Prelude to Soul Searching Who: Mazie and Wren When:Late morning Where: Wren's room
This hadn’t really been premeditated but as Mazie knocked on Wren’s door, she realized there was a reason she was here. While she’d never really met Wren before, she’d had an interesting journal conversation with the girl and had wanted to meet her since then. And because Mazie was avoiding a lot of things, as much as possible right now, she found herself pursuing another avenue.
Wren was surprised at the knock on her door, wondering if it was Kyle. Opening it up, she saw a blonde girl she knew to be Mazie, even if they had never met. Smiling, she greeted her. "Hello." she said. "You are Adam's friend." she said, knowing that. Adam had talked about her before. And she'd participated in the readings. "It's nice to meet you."
That actually made Mazie smile, even if it was small. "Yup, that's me. Adam's friend. Mazie. And you're Adam's friend, Wren. And it's nice to meet you too. I've been meaning to meet you for a while." She took a breath and then continued. "You said that some bad shit was going to happen, in that reading you did for me. Well….it did, and…I'm hoping I can get a full reading." That sounded nicer than the 'I want a full reading now' that Mazie had in her mind, so hopefully it came out that way too.
Wren stepped back so Mazie could enter the room. "Of course." she said. "I'm sorry things have gone poorly for you. Let's see how it looks like from here." She hoped it would be better. She wouldn't tell Mazie what she wanted to hear, she'd give the reading as it stood.
Mazie stepped into the room and took a moment to look around and realize that she hadn't really been inside many people's rooms here. "How'd you even…find out you could do this kind of stuff, anyway? The cards. Because those other ones were…eeiry-accurate, so…you have to be some sort of magic, right?"
"Oh," Wren said, pausing as she went to get her cards. "I was raised in a...what people refer to as a 'cult'." she said. "And I'm aware it was, though occasionally I have troubles reconciling it in my head." she admitted. "But it's entire philosophy was based off of Fate. I was their Prophet. So, I know about every form of divination known to man. Tarot is just my prefered method." Wren picked up her cards and looked back at Mazie. "Most people have the same reaction. That it's accurate to the point of being unsettling. I was told I have a strong tie to Fate. These days...I don't think anyone believes that. But I just do what I do. I was a spiritual leader and focal point before, and when people needed guidance, they came to me. I can still fill that role for those around me."
Mazie watched her for a moment, eyes widening because that was a lot of stuff she hadn't expected to hear. And yeah, it wasn't stuff you heard every day, and definitely not stuff she'd expect to be told after just meeting someone face to face. She'd read about cults, but never actually met anyone that had belonged to one. But that was sort of the thing about cults, right? Or at least the cults she'd read about.
Either way, Mazie was torn for a moment between being impressed and being a little confused before she just ended up nodding. "Well, that's pretty ballsy of you to just come out and tell me that. I definitely don’t know anyone from a cult. Or..didn’t, until now, I guess. I don't have to call you Prophet or anything, right? I can just call you Wren? And who the fuck cares if no one believes you have strong ties to Fate or whatever. If you believe you do, that's what matters in the end, right?"
Wren looked mildly confused. "...why would it be 'ballsy?" she asked. "Why would I not tell you? You asked." she continued. "And just call me Wren. I'm not the Prophet anymore, so it no longer applies in the slightest." she explained. "And I believe in guidance. And honestly, they don't steer people wrong, and I feel confident in what things mean, and how to interpret them for people." She sat down on the floor and gazed at Mazie for a long moment. "What would you say your most prominent personality trait is?"
"It's ballsy because you start telling people you're from a cult, I'm pretty sure some people are gonna freak out." Mazie shrugged. "I just respect ballsiness, I guess." She wasn't expecting that question and she didn't really like it because it was so introverted. She didn't think that far into herself pretty much ever and having to do so now wasn't really appealing to her. "I don't know…do the cards need to know that?"
"If they do, then I'm of the opinion that they likely aren't people who would accept me either way. I see no need to hide who I am or was." Wren said. "How about this. Just start telling me about you. Whatever you wish." she invited.
