The Ace of Cups [Open to All]

[overdrawing]

It's Mira's mother, he thinks. She's left things in the guest room for him in the past. Little things, really, like a packet of cookies or a book he's never been allowed to read. Today it's a deck of cards with a sticky note explaining that shuffling them might help his nervous fidgeting. He'd been pleased, tentatively grateful, until realizing that these hadn't been normal playing cards.

They had been Tarot cards.

Shuffling them helps, certainly. Gabe cuts the deck, cascades it, shuffles the cards back and forth constantly in his little corner at Quill while he waits for his shift to start at Finn's. In all his shuffling, he's been avoiding actually looking at the cards or the booklet with them to explains their meanings. They're occult, pagan...Wrong. He shouldn't look.

Then a card falls out and Gabe's breath catches in surprise. A golden goblet crowned with a dove. It looks like something he'd see in church except that it's on a tarot card. His brain tries to reconcile the familiar symbolism and he can't help it, paging through the booklet to find the Ace of Cups.

Ace cards always mean new beginnings. The Ace of Cups are a new beginning in one's emotional life, finding love, trust, and blessings. This is a card of happiness.

Gabe is pretty sure it wrong to feel this way, but it's comforting that this is the card that's fallen out.

Curious, he spreads the cards on the table and starts reading through their meanings.

[[Find him at Quill all by his lonesome]]

Comments

[overdrawing]

"Y-You know? If a glass is old it just cracks more easily..." It's the only logical, real explanation, isn't it?

[meowhistory]

"And you think a place like this would have old glasses with all the risks they entail?" Lena narrows her eyes. "Let me just return it to them, okay? Get you a new glass of water and my very much needed coffee all in one go."

[overdrawing]

"What...I..." Finally Gabe just nods, gesturing uncertainly at her to just go ahead.

[meowhistory]

Lena just wanted coffee.

She returns to his table with a tall glass of water and a big coffee. "The girl behind the counter thought it was a glass out of a new batch, but there are always weaker ones. It wasn't a problem to get you a new glass. Here you go."

[overdrawing]

Gabe nods, because it's polite, but finds he isn't very thirsty anymore. "Thank you. I didn't mean to cause a fuss."

[meowhistory]

"That wasn't a fuss." Holy shit does he make her hackles rise and it isn't even his fault. It's the fault of his parents, his upbringing, everything. Lena is just too used to someone standing their ground instead of this doormat behavior.

[overdrawing]

"Well, thank you anyway," he says, voice going quieter as he senses her irritation. His only assumption can be that it's his fault.

[meowhistory]

Lena takes a gulp from her coffee to prevent herself from shaking some sense into him. It's not his fault. "Hmhm. Try to have a nice day, okay? Do it for me, if you can't do it for yourself."

[overdrawing]

He nods and summons up a little bit of a smile, letting her know that he's aware of her teasing. "Yes ma'am."

[meowhistory]

"Good." She taps her temple. "See you round, Gabe."