Queen's Gambit Chapter 14

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Draconic Fortune (Noelle)
1
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Draconic Fortune

Chapter 02

Sin and the Dark

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What in the world was Noelle hearing those three talk about? She had stayed near the doorframe and listened to the entire conversation Susie, Kris and Berdly had had after school. She was mostly waiting to spend time with Susie to show her her tarot card set. She listened in because she wanted to know what was so important and related to those three in particular. What about talking to Kris and Berdly was important enough for Susie to forget about her?

She expected some kind of blackmail or another project or maybe Kris and Berdly helping Susie with the discarded project's problems. Instead, she eavesdropped on a lengthy conversation on light worlds and dark worlds, fighting come-to-life toys and playing cards, special magic attacks, comedians with godlike powers, people that fit into medieval fantasy stories meshed together with fifties or late fourties noir and all of it being talked about as if it had really happened.

What was this? It must have been a game of some sort. Some kind of advanced tabletop or other role playing game. But could it? Would Susie actually play something like that? Would Kris? Maybe it did with Berdly, but this didn't seem fitting with either as far as she knew them.

But she didn't hear them ever differentiate themselves from the characters they presumably played if that was the case. Unless they were in-character throughout this whole conversation. Or they 'were' the characters and just 'played themselves'.

She didn't have to eavesdrop. She knew that. She could have just walked in and asked what they were talking about. But she was scared. What would she even say? Where would she start? She would just scramble to find the right words and Susie would have gotten more and more impatient over her interrupting them. Well at least their sudden get-together eventually came to a conclusion.

And there was more that added to her unease. Not only was Susie willingly spending time with them after school, but judging by how she dragged Berdly back in against his will and surprised Kris while he was still asleep, she was forcing them to stay. But time was running short. Kris and Berdly had already rushed past her through the hallway.

She clasped onto her bag, closed her eyes, opened her mouth to take a deep breath and then made a conscious effort to take a more solid stance. She had to find out what kind of roleplay this was, but getting involved in that was for another time or another day. For now, there were her tarot cards.

She sneaked closer to the door, ran her hand along the grip. Careful to not make any sudden moves, she pushed it open just enough to meekly peek inside through the gap. Her first attempt at saying hello only came out as a squeak. Susie was lying with her arms behind her head, on a makeshift lounge chair made up of her own chair, Kris' desk and the back of Kris' chair. "Hello?" That was enough to cause her to stir.

She immediately raised her head and spun it around to see whether it was a teacher. When she saw who it was, she nodded in her general direction. "Oh, hey."

Noelle wasn't sure what to do. "I...uhm..." She paused to push the door a little further open and at least walk inside. "I wanted to know if...I'm sorry. I didn't know you'd get caught up talking with Kris and Berdly for so long."

"Why, what's up?"

She blushed while trying to get to the point, and then waved it off again. "I - I'm sorry if I'm taking up your time, you probably have somewhere to be."

"Not really. Just spit it out. What's going on?"

"I promised I'd bring my tarot cards today. I have them with me."

Now, Susie was at taking those shoes off of Kris' desk at last and actually sitting upright to turn Noelle's way with her chair. "Oh right." She laughed. "I totally forgot about that."

She took a nearby chair and shuffled to her desk. "It's all right. This 'dark world' business sounded very exciting."

The one eye not covered by Susie's hair sprang wide open. "You were listening..." she whispered. Then she caught herself whispering and spoke aloud. "Ah I mean uh - how much of that did you hear?"

Oh no, what was she doing? What if she was going to have to explain to Susie that she was eavesdropping on them, and why? She basically already admitted it. All she could do now was try to brush it aside. "Oh goodness, it all sounded so confusing. You were all so in-character - but as yourselves? I'm not sure if I understand what exactly it is. Did you start playing some kind of roleplaying game, or...wait is it one of those ay ar gees?"

"A what now?" What a relief. Susie did look a bit more disgruntled, but at least she managed to change subjects away from 'I kept the door open with a doorstopper and eavesdropped on your entire conversation'. "What's an ay ar gee?" Noelle tried out stammering a haphazard explanation on what an alternative reality game was, comparing it to a more complicated scavenger hunt with fictional lore that you pretended was real, all to discover secret after secret until you eventually solved it all.

"Yeah - yeah, something like that. We tell each other stories with riddles and try to solve them afterwards. I mean it's better than being bored all day right? So I thought why not?"

If Noelle's face wasn't trembling before, it was now. Whenever she wasn't talking, she was trying to hide her buck teeth behind her lips. "It - it sounded very exciting for you. I'd love to partake in it."

Susie backed off slightly and laughed. It sounded forced. "I'm not sure it works that way. It's - "

Noelle realized it. It felt a bit like something was pulling her heart out through her back, but she had to face it. Susie wasn't comfortable with this. So it was better to rip that band-aid off. Before the dragon could be pushed away any further, she interrupted her. "I'm sorry - forget I asked. I'm sure you want something to play among each other."

Hearing Noelle voice her willingness to keep out of it did make the dragon relax and lean back in her chair. Within a moment's notice, she had her cool back. "Hey, that's not what I mean - it - it's not something you seek out - it happens to you. Kinda. I'm not sure."

She didn't really know what to make of that. "That's more...confusing than enlightening." It was enough to get a chuckle out of both of them and lighten the mood.

"Yeah, I guess." She took a moment to think. "Hey, what if there was a way for you to partake in it after all?"

The weight on her that being excluded put on her grew lighter upon hearing that. "There is?"

A grin began to form itself along those big jaws. "It's like a scavenger hunt, right?" The soon terrified doe froze when she saw her classmate reach forward and grab her shoulder. "Hey. You got tarot cards, right?" She meekly shook her head. "They can tell the future or something like that, right?" Noelle tried to say 'maybe', but it only came out as a squeak.

"How about we see if we can cheat our way to some answers?" Noelle didn't like how she was looking at her with those big teeth on display, but the look on her face showed that Susie really liked the thought of what she was proposing. How on earth could she say no? So she just stayed frozen, shaken only by the narrow motions of herself shaking her head until she was let go.

Once she was though, she quickly got to work. She opened up her bag, pulled out the little box with a tall pile of cards. They weren't as smooth as the industrially produced ones you could buy in stores. That was because they were thin, white slabs of cardboard, printed-on on both sides and then cut out with neatly rounded corners like regular playing cards. And then wrapped in plastic tape to make their surface smooth. Flipping through them and shuffling them raised some eyebrows on Susie's part. "That's a lot of cards. Did you really make those yourself?"

Noelle smiled with pride. "Yes. Every single one. The minor ones are mostly based off of other tarot designs. The major ones - they're more personal."

"But why? Why would you make all this?"

It brought back memories. Not bad memories, just saddening memories. "They were for - I wanted to show them to someone else. I was waiting for a sign for when it was time but...I waited and waited and waited, and it never happened. I was hoping eventually - the time just never came. Please, let's leave it at that." She tried to clear her mind of it and smile as if Susie had never asked. "I just misread some signs, that's all. Don't worry about it."

She focused on shuffling to get those memories out of her mind. "So what is it you had in mind? I was going to just show you some normal four-row or four-card spreads, but if you want to use them for this 'dark world' thing, I have to know what you want to ask while I'm shuffling."

"That's easy. Let's start with the obvious one. So there's this thing, let's call them 'portals'. Berdly thinks they're random. I don't think so. There's got to be some logic to it. Ask the cards what the logic is. What does it depend on where portals show up? What do I need to do to get to the dark world again?"

"All right. Let's see what we can do." Once they were both more focused on the task ahead, the mood between them relaxed a little bit again. After showing Susie how to shuffle them in a way that flipped some of the cards over, she had Susie shuffle them as well. "So. Let's see what the cards say. What is the logic behind those portals? We'll go with three cards."

She drew drew one card and placed it on the table. "This is the first - eek!" For a moment, Noelle contemplated pulling the card back and calling this whole thing off. But the dragon was staring at her with this one eye, expecting her to follow through. She couldn't go back now, so she just went on to place it down. The first card depicted a man sitting on a throne. A young boss monster from the looks of it, save for his fur and horns being pitch black instead of snow white.

