Evermore [ev-er-mawr], adverb. 1: Always; continually; henceforth. 2: At all future times.
He lurked inside Lord Death's trailer until Jacqueline woke up, ignoring Stein's ill-tempered efforts to bait him into either leaving or starting a fight. When she finally did, cresting gracefully out of sleep like a dolphin on a wave, Soul was right there, elbow to chilly elbow with his Lord as they both bent over her.
She blinked, then coughed softly. "Stein, can you put that out, please?" she said hoarsely, waving a hand through the gray smoke swirling in the dead air. The man just grunted, flapped a hand dramatically, and left.
"You were dehydrated and exhausted," Lord Death informed her. "You need rest."
Jacqueline rolled her eyes and sat up from cushions they'd placed on the floor for her. "I don't have time for rest. The fates led me here and they had even less mercy than usual."
Lord Death tilted his mask, tapping one finger on his elbow consideringly. "The summer solstice, then. Has to be, this time of year," he said with a sigh.
"Yes, I think so, but we'll see. Among other things." She yawned and stretched like a cat, then peered at Soul as he stood gnawing distractedly on his nails. "Huh."
"What?" he barked, skin crawling.
She lifted an eyebrow and raised a hip, pointing to the indigo leather pouch strapped over her skirts. It was rattling. "The cards have something to say to you, Eater."
Goosebumps rose up over every inch of him, but there was no time for any of this. He had to know if Jacqueline was here to tell Maka everything, to take her away from him or to ruin her life with bad news. Selfish paralyzing fear made him stutter when he snapped, "Later. We need to know how the Albarns are doing."
Sharp black eyes stared at him keenly. For once, she appeared to be firmly in the present. Her gaze was clearly on him, rather than focused mistily off over his shoulder or up at the sky. "The Albarns?" Then she swiveled back to Lord Death, peering up at him with a mild scowl. "Why in the world does he assume I know what those two are up to? Isn't Spirit retired now, anyway?" Soul's heart sank bitterly. He'd assumed when he'd seen her that she'd been sent from her native France with an update, and he'd been desperate, both to keep Maka from hearing possible poor news, and to find out for himself how much longer he might have with his bearcat. Obviously it had been a foolish hope, though. He sneered at his shoes and wondered if maybe he was worse than he thought, for being so greedy with a girl so confused and alone. The thought didn't change his wish for things to stay the same, even though he knew it wouldn't last forever.
"Soul," Lord Death began, a heavy displeased rumble in his voice, but then he puffed out an irritated breath and said, "Kami resurfaced in France about, ah, two and a half months ago. She ran into some heavy trouble and Spirit took off to rescue her. They've been essentially trapped behind enemy lines for a while now. Working with the monks in St. Cross, I believe, and a few Transylvanians who were passing through. Kami's been enjoying it, probably, wreaking mayhem everywhere from what I hear, but I doubt Spirit's too happy. Anyway," he lifted his gloved hands in a shrug, "They're in France still." Something about the tense squareness of his shoulders suggested that he very much wished for all of this to be over, and for a moment Soul suprised himself by feeling pity.
"Where's the little one? Didn't they have a baby?" Jacqueline said idly, stroking her quivering leather pouch like it was a beloved pet. It clattered like a rattlesnake tail in response.
"You've got your predictions crossed again," Lord Death said gently. "Maka's seventeen now."
Soul started. She was seventeen? Somehow he'd thought her older. She was so strong. Then he thought about the way she had cried against him during the bloody storm and he wasn't so surprised. Every new fact he learned about Maka tattooed her more firmly onto his spirit even as it made the weight of his secrets more daunting. Anyway, her age didn't matter to him. "I have to go," he muttered.
Jacqueline lunged forward and latched onto his ankle with startling strength. "Oh no," she breathed, eyeing him as if he were either salvation or dessert. The rings loading down her fingers started to glint shiftily, a dark jeweled rainbow that made him shiver and seriously wish she would let go. "The fates drove me here for you and the golden one."
Fuck. "Maka?" he said dubiously.
