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Rain tapped on the treehouse’s roof like little rat paws. On days like today—despite how common they were for the Typhoon’s tropical island home—the ocelot preferred to stay indoors away from the wet mess. She considered her treehouse a little island in the storm, a dry oasis above the waterlogged children and determined hunters. In her times of extreