Author's Note: Ah my goodness! She's alive? That's right! After nearly a year of pen-name hybernation, Jaak is back with the fruits (and vegetables) of her labor: The Magician and the Fool! It's not fully done, and that's whyI was waiting so long to post it,I wanted to make sure that I wouldn't just leave my loyal readers hanging (because...heh let's admit, writer's block is the #3 cause of death in aspiring novelists today!) Like I said, it's not done completely, shame on me, but I hope you all can chew on the first eleven chapters while I scribble down the rest!
Hehe...after three minutes of glorious postdom, I noticed my story was lacking the comments and most importantly: The Disclamer. So here it is in nice bold print in the event that it's not clear enough that I'm not Togashi Yoshihiro XD
Disclaimer: In no way do I own HunterxHunter or any characters involved. Nor do I own Here Comes the Rain Again
by the Eurithmics (hence the band name underneath the lyrics). However, Kawari, Nazonazo, Don, Veto, and Cici are my own original characters (more or less, some rely on stereotypes, but we won't get into that heh).
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Here comes the rain again
Falling on my head like a memory
Falling on my head like a new emotion
I want walk in the open wind
I want to talk like lovers do
I want to dive into your ocean
Is it raining here with you?
Here comes the rain again
Raining in my head like a tragedy
Tearing me apart like a new emotion
I want breathe in the open wind
I want to kiss like lovers do
I want to dive into your ocean
Is it raining here with you?
-Eurithmics
The Magician and the Fool: Capitulo Um
Yorkshin city. The supposed 'city of growth' the land of opportunity. By day herds of men and women in suits talked on cell phones crossing the streets, filing papers in their cubicles, each lost in their troubles of work, their nose to the grind stones, their personalities down to a simple bar code and a set of numbers. A child stood with fearful eyes full of tears, wondering where his mother had gone. An old man in tatters sat on a street corner with a Mason jar and cardboard sign. Everyone native to that city had the same emptiness in his or her eyes. What used to be sadness now dulled to apathy, each loosing their individuality to the Wall Street. Lovers came home to their spouses and an interloper; children taunted and hurt each other at school, caffeine pills and cure-alls started the daily routine. This was our world. These are our people.
When one examines a deck of cards, one finds four suits. Hearts, Clubs, Spades, and Diamonds. The four suits contain numbers one to ten, and then go on to royalty. There are four jacks, four queens, and four kings. This makes fifty-two cards. But there are two other mysterious cards in the deck: A single pair of jokers. One red, one black. Why not four? And what is the use of these cards? The supposed 'Wild Card' of the deck, can assume any value, any form, any card of the deck. Such versatility causes more superstitious people to think the card to have supernatural abilities. Sadly the probability of finding one another is a one in fifty-three chance, but some say once they do meet…something magic happens.
However by night, things are much more interesting. Soft rain offered a feeling of calm, and confined most peevish people to their homes. The loving twilight blanketed the unfeeling town, bejeweled with the bright lights of the big city. Techno beats bled from the nightclubs, men and women with no where else to go walked the streets stained with red light. In this world, even love could be bought. People had lost their morals; their happiness followed suit. Not much could be done now, only to watch it all burn.
Tracing back further in history, the bicycle deck actually descends from the famed Tarot deck. It too contains four suits: Cups, Wands, Swords, and Pentacles. It has royalty for each suit, but the entire deck consists of seventy-eight cards. The extra twenty-two cards come from the major arcana, consisting of cards with distinct meanings; such as Justice, The Tower, Death, Temperance, etc. It is easy to see how the bicycle deck takes reference of these ancient cards. Even the joker has ancestors, if one looks at the first two major arcana, one sees the Fool and the Magician.
Rain poured lightly from the skies. To some it seemed depressing, the sky sobbing for the world in shame. To others it was refreshing, washing away the pains of the day. The streets were relatively empty, save a passing car or two, a few drunks singing and stumbling down the thin sidewalks, lonely night owls prowling the street plagued by insomnia and depression.