Jacqueline let out a shuddering breath and closed her lids, face lifting as if the sun were there to shine on it. The cards in her hip pouch began to shiver so hard that the thing sounded like an angry beehive. "Yes. Bring her to me."
"I can't if you don't let me go," he said in mild panic. She did so and he flung the door open. "Explain stuff to her, okay?" he told Lord Death before plunging into the untainted sunlight and breathing a gigantic sigh of relief.
He did a full circle, looking, even as he wondered why his stomach felt tied in knots. Jacqueline and her fortune-telling had saved the lives of everyone in the circus at one point or another, but she'd also, in a particularly galling display of coldness, told Marie that she would lose her first child and informed Stein that he was going to kill himself one day. The things she saw and spoke were far heavier than her delicate midnight youth would ever suggest. Of course, the future was misty and human words were entirely inadequate to contain it; Soul and Black Star had a bet that Stein would live to a crotchey ninety years old and die from his cigarettes, a death that would technically be at his own hands.
Jacqueline had said other, even worse things, spilling the terrible future with her characteristic distant chill, but no one talked about those predictions. Instead they buried them, deep down, and tried like hell to either live in denial or change them. It never worked, but still they tried.
He figured out, with vague surprise, that that was probably the core of the fear chewing him up from the inside out. He was scared of what could have run Jacqueline so ragged, of what hideous future could involve both himself and Maka. What could it be, so awful and important, so impatient to be heard? And Lord Death had immediately jumped to the solstice- the circus usually laid low on dates with such power. The effects of times like Halloween or Beltane couldn't be predicted with any clarity, not when evil warped its servants into so many different forms.
At least the past was as dim to Jacqueline as the future was to everyone else. It would be real trouble for him if she, one of the very few people to know where he'd gotten his teeth, were to entirely remember it. He shook his head roughly and kept hunting. Finally he saw Maka, carrying a piece of the ticket booth over her shoulder and looking rather out of sorts. "Hey. Maka. Maka!" He trotted towards her.
Her eyes widened as she turned to him and she dropped the lumber instantly. "What's wrong? Is you- um- is that girl all right?"
He must have sounded far more shook up than he'd intended if she reacted with such worry. "She's fine, but she wants to talk to you."
Maka looked confused. "What? Me? Why? I don't even know her."
Soul bit the inside of his cheek, wishing he could just scoop her up and run from whatever bad things were nipping at Jacqueline's heels. He reached out and took her hand, more for his sake than hers, and ran a finger across her knuckles while thinking of the best way to inform her that a universally dreaded fortune-teller had run herself into the ground under the weight of a prediction about Maka. Maka just watched him and waited, and after a moment she stepped a little closer, looking up at him.
He turned her hand over in his and peered at her palm, trying to read the secrets written in the lines, as Jacqueline could do at a glance with her infinite stare. Maka's hands were small, well-formed, with fingers neither long nor short. There were little callouses built up here and there, and a tiny papercut just below her index finger. They were a working woman's hands, and they had already had blood on them, friendly and otherwise. He tried desperately to read anything but the present in them, but he couldn't, not until he looked at the fragile dark scabs clinging to her fingertips, where she'd torn her velvet skin just to bleed for him.
Then he realized, and it hit him like one of Marie's hammerblows. He practically threw her hand at her and reeled backwards, covering his mouth. Maka followed, brow furrowed, green eyes large and concerned. "Soul?" she said, and the sweet worry cracked him a little more. She had shed blood for him already, but only hours ago he'd flung himself like a mad animal at the nearest thing he had in the world to a brother. It wasn't working. Her therapy had failed, hadn't it? That had to be it, the dark future Jacqueline had come to share.
"I'm going to kill you," he said from behind his fingers.
She caught the terrified inflection of his voice and her outstretched hand froze in place. He wasn't idly threatening, or teasing in mock irritation, and the realization of it stole all the color from her cheeks. "No you're not," she whispered dumbly. "You won't. We're- no. What are you saying?"
