She's home, seated at one of the many tables that litter the castle's rooms. Moon chose this one because it allowed her to throw open a large balcony door to the scent of the ocean and the damp air. Rain was on the horizon, lightning flickering in the lavender sky and distant thunder rumbled with warning.
Moon shuffles her deck, the cards expertly intermingled and bridged before being tapped together and shuffled again. Her eyes are on that coming storm, her expression blank. Slowly, she turns over the first card of the spread. She frowns at it, pondering its position and meaning. The starting point of this path was Four of Cups: weariness, boredom, and disgust. She was at a point of apathy and stasis, dissatisfied with where she stood in her journey, and embittered by her past.
"Once upon a time, there was a girl of great power and wisdom, but she desired that which was not in her nature."
She looks up to see her brother, the eldest sibling, enter the room. Choice watches her as she watches him.
"The nature changes," she points out, turning over the next card. The reversed Six of Pentacles crossed the Four of Cups, representing the obstacle in her path at the moment. Envy was the roadblock. Being unable to receive what she believed her due, but it was tempered by a selfishness that might be destructive to her family. "It's not wrong to want what you see all others enjoying effortlessly," she sulks.
Choice goes to the doorway and leans against it, looking out at the horizon. "Perhaps not wrong, but it should not drive all your choices."
"It hasn't. It's been a very, very long time since I sought anything but what I had. I've been as content as I could be, but the path has changed and new choices sit before me." Moon glances up at him. "If I wasn't meant to make the choice, the choice would not have appeared."
The overriding card is turned and placed in the spread. The Knight of Pentacles reversed. It represented someone who was timid, someone stuck in their current path and unable to leave it. Stagnation ruled them, and they were unable to grow beyond what they were. She frowns at it; the theme of her spread was stasis, which did hint to her that the choice was whether to break free from that path or to remain on it. She places the next card, the foundation of the path; Eight of Cups shone brightly as lightning lit up the room.
"The storm is here," Choice murmurs from his position and regards the card. "It's interesting. A foundation of moving forward."
"But it's also about hasty decisions and sudden changes," she points out, her fingers moving over the card's surface. "My current path is one based in activity."
Choice nods. "Of course. It always has been. Ever have you moved forward, even if you held yourself back."
Moon chews her lower lip thoughtfully. "Is what's before me a decision made in haste?"
"Which decision do you refer to?" Choice asks, a small smile on her face. "Baring your throat to a vampire or your heart to a man?"
She looks up sharply, green eyes narrowed. "My heart has been bared to no one."
"But it has been," Choice says gently. "You told him about falling in love."
"I've never loved," she insists, turning the next card. "It's not something I can do. Ever." The card of her recent past was The Hermit. Counsel. Pondering. Discretion. Prudence. Careful movements. Yes, she could see that. She had been very careful until meeting Santino, and then... something woke and out went her prudence and common sense.
"You lie to yourself, but I don't believe you do it knowingly." Choice left his position in the doorway and came to sit on the edge of the table. "What about the broken girl?"
Moon's eyes darken, her whole demeanour sours. "Maryse was fondness."
Choice stares at her for a very long, quiet time, both cards frozen in that silence. He looks down at his nails. "Moon, you wept when she died. The only time I have ever seen that happen. It was love, even if you don't recognize it as such."
She turns a card, her present and immediate future are represented by a single card. Seven of Swords reversed was a card of restoration. A simple card with a very small meaning. Redress of grievances past. "Love is a cage. It binds and strangles. I see Ruin with his wife. I see Gorlim with his mate. I see millions of couples and they all share the same common thread: bondage."
"What we did was out of love, yes," Choice says gently. "We were wrong to keep you locked up, confined to our perception of you. However, the familial love is very different than romantic love."
"Love is love," she insists. Fears and apprehensions were next to be added to the spread. Four of Pentacles reversed. She dislikes the number of reversed cards in her path. The card told her she fears disorder, a loss of herself. Moon actually glares at the card and slams down the next. Familial influence was the reversed Ten of Pentacles. Ancestral expectation and a demand to respect tradition. "You see? You still want me to do as you dictate."
"We don't rule each other, Moon." Choice was getting annoyed with his sister's distrust. "If we did, Ruin would never have been allowed to do most of what he has done, you would not have given yourself over to a vampire, Skill would not have populated whole worlds with her children. There's a lot I desire my family to not do, but it isn't within my power or role to govern you."
"The first half of my existence you did," she spits out.
"No. We watched over you. We protected you. We loved you. We still do, even if you keep your distance from us. It was a mistake, our treatment of you. We should've known that you would find your own way regardless of our wishes." Choice slides from the table and comes to her side, running fingers through her hair. "Why have you woken this old bitterness, sister?"
He knew why, but he wanted her to say it.
Moon strokes the top most card of her deck, still unturned, because it was the final outcome card. What waited for her if she made her choice to change. "The bar," she says simply.
"It's more than the bar," Choice insists. "You've been in the bar almost a year, and until recently, all has gone as it had before."
She shifts uncomfortably. "Many of those in the bar are not in my sphere of influence. Before the bar, those I met I met because I had a purpose. They required guidance and I was that guide. Within the bar, that isn't so. While some need my guidance, others don't. That leaves me with holding general conversation." Moon stares at Choice. "I don't have the proper knowledge for general conversation, brother. I'm just a tarot card, and that is a sadly lacking thing to be."
"That's the problem with the Major Arcana," he says softly, continuing to stroke her hair. "We were never human like some of the Minor Arcana. We'll never be human. Our paths are much harder to walk. The knowledge sentients are given without trial is a thing hard won by us. Still, you can have them if you try. But you have to try."
Moon turns the final card. The outcome.
Judgment.
A card of transformation and release.
"You see?" Choice says, nodding to the card. "You can have the transformation you're seeking."
Moon shakes her head. "That outcome is a far cry from the previous cards, Choice. I do not understand how the end is achieved."
"Then draw another card. Cross it."
She bites her lip, pulling a final card and laying it across Judgment. It's another Major Arcana card, The Star. Hope. Insight. Healing and unconditional love. It was a bright card, one full of promise and opportunity.
"A card of dreams and discovery," Choice muses. "You seek to discover what you've lost... or never had." He crosses his arms and smirks. "Hmm. Call me crazy, but I can't think of anyone better suited to the discovery of lost things than an archaeologist." He tilts his head. "If only you knew one."
Moon slowly looks up at him, an unamused expression on her face.
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