Mazie liked that. A lot. She liked that Wren didn't give a shit about what other people thought about her and she was going to just say what she wanted anyway. "I respect that," She answered, nodding back at her before she moved to sit cross-legged in front of her. As she settled, she tried to think of things about herself that she liked. "…I like my computer. And I like that I know what I'm doing when I look at it. That it just feels natural to be around it. I..don't really know. I've never done something like this before. We didn't really talk about ourselves when I was back home, didn't care to when I was in prison, and there's a couple people I do that with here but…" She trailed off, not sure how she should even phrase the next part. "But I don't know if that's what you needed."
"When I do a full reading," Wren said, shuffling. "I need a card that represents you. One that's in there, to reference everything else by. Like a pivot focus." she explained. "Who are you? I understand your focus now, but who is Mazie?" she asked, looking the blonde in the eyes. "Underneath it all. Who are you?"
This question was all sorts of weird. "…A girl?" She offered, very confused by this. She was all sorts of on the road page if she had to start thinking introspectively. She was quiet for a long time and then she ended up shrugging. "I don't know, I'm a helper, I guess. I want to help people. Help them when they can't help themselves. Give them money and technology and things that they would benefit from. And take down the bastards that have it all and flaunt it too much. I want to fight for those people who can’t.”
Listening, Wren nodded, then found the Knight of Pentacles to put down in front of herself. "Everyone is more than their gender." she told her gently with a smile. She did already know that she was going to have to try and help Mazie a little with one thing - self exploration. But she didn't say that right now, because she was fulfilling another task. Then she held out the cards for Mazie to shuffle. "Since we're doing a general reading, but I know you have a lot on your mind, concentrate on those things. It'll help direct the cards, even if it doesn't pinpoint.”
This was helpful for Mazie, the small guidance. She looked at the card and liked the art on it, but didn't think on it past that since she didn't know what it meant. "Shuffle the deck and think of what's on my mind." Not hard, when Autumn was all that had been on her mind since yesterday. Once the deck was shuffled, she handed in back to Wren.
Wren shook her head. “Cut the deck three times, then put it back together again. Then hand it over.” she instructed. “Do you want me to explain each card as we go, and you ask questions at the end, or would you like to talk things through as we go?”
Mazie brought the cards closer to her again and proceeded to cut them. "What do you do usually? You're doing all the work, right? I guess whatever makes it easier for you."
“I do whatever people would like. It’s fine either way,” Wren assured her.
"Well... I don’t know what any of this means..." Mazie said, shrugging as she looked back at Wren and handed the cards back again. "So I'd like to know what they mean. What else does that one mean?" she asked, pointing at the Knight of Pentacles.
"We'll go one by one then," Wren said. She took the cards, then glanced down at the one she'd chosen for Mazie, not that she had forgotten what it was. Still, she looked at the image of a horse's head, its outline scratched out. It was a dark looking card, though in reality Wren's deck was full of strange images, with a black base around the images instead of a traditional white one. Hers wasn't the most common deck in the world, and in fact some people accused her of not having proper cards because of it. But they were hers. She loved them, and knew them. "The Knight of Pentacles." she said. "It's about dedication to a cause. Total dedication. Especially when the cause is lost. It's a fight against enemies." she explained.
"I like knights. They have their code, live by it…I think they're pretty cool. 'm ok with that. And it doesn't sound too far off." Since Mazie had spent a lot of her time fighting with enemies, big and small, and she liked that even Wren and her cards could see that. "What comes next?"
Wren didn't bother to correct Mazie on the perception of the knights. She knew that was the common connotation, even if it was a little different in the cards. When asked what came next, Wren quickly and easily flipped the cards into their pattern on the floor before her, then set down the rest of them. "Now we start." she said. Two cards had been placed over the Knight of Pentacles, one covering the card and one crossing it. She pointed to the one covering it first. "This is what covers you." she told Mazie. "This is representative of the forces now at work in your life. We have the King of Cups, reversed. It means something's disturbed your calm. It's rattled you, gotten emotional. It's scandal, upheaval." she explained.