"Fuck," he burst out, railing at the astonishing cruelty of his own thoughts. "I don't know." He really didn't. He had a hunch, but only Jacqueline, with her eyes that saw through the present and lit the dark murk of the unformed future, could tell them for sure. "I don't know," he said again, honestly, and he snatched her up and clung to her in fear. She gave a muffled whine into his shoulder, but he didn't let her go until his heart had somewhat stopped its runaway gallop. Suddenly she seemed very precious to him, a small blonde miracle, and he pressed his face into her hair and allowed himself to be greedy and selfish and possessive, just for a moment, because didn't he deserve at least once good thing in his short terrible life?
When he did release her, she kept her hands flat to his chest, and her eyes there as well, still frowning a little, lips firmed in the way that meant she was thinking hard about something very important. "I have a favor to ask you later," she said, sounding quite calm.
"Anything." God, he hoped he wasn't blushing like a schoolboy.
She gave a small half smile at that and tapped a fingertip against his collarbone. It resonated in him like a gong and he swallowed hard. "Thank you. Come on, then, let's go see this Jacqueline woman," she said.
They went slowly and he kept her hand in his the entire way, uncaring of the ear-shattering squeal Blair gave off in the distance when she saw them. When they sidled into Lord Death's dark trailer, Jacqueline was sitting cross-legged on the floor, wide violet skirts spread out all around her, the smooth petals of a carrion flower. Her face lit and twisted when she saw Maka, predatory and fierce. Soul put himself firmly in front of Maka and looked to Lord Death for guidance, an old habit, and one that he fell back into easily despite the uncomfortable anger he'd felt toward the man lately.
Lord Death was slouched against his wall, and his cloak was drooping and motionless. "Go on," he said after a moment, waving Soul and Maka forward. "If the fates have a message for you, refusing to listen will do far more harm than good."
"You'd know, would you?" Soul said bitterly as Maka's hand tightened in his.
"I would, actually," Lord Death returned easily.
"What's going on?" Maka ventured, rather squeakily.
Jacqueline patted the floor in front of her, the diamonds in her cheeks shining unnaturally brightly. "I'm going to tell your fortune, golden girl. I've come a long way for this."
Maka didn't move a muscle until Soul sat down and tugged carefully on her hand, and then she came to life and copied him jerkily. Lord Death covered his bowed mask with a large hand and looked away.
"Close the window, please," Jacqueline said softly. Lord Death did so, and in the nearly complete shadows Jacqueline opened her little leather pouch and pulled out a deck of trembling cards. They shone like a full moon, giving off a wash of pale light that accentuated the clench of Maka's jaw and the wild dilation of her eyes.
"What are you doing?" she said, a little angrily, as Jacqueline crooned wordlessly to her cards.
The other girl smile sideways. "I've been sent here to tell you something. We'll find out in a moment."
Maka snorted, but fell silent after that, watching as Jacqueline shuffled her gently glowing deck of cards. After a moment, she cut the deck and tucked nearly three-quarters of the stack back into her pouch. They were silent this time, though the ones remaining in her hand still gave a little hum now and then. "The major arcana," she whispered, pulling her crimson lower lip between her teeth. Her hair fell around her like a mourning veil as she leaned forward, setting the smaller stack down softly on the floorboards. Their glow started to pulse like a heartbeat.
"I don't want to do this," Maka said suddenly, leaning backwards.
Jacqueline looked up at the other girl and said sadly, "You don't really have a choice."
Maka blinked and Soul felt her hand tighten almost painfully on his own. "My legs work just fine. I'm perfectly capable of walking out," she said sharply.
Jacqueline just watched her calmly. "But you're not, are you? You want to know. They always want to know."
Maka's mouth twisted. Then she stood up defiantly.
"Wait," Soul said frantically as she put her hand on the doorknob. She looked down at him, almost pleading, but the glow of the cards was harsh in his eyes and the distant hope of being able to stop lying to her was stronger than his fear. He didn't even really know what he wanted anymore, if he wanted nothing to change or everything to change, but maybe Jacqueline could help and Maka could stop hurting. "Please. I- I need to stay for this," he told her, staring at her knees so he wouldn't have to watch her anguished face.
"You owe me," she sighed a moment later, dropping back down beside him. This time, she was the one who took his hand.
