Paradox

From Lira:

Sometimes I think I’m losing my mind, which is weird, because my mind is really all I have. It’s all I’m good at.

One minute, I was trying to hone this “second sight” thing, and then with no warning, I found myself in some kind of tunnel.

Well, not exactly a tunnel. I could see moonlight, so whatever it was, it was open to the sky. Tunnels are meant to be completely underground, I think. I didn’t have my mobile on me, so I couldn’t search to find the right word; sorry. It’s interesting how a mind pre-programmed to understand linguistic variations and separate dangerous magical texts from benign ones can have a relatively limited vocabulary where physical things are concerned. When I get back (if I get back), I must work on my nouns.

The passage—that’s a better word, but it’s still not right– was wider than my wing span (yes, I know it’s technically “arm span”, but it’s nicer to say “wingspan”, and I’m sticking with it). Which meant I have not yet discovered whether or not I am claustrophobic, because I could move in all directions without bumping up against something hard (and damp!) too soon.

Ari is always telling me I am too literal, but the only thing I could think about was the question of why I was here, in this place, at this time, with all this water dripping everywhere. Those unintelligible words (and that’s a stretch for me) still seemed to be glowing from my skin, so I guessed there could be some kind of magic in effect (like there’s ever not, amirite?). I tugged at the unfamiliar jewellery, which seemed to be earrings in the form of three swords piercing a heart.

The Three of Swords. Universally known as the “heartbreak” card, the Three of Swords is usually depicted as three swords piercing a heart in a pattern, which, if you connected it as a geometrical figure, would result in a six-pointed star. That’s interesting, because on metal things, and on swords themselves, the six pointed star is called the star of Damascus. It’s been used as a maker’s mark (why do I know this?) to denote when a sword has been made using the Damascus method of proving steel (seriously; I don’t know the noun for where I am and I can ramble on about steel proving?). It’s not like the little card meanings pamphlets ever talk about Damascus steel. They do often talk about the six-pointed star, but more often in the sense of it also being known as a Star of David, which has significance in qabalah. I won’t get into qabalah: it’s complicated and I haven’t had time to do enough research.

Now, weirdly, when I lifted the necklace pendant up to examine it, I found myself looking at the Sun. Not the sun like a star—although the sun obviously is a star—but the Sun like the XIX (that’s nineteen in Roman numerals) in the tarot Major Arcana.

So, symbolically, I found myself in a contradiction. The Sun is meant to be one of those positive, happy cards. You tell the querent they are surrounded by good influences, as opposed to the Three of Swords, which suggests being surrounded by evil influences.

So there I was, in a dark passage (somehow that doesn’t sound right), surrounded by diametrically opposed influences.

Something told me my objective should be to GTFO, and fast.

Why, when I want to go somewhere fast, do I always get dropped unceremoniously out of the sky? It’s a good thing these boots are so solid: otherwise I might have broken an ankle, and who knows where the healer’s office is in whatever library I’m hiring this study from. Also, that spinning icosahedron light makes everything turn green. Maybe I can change the light colour if I work at it.

Anyway.

I have no idea how I ended up wherever that was, but when I landed back in the study, I did at least have on the same jewellery, so I’ll have more time to consider the juxtaposition of the Three of Swords with The Sun and how it relates to my current goal of either getting back to HFM or back to Awenia.