The grinning goat was almost completely naked. A plain loincloth being wrapped around his hips was the only thing that made this image slightly less awkward to draw or behold. The white bow tie really only highlighted his bare fur even further. The throne he sat on had strange, swung shapes to it, and the way the cushion behind his head just 'hung' down its lean as two wide 'strands' seemed all the more bizarre at first.

Upon looking more closely, wasn't an actual throne as such, but just a group of naked human women posing closely together to form the semblance of a throne for him to sit on. With the backs of two of them forming the throne's back and the hair that hung off the backs of their heads, making up the cushion for the horned figure to lean on.

His right hand was wide open. On its upward palm, he was holding the loose ends of two metal chains that led to collars wrapped around the necks of a human man and woman who - stripped bare like everyone else - stood in the left and right corner of the picture. "The Devil."

Noelle was blushing so much, Susie could have seen it through the fur, if she wasn't preoccupied with staring at the picture and scratching one lower corner of her head. "Hm. I think I've seen his face somewhere - wait, Kris sai-" She connected it. If Doctor Luxon was the 'Devil' Noelle threw away, then this was the final 'Devil' she settled with for the cards she was showing her now. "Is that Asriel? Did you make a card of Kris' brother?"

Noelle gnawed on the tips of her fingers. She struggled to come up with an answer. "I - uhm - a lot of boss monsters look similar. I suppose he's bound to look a bit like him."

Her classmate was pretty damn certain this meant that that was Asriel though. "Right." She leaned back and folded up her arms. "So what's it about?"

"The Devil means you're limiting yourself. The ends of the chains are loose because you could walk away from what's holding you back any time if you wanted to. He means that you're getting distracted or otherwise indulging yourself in bad ways, and that it's going to have a bad outcome in the long run."

"Okay, weird. But I'll take it. So what's next?"

Noelle drew the next card and placed it on the table. In its background, a giant human stood on all fours on a cloud and reached to the front with a large five-pointed star in his hand. "The ace of pentacles." The pentagram emitted a golden aura and in its light, flowers and other plants were growing far above the surfaces they were sprouting from.

"It stands for new beginnings. If you feel like you failed to get what you want in the past, you might have a chance to start over. Turn over a new leaf. Or it means that an opportunity will appear. An opportunity to get something you want, and if it does, you have to reach for it. But you have to make actual efforts to pursue it if you do."

Susie kept leaning against the back of her chair, but she felt herself grow a little tense. She felt...something. She felt like this card stood for exactly what she wanted. But she felt anxious, too. What if this opportunity showed up and she didn't recognize it? What if she brushed it off as something else, and simply missed it? She didn't want to think about it for much longer. "Right. Sounds nice. What next?"

"Lastly would be..." Noelle pulled the last card off the pile and placed it on the table next to the other two.

The background of the picture was a bedroom with dark, ebonwood walls and a heavily decorated bed frame with a big mattress on it. In front of it stood a familiar figure. A short human with a green striped shirt, brown hair and yellow skin. His hair was so long and hung over the front of his face so much, that you couldn't see his eyes in the shadow they cast.

"Uhm." With a smirk on her face, Susie looked up and down between the card and its apparent designer. "I'm pretty sure that's Kris." The Kris on the picture had the index finger of each of his hands hooked into his mouth and was pulling it open to both sides with them while stretching his tongue out at the viewer.

At the bottom of the picture, embedded in a spot left open by the frame that adorned the outer edges, were two zeroes and the card's name. "The Fool." She tried to suppress it, but Susie couldn't help but chuckle at this for a while. "Why is Kris 'The Fool'? Now that's just mean."

"I didn't expect you to care."

She was a bit flustered upon hearing that. "What - I mean - I don't. Still, that's kinda mean."

"I'm sorry. I'm sure he'd understand." Noelle took her hand off her mouth and adjusted the card a bit to be more neatly in a row with the others. "The Fool stands for optimism, youth, wanting to embark on an adventure. For new beginnings, or taking on some new big task."

"Adventure. Now we're talking."

"Yes, except he also means that in such a new adventure, you need to be careful. There are dangers lurking. At least they're all pointing upwards, that's a good sign."

The dragon looked over the three cards and folded up her arms. "So what's that all mean? I get that there's a theme about starting adventures going on here, but I don't see anything about how."