"I need you," he corrected numbly. Her swallow was audible, and Lord Death shifted noticeably, but Soul didn't care. Whatever was coming for him, he couldn't do it alone, not anymore, not after having finally found out how it felt to lean on someone else. A few months ago, he would have named that as weakness, but he had a funny feeling Maka would call it strength.
"Let's get on with this nonsense," she said imperiously, back stiff and straight.
Jacqueline smiled placidly. "All right, then." She pointed to them both, the rings on her fingers casting more pronounced light now, painting the walls with multicolored shadows. It felt as if they were living in stained glass. "We're going to have to do this a little unusually, I think, but the fates shouldn't mind. Goodness knows neither of you have followed much of a traditional path anyway," Jacqueline sighed. "Both of you, together, with your left hands. Choose a card."
"Left?" Maka mumbled as Jacqueline spread the cards out facedown with a deft flick of her wrist. They scattered like ash in a perfect fan shape, still shining.
"It's the hand of the heart," Jacqueline told her. She folded her own shining hands delicately in her lap and waited, looking for all the world as if could sit there forever. Perhaps she could, Soul thought. Time had never been an entirely concrete thing for Jacqueline.
He looked at Maka, then down at their linked hands; their left hands. She was scowling at nothing and picking resentfully at a piece of mud crusted onto her boots. Suddenly he felt horribly guilty. "Maka, we don't have to do this. You don't have to." He shot Jacqueline a glare. She beamed at him sunnily. "Sometimes her predictions are- well, they're bad news, and if she came all this way-"
Maka shook her head firmly. "If you need to do this then I'll stay," she said simply.
He closed his eyes tightly against the rush of affection her words sparked. He didn't deserve her. Even now, behind his shut eyelids, he could picture the scars on her shoulder, every ragged tender angle of them. He didn't deserve her friendship. If she truly knew what he was, if she really understood, she would run.
"Death, reversed," Jacqueline said, sounding entirely unsurprised, and Soul's eyes snapped open in horror. There, in his and Maka's hands, lay a card bearing a shimmering skull, so bright that it lit up the entire trailer with thick eerie silver.
The air in his lungs turned to mud. "When- how-"
Maka appeared similarly confused. "I don't know," she hissed, staring at the card. "I was just thinking and then it was there!"
"You chose your question, then," Jacqueline said. Her voice was calm, but the diamonds piercing her smooth cheeks were putting off a malevolent light now that punctuated her every word severely. She took the card from them and set it down on the floorboards. No matter where Soul leaned, the skull watched him, and suddenly he was beginning to really regret agreeing to this. He should have known, but the fear of hurting Maka had held him hostage as effectively as shackles.
"I chose no such thing," Maka argued, but Jacqueline just proffered the shuffled cards again, that reptilian smile still curving her painted lips.
"Choose."
"That one," Soul said angrily, pointing with their conjoined hands.
"Aren't we supposed to do it together?" Maka said irritably. He caught the undertone of apprehension in her voice, though, and he didn't miss the way her eyes kept drifting down to that staring star-bright skull.
"It'll do," Jacqueline answered smoothly. She plucked their card from among the rest and turned it over, placing it to the side and slightly below the death card. "Ah. For the benefits, it's the fool. How curious," she chortled, stroking it fondly with a fingertip before holding up the shuffled fan of cards. "Again."
Soul growled and Maka made a hesitant angry sort of whine in the back of her throat, but then she lifted their hands again and pointed, face set in an uncomfortable grimace. Soul leaned into with his shoulder, wishing there weren't currently two skulls watching them both like hawks- Lord Death was hovering over the entire little tableau with unnerving intensity, and the death card was still glimmering malevolently.
"Judgement, for your obstacles," Jacqueline said quietly, setting their third card down parallel to the Fool. "Again."
Maka hung her head and resumed picking at the mud on her boots. Soul frowned at her, aware that his heart was working overtime. He'd seen Jacqueline do enough readings; this would be their final card, and he didn't even know what the damn question was yet, but this entire thing could go very badly for him.