One joker blissfully ignorant of the world, dancing at the edge of a cliff on a journey seeking self-expression, with not a care in the world that death teases at his ankles. He lives the life of a god, skipping about in wild colors, offering the grim reaper a spot of tea, all simply lost in his own little world without a thought of the sharp tongues and green hearts of others. Stupid, laughing, loving. He represents all things frivolous, ridiculous and thoughtless: delirium, mania, infatuation with all that he meets. A bumbling fool with a cheery grin, he takes life as it comes and savors each moment.
A strange sight indeed: a young woman skipping through the Yorkshin streets with a wide mischievous grin. Her hair was odd: wavering dark locks framing her face to her chin, wild spikes tipped with pink gel at the back of her head, nearly unaffected by the rain. Accompanying her cheshire grin were large green old-fashioned driving goggles spotted with water drops gripped around her head and covered her eyes. A wild printed shirt of bright color swayed about her hips as she danced down the narrow sidewalk. It was of thin fabric, polyester maybe, so the rain simply fell through it. Black gloves with colored fingers covered her small hands, a fringed scarf of the same pattern trailed behind her, waving a cheerful farewell to the ripples in the puddles. Faded denim covered her lower half and made a thick wet sound as she moved. The pants were already a bit long, but now they were soaked through up to the knees. Underneath her feet were bare strangely enough; she hardly ever wore shoes. Not because she didn't like them, she adored how creative shoes could be. It was more of…she forgot to put them on. Twenty-something and in love with the world; laughing like a child, completely oblivious to those around her: she was obviously from out of town.
The other: the Magician, a more serious joker. Mysterious in the very sense of the word. He astounds us with his tricks of the mind, taking any form he pleases, so long as it is his to gain. A sly, capricious character often looked down upon for his selfish ways. Unlike the Fool, there is a plotting mind behind that innocent smirk. He represents originality, self-reliance, imagination, flexibility, dexterity and subtlety. Able to choose his own path in the fog, he often stands alone because of his careful planning. Few allies, if any, he amuses himself in simple games with simple minds.
A man walked slowly down the streets looking straight head, but not considering the surrounding area at all. Sharp black boots clicked on the cement and made a light wet sound in the few puddles. White baggy pants were tucked into his boots, bunched around the edge with a characteristic deck of playing cards in his pocket. A white shirt with mushroom sleeves hung from his broad shoulders. Adorned with a black club and spade on the front, it clung to his toned chest from the rain. The same plastic rings decorated his wrists and strong arms, obviously an experienced fighter. A thin pale face unconsciously held a dangerous smirk, innocent to seem; deadly to mean. On his cheeks laid his signature jester's star and teardrop, the paint starting to run a bit forming colorful tears. Cold hazel eyes were narrow as usual and clouded in thought, with smooth upraised brow implied an even temper and pleasant humor, but with this man, who knew which end was up? His hair, a wild and bleeding red, swung as he walked and hung limp uncharacteristically clinging fast to his neck and cheekbones. For those unfortunate enough to know this man, a thick cloak of mystery surrounded him, and often burdened and boggled the mind. Twenty-seven maybe? The guy was a walking rubix cube, playing games with the world, laughing like a killer, and carefully watching the people stumble through his maze: obviously well-adjusted to this drab and easily manipulated city.
The Fool, the Magician, both strange and confusing individuals, both jokers in a sense. Both terribly amused with the world. One adores people, the other uses them. One picks up where the other leaves off and back again, both in a vicious cycle of passion and confusion should they ever touch. It is true what they say, be the result romantic bliss or torturous mass-destruction, something magic happens when the two jokers of the deck meet.
The woman continued on her way beaming at the weather through her tinted goggles. She whisked past the man, brushing his arm with her shoulder by accident. As luck would have it a large pool of water lay painfully between them, its liquid ricocheting all over the man. Strangely enough, neither of them seemed to notice. They simply continued on their way. Even more disturbing: the water ran up a wall of the building next to them.
End Capitulo
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Tah-dah. I swear it gets better than this, this was just a tidbit to get my feet wet and see what you guys think of it! Flames are welcome and almost loved, so long as you have a reason to your angst. Brace yourselves, There's ten more chapters left of this mess and it's not even done!