Issue 1 Downtime

Will knocked on Nailah's office door. "Fool, ma'am."

"Come in, Will." Nailah's voice calls out, sounding vaguely amused.

"Feeling better, Nailah? No stabbing yourself in the wrist or jumping out of windows today?"

"Very amusing, Will." she says with a good-natured head-shake. "I feel fine."

"I try. That's my role, right? Jester cap and motley?" he laughed.

"You didn't understand a word of what I tried to tell you about the Fool, did you?"

"Iiiiii'm leaning towards no, based on that response."

A fool, yes, but a self-aware one!

"For starters, the image on the card traditionally doesn't show a jester cap or anything that would be associated with the more modern idea of a clown."

"Yeah, but c'mon. It's called The Fool. That's got a long-standing tradition going back through Shakespeare and all that. I do occasionally pay attention in class."

"It's also a trump card and shares an etymology in the original Italian with 'checkmate'. It signifies limitless potential because the Fool is unhampered by preconceived notions."

"What do you mean, a "trump card". What does it trump?"

"Everything. That's why it's the Zero, the lowest number in the deck. If you look at the iconography on the card you'll see that the Fool is shown high in the mountains, above everything else except the divine sun in his back. He is walking towards a perilous fall and people interpret that as a sign of his folly, but he made it this far and his closed eyes are a sign of faith."

"...and yet he still IS going to fall. Blind faith only gets you so far."

"He might or he might not. The Fool indicates possibility and potential. The fact that he is just on the precipice is the point. Yes, you can spin everything into a negative if you want, but that's not the meaning of the card, nor was it Sam's intent when she chose you for it."

"So, why did she choose me?"

"For one you're a shapeshifter and quite literally full of limitless potential and possibilities. You're creative and what you do might seem foolish at first glance but only because people often take innocence and loyalty as a sign of naivety."

"Sometimes it IS a sign of naievty. I'm good at bluffing, but there's a lot out there I don't get yet."

"That's true for everyone. Some people are just better at hiding it. I hope being on the card doesn't bother you though..."

"It was...unexpected, to say the least. I also didn't know Sam made them for you special..."

"They were a Christmas present. If you ask me it means she thought very highly of you."

"Of her fool, you mean," he joked. "I see, I see.

...Who else is on the cards?"

"Stan is the Hierophant, Amanda the Chariot. I'm on the Wheel of Fortune along with the Cockatoo twins and Mister Gabriel. Mister Hino is on the Hermit card, Victoria the Magician..."

"You're not going to tell me the Magician is historically prickly and unhelpful, are you?"

"No. Some of them are a bit more on the nose than others." she chuckles.

Will walked over, and picked up some of the cards. "It still...boggles me that this stuff works."

"It doesn't. What it does is allow me to channel my precognition."

"It doesn't work at all without it?"

"You can try it if you want."

Will thought for a minute.

"Sure, why not. Maybe I have seeeeecret psychic depths."

"Do you have any idea how to lay out a spread?" she chuckles, picking up the cards and shuffling them carefully.

"I know hold 'em, war, old maid..."

She chuckles. "So no. That's fine. The idea is that you place them in a certain shape, depending on what you want to find out. When they're grouped together they are connected to each other in some way or augment the meaning of each other. One simple pattern is to make three groups, past-present-future. Then once you have the 'main' card for those you place two more above and beneath each of those three and you try to gleam meaning from the cards and their arrangement."

"Alright, might as well start with the basics," Will said, shuffling.

He quickly dealt out the cards, rifling through them with speed.

"Okay, stop right there. You're not dealing someone playing cards. Even if you're not trying to make a spectacle out of it to cold-read people there should be at least a little bit of ceremony and gravitas to each card. Let them sink in and consider them a bit more before you rush through the whole spread."

"But if they don't actually work, why does it matter what gravitas I give them?" he asked, honestly.

"Well if you're going to do it you might as well learn how to do it properly, right?"

"Makes as much sense as anything else, I suppose," Will said, flipping over just one card--The Emperor.

"Oh! Do I have to flip it around so it's right-side up?"

"No, that's the Emperor inverted, it transposes the meaning of the card. In this case the Emperor usually stands for power, authority and stability. A very conservative meaning. Inverted it implies a threat of stagnation and arrested development, stubborn adherence to the status quo."

"Wait, that matters? Huh."

Will flipped over the Knight of Wands, also upside down. "Is it possible I've just shuffled upside down?"

"Probably not. The deck should be fairly thoroughly mixed. But you can see how something benign as holding the entire deck the other way around completely changes the result. The shuffling, the handling, it's all part of the process for me. Somebody who thinks they can do the same just because of the cards is fooling themselves. Or others. Go on and finish the spread and I'll show you how you can make any configuration sound accurate and detailed."