Maka lifted her head under the weight of his gaze and gave a muted smile that put his stomach into somersaults. She seemed to read some of the turmoil inside him, because she squeezed his hand and leaned in close, so close that he could feel her warm breath on his cheek and her lips brushing his ear when she whispered, so quietly that for a moment he thought he was dreaming, "I know who's to blame for my memory. I won't be angry at you."
Then she pulled away and regarded him, still with that crooked half-smile. Her eyes were opalescent in the light from Jacqueline's gemstones, catching and pulling all the color from the trailer and multiplying it. They looked like the ocean, blues and greens and purples shining at him devotedly, so warm and sweet that he was entirely unable to tear his gaze away from hers. He said, past his suddenly dry tongue, "All right," and pointed without looking.
"Justice is your answer," Jacqueline said fervently, setting it down beneath all the other cards, completing the diamond shape.
No one said anything for a long, airless moment, until finally Lord Death asked, "Well, go on, explain it to them before they faint." Maka started so badly that Soul suspected she'd forgotten Lord Death was there. He could understand that. This whole thing had him so on edge that he could hardly remember his own name at the moment.
Jacqueline gave a long, shuddering sigh, lacing her bejeweled fingers together with a clank. "Death, your question," she began. "Dying is inevitable. It's a monumental change that ripples out to affect every drop of water in the pond. What were you thinking of, Eater, golden girl, when you chose the card?"
Soul looked down, showing all his teeth to nobody in particular out of sheer frustration, then rumbled, "I was thinking that I'm lucky Maka doesn't know the whole truth about me." It felt like he'd just torn off all his skin, saying something so openly, but he gritted his teeth and pushed past it.
Maka squinted at him with those aurora eyes and he quickly returned his gaze to the floor. "I was thinking that I wish I knew more. I'm- afraid of all the things I don't know. About everything," she said tonelessly.
"Ah," Jacqueline said simply.
"That doesn't- those aren't even questions," Maka burst out. Her hand was hot and fitful in Soul's as she shifted around.
"Let me shine a little light on it for you then, golden girl," Jacqueline said dryly. "The question is Soul's past and how it relates to your future together. One of you was looking to the years gone by, one to the things yet to be known." She frowned down at the grinning skull, then tapped the red sun rising fron the background of the card. "This sun- it shows new beginnings, but also speaks to the summer solstice. It's coming soon and you two are going to be deep in the thick of it."
"The thick of what?" Soul said harshly. The shine of her rings was irritating his eyes. It made everything seem indistinct around the edges in a very disorienting way.
"It's the longest day of the year. It's not the day time need to worry about, though." She settled a fingertip on the dark rim of black sky surrounding the rising scarlet sun. "It's midsummer's night. Things go mad then." She ran a nail across the terrible smiling teeth of the skull like she loved it. "Evil abounds."
Maka shivered, but Soul saw her set her shoulders and lift her chin staunchly, all bravado and courage, as much as she could muster, and the way she gripped tight to his hand told him that she was doing it partly for him. "We can handle evil. All kinds, we can take it together."
She wasn't only talking about monsters. He looked again at the scabs on her fingers and the violence of her faith shook him. "Right," he said to himself. "So that's the question, apparently, thought I don't remember asking it."
"Don't be glib to the fates," Lord Death put in. "Come on, then, what's next? The suspense is killing me."
Jacqueline turned her attention to the card of judgement. "Your obstacles. Don't flinch so, Eater, this card isn't about negativity. It's not about the way the world might see a thing." She framed the gleaming golden scales with both her hands, then pointed to the gory heart sitting in one cup. "It's about the way we judge ourselves."
Well, that was clear enough. It underlined the guilt that ate away at him every day for all his lies. "Oh," was all he said.
"Don't forget the feather," she intoned. Balancing out the bloody shredded heart on the other half of the scale was a single, pure white feather. He looked closer and barely stifled a gasp, because the thing was tipped with precise brushstrokes of gold and green. Jacqueline smiled like a demon at him when he glanced up, looking terribly amused. He took another look at the feather and winced. A single drop of blood was staining it.
"Get on with it," he said shortly. If Maka appeared on the obstacles card, that was just as clear a message as that of guilt.
