I'm Dreaming of the Life I Once Loved

[occultigen]

Who: Meridiana (occultigen) and YOU!
Where: Goldenrod City
When: Anytime during the month of February!
Summary: What do you get when you cross a Victorian-era seeress with a pack of tarot cards? There's one easy way to find out...
Rating: PG!
Log:

[It's not particularly nice out these days, but at the very least it's not snowing most of the time and the weather's usually above freezing, and even on the worse days of the month, with the benefit of a couple of Fire-type Pokemon (and a few who happen to know Sunny Day) it's not altogether difficult to keep warm in spite of the chill in the air.

Which is why, at various times during the month of February, you might just see Meridiana bundled up and sitting at one of the outdoor tables of a cafe in Goldenrod, facing the street and playing with a pack of tarot cards. Every so often, she'll make a face and shake her head at a card she turns up; most of the time, though, she's shifting and arranging them with practiced and familiar ease. She's done this sort of reading before, in a similar way, and made a little bit of money at it and helped give passerby some guidance into their circumstances and futures, so all in all it's a reasonable enough way of passing the time on a quiet afternoon.

On days when she's out, she's got a little handmade sign up to advertise her business (which her Tropius is helpfully displaying for her), so if you happen to be passing by and would like to sit and have your fortune told — or even just stop by to chat a while — feel free to pause and say hello!]


[OOC: Okay, so! This is an open log for people in Goldenrod who'd like to stop in and interact with Meridiana, either just to hang out or to use her fortune-telling as a hook! As a standard disclaimer, I am not anywhere close to being an expert at this myself, so I'll be using this website for any readings she's asked to give and just going with whatever it returns; if you'd prefer to handwave something or for character/plot reasons would prefer to have her give your character a specifically-tailored prediction or result (that is, specific cards, a particular overall meaning, whatever), feel free to let me know and we can swing it that way as well! And of course, you're not obligated to ask for one; you're just as welcome to chat and hang out with her instead!

This log is good for the entire month of February, so please give me a rough date of when a thread is taking place on your starter, along with anything else I might need to know before we get rolling!]

Comments

[lieutenantantichrist]

[Blake exhales audibly. He doesn't know what he was expecting. Some kind of card with a devil on it, maybe, or just the words YOU FUCKED UP.

This one doesn't seem so bad.

His lip twitches up.] Are you a fortune-teller or a shrink?

Making good choices, huh. [He drums his fingers on the table thoughtfully. It's all a bunch of mystical voodoo crap, of course, but the coincidence is kind of interesting.] I don't know how a couple of naked people are going to help me with that.

[occultigen]

I simply read the cards, that's all. And do my best at interpreting what it is they might be saying.

[She shrugs a little, motioning generally to the spread. She knows a hard-sell customer when she sees one, and doubts anything she might press further will convince him any more than she's already tried. So, so much the better to just leave him to it, and let him form his own conclusions.]

It's an optimistic sort of future, if nothing else. There's something to that, surely.

[lieutenantantichrist]

[Blake's eyes travel from one card to another. Angel, boat, couple.]

For a long time there, 'optimistic' meant thinking I might make it to retirement without getting shot.

[He catches himself.] Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying I believe in any of this abracadabra stuff. [He cracks a lopsided smile.] But it's nice to hear your fancy solitaire thinks old dogs can learn new tricks.

[occultigen]

...I knew someone, once, who saw the world that way. He was very adamant about...

[She hesitates a minute, staring at her cards.]

...He told me about his way of looking at the world. He was terribly convincing, so I believed him. He thought that...some things, he could prove weren't true, because it was simply impossible for them to happen.

I suppose for myself, I've come to learn since then that...there's a difference, between believing a thing is impossible and having proof that it is.

[She hesitates again.]

I'm sorry. I didn't mean anything by it. It's only...you reminded me of him a little, just now. With your convictions.

[lieutenantantichrist]

[Blake shakes his head.]

S'alright. I'm not as sure about this stuff as I used to be. The thing about being real sure something is impossible...[He lets out a long sigh.] Sometimes that's wishful thinking.

[He chews on his lip, suspecting he's not going to like the answer to this but not quite able to keep from asking.]

So what ever happened to this guy?

[occultigen]

Oh, he's...

[She goes quiet, abruptly, and glances away.]

I was with him, just before I came here. So I'm certain he's...back there now, carrying on, and such.

I suppose it's really not much of a story to tell, now that I think on it.