"I'm not sure either."

They were quiet for a while, until Susie's doubts broke the silence. "You sure that 'Fool' card isn't just supposed to mean Kris?" Noelle looked up to follow the purple claw's movement as it pointed over at not-Asriel. "So this guy..." Her hand shifted over to point to the ace. "...is going to make something unexpected happen..." And then the Fool. "...around Kris?"

Noelle just shook her head and smiled. "No, I'm sorry. That's not how it works. The cards always stand for abstract concepts, not actual people. If I had to interpret it in one sentence, I would say that..." She began following the cards with her finger in the same order. "...if you indulge yourself, an unexpected opportunity will present itself. A chance at a new adventure."

"Right, if you say so." She didn't seem too convinced. "So what's going to happen? If I follow the trail to the dark world. Or if we do. Ask the cards what their opinion of the future is."

Noelle nodded. She already was in the process of reshuffling the cards and soon handed them back and forth so that both did the shuffling at some point. Then she began drawing cards. The first one showed them an archaic military camp, with tents set up in the background. In the foreground, a grinning human with short hair was sneaking away with several swords, away from a weapon rack with more swords that was clearly missing the ones he was carrying. "It's the Seven of Swords."

"And what does it stand for?"

"Deception. Or trying to sneak away from an uncomfortable situation, but it has mostly to do with lying and tricking people. Or maybe theft? Someone is lying to you about something and they aren't doing it with the best of intentions. Or they will lie to you in the future."

Susie shrugged it off. She didn't really believe in any of this holding true anyway. It was just a bunch of randomly drawn cards after all. Besides. "Could be worse. I feel like that's already the case all the time."

They both began to laugh. "That's actually - you know I'm honest with you right? You can trust me."

Susie didn't like Noelle's attempts at getting through to her. Either that, or she wasn't buying it. "Yeah, yeah, whatever. Let's move on. What's the next one?"

The next one showed them a robed young human man with a blue spiked helmet with a smug expression on his face, gesturing to his curved table with open hands. On it, in front of a purple curtain, stood ten golden goblets, each one shiny enough to sparkle. "The Ten of Cups! It stands for happiness and fulfillment. It would mean you're getting everything you want and have a happy family life. Except..."

Unlike all the previous cards, this one was pointing with its bottom to Susie. "It's reversed. That means so is the happiness. Now it just means broken bonds, broken families, trouble at home...I mean, it can't mean me. Do you...do you have trouble? At home I mean?"

"What? Nah! You got the wrong one. That or the cards are just wonky." They were both laughing. It was awkward on both sides. And even after that, they were both visibly and audibly nervous.

Noelle figured it was best to just move on like before. She drew that third card. "Oh dear." It depicted the rainy centre of a big city, with roads and skyscrapers to both sides. In the middle stood a building that outdid all its surrounding buildings in height. A golden plaque in the shape of a capital 'T' adorned the top of the building, which was being struck with a lightning.

Below the plaque, neon lights formed a simple cartoon image of a smiling human, an extra hand pointing to the face with its thumb. "The Tower. Upright, too. Don't worry. It's often not as bad as people think, it -"

"So what does it mean?"

She avoided eye-contact with the dragon at this point. "Disaster. Something big is going to happen. Something that changes a lot. And not for the better. Oh no, please not - I mean."

The dragon was losing her temper enough to raise her hand, but then managed to hold her open palm Noelle's way. "Stop, okay, stop. It's just a bunch of cards. All in good fun. No need to take this seriously. But we could just follow up on that. Why? Why's the disaster happening? See what they say about that."

The doe needed encouragement to shuffle the cards. Susie didn't expect Noelle to be someone that actually believed in all this stuff. Then again, she should have known better. If playing cards and cards like these were people in another world that you could talk to, them communicating with you through what order they're pulled off a pile in wasn't that far-fetched either.

But even if that was what was going on, how were even the dark world versions of those cards supposed to know the future? That made no sense. She was getting swept up in Noelle's reactions and overthinking it. They were random cards, nothing else. "All right. Let's see. Why is the disaster happening?"