"In the place of chance and benefit, you both put the fool," Jacqueline said. Her hands hovered over the handsome young man's face, but she didn't touch the card. "Notice that he looks forward at the heavens as he walks, not backwards, and pays no attention to the dangers on the ground." Sure enough, there was a snake lurking in the bushes as the smiling youth strode forward.
"Blind faith," Maka said suddenly, as if something awful had just occurred to her. "Isn't that a bad thing?"
"You of all people should know that it can be both. It depends on what you make of it," Jacqueline answered mildly.
"You need to talk straight," Soul grumbled.
"Fine," the fortune teller said brusquely. "The fool. He notices nothing but what his heart has been set on. He looks only forward, to the future, and he ignores the black past behind him. He has overcome worry, he doesn't live on the path he's already walked."
"He's overcome it," Maka breathed delicately. One hand rose to settle over her mouth.
Soul made a face. "I don't understand."
"That's okay," Maka said, obviously far more enlightened than he was. "I do."
Jacqueline chuckled melodically. "Notice the white rose that he lifts to his nose, golden girl."
Maka leaned forward to peer down at the card, lower lip caught between her teeth, then said slowly, "I see all the thorns. But he- ah- it's the goal?"
"Very good," Jacqueline said approvingly.
"We can't forget the thorns," Maka told Soul, as if that were somehow supposed to make sense to him.
"Sure. Of course. The thorns!" he said, throwing up his free hand in despair. "Tell us the answer. If there's something bad coming at midsummer we need to know how to fight it. I don't need a reason to kill things." He said it as brutally as he could. Maka twitched a little, but she didn't pull away.
"The answer," Jacqueline parroted, tapping her chin with a long finger. Her eyes didn't reflect the colorful light light Maka's did, Soul noticed. Instead they drank it in and drowned it. "Justice. See her crown, how sharp and deadly it is, how heavy a burden it is to carry."
"It has dead flowers on it," Maka said softly. "Death- the answer is killing?"
"Never could have figured that one out," Soul said under his breath.
"That's part of it," Jacqueline said, ignoring him haughtily. "She carries a scale, as well, like judgement, but this one is empty. She holds it forward proudly, but her face is sad."
"She's crying," Maka said thickly.
"So are you," answered Jacqueline.
Soul jumped and turned to Maka, who was indeed crying, tiny tears slipping down her cheeks. One lingered there, like Jacqueline's diamonds, and he brushed it away quickly. "Why are you crying?" he said, feeling unutterably helpless and quite possibly more confused than ever.
"She has a decision to make and it's breaking her heart," Maka said, closing her eyes as she cried. "A decision about- she's got a sword, look, and she has to decide- and look at all the road behind her, she's come so far but people are in danger, look at the trampled flowers in the corner-"
"That's enough," Lord Death said suddenly. His voice boomed out like a foghorn in the tiny trailer and everyone, even Jacqueline, started. "I think I understand why the fates brought you here," he said, and for a moment the endless eyeholes of his mask lingered on Soul, who felt very cold until they turned away. "Maka, dear, get some rest and then come speak to me tomorrow, please. We have rather a lot to discuss. I'll make tea."
"We've got a month till midsummer's eve," Jacqueline said, gathering her cards up carefully and tucking them in her pouch. Her rings fell dormant as she did so, and without all the chaotic light she'd been putting off, the trailer was nearly pitch black.
"We'll be ready, thanks to you," Lord Death said, bowing a little. Jacqueline managed a sort of curtsey from her position on the floor, and suddenly she looked very tired.
"Let's go," Maka implored, yanking on Soul's hand as she stood up. She looked just as exhausted, weepy and red and upset. He opened the door for them silently and blinked, because outside was nothing but nighttime blackness, broken only by soft chirping crickets and a gentle wind. There was no way they'd sat in that wagon for more than an hour, and it had been high noon when they entered, but here it was, well into night. He bit his lip and wondered just how many more nights he had left in him. A small smothered piece of himself would have bet everything he owned just then on a month's worth.