Great. That sounded about one hundred percent correct and yet Mazie had been hoping to hear good things. Sighing, she nodded a little, running her hands through her hair. "Yeah, that sounds about right. Scandal, upheaval, all those things you just said basically happened within the last 24 hours so…yeah. I like the King of Cups a lot less than that Knight."
"I wouldn't be so hasty to level dislike at something. There are always two sides." Wren told her. "The other side of the King of Cups is a dreamer, someone with a rich imagination, deeply emotional..." she trailed off. "There are always to sides. At the very least." she said. "Moving ahead, we have what crosses you. This is what's working against you right now. The Queen of Cups, reversed. She's showing us that right now, your biggest issues have to do with uncertainty, deep seeded fear, especially in relation to love. It's a dive too deep into the waters of fantasy, ignoring reality."
Mazie groaned and let herself collapse onto the floor, away from the cards, with a hefty sigh. "This is not what I was hopin' to hear…." She said, arm over her eyes as she tried to make sense of this. Why did this sound so right? And what could she even do about it if even the cards were calling her out?
Wren gazed at Mazie for a long moment. "No good ever came from someone merely being told what they want to hear." she told the other girl. "You're going to need to learn to hear the things you don't like. The world is full of them. It isn't about you, and what you like, it's about the world around you and everything going on in it. You aren't a center point, you're a cog that fits in with everything else. Eternal revolutions around one another, revolving around events, people, endless circles interacting. You're part of something bigger than just you. I caution against bucking and wailing every time you learn of things distasteful to you...otherwise, you're going to wrap yourself up nice and cozy with a blanket of lies and half truths, and by the time you figure that out, it's going to mean everything's already crashing around your ears." she said, voice gentle the entire time. "when we're done with this, I do want to set up self exploration with you. Regular visits, where we can work on some things with you."
That was some heavy shit for a girl that she'd never met in person, but Mazie did listen to it, even though half of it she didn't want to hear. "Why? What's the point of self-exploration anyway? It seems pointless to me. How's it gonna help me in the end?" No better way to get taken down a peg than by a girl with some weird cards telling you straight to your face that you're just a piece of the machine. It was a weird, unsettling feeling to hear that then be told that she needed to work on figuring out herself. Why would it matter if she was just a part of something bigger anyway?
"Not knowing yourself, your own motivations means you're shooting blindly into the dark, without even ever understanding what you're doing. I'll put it to you this way. You have causes you like to take up. If you yourself don't even understand what drives you? How would you ever hope to be even minorly effective in what you set out to do? You need to know you, if you ever hope to do what you set out to, and you need to know yourself if you hope anyone else will ever understand you as well. Right now, you're in the middle of an emotional crisis. How can anyone else understand what you want or what's hurting you, or how to make you smile if you don't?" Wren posed.
That actually made a lot of sense, even if Mazie didn't necessarily want to hear all of it. But maybe Wren was right, maybe she did need to do some 'soul-searching' in order to keep herself on the right path. She had motives, she had people to look out for, even from in here she always had her drives in the back of her mind, but how could she expect people to follow her or listen to her if she didn't even know herself well. "Fine, after this, we'll…have sessions or whatever you want to call them." Sitting up again, she looked back at the cards. "Ok, so what now? We have the knight and the cup king, but what happens after that?"
"After that, we have the short term past. Influences leading up to now, the ramp up." she explained. "It's the Five of Wands, reversed." she said. "This is serious conflict, heated anger, feelings of betrayal. Strife."
Shaking her head, Mazie ran a hand through it. "Will we get to a part about the future? Where we figure out if things are going to change or if it's just gonna continue to be this big, giant shit storm? Because all these cards aren't givin' me a lot of hope right now."
"They aren't here to give you hope, they're here to give you guidance. And we're at the same point again - if you don't know where you're coming from, how are you going to know where you're going, or how to avoid the same path again?" Wren posed. "If what you really, truly want is just someone to tell you things will be alright, perhaps you should look elsewhere. I'm going to tell you the truth, regardless of whether it's positive or negative." she continued, not impatient herself, just explaining. "Patience, please. Or we should stop now, because there's a lot that goes into this, and we're only three cards in."
