Disclaimer: Tsubasa belongs to CLAMP. Sadly.

Author natterings: Another Fay bit. King Ashura included. Premonition-ish. Can you figure out what 'that power' at the end is? (Waggles eyebrows.)
If you'd like the full effect of the story (though it isn't needed, I explain enough) go look up the cards I mention. I am by no means a tarot reader, but I think I've got some good meaning going on there.
Feedback is appreciated. My Fay appreciates it too.

Magician Reversed

"The magician, the fool, the hanged man," he recites it. As if reading from the Book of Heaven itself.

"The magician, the fool, the hanged man," I repeat. "The magician is upside-down."

He shifts the last two back and forth with long, tapered fingers, a look of fondness on his face at the spelling of fate. "Rather ominous."

I squint at him, unconcentrated concentration. Today he wears purple and blue and gold, royalty pocketed with a bit of detachment. We sit in the throne room, his guards stationed at the doors and pretending not to listen.

"Oh really. I think it's rather wonderful." I don't know what I think, just say this for the sake of taking the opposite view. The rest of the arcana, piled vertically, hovers above my pointed fingers with idle magic.

"It's not," he says, and shifts on his side amongst velvet pillows. I always chastise him for the pillows; they are royally unimaginative. Every king owns velvet pillows. "The magician reversed symbolizes the making of serious mistakes."

"The pillows," I say immediately.

He assumes his look of steeliness. This means of course, that I'm right.

"It's not the pillows, fool."

A humourless laugh. "What would you say it is, then? Your latest declaration of war, sire? Your choice of palace tile?" I turn the deck of cards in the air, like the globe whirling round the sun.

"Who is to say?" Here, a normal person would've given a helpless shrug, disguising what he does not want revealed. But he does not because he is not. "Would you like to do yours?"

In reply, I fan the cards out over his fortune, moving them back and forth without effort, glowing with simple magic. My skill really is a terrible thing.

Suddenly, he speaks, and his voice echoes in my head the emptiness of the room. "You must tire of the world."

I let him shuffle them now, using his hands. It is obvious that he expects a reply. His manner has never left him through all the time we've been not-subject-and-not-king. Some things never quite leave.

I feel the seal rest on my back - an irony that its weight makes me feel lighter. I reply, cryptically, "Being a magician has its faults."

He lays them out, one two three. So precise, and it is beautiful in its precision. He is thinking as he deals them out. "The magician reversed also symbolizes an absence of clarity." This, clearly, is the most haunting of ideas to him. In a world of crystal ice glass, in a world of transparency, why would it not?

Just then, a prickle runs up my back, skittering. Something has arrived, and the greatest feeling of overwhelming power settles in between my shoulderblades, seal sparking against my skin. For an instant, I see in my mind an image of wings taking flight.

I glance at him. He has felt it too.

"Go," he commands, and I am gone.

--------

King Ashura turns over the cards he has dealt for the Magician.

"The magician, the fool, the hanged man. The magician is upside-down."