"Eater," Jacqueline said from behind him. He turned to see her positively drooping from exhaustion, dull and pale. "The fool- his white dog walks beside him. Dogs stand for honesty. They bark at everything, their mouths are always open."
"I'll keep that in mind, you pushy interfering woman," he said sourly. She smiled redly and then Lord Death closed the door.
Maka braided, brushed out, and re-braided Aka's mane and tail three times before she managed to regain any semblance of calm. He appeared quite happy with all the attention, and for a moment, as she breathed the sweet alfalfa scent of his silky nose, the urge to ride away forever was almost too strong to take. She wasn't helpless anymore, as she'd been when she'd woken up nameless in Tsubaki's wagon. She knew how things worked now. She had skills. She could handle herself, but the problem was, she'd known for weeks now that Soul couldn't manage alone, and now Jacqueline and her damn sparkly light show had written the problem out clear as day.
She poured a few tears into Aka's dark red mane at the thought. A month, that was it, and they had so much work left to do. She tried very hard not to think about his hands on Black Star's throat, but it was useless.
"Hello," came a voice from behind her.
Maka turned her face to see Tsubaki, crutchless for the first time in weeks, standing carefully on her newly freed ankle. Her tattoos all looked happy with the development; the blazing tiger was grooming a paw placidly on her forearm, and the mermaid was singing silently as she brushed her hair. "Hello," Maka sighed, looking away and discreetly brushing away the last traces of her tears.
Tsubaki obviously wasn't fooled, though. She came over and stuck her fingers in Aka's mouth, rubbing his gums and giggling softly as his lips went loose and floppy in bliss. "So what awful thing did she lay on you two?"
Maka blinked at her. "How'd you know?"
Tsubaki just shrugged and moved her ministrations from Aka's mouth to between his ears. "Well, I don't think she's once given anyone good news, really. If she came this far so fast that she fainted, it had to be something big."
Maka reflected on that silently for a moment. She hadn't been told by anybody not to share Jacqueline's predictions, after all, and she absolutely had to talk to someone or she would explode like Stein from his cannon. She couldn't talk to Soul- she could hardly handle looking at him, she'd positively fled after they'd left Lord Death's wagon- and Tsubaki's gentle, concerned face was too tempting.
"I don't really think Soul understood it all, but there's some very bad stuff coming on midsummer's eve," she said quietly, beginning to braid Aka's tail once again, just so her hands were busy. "There are two choices. Either things will work out and Soul will get better-" Tsubaki gasped softly at this, a graceful hand rising to her mouth- "Or things go very bad and people get hurt and I'll have to decide if he lives or dies." It came out in a terrible rush and Maka had to close her eyes tight to withstand the heartbreaking force of it.
"You've got to be wrong," Tsubaki said after a moment. "That's far too clear to be one of Jacqueline's predictions. Which arcana did she use? Which spread? Because sometimes she gets too ambitious and things get complicated and-"
"Just four cards. Uh, major arcana," Maka said dully.
Tsubaki's lips thinned and her dark blue eyes grew wide. "Oh, no, oh no! Maka, listen, Black Star and I will be right by your side, no matter what happens at midsummer, all right? We'll help you and Soul. You don't have to carry this alone." She said it with ferocious conviction and Maka was reminded suddenly of how terrible Tsubaki could be when those she loved were threatened.
"I used to think that I'd been cursed, waking up with no memories, but I'm really glad I met you," she choked out, feeling rather silly and saccharine, but the way Tsubaki's face lit up made it all worth it. A peacock started a prancing little dance on her neck, tail flaring out. It was beautiful, but it reminded Maka so much of the swirling glow of Jacqueline's gemstones that she had to glance away.
"I'm really glad I met you too," Tsubaki said, putting a hand on Maka's shoulder. "I'm sure you're mistaken, though. Soul's been doing so much better since he met you! He's like a different person."
"I'm not mistaken," Maka said. "I wish I was but I know I'm not." She did know. She'd felt it somewhere deep down when she looked at the shining skull of death and the blithely unaware face of the fool.
Tsubaki took her confidence at face value, giving a sigh and pulling a few loose hairs from Aka's mane, seemingly without realizing it. She wound them around and around her fingers as she frowned at the ground.
