Ep. 80- We’ve Lost Her
Impossible Blue
The first lie
never this clear, your eyes
never this sober
Crush lips
The last lie
Burning cherry, crackle pop resistance
Menthol, I breathe your name awake
You’re still here.
Maybe the only one.
At least, the only one who ever told me about it.
So I can address you here, directly.
It’s just the two of us, after all.
No, I haven’t forgotten.
No, it hasn’t gotten easier.
I hope it doesn’t hurt too much, now.
Like the poet sings-
Please just act like you don’t see me
out here looking for a glimpse of shore;
A mirage of the life that we had before.
Maybe it’s for the better we both stay strangers forever.
ext. tower night flashback
The Tower.
A tall, multi-storied column of of impossible light and buzz, like the Christmas windmills alight with candles and creaking rotations that betray a false sense of life and movement. Its many pieces are cobbled together with all manner of shape and style across every era of known history. Some floors mirror the the world off 20th century skyscrapers, other floors are sheathed in sheer stone, and yet other floors are styled in such a way as to make the tower almost appear floating in sections, so invisible is the minimalist architecture. The monstrous orchestra of architecture builds to a pyre atop the fell structure which beams a light directly into the heavens.
Before The Tower is hills- once green, they are now scorched. Upon these hills are all manner of siege equipment and battlements laid to ruin. Scorched suits of armor dot the blackened grass, swords upturned and shoved into the dry dirt spread across the broiled terra like little pins pricked into some gray dead flesh.
A shield- it bears the crest of a Cup backed by the emblem of a heart. Its bearer is young, defiant, desperate- and nearly defeated. He is the last man standing in a grim, doomed offensive.
He drives his shield down into the dirt, supporting his body- it’s a strong frame, royal in dimensions and proud in its bearing. Beneath chainmail and grieves he heaves, sweat insulting his otherwise dignified contours.
He looks up defiantly at the Tower’s summit pyre. He removes his skull helm and chain from his head and a watery, silver crown takes form upon his brow.
KING OF CUPS
(to the dead- or perhaps, himself)
We’ve lost everyone. Forgive me, brothers. Only the stout of heart may follow me in this deed. Only strong are worthy of her pursuit.
His gaze remains fixed upward to the tower.
KING OF CUPS
(stern, loud, but not pleading- rather, a demand)
QUEEN OF CUPS. I KNOW YOU ARE IN THERE. I KNOW YOU HEAR MY VOICE. KNOW THIS- YOUR KING IS HERE, AND HE WILL NOT CEASE UNTIL EVERY BRICK, EVERY STICK, EVERY LINK OF THIS MISERABLE TOWER IS TORN DOWN. NO MATTER THE FLOOR THEY HAVE BORNE YOU TO, I WILL TEAR THIS TOWER DOWN UNTIL I REACH IT.
At this, the Tower itself seems to wink its billowing light- and a beam strikes down from the summit, hurtling toward the King of Cups.
Upon the brow of the King, just beneath the crown, a liquid third eye pools into form. It wides, arcane energy leaping from it and fomring a shield around the King. The Tower’s ray strikes the shield. The King, his face spasmodic in fatigue and sorrow for but a moment, raises an arm in the face of the tower’s beam and waves it away in a sweeping motion. The blade of fire is thrown off his shield and pulls wildly away into the nearby forest, setting it ablaze with a burst of spark and kindling. The King’s shield dissolves, as does his third eye- leaving just his two native eyes yet damp with emotion.
Standing far, far beyond the lowly earth- is the QUEEN OF CUPS.
She is, in a word, beautiful. Some would accuse this of being criminally simple, but there is no other way to describe the King’s partner. She is beauty to every eye, a woman of water and shifting form whose ideal is reflected in every gaze that beholds her. To one she might be Athena, to another Aphrodite, to another yet Hera. She is the dreamcatcher, a mythic net that catches the gazes and thoughts of all who pass her way, keeping a piece of them, leaving them incomplete save for the brief moment they might pass through her yet again. She is no simple Helen- no, not an unlucky object of lust- she is the otherworldy, the goddess who floats above the battlefield, the angel all long of, the perfect being we all imagine we might be destined for if we were a different sort of person or caste. Simply said, the Queen of Cups is not just an ideal- she is your ideal, just as surely as she is the ideal of the poet or the artist or the writer. Her form is the cup that overflows, tipping the generosity of an all mighty who gifted her to the lower arcana in an act of unspeakably good charity.
This is the Queen, stolen away in the Tower, like so many old, bad stories.
And here is the King, the mighty, powerful King, ready to bend heaven and terra to his will to bring her back.
KING OF CUPS
HEAR ME, GODS OF THE TOWER, YOU GREAT MAJOR ARCANA. RELEASE MY WIFE TO ME.
The Tower releases another streak of dangerous light that impacts with the force of artillery behind the King, decimating the hill behind him and reducing it to a crater.
The King of Cups sighs wearily. The Queen of Cups watches- her expression unchanging. One might call it quizzical.
The King slowly removes his crown and tosses the silver bauble onto the ground letting it roll down the hill.
KING OF CUPS
Very well. If the Tower would reject my pleas-
The crown ceases to roll, colliding with an upturned stone- the soft impact produces cracks in the brittle crown.
The third eye forms again on the King’s brow. Light pours from his eyes, his mouth, his third eye.
KING OF CUPS
THEN I WILL FORCE IT TO BEAR MY SCREAMS.
The light focuses to an apex before his face shimmering blue with arcane water energy. It forms an orb that inflates to an unstable massive ball of energy- and then releases in a beam at the tower. The beam lashes the tower snapping rock, wire and plaster from its exterior, shattered glass and concrete shaking itself loose from the great structure like water from a shaking dog.
The beam shears through the tower with careful, devastating precision and when it ceases there can be no doubt that the King has dealt the Tower a grievous wound. He heaves, his great chest nearly cracking as he struggles to suck in enough oxygen after the immense use of energy. His bloodshot eyes strain out tears of blood.
The spot his Queen once stood is now empty. And the pyre atop the flower remains yet lit.
The fire atop the tower flickers for a moment and then take the face of the Child King, the Sun- the smiling, malevolent near-deity regards the King as a boy might some strange bug.
The Sun blinks.
An immense ray of solar affliction leaps out from his eyes and gallops toward the King.
The exhausted royal lacks the strength to summon a proper defense.
The Sun’s sealing rays strike him head on.
The rattle of collapsing mail and armor.
And then nothing. For one season, two, incalculable- nothing.
Until one day- one unremarkable day- an old man, too feeble to hardly lift his own sword, let alone bear his own armor, stands atop the hill. Rest has left him feeble. Time has left him dull. Failure has left incalculable wounds upon his heart.
And the Tower- save a faint scar across its 14th floor- stands unchanged.
The old man picks up a battered shield- a scarred old thing with a cup and a torn heart- and descends the hill leaving the cracked crown and fractured tower behind.
He’d lost her.
And himself.