The first card just featured two humans standing on a road with a green field in the background. They were dressed in gambesons and were facing each other with not too friendly expressions. They were crossing swords - possibly in battle.

"Two of Swords. It stands for balancing out, making a tough decision - it usually revolves around some sort of conflict. Two forces are in conflict with each other. They can be two priorities in your mind, or two people, or your choice between two people, or two groups of people - either way, neither path involves the other path being followed through."

"Okay? What forces?"

The second card featured a human woman on the stone foundation of a building, but with no building on it. Her throne was in the middle of a rocky landscape. The surrounding area was barren, covered in stone. There were mountain ranges peeking up from the piles of gold glowing as brightly as the woman's crown that littered the ground around her.

Several of those coins were faced towards the viewer with the five-pointed stars engraved on them visible on all of them. "The Queen of Pentacles. She stands for financial security, stability, having wealth in abundance, fertility or potential to make a lot of wealth - generally - it means you have a lot of money right now."

"That'll be a no. Doesn't sound - "

They were interrupted when the door opened again. This time, the unsure face looking in through her slightly foggy glasses, was that of their teacher. "Ah. Hi. Sorry - I uh - I forgot something here. Won't take long." It was just Alphys. No-one Susie had to worry about seeing her doing weird stuff with cards. Once she saw that she could, the lizard rushed inside and behind her desk to open one of the drawers in the back and look for something inside it.

Without a word, her two students agreed to proceed. "All right." Lastly, the picture that followed was that of another woman on a throne with no throne room to surround it. She had blonde hair, was wearing distinct, dark red lipstick and had a stern look on her face. There were more big wooden rods with leaves planted into the ground around her, in an upright vertical position towards the viewer.

"The Queen of Wands. She stands for great fertility or potential. But this particular card actually does mean to pay attention to a woman in our lives. One with bright hair if she's a human. But a lot of monsters don't have manes like us, so the bright hair could also refer to the colour of her fur."

She had a bright coat, too. She was about to emphasize that maybe, Susie should pay more attention to any female monsters with brighter colours in general. But the giggling teacher spoke up from behind her desk. "Hehe - or her scales. Paying more attention in class always helps." The dragon shot her teacher a disapproving look, but she was too fast in ducking back down to search for whatever she was looking for to notice.

It was probably best to switch subjects before Alphys got any wrong ideas. "What's with those weird wands anyway? Aren't wands supposed to be all..." Susie went on to make gestures resembling a conductor waving around his baton.

This tickled out a much more sincere chuckle from her classmate. "Those are different wands. These are fertility symbols. Wands are always all about potential and possibilities. They're staves that stand for fire or fertility, that you stick into the ground. They're not as much magic wands as something like Asherah poles. Desert mice used to put those up to worship a deity."

"'Asherah' I'm guessing?"

"Yes. She's the goddess of fertility, motherhood, air and earth, grooming, child molestation..."

"Wait, what?"

Noelle stared at the table in shame and mumbled: "There's a reason they don't teach the occult in schools. It's usually obscure and hidden behind several layers, but Asherah actually inspired a lot of fictional characters, even all the way to today."

Alphys, who seemed to have found what she was looking for and was already on her way out, stopped and giggled upon hearing this. "Yeah. Like Vashaara."

Noelle and Susie turned and bent sideways to face her. "Who?" It seemed both of them didn't know that name.

Alphys stopped and raised an eyebrow. "Vashaara?" She stared back at her students, apparently expecting them to know this name. "Come on, Vashaara? Queen of Sin? Nothing? She's fro-" She stopped mid-sentence, so as to expect them to know what she was talking about.

After waiting for a little longer to see if anything occurred to Susie and Noelle, she sighed. "I guess it's from before your time. Forget I said anything. See you tomorrow. I hope." Without another word, she left the classroom. Whatever 'thing' Vashaara was from, it obviously wasn't important enough to be worth the time or the embarrassment to explain it to them.

"Well regardless of what that was about, there are a lot of other characters that take inspiration from her. I can immediately think of one from a video game. But there's a lot more than that one. Even if only for entertainment, people still reference her."

Susie kept staring back at the door to make sure their teacher wasn't coming back. And once she was, she relaxed. "I totally forgot this isn't the empty classroom. Mind if we take this there, before anyone else shows up here?"