"Is he really that much better?" Maka asked as she finished her braid.
Tsubaki nodded absently, forehead crinkled in thought. " A thousand times better. I know he's had a few little episodes, you know, like this morning, but he truly is acting a lot more civilized."
That put a warm glow in Maka's chest and she was awfully afraid her cheeks were red, but it passed when she thought again about the lady justice and her ominous empty scales. "Oh. That's good."
Tsubaki twisted Aka's hairs around her fingers one final time, then let them settle down to the ground. "Yes. Maka, there's a month until midsummer's eve, isn't there?"
"That's what Lord Death said." A hint of the bitter burning fury Maka was feeling toward that particular man crept into her voice, and the hidden diary seemed to mock her from its position under her saddle blanket in the corner. She wanted desperately to know what it said, but she surely wasn't about to go ask Soul to read it to her, not when she knew just the sound of his voice would send her to her knees. Anyway, she'd figured out what was important- who was behind her memory loss. She could find out why exactly Lord Death had done it to her tomorrow when she went to talk to him.
"A month is a good stretch of time," Tsubaki said thoughtfully, running her fingers through her long unbound hair. It shone with nearly purple highlights in the lamplight. "Whatever you've been doing with Soul, keep doing it. Just be careful."
"I'm not doing anything-" Maka squeaked.
"Not that kind of doing!" Tsubaki laughed. "Black Star doesn't miss much, you know. He's seen your hands and he's seen the tiny cuts on Soul's neck. Why do you think he gave you the knife?"
"Mae West?" Maka said, blinking.
"Yes. He knew you were going to do something stupid."
"It's not stupid," Maka muttered, throwing all her brushes into her grooming kit and practically snatching Aka's lead rope. He threw up his head in protest at her rough movements and she sighed and patted him on the neck reluctantly.
"It's pretty stupid if it is what we think," Tsubaki corrected, quite unperturbed at her friend's sulky tone.
The woman was as placid as the moon and just as untouchable. It was infuriating; why was calm so easy for her, in the face of news like this? If it were Black Star sitting mad and helpless under her dark sword, Tsubaki wouldn't be so unaffected. She'd be screaming and bellowing and fighting everything and everyone, just like Maka wanted to do. For a moment Maka almost wanted to throw a tantrum, but she reined it in, settling for stomping her feet as they left the horses. "It's not stupid and you two are far too observant for your own good," she said sharply.
"Just be careful, understand?" Tsubaki said, just as forcefully, her warrior heart coming through. "I know you want to rescue Soul but trust me, there are other people out there who need you just as much."
Maka rubbed her temples and opened the door to Tsubaki's wagon perhaps a little harder than was strictly necessary. She was exhausted and yet her mind wouldn't allow her to rest that night as she tossed and turned on the floor. Instead it kept running in circles, kept forcing her to glance at her scythe, gleaming innocently in the corner. Finally she got up and threw a shirt over the blade before returning to her nest of blankets.
Tsubaki shifted and murmured something drowsily. "It's all right, go back to sleep," Maka hushed. One of them, at least, should get some rest. Maka stared at the ceiling all night long, rubbing her thumb over the scabs on her hand and trying not to suffocate under the burden of Soul, of his precious laughter and his hidden gentle heart and the feel of his arms around her. Her scythe may have been covered, but it laughed at her anyway with the tearful face of justice.
FOOTNOTES
1: The major arcana is 22 of the 78 cards in a tarot deck. They're sort of considered the more 'powerful' part, but that's a huge simplification. The reading Jacqueline did is wildly simplified and probably super incorrect; tarot reading is a complicated art and my research basically confused the hell out of me. The cards are real, however, as are the meanings (sort of, ish) that she took from them. Basically I'm no expert so don't quote me.
2: St. Cross is a real monastery in France. It's just a random one I chose for the lovely architecture.
Author says: Hey guys, I'm so sorry this took so long! I've been really busy with my ResBang story. Thank you so much for reading and all your wonderful reviews! They really mean a lot to me! :) This story is sort of a labor of love so it's nice to know people are out there actually enjoying it!
