UN: ScielCandide | Video

[cache_coeur]

[The camera is fixed on a table, upon which sits a neat stack of cards –– black with gold foil in the shape of a sun and moon bisecting each other. The user’s hands pass over the deck and spreads it wide into an arc. Her hands are tanned, with two rings on her ring finger and one on her index finger, and she has so many colourful braided bracelets that some wind around her palm.

Her voice is pleasant, playful, French, a little theatrical:]

Bonsoir, mes amies!

Tonight and tonight only, I will tell your fortune with a single card. Tell me your name, and if you would like to hear about love, money, health or the soul.

If it moves you, you must repay me with an amusing anecdote about yourself.

Ready to play?

Comments

[cache_coeur]

[There’s a smile on her voice.]

Hello, Dwayne.

[She draws; when she flips the card, it reveals a figure, blindfolded, with two swords crossed over their chest.]

The two of swords, upright. Your path is not entirely clear right now. Until you find that balance, you will remain hesitant to move forward. Are you avoiding making a decision right now?

[will_chase_balls]

I don't know. It's hard to know if it's worthwhile to even consider any decisions about things going on back home when I don't know if my world will exist when I'm done here.

[cache_coeur]

That’s the ultimate indecision, isn’t it? When you stand still like that, unable to traverse the impasse at all.

What would change if you knew the answer to your world’s fate? What would your new focus be?

[will_chase_balls]

If I knew my world would live, I'd probably start deciding how I was going to pay off my dad's gambling debts, because apparently getting turned into a vampire or lich or whatever means he's legally dead.

If I knew it wouldn't, I'd probably track down whoever made that decision to try and destroy them.

[cache_coeur]

Obviously none of us would like our worlds to be wiped from existence, but you already see a path for yourself, should it be true. How do you feel about travelling it?

[will_chase_balls]

Not great. I really hope it doesn't come to that.

I don't want anyone else's world to die, either.

[cache_coeur]

Mm. It fills me with trepidation, too. But it’s heartening, isn’t it, to have a plan. Just in case the worst happens. And whatever happens, the Two of Swords bids us to gather information so we can make a choice that is true to ourselves.

[will_chase_balls]

Yeah, it is.

Do you think there might be a chance that none of our worlds actually have to die?

[cache_coeur]

There’s a chance. The odds aren’t in our favour, but that shouldn’t stop us from doing our best.

[will_chase_balls]

Yeah. I'll do my best no matter what. I'd say whatever god made a system that needs anyone to choose entire universes to be destroyed is cruel and sadistic, but that's how gods are.

[cache_coeur]

Must there be a god at all?

[will_chase_balls]

I'm pretty sure there are gods, but it's not like they do anything to help anyone so they're definitely not needed.

[cache_coeur]

I can’t say I feel any differently, though I do think I stopped believing in them recently.

[will_chase_balls]

Oh yeah? Why's that?

[cache_coeur]

I looked one in the eye and found her to be… human, in some way. No different from us.

[will_chase_balls]

That makes sense. Seekers of the Blood of Vol believe that everyone has divinity within, and everyone has the power to become a god, and that the only reason new people don't achieve godhood anymore is that those who have already achieved it strike down anyone who comes close so they can retain their unique status. We believe people are only mortal because gods fear us living long enough to become like them, and the only reason they tolerate the undead living forever is because someone has to have their own living blood to achieve divinity.

[cache_coeur]

[Well, that tracks.]

How do the gods prevent them from manifesting what is already within them?

[will_chase_balls]

It takes a very long time and lots of study to discover how to manifest the divinity within. Legend has it there was a member of the house of Vol who came close, and the gods struck her down as well as her entire bloodline.

[cache_coeur]

And she had no way to defend herself against them?

[will_chase_balls]

If she did, it clearly wasn't enough.

[cache_coeur]

Well, obviously not!

So what is Vol?

[will_chase_balls]

Vol was her surname.

[cache_coeur]

Ah. And others seek her blood?

[will_chase_balls]

It's figurative. Not literal. It's the name of the religion because Seekers hope mortals will one day find whatever she discovered.

Only without the smiting.

[cache_coeur]

Sounds like quite the ordeal. Do you think they’ll be successful?