Kamen Rider Tarock, Re-Dealt: Past Influences
Chapter One: Liss
The lights were out in Felicity's room, and while it would've been the work of a second to flip the switch and pretend she was doing her homework, she had a feeling as if the owners of the yelling voices on the other side of her bedroom wall opened her door they wouldn't be able to find her in the darkness.
"…didn't raise you to be a miserable man-hating whore like this!" came her father's voice, finally ending his latest angry rant.
"I am not a whore because I'm not attracted to men!" Paige yelled back. Her partner was silent, but Felicity knew she was out there, and a small part of wanted to let her in to hide from the argument – somehow, the word didn't seem strong enough – going on outside.
"Paul, maybe you're over—" Felicity's mother tried feebly to intervene again.
"Don't," Paige said angrily. "He told me what he thinks of me. Even though it's not a choice I made, it's just the way I am. He just doesn't want to think I got it from his side of the family."
"Don't you talk to us like that!" their father roared. "I'm your father, and if I say—"
"That if I should start seeing men, then that makes it so?" Paige interrupted him. "I tried it, it just didn't work. I tried this, and I'm in a relationship with someone I care about now. Like when you tried to put me in the Girl Scouts."
"Don't you dare try to compare something like this to not liking an extracurricular activity!" their father cut in once again. "This disgusting—"
Felicity couldn't take it anymore and stuffed her fingers in her ears. She'd never heard her parents, even her father, get so angry about anything as this, when Paige had sent her away and made a confession to their family.
She was more appalled by the flaring tempers than the thought that she might be like Paige deep down too. Paige was the coolest, smartest and toughest person she knew. The one who was just about to close on her own business even though she hadn't spent a day in college, which everyone who worked at Felicity's school was saying was the only hope they had of not working at Sandy Burger for the rest of their lives.
Felicity had thought about a little about what she'd do after school, but had mainly thought she'd go to work at Paige's place. She wasn't exactly a model student, but she wasn't a dropout either. She did all right at kung-fu class, but the only person there who ever remembered her name was Sensei. There didn't seem to be any great, glamorous future in store for her.
It was just, Paige was always the one who had a supportive word and a lecture about the ways of the real world she'd learned, and it never sounded preachy or superior coming from her. Felicity had just always thought she and Paige would always live near each other and hang out together all the time. What did she care that Paige didn't have normal dating preferences?
Paige suddenly shouted to interrupt their father, and he shouted right back to drown her out. Something snapped and Felicity knew she couldn't be there anymore. She felt around in the dark for the foot of her bed and grabbed her jacket. Then she went over to the window, unfastened the latch and pulled on it three times before she broke the seal of dirt and an ancient coat of paint and the pane finally slid up.
She peered out over the narrow ledge and gauged how far it was to the street, just a little over twelve feet. She could make that drop quietly and without hurting herself.
Right?
Mostly. She landed on her right foot first and the ankle erupted with pain, and then the sole of her shoe came loose, and she lost her balance and fell on her butt.
But she actually did it, she thought as she ran down to the corner and then ran halfway down the next block before she stopped for breath. She'd actually snuck out and was already covered in dirt and walking on a ruined shoe, which only make her father madder when she got home.
A weird, new feeling came over Felicity, a tingle up her spine as a realization hit her. She'd done something she was sure she was going to catch hell for when she got home.
But she didn't care. It was the first time she'd defied authority like that, and part of her felt good. Like now she was finally in control of something. Like a whole new chapter in her life was starting.
As she limped along trying to keep her weight off her sore ankle, figuring out what to do while she waited for one of her family to give up and leave, a thought gradually occurred to Felicity: that that sounded like someone else's name. A nerd's name. Some pimply girl who wore thick glasses and sweaters all year and was learning to sew.
She could come up with something better than that…
Here's the first in my little series of vignettes to give a little more detail into past events of the characters in Kamen Rider Tarock. The order I give everyone attention might be kind of random, though. I thought I might also punch up some of these with a bit of behind the scenes info on the story.
This time, it's about how four suits in your typical deck of playing cards are based on the four suits in a tarot deck, and Liss originally got her four forms in the same order the four playing-card-themed Riders were seen in Kamen Rider Blade. So, Swords corresponds to Spades/Blade, Pentacles/Coins corresponds to Diamonds/Garren, Cups corresponds to Hearts/Chalice, and Wands/Staffs corresponds to Clubs/Leangle). The Riders' names in Blade were even based on their tarot equivalents.