He was a shy man, barely above his eighteenth winter. His voice shook with the fragile fear found only in youth. Yet his heart radiates a warmth to rival even the hearth. His kindness, she notes, spills like rain in his wake and despite his fragile voice and the tripping over his words as stones in his road, she smiles upon him. The sun smiles upon them both at that table.
He was first to ask of the cards as her fingers trace their edges, carding through them. An extension of her person and her voice, her connection with the world. This gilded second in which she might feel the distant dissonance of the world come to silence as a fortune is laid before her. She does not draw, as the Maker’s hand guides the cards from her folding.
The Queen of Wands fell, sliding almost into his seat at the table in the shade of the church’s steeple. Yet it halts, with an upright face turned to the world, and to him. A woman veiled in her burial garb, crowned by flowers that glimmer with the slightest hues of scarlet ink that edge the dark lines. Her boney, ring laden fingers wrap the haft of young yew, still vibrant with life and spring’s first leaves. It was almost a thyrsus, but it was not the stave of a wine-drunk heathen, but instead one who had lived to create.
The shy youth was lamb, to become lion, when his heart beats to the rhythm he would be meant to follow, one day. In time, she was sure, his confidence would come, for his compassion and optimism were already quite vibrant. He would be charismatic, when that self assurance came, she assured him. The lamb, who held the key to becoming a lion- he was so close.
They spoke then, of voices. Voices in the world, of the world- They came in many shapes. The tracks left by man, by beast, were voices of their passing. Voices telling of where they’d been, and where they might be going. She spoke of the self’s hidden voice, the way the heart and the mind spoke apart from each other, and assured him in time he might find his own.
The alignment of the hidden voice with the outer voice, his second key in life. She spoke freely, spoke kindly, and turned away his offer of payment. His kindness rains in gentle words, compliments of her wisdom and her youthfulness. A surprise, to say the least. He held promise, she kept this in her heart, and let him carry on speaking of his goals. The goals for now, at the very least. He was clever and she silently praised him.
Lambs among lions and wolves among men, what faces lie within these walls?
The quiet voice whispered then, an echo. A question. Her face softens, nonetheless, as she continues to smile. The question would answer itself and she need not respond to such, not when the truth would lay itself bare at her feet. In time, at least.