"Why do you continue to play at this?" the woman asked with an irritated sigh.
The man simply responded with a smirk, and said, "Deal the cards, witch. Show me just how hopeless it all is again."
She closed her eyes, focusing, and did what he asked. He didn't believe in tarot. She didn't know why he asked this of her sometimes. It seemed to amuse him, but she couldn't imagine he found that to really be worth the time and money to come here and watch a woman he hated read the cards for him. But, it gave her the chance to try to talk Bison down, to get an idea of what sort of evil he was getting into. And now, more than ever, was this important. She flipped the first card. The Tower, inverted. She smiled slightly at this. "A crumbling empire," she said, looking up at him through her lashes.
He snorted.
"You must face it, Bison. It's coming to an end. You can come back, over and over and over, and it will always be the same result." Death. She placed the card beneath the first. He reached towards the card, and inverted it with his index finger.
"Means nothing to me," he replied.
"It will mean something to everyone, eventually," she responded, and laid another card. The snarling face of the Devil looked back, and she frowned until she noticed another card was poking out from beneath it-just one corner, but it was still significant. She pulled it gently from under the Devil. It was the Hanged Man, inverted, and she smiled with delight. Never before had she managed to deal two cards at once without noticing. This was no mistake, but a message. "So he has a chance."
"Who?" Bison demanded, but she did not reply. Another card was laid, and she frowned because of it. It was the World, inverted at the feet of the Devil/Hanged Man. "Here, he still has a choice," she said, tapping the pair of cards atop the World. "He will come into a great power, and only he can decide what to do with it. To stray from his duties to pursue selfish ends..." she tapped the Devil, "...would be the death of this world. But if he were to be set to the proper path..." Here she tapped the Hanged Man. "He could save not only himself, but all of us."
"Tell me who he is, Rose."
"That's privileged information, Bison." She returned to the cards, laying two more on either side of the upturned World. The Empress and Emperor stared back, and she was happy to see they were both turned upright. "These two, they will be the ones to ultimately decide the fate of this world. For if they can not turn their errant kin to his path, then no one can, and the world will suffer for it." She studied them, and they watched her silently. "His steadfast nature, and her sense of justice will be the glue which binds them all together, for better, or for worse."
"And the last one?" Bison asked.
She laid the next card. The Magician. She scrutinised the card, noticing imperfections in the surface which had not been there before. "He..." she began to say, but she stopped for fear of informing Bison of the individual's identity. She could not give him any more than she had already. "He will be just as important as the rest. He will be the one to unite them. They're all required for it to happen, but he has been...he's been changed as well," she said, voice faltering as she began to realise what the imperfections in the card meant. Bison knew them all, had witnessed their strengths at their basic levels, and would not realise it until it was too late to use the information to his advantage. She was grateful for this much. At least, then, the world would still have a chance.
updated 3/5/14