Mazie watched the cards for a long moment, wondering if they were giving her guidance yet. She stared at the Knight again and tried to reorganize the way she was thinking. Guidance. This was like... An outline of her recent past so maybe the next cards would actually give her an outline of the future. It just felt like she was reliving the he past few bad days. After a moment she nodded, looking back at Wren. "Sorry. Let's keep going. I'm listening."
Nodding, Wren continued. "Next is what happens after the clash point. It's the end of old ways of thinking, introduction of new things." she said. "It's the Page of Pentacles. It has to do with learning, studying, creative flow, nature, mutation, incubation...a fascination with the world around you." she said. "Basically it's finding something new to put your concentration in, your energy, your intellect. A new drive."
Mazie could get behind that one. A new path, a new hobby or something. Something to put her mind into that wouldn't be thoughts of Jim and Autumn together. She figured the cards weren't going to tell her exactly what it should be, since Wren had explained quite a few times that it didn't really work that way, but she was starting to wonder if maybe there wasn't something she could do with Kyle that would be new and creative and exciting. Maybe she could work on some code for him for…something. She didn't know what, but maybe. "Ok, I like this card. I like these Pentacles guys. That's good. Creating things is good."
"Now we're coming to future events. This is what's in the path ahead. The Tower. The Tower represents a lot of different things, but they tie in together. It starts with painful destruction. Tearing down foundations. Sometimes, it's violent, but it's not required. Past that, however, is purification. Liberation after the dust settles. Restructuring, change..." Wren explained. "There'll be a crash, but that crash will lead to better things."
…And they were right back where she was hoping the cards wouldn't take her again. But if that was what they were saying, then that was what they were saying. That was what her future had to hold, right? The cards didn't lie, right? They'd been eerily accurate so far, anyway. "…Doesn't say anything else, right? Just..a crash of some sort?" What was that crash? Was it between her and Autumn? Her and Glitch? Her and both of them? Or neither? She needed to remind herself that at least the cards were telling her this, even if she was slightly annoyed by not being sure how to prepare herself for some vague idea of an imminent crash.
"Just a crash, but you're the one who was concentrating on things. It's much more likely it relates directly to what you wanted to know about most." Wren explained. "Concentrate on the idea that just because something is painful now doesn't mean that eventually it won't turn into a more positive thing. That it won't wind up better in the end."
That wasn't so bad. Not as bad as the idea that everything was just going to collapse around her and she'd have to find her way out of it again. Nodding, Mazie looked from the cards back at Wren then back down at the cards again. "Ok, that's better than I thought." It was a strange feeling, knowing that these cards were able to pick parts of her life and tell her exactly every emotion she had about them. "You're really good at this," She said, looking back at Wren.
Wren gave Mazie a light smile. "It's been pretty much my entire life's purpose." she told her. "I hope I am. Next, we have your inner concerns, fears, cares. It's the Nine of Swords. This one is fairly straightforward. You're worried about enduring painful things, and you're afraid of an ultimate stubbornness, to either give in or avert your proverbial gaze. It's cruelty, despair. That's the black mark swirling in the back of your mind."
"Seems like there's a lot of black marks swirling around in my mind right now. Nines Swords can cozy on up with the rest of 'em." Mazie shrugged a little then looked back down at the cards. They were giving good guidance, but she needed to start thinking about what this meant for her. "These cards aren't gonna let me know..how easy it would be for me to forgive, right? If I feel betrayed and all? That's not really a thing they do…even if they freakin' know me so well already."
"It's possible. But it would be more in nudges in the right direction than an outright 'do this'." Wren explained. "The next card is about outside influences. Friends, society. Influences that don't come from you whatsoever, but those around you. You have the Queen of Wands. This represents someone with a positive outlook. Someone who still has joy in their life, who exudes that. It's command, attraction, honor, self reclamation. You're going to get influenced to grow, by someone who still knows how to smile."
