Tarot Reading

[Noth Squadron]

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Tonight, it was Four's turn to wait. He finally had a moment to take a good look at the room he was in. The carvings on the walls and floors consisted of geometry and strange runes, exclusively. Pentagrams in circles, interlaced circles forming other shapes, various stars made from tessellations of other shapes. All covered in runes from some language that's never been seen.

Then there was the stairway behind the table. The darkness in it seemed to froth, like an angry black fog trying to crawl up the stairs to him. A deep darkness that yearned to sit at the table and play the game with them. Four squinted at it. He was beginning to believe that just as he stared into the abyss, trying to see what it was, the abyss stared into him, trying to see who he was.

His thoughts were interrupted when Strauss poked his head out of the dark, walking up the stairs. He had some scratches on his body, and the baggy joggers he wore had some small tears in them. Four wondered who the devil could be getting in a scrap with, but now that he was here, they had a game to play. "Hope that hurts."

Strauss didn't even try to hide behind a single voice this time. "Any good artist is willing to bleed for his work, oh antagonist mine."
"I thought you were a gardener."
"Is a garden not art? Are flowers not masterpieces of nature? Are seeds not my paints? Trowels my brushes? Shears my erasers?"
"It's a tragedy that you have a brain."
"It's a blessing that you don't."

Strauss looked at the table before them. In his absence, Four had played five more Five of Swords, bringing his count to seven. They flanked his mysterious Major Arcana, the Blades. Four still had little idea what it all meant, but he was certain he was issuing a challenge. One that Strauss would have to meet, eventually. Strauss sat down, and played a card. The King of Coins. Four met Strauss's eyes the same way he'd stared into the darkness he'd risen from: with defiance. "Going to show me a new Arcana... Kendrick?"

He was right. In their joint absence, Four had two cards in hand. He was hesitant to play the newest of them, but the other one was one he'd intended to play since he first got it. "My name is Four", he stated as he played a new card. It's title was "Ascent", and on it was the ornate image of a phoenix flying upwards towards a castle in the clouds, flames from it's wings laying waste to a castle on the ground.

Strauss studied it for a moment. He seemed to be having fun, but he always seemed to be having fun. He was usually lying. He was always lying. Four was certain that if he cornered him he'd be able to kill him. Not even the devil is really immortal. Another Five of Swords appeared in his hands. "Incredible. Truly incredible. Have I ever told you what it takes to become a god?"
The Gardener smiled. Perhaps this chaotic, unruly miscreant could stumble his way into a state of being many Nomads try to gain, but few succeed.
"I don't need to know", Four fired back. He was certain he'd caused some kind of problem for Strauss. He remembered a line from that song from Houston. "He was in a bind 'cause he was way behind, and he was willing to make a deal." He'd reached the point where the devil was going to make him a deal. He was winning, he was certain of it.
The Gardener didn't concern himself with the sniping remark. This young man's distrust was just as useful a tool as anyone else's trust.
"As expected. That's what that Blades card of yours is, after all. An assertion that "might makes right", yes, but something more as well. A claim that your strength will trump mine. A thesis that, at the very end of it all, only the strongest survives. A recognition that iron sharpens iron. And hence, all those Five of Swords. You've been fighting. Winning. Losing. Killing. All in the effort to strengthen yourself enough to challenge me. Is that so?"
"If you get that, then why don't you just turn around and die right now?"
"Because persistence isn't enough to win. Your end goal may be to kill me, but if you win this game, you become the god of the new reality. You'll become the template on which the universe is rebuilt. And to kill me, you need to win the game."
"If what you say is actually true, then I've already won. Natural selection is the law of life. I win by default."
"Now there's the philosophy we've been waiting for. And now you can truly start playing the game, oh champion mine."

Four played his newest Five of Swords, and looked at the last card in his hands. It was unnerving. He'd already decided to leave it for later, but hearing Strauss speak convinced him to wait even more. He needed to understand it. Perhaps it was too dangerous to play it. He hadn't even figured out what the Blades meant until Strauss explained it. Knowledge was a form of power, that was why his duty in Group 58 was cleanup. To control information, to stop and slaughter escapees. Four took one last look at the card, then set it face down on the table and stood up to leave.

Strauss watched him leave. The face of that card was burned into Four's brain. It was named The Aspirant, and on it was an image of himself, a sword pointed up in one hand, and a sword pointed down in the other. On his forehead, a large number four was carved, still bleeding. Four had never been shaken before. He'd waited for death sentences in multiple houses. But this? Something was horribly wrong with this. Strauss's mocking voice chased him out of the room, and into the land of the waking. "See you soon, Shi."
How very interesting. A claim to godhood through purity, purity through strength, and strength through persistence. It was even more interesting that he brought it to this table. Very few played at this table. Very few saw the biggest picture. Very few played to win the endgame of eternity, the final future. And this man stumbled his way here, not through desire to control the future, but merely out of spite for those who did. The Gardener glanced down to the table. Eight Five of Swords stared back. Perhaps this man's persistence had some merit, after all

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