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 Posted: Sat Feb 19, 2011 6:38 pm
Alex struggled to follow. All of this talk of charms and potions and shrunken heads was way over his head. He wouldn't consider himself a skeptic, mainly because he didn't have the motivation or interest in doubting things, but this was so different from anything he could have prepared for. He glanced up at the shelves and nearly blanched. He wasn't a squeamish person, and in his line of work made him pretty strong when it came to body parts (you couldn't be a good chef if you couldn't even make your own cuts of meat!) but something about the jars made his stomach feel weak. He quickly diverted his attention. Yeah, he'd be fine, as long as he didn't look at the shelves. Ignoring that part, it was just like a gag shop! That was a lot easier to deal with!
He forced a smile when Freja changed the subject. He was thankful for it, but couldn't show it too much, since that would mean that he was uncomfortable, and that would be rude! "'Tarot'? Those are the cards, right?" The closest thing to fortune telling he had ever gotten was when his mom bought him a Magic 8 Ball. His brother, of course, had stolen it soon after and subsequently broke it, but the hour it was in his hands wasn't terrible. "Yeah, sure," he agreed with a slightly larger smile. "Go ahead." He was actually a little curious about this.
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Posted: Sat Feb 19, 2011 6:50 pm
"A-alright! Th-there's a t-table over th-there. Just sit yourself-f." The woman said, pointing toward one of the three tables that were in her shop. Those where much needed when you had to make potions and write charms! She went behind the counted and grabbed her pack of cards. Oh, it had been so long. This was going to be fun!... Perhaps. Last time she had used them, she had predicted that woman's horrible death by having a toilet fall on her from the upstairs apartment... She went back to the table and sat across of Alex. She shuffled the cards for a moment, before passing them to him. "Shuffle them a bit. Also, w-what do you want to k-know? L-Love? M-Money? F-Family? Everything? We have t-time to loose... might as well do a full f-fortune, right?" The hurricane didn't seem about to end. She had a feeling they'd be trap in the shop for a couple of hours, at the very least.
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Zemblanity Insomnia Captain
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Posted: Sat Feb 19, 2011 7:38 pm
Alex glanced around and quickly tried to decide which table to take, choosing the one furthest away from the windows (the storm outside made him slightly nervous). He took a seat, shifting the chair around slightly until he was sitting comfortably (stupid long legs). Honestly, he had no idea what was going to happen. His only experienced with tarot cards were the occasional appearances in movies (but he didn't watch TV, so his knowledge of movies was limited as well.) and they never showed the full process. Just a flip of the card to reveal something terrible was about to happen. So he waited patiently, leg jiggling anxiously. It was this stupid weather, putting him on edge.
He looked at the cards curiously as she handed them to him. Shuffle them? That's it? He shrugged slightly before shuffling them (he ended up dropping one, since the cards were bigger than playing cards, and he apologized sheepishly before picking it up and reshuffling the deck again). "Yeah, sure, if you have time," he replied as he finished shuffling. That was stupid, of course they had time! "Here, done, I think." He pushed the deck over to Freja's side of the table.
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Posted: Sat Feb 19, 2011 8:07 pm
That was it. Would Alex be happy? Would he start crying? Maybe try to murder her? She didn't knew. The card didn't say any of that. She raised her eyes from the cards and looked at the man, awaiting a reaction. Still, she believe it wasn't such a bad fortune! He had a problem and an advise and no toilets! Some people weren't so lucky in their cards readings."Th-that's what th-the c-cards says..." Now that she had finished her 'job' her stuttered had returned. How come she could only stop doing that when she was acting as a shop keeper, arguing with Mao and talking with Celeste and Lotte? Maybe she should think on it...
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Zemblanity Insomnia Captain
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Posted: Sat Feb 19, 2011 8:43 pm
Really, Alex hadn't been expecting much. Tarot cards were just things that teenage girls bought on a whim and played with halfheartedly so that they could feel better about such an awful, angsty, hormone-riddled time. At least, that's what his little sisters, the ones who weren't living with him, did. River and Elliot were the odd ducks, as the other three were actually pretty normal in terms of teenage girls. But the more Freja spoke, the more he felt things correlate. He listened quietly, looking at the cards that she flipped over and mulled over every word. It wasn't until she had finished that he felt something begin to rise in his chest. He was quiet for a moment before giving in and laughing out loud. He hadn't laughed that audibly or genuinely in a long time. Maybe it was because he was surprised, rather than amused. Yes, he was unusual like that.
"Not bad, not bad," Alex grinned, leaning back in his chair. Strong female presence? Father troubles? Lack of ambition? Sounded pretty accurate to him. "Hit the nail on the head, actually." He was impressed. It didn't sound like the usual trickery fortune tellers used, like horoscopes and the like. "Where'd you learn to do that?"
