Chapter One: The World at My Feet
Amy watched the rain trickle down the pane of her grimy window.
How? How could she have possibly let it happen? Sonic was dying. She didn't know how she knew, but he was dying. Dying of hunger, thirst, and a wound that spilled blood into his lap, his palms, coming from a delicate place on his head.
She reached across her bed and groped with her long, elegant fingers (they were "princess fingers", Sonic would say) for something. Her fingers wrapped around the rectangular box. She realized her hands were trembling because as she lifted the box, the cards inside shifted around and hit the sides of the box and made a hollow noise.
Her eyes flew over to the box as she pulled it into her lap. "Amy's tarot cards," she read, running her fingers over the black permanent marker scrawled across the otherwise normal cardboard box, cut to fit the shape of the cards almost exactly. She lifted the top off of the box and gently lifted the cards from their prison.
Each one was unique, with a different representation of mythical beast or good witch or evil wizard, from regions all over this world and some from beyond. Gifts from her beloved Sonic as he traveled the world.
Like all girls, Amy adored jewelry and other fine things, but found them almost superficial at times, especially since a tom cat who used to be her neighbor when she was five (before either had met Sonic) had been giving her the eye and leaving such trinkets at her doorstep. She accepted them, because it would be rude not to, but they sat collecting dust in a drawer on the far side of the room.
No, she preferred the tarot cards, and Sonic brought her a new one whenever he could, bargaining them from various traders, or having one special-made by a friend who owed him a favor. It warmed Amy's heart to know that he thought about her often.
She sighed now, shuffling the deck uneasily and crossing her legs at the ankle. Choosing a Significator, a card to represent him, was hardest. "A Wand." She mused, placing it upright in the middle. A Knight of Wands. How fitting for him. She bit her lip as she selected her first card. Placing it face down, she said: "That covers him." True, for she lay her card over her beloved knight.
Taking her second card, she whispered, kissing it as she lay it across the knight: "This represents his obstacles."
With her third card, she smiled and placed it above the Significator. "This crowns him."
And the fourth: "This is beneath him."
Again, the fifth: "This is behind him."
With the sixth card, she deliberated, as if worrying about a card she couldn't yet be sure of. Hesitantly, she put it in place. "This is before him."
Wondering what that last part was all about, she placed the four other cards to her right in a sort of tower. One by one, she began to turn over and read Sonic's future.
First, she pulled the card that represented Sonic's surroundings and environment right now. She gasped when her eyes met with a goat's.
The hoofed creature was standing on a rock overlooking a violent ocean. With a gnarled wooden staff outstretched in one hand, and the other holding a velvet clutch, it was obvious the creature was casting a spell. The word below the picture read: Magician. "Pain." Amy sighed with longing. She wanted to be beside Sonic right now!
Impatiently, she flipped upward the card for his obstacles. The card was a tyrannical monster creature, holding a sword in his left hand and a dead maiden in the other. Behind him stood a pitch black throne. Amy didn't have to look at the words scrawled below to know. "Eggman." The King of Swords.
Sonic had a long way to go yet.
The next card: the best for her blue love. "A star!" She cried. Her love had a bright future ahead of him! Amy eagerly went for the fourth card. Although she thought she knew for sure what he already had.
"The lovers." She was right. He had her love for him.
What did the fifth card have to do with anything? She passed over it and went on to the sixth card. No one knew Sonic's exact past, and no cards would tell her that, no matter how smart they seemed to be. She wanted to know what sorts of bright prospects his future held for him.
Could the next picture be her? The Queen of Cups was a beautiful lady in a red garment riding a pink unicorn and looking dreamily into a cup. Happiness was in Sonic's future, but then she knew that. She giggled to herself to think how many chilidogs he might eat when he returned.
The seventh and eighth cards were unimportant, as Amy knew Sonic too well for these. The ninth and tenth cards were what she cared about. The ninth was Sonic's fears. "Strength reversed." She nodded gravely, placing the card down again. Weakness.
She wondered later if that was really all he feared.
Finally, the tenth card. She took a deep breath before his future was sealed into these cards.
The figure was that of a gallows, and of a man dangling from them as if he'd only just died. Trials. Sonic had a long road ahead of him, but perhaps it would come to happiness.
Excited that her cards had told her wonders, Amy settled under her blankets and closed her eyes, hoping for tomorrow.