"Are you sure? Wouldn't you want to know more?"

"It's all just random cards, anyway. None of this is an actual answer to anything, right?" Susie's mind was made up. Enough for her to get up and get ready to move. "Besides, if you're up for it, we can keep this going in the empty classroom."

Noelle understood that there was no keeping her here. "All right. Though I was at first hoping we could do a normal tarot reading. Like what your fortune says about career, love, social life..."

"Yeah, how about no? It already got way too weird." Well, those were clear words. Words that shut down the conversation while they both got packed up and left for the hallway. "But if you're up for it, we could play some more card games." With a renewed smile, Noelle nodded.

She never got through to saying the line, like her father told her to, but their time was enjoyable nonetheless. Playing simple card games was a lot more relaxing and lighthearted than the tarot session. And time went by much more quickly while doing so.

Eventually though, an alarm on Noelle's phone went off. A reminder of the time. Susie may not have had anywhere to be, but Noelle did. When she packed up her cards and got ready to leave, she was in so much of a rush, she felt she had to apologize to Susie for up and leaving so quickly. And still felt bad about it all the way until she was outside.

The afternoon was already blending into the evening when she left the school. She didn't have that much time left to visit her father before it was time to see where she'd spend the night.

Why did this feeling of anxiousness soften up her spine? Dad was still going to be there when she arrived. There was no need for the unease she began to feel. And yet she felt it, the further she tread away from the safety around Susie and into the cold outside. The rows of houses she passed, felt apathetic to her, even though she knew they were buildings and didn't 'feel' or 'think' at all.

The growing shadow the hospital walls cast, only made them all the more imposing. And inside, nothing had changed. The nurse was sitting there again, the piano was gathering dust with each day and no-one present was surprised at Noelle's visit. Which was relieving. Everything was as it was yesterday. More confidently than yesterday, she opened the door. "Who's - hey! There ya are."

The moment he saw her hand, Dad greeted her. "Come in - " He had to cough mid-sentence. With a slight gurgle in his cough that Noelle could have sworn wasn't there yesterday.

When Noelle opened the door far enough to look inside, her heart felt like it shrank just a little. And with her back turned on her, Sarah was standing at the sink and washing a used glass. Just like yesterday, the overgrown mouse monster was wearing a suit that spoke of deadly formality, not something you wore when visiting a friend.

Without even saying 'Hi' to the startled doe, she rushed past her with the glasses and wine bottle she must have brought with her. "Sa - Hello?" But she was already gone. She didn't so much as look at her.

"Don't mind her. Busy woman, like your mother. It's like she said, we should be thankful she even came to visit at all." Her father, with his head nestled into the cushion on the raised end of the bed, made no efforts to raise it. If she didn't know better, she would have thought he seemed weaker than before.

He had to cough again. "Even brings me some wine every time. Doctors say a little wine's fine. Come here." With this encouragement, she stepped all the way to the side of his bed and held her father's hand. "So how was your day?" He was looking her right in the eyes and Noelle didn't know where to start. "Did you say the thing?"

She was flustered enough to forget about any worries and covered her blushing face. "I don't think I ever could. But I spent another afternoon with her. Played card games and read her fortune."

He lowered his eyelids to only cover half his eyes. "Did you read the cards on where her love life will take her?"

He was always so direct. Noelle had to laugh for a bit before she could answer. "No. She and a few - friends have some new club or - activity. I'm not sure how to describe it."

The inner ends of her father's eyebrows trailed down closer to his eyes. "That nerd guy better not be in the mix here."

She chuckled. "Yes. Yes he is. But it's okay. Today it was just me and Susie. There'll be other days like that."

Her father raised his hand to run it through her hair, closed his eyes. "I'm sure there will be."

She stared at him for a while, before she leaned in and gave him a kiss on the cheek and left quietly. She was confident that he was well on his way to recovery. Until she was already halfway out of the hospital and heard him cough louder and for longer than it even took to hear him from out here. And that gurgle was still there.

It was just the treatment or his recovery. His immune system giving him a hard time, so he'd be better later. He was getting better, he had to be.

She prayed that he was. To whoever was still willing to hear her.