[lieutenantantichrist]

[Blake tilts his head wryly. He has a lot to think about but doesn't really feel like pacing around by himself yet. Steve is leaning over the table and giving the cards curious sniffs.]

I've heard worse, and I have nothing but time.

[occultigen]

[She smiles a little, wryly, when he says he's heard worse, because her kneejerk reaction is to answer, perhaps you ought to wait until you've heard it.]

I...hope you'll pardon that I'll not go into specifics, but.

[She draws in a slow breath.]

Have you perhaps heard that, er...that sometimes, people come here after their death, in another place?

[lieutenantantichrist]

[He waves his hand.] That's fine.

[This guy she's talking about isn't a suspect. It's not like he's going to have to get a forensic sketch made of him.

He's been here too damn long. Talking about dead people showing up doesn't faze him.]

Yeah, I've heard that can happen. Hasn't to me as far as I know, though.

[Bringing it up implied a bad ending for her story.]

So this guy's dead?

[occultigen]

...No. But I am.

[She ducks her head a little, but not enough to really obscure her face; most all it does is make her hair fall a little further forward around her head.]

That's what — you see, he convinced me that I wasn't...dying. But...he ended up being wrong.

[lieutenantantichrist]

[Blake has plenty of standard reactions to things outside of most people's experience, like I've been shot ("Yep, you have. Calling it in.") or I'm dying ("No, you're not."), but a little girl hesitantly and delicately stating that she's dead is a new one. She doesn't look real dead. Old-fashioned, maybe, with curls that give a kind of creepy china-doll effect, but breathing. He's seen plenty of weird in his time here, though, and dead people walking is known to happen.

Shit. How do you answer that?]

You're not dead anymore. You don't look sick, either.

Guess that makes him kind of right.

[occultigen]

I don't want him to be right.

[That seems to slip out, and as soon as she's said it she jumps, abruptly alarmed at that bit of candor; all of a sudden, she's hurrying to clarify.]

W-What I mean to say is...

[...]

He should be wrong. He was wrong. I was never wrong about that and he convinced me otherwise, but I wasn't wrong. He was the one who was, all along. So he should be wrong, for once.

[lieutenantantichrist]

[Blake tries to wrap his head around a situation he doesn't have any context for at the same time as he's trying not to upset the girl, two things he is equally bad at.]

Hey, calm down. Take it slow.

[Steve has settled on his lap, and looks at Meridiana with doggish concern. Blake scratches her head thoughtlessly.]

You're mad you're not dead?

[occultigen]

I...I don't know if I can explain it. Properly.

[She ducks her head, wavering on her decision of whether or not to make the attempt at all.]

I-I had a...a terminal illness. Awful things were done, trying to treat me...

[...]

Procedures. They hurt, and...people did wretched things. Because of it.

But then...imagine someone comes along and convinces you, manages to convince you beyond a doubt that there really is no illness like that. You're not dying from anything. Someone's taking advantage of you, but if you'll only trust him, then you'll live, because you were never dying at all.

And you know better, but you want to believe him, so you do. And then later it turns out he was wrong.

When everything else is ripped away like that, all of your hopes and your expectations...it's insulting, taking away the sole consolation that I was right and he was wrong. I've lost everything else. I don't want to be made to lose that, too.

[lieutenantantichrist]

There's something like that back where I'm from.

[She's probably not talking about cancer and chemo, but it sounds similar enough that Blake gets the idea.

A lot of the rest of it sounds very familiar, too. It starts to make an ugly kind of sense. An old anger tightens Blake's jaw.]

There's guys like that, too. Ones who go around to people who're sick, scared, and desperate, and sell them crystals, prayers, and snake oil. 'Believe in Jesus and you'll be fine - right after your check clears.'

There's always scumbags who'll screw over people in a low place so they can get what they want from them.

[And a goddamn little girl, too.]

[occultigen]

...I'm very sorry. I think you must come from much further in the future than the place where I used to live, and I'm sorry to hear that such things are still a problem.

[Although hopefully not the exact same problem. Considering.]

I'm so very tired of people like that.

[lieutenantantichrist]

There's always going to be scumsuckers and scam artists, as long as there's human beings. It's not all bad, though. There's nothing like busting one of them for satisfaction.

[His eyes drop to the cards. He always gets abashed and unsure when he's about to try t say something sympathetic.]

Sorry there wasn't anybody to look out for you.