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Posted: Sat Feb 19, 2011 8:59 pm
"In an old rundown inn room in Umea, Sweden!" She said, nodding. Ah, childhood memory! Living with rats because her gambling father was too lazy to get a real job and actually afford nice quarters. Not that she knew any of that. For her, it had just been a normal way of living, which was why she had never bother to clear all the spider web in her house, not chase away Arthur the rat from her kitchen. "The owner's g-grandmother was w-withch! A r-real one! Learned everyth-thing from her!" Well, from her, or from one of her book that Freja's father had stolen inherit after the old woman had passed away due to scabies. Ah, childhood memories, childhood memories. "What ab-bout you? Where d-did you learn to... uh... " What was his job? She had no idea, so she asked the next best thing. "Be tall?" His name and his height were the only thing she knew about Alex. In fact, she couldn't even be sure on his own gender! Not that she wanted to know... "What more fortune?" It would pass time...
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Zemblanity Insomnia Captain
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Posted: Sat Feb 19, 2011 10:38 pm
"Sweden, huh?" Alex smiled to himself as he looked down at the cards. He wouldn't have pegged Sweden as being significant in any way, but... He'd take her word for it. He reached forward and pulled back one of the cards with his index finger, turning it in his hands as he looked at it. What an interesting thing. He wondered how people ever thought to tell fortunes with these things. "Didn't think that Sweden had many witches," he attempted to joke, returning the card to Freja's side of the table. He shot her a questioning look at her inquiry. Where did he learn to be so tall? He laughed softly and shifted in his chair. "Yeah, sure, why not?" He could have teased her for her awkward question, but she wasn't as tough as River. She probably wouldn't be able to handle a mocking. "Do you give... readings... to customers often?" He was impressed he could remember what the correct word was!
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Posted: Sat Feb 19, 2011 11:16 pm
She then started to place down the card on the table, in another spread than before. This one was a very normal line spread. The first card to be flipped was The Fool. Then, The Five of Cup, the Inverted Lover, The Devil, The Five of Wand, The Hanged man and finally The Death, . She looked at the cards, then she stared at Alex for a moment, than back at the cards. "You... weren't thinking about getting married in... the next twenty years, did you?"
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Zemblanity Insomnia Captain
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Posted: Sun Feb 20, 2011 12:21 am
Alex wasn't sure if he should have been surprised or understanding as to why there weren't people clamoring for the position. Sure, under any other circumstances, he would have understood completely why there was still an opening, but on the other hand... The people on this island were so weird, it struck him as odd that there wasn't SOMEONE who could read tarot cards. But he wasn't sure, so he decided to go with neither, and remained quiet and let her finish her reading.
While the last one hadn't been bad (kind of typical, actually, in that it identified a lot in his life but didn't give him much to work this) this one... Really didn't seem that great. Just from looking at the drawings on the cards, with his limited (pretty much nonexistent) experience, looked pretty bleak. "Err, not really, I don't know," he looked down at the cards, then at her face. "Haven't really thought about it." How could he? He had much more important things to think about, like work, or his sisters. A girlfriend was far out of his mind, let alone marriage! He let out a sigh and leaned back in his chair. "But that bad, huh?" he asked with a bit of an amused smile.
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Posted: Sun Feb 20, 2011 1:51 am
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Zemblanity Insomnia Captain
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Posted: Mon Feb 21, 2011 11:44 pm
Alex frowned thoughtfully. That... was oddly specific! He had no idea who Mao Xiqui was (the last name sounded familiar, though...) and he hoped that the body of water thing was just a coincidence (he wasn't one for puns, so he brushed off River as a possible explanation). Missing signals? What signals? He had gotten that stupid prank letter from his teenage boss, but he had ignored that... Ugh, don't tell him that was serious! He shook his head at the thought. Nope, next. "Cheery," he remarked dryly. What was he supposed to say to that? He didn't take fortunes seriously, but still, there wasn't much that could be said when it was revealed that his love life was completely doomed. "And that's it?" He could hope for a silver lining, couldn't he? It was a little disheartening to get such a negative reading.
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Posted: Tue Feb 22, 2011 12:05 pm
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Zemblanity Insomnia Captain
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Posted: Thu Feb 24, 2011 6:52 pm
Alex still had no idea what a Chinese man had to do with anything, especially since he didn't KNOW any Chinese men. The only Chinese person he knew, sort of, was Zhi, and he had only seen her on a couple of occasions. She was practically a stranger. But whatever, these readings couldn't be spot-on every time! Actually, it was unrealistic to expect them to spot-on at all! He remembered once in high school, his teacher got off topic and started to talk about how fortune tellers tricked people, but he couldn't recall any of the exact things the teacher had pointed out. What a shame. "Hey, Freja, how seriously do you take these things?" he asked, looking down at the cards again. Sure, this one was a little more positive than the last one. "I'm not being skeptical or anything, I'm just wondering... Since you seem to know a lot..." It was kind of hard to ask. It felt like he was walking on egg shells around this girl.
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Posted: Thu Feb 24, 2011 7:15 pm
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Zemblanity Insomnia Captain
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Posted: Mon Feb 28, 2011 2:25 am
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