But it was someone who knew how to smile that made me feel like this to begin with… Mazie thought, but didn't really mention anything. Queen of Wands. Right. She wasn't sure she was ready to see the Queen of Wands right now. "I guess that's not a bad thing," She ended up saying, even though she didn't really feel like it was a great thing either. Maybe the Wand Queen was someone else, someone not Autumn, but Mazie couldn't really determine who else it might be.
Wren was aware that it could actually be referring to her. She was already encouraging Mazie to take an internal journey, to grow. And she wasn't a depressed person at all, not angry or anything. So, she could see it. But she didn't say as much because she didn't know if it was her or not. "The Eight of Wands represents your hopes and ideals, what's really going on beneath your surface. It's movement, purpose, possibilities. A journey, progress, communication. Transformation, problem solving. That's what you really want right now. Those types of things."
"Yeah, problem solving would be really nice," She said, looking back at Wren. She mostly was getting the feeling that she had a lot of shit to get through, but maybe when she came out on the other side, things wouldn't be so bad. "Even with wanting problems solved…I just think it's easier said than done. I mean, I'm not even on the same block as her anymore and just calling her up…that's just not fair."
Wren nodded to the first part. "Issues rarely have an easy fix, and they always bring up deeper issues involved. It takes a lot of work, and sometimes it's just the start of working on things." she said. "...I'm confused about the idea of calling her being unfair."
Mazie was afraid that her deeper issues weren't going to be ones that were going to help her through these current ones. She didn't want to think on that, but she was scared that she wouldn't come to a decision. "Oh…I just think that this conversation…that it should be face to face. I did a lot of my communicating electronically back home. Basically all of it. And yeah, maybe it would be easier for me to do that here too, but…I think this time it's got to be in person.”
“It’s up to you, of course.” Wren said. “The only thing I would say on the other end of the matter is other forms of communication give you space, in case you need a minute at any given time. You can also think out your responses more slowly.”
That wasn't a bad point. Mazie nodded a little, deciding she needed to think a little more closely over how she was going to talk to Autumn next. Right now, her only choice was electronically or wait until she could get back to B Block again, but in the middle of Wren's room wasn't the place she was going to make that decision. "Might help with me being more patient," She said as she turned her attention back to the cards. "How far into the future do the cards go?"
"As far as the issues you were thinking about while shuffling go. It isn't an exact science. Sometimes, it does give a farther reach, but it depends on how focused you were. I will tell you that the final outcome card, The Sun, is a positive one. It means joy, simplicity, confidence and innocence. It's liberation, revitalization, cooperation, partnership... A lot goes in to the Sun. But generally speaking it's a rush of more positive things."
That made sense. She'd cut the deck, so naturally the cards would follow her, right? Though Mazie did visibly perk up a little at the sound of the Sun card. She leaned a little closer to study it. "That makes sense. Lots of stuff the real sun does too. Plants and animals and Vitamin D and stuff. Makes sense that a lot would go into the card too. Positive things." She looked back at Wren and a small smile started to form. "Thanks for doing this, by the way. This reading. It’s real cool of you to...I don’t know, be so accommodating."
"Any time." Wren said. "And I still would like to do self exploration with you." she added. "But...okay. Overall, what your reading is telling me is leading up to now and currently, there's a lot of strife. There's a lot to work through. But in the end, regardless of if it's the outcome you're looking for or not, you're going to wind up in a very good place."
Mazie nodded a little. "And I think I can work with that. Don't have much of a choice, but it's nice to see some optimism. I like these cards." She looked back at Wren and gave her a small smile. "And we'll start to work on self exploration too. Maybe it'll be good for me. Do I have to do like…exercises when I'm alone or something or do I just show up to your room and we talk?"
"For now let's show up here and we'll talk." Wren said. She didn't know what she would tell her to do on her own, and how would she even know if it got done? So, she figured it was far easier to just do this together.
Nodding, Mazie gave Wren another small smile. "Thanks again, for all this. It's..been real eye-opening." She stood up and stretched, lifting her hands above her head a little. "So just let me know when you want to meet and I'll come to you." There was something about Wren that Mazie really respected. Maybe it was her truthfulness, maybe it was something else, but whatever it was, Mazie was actually happy she'd be doing some soul-searching in Wren's company.