has never been my gift, but you having something to focus on, that connects you to her, it could give a clearer, more specific reading." Emma's mind forming its connection to Kitty's, with the necklace strengthening and focusing her thoughts on the woman it had belonged to. It might help.

"We can try, if you're ready now." She hadn't been before, and Emma could understand that. But she could also see that things had changed, and if she could help, she wanted to.

Re: Kitty & Emma

[st_alksthroughwalls]

"If you wouldn't mind," Kitty said, aware that she was asking Emma for something extremely personal and she'd been in the middle of something. "If it's not a good time, I can wait." Could and would, but everything in how Kitty held herself said that it would be the painful sort of waiting when you couldn't think of anything else.

She gathered the pendant again, fingers curling around it and her heart also clenching like it, too, could grasp the necklace. She just needed to know. She had to find out.

Re: Kitty & Emma

[st_ackeddeck]

"I don't mind." She didn't. Her gifts were meant to help people, and she wasn't like Excalibur to help in the big ways. "Now is better than waiting." Not always maybe, but from what she could see of Kitty, waiting would not be a good thing.

Emma tucked the London deck in her bag and instead pulled out the Robin Wood she'd also brought. The bright colors felt maybe a little cartoony for the mood, but it felt more right than a deck she didn't know that seemed to be focused more on place than people.

She curled a hand over Kitty's holding the necklace and gave a gentle squeeze. "While you shuffle the cards, focus on what you most want to know." Kitty had done this before, but it didn't hurt to remind her. "You can think about it, but feel it too. The more real and more focused you make your desire to know, the better results we'll probably get it."

Re: Kitty & Emma

[st_alksthroughwalls]

Rather than letting go of the necklace, Kitty picked it up and slipped it over her head, leaving both hands free to shuffle. It wasn't at all difficult to focus on Lara, on whether she had survived her return. That question had been burning in Kitty's mind since Lara left, and it was stronger now.

Although she wasn't focusing on it, her love for Lara was strong and her desire to know whether her feelings were returned also pervaded her mind. And once she'd shuffled the cards and offered them back to Emma, she curled her hand around the pendant and...actually, she prayed.

Re: Kitty & Emma

[st_ackeddeck]

The woman who appeared in Emma's mind's eye with the first card of the spread was pretty, about Emma and Kitty's age, and very focused. That was the first thing Emma noticed about her. She continued laying out cards, spiraling out in a cross, not saying anything until she had the complete picture. She didn't want to risk missing something or giving a wrong impression that was contradicted by later cards.

"She's looking for you, a way to get back to you." There was so much love there. For a moment, Emma got distracted, wondering if she should be doing more to try to find a way home, to Pyro. But the cards were insistent, the images in her head pushing out other thoughts, so she focused on Kitty and the woman who'd owned the necklace. And it was her necklace. "She hasn't found it yet, but she's not giving up. Some of her things have already found their way to you.

"I can't see... I don't know if you'll find each other again. But there is room for hope." Her eyes refocused on Kitty and she bit the corner of her lip. "Sorry I couldn't see more."

Emma & Corbie

[st_rikingblueeyes]

"Those are beautiful." Corbie's voice was hushed with awe, as if she somehow thought she might damage the cards by breathing on them too hard. And then she shrank back a little. "Sorry. I didn't mean to snoop."

Even though the cafe was a public space--the entire main building was--there was so little space to have any privacy. Corbie was well used to that, given her bed here was probably bigger than her room at the Brocade Mouse or the Golden Hare, but every once in a while it made the air of the inn feel cagey.

When you could so easily know everybody's business, sometimes you needed to remember to mind your own.

But the cards were lovely. And... they reminded her of Felix's deck.

Re: Emma & Corbie

[st_ackeddeck]

"It's not snooping. And thank you." If Emma had wanted to avoid people completely, she would have waited until she was back in the room to study the deck.

She didn't know Corbie well, but Emma didn't know many people here well. Even in the castle, she'd kept mostly to a small circle of friends and family. But what she did know, Corbie was sweet and friendly in outgoing ways Emma probably never would be, and that she was originally from a world or time closer to the Earth's past.

"Are you familiar with tarot cards?"

Re: Emma & Corbie

[st_rikingblueeyes]

"Not as such," Corbie admitted with a shake of the head, though the layout of the cards looked familiar. "Looks a bit like cards my teacher has, though. He calls 'em the Sibylline, though."

Re: Emma & Corbie

[st_ackeddeck]

"Are they a method of divination too? Sibyl's another word oracle or prophetess where I'm from. I think it was more a title a long time ago." Similarities between worlds could be weird, but Emma had much closer examples of that.

"The word tarot is based on tarocchi, which was a card game that probably got its name from the first card in the deck," Emma picked up the Fool and showed it to Corbie. "Taroch was another word for fool or idiot at the time. So Sibylline is probably a better term for a divination deck."

She cringed, when she realized she'd begun to ramble the way she might have with Sabine. If Sabine hadn't already known the probable etymology of tarot. "Sorry. You probably didn't want to know all of that."

Re: Emma & Corbie

[st_rikingblueeyes]

Prone to rambling herself, it wasn't like Corbie could judge. And it was the sort of thing that she liked learning. "They're usually for divination, yeah. Felix preferred using the symbolism in his spell work, though." She didn't know much about Mavortian von Heber, the man Felix had, more or less, inherited the deck from. But she knew he'd been Norvenan, and their schools of magic were divination-based.

Re: Emma & Corbie

[st_ackeddeck]

"This isn't a very typical deck. I think it's more about showing off London than traditional tarot images." Had Corbie heard of London? Probably. She seemed close to Jackson, from what Emma had noticed, and the captain had lived there before finding himself here.

"But I could show you, if you're interested" Emma began to gather up the cards. Talking about the tarot was a lot easier than thinking too hard about what this deck meant for her. The RWS would probably have been the best deck to show Corbie, if she was curious about tarot, mostly because it was what most people thought of. She had that in her room, also thanks to her Easter egg, but she had one in the same style in her bag.

She pulled out a green cotton drawstring pouch and offered it to Corbie to look at the Robin Wood cards inside if she wanted. "And maybe you could tell me a little more about the deck your teacher uses? I'm curious how similar they might be. If at all. There are lots of oracle cards just in the world I'm from."

Emma & Jag

[st_artandstoke]

Jag had just come to grab a large coffee before heading off to the stables, but when he heard Emma, he looked over and spotted her in a boot, in front of a tarot deck. That didn't sound good, and he thanked Kitty before stepping over. "What's wrong..."

It had been meant as a question, but it trailed off flatly as his gaze focused on the cards. Those cards. His Emma's cards, and the tears rose to his eyes before he could help them.

Re: Emma & Jag

[st_ackeddeck]

Fate had a twisted sense of humor. Or worse. Which was why Emma had been trying to puzzle out a Knight of Wands with a dragon face (Was it supposed to be makeup? A mask?) when Jag walked up.

Oh.

Oh.

"I'm sorry." It wasn't enough. And it was probably the wrong thing to say entirely. But those were the words that slipped out when her heart clenched seeing the hurt on Jag's face, the glisten of tears in his eyes.

Re: Emma & Jag

[st_artandstoke]

Jag couldn't look away from the cards. He'd always been a sucker for punishment, and that was probably why he slid into the booth across from Emma now, still staring at them. He mechanically wiped his cheeks when a couple of tears rolled down, gaze skipping from one card to the next. "It came in the egg?" he asked, voice muffled by grief.

Re: Emma & Jag

[st_ackeddeck]

She nodded, then wasn't sure if he would see. "Along with all my decks from home. I only just realized this one was in there today.

"She really designed a tarot deck? And got it published?" Designing one she could believe. Emma had been working on decks of one kind or another for years. Some finished, but not great. The Muir cards were maybe a third done, but were something she was finally proud of. And these, it was obviously her style, and she could sort of see the connections between the images and the meanings of the cards or their traditional designs. How that other her had gotten from the idea of the card to the images she'd chosen.

Re: Emma & Jag

[st_artandstoke]

"I didn't see it published," Jag answered, and wiped his cheek with the butt of his hand before another tear might splash down on the cards. "It - about a month or after - that's when it was - planned." Getting words out was becoming more difficult, the longer he watched it, and his gaze kept coming back to the Knight of Wands, the dragon make-up Em had drawn so similar to how Ollie had done him up on St Georges Day that one year.

Re: Emma & Jag

[st_ackeddeck]

Emma reached across the table without thinking about it, wanting to curl her hand over his in sympathy? as comfort? Hesitating when she realized what she was doing, she glanced up, searching his eyes and expression for any sign if the touch would be welcome or not.

"Did you want to look at them? Or would you rather I put them away?" She'd do either. Whatever would make it easier, so it hurt less. Not that it wouldn't hurt. Of course any reminders of the alt-Emma he loved would hurt. But this Emma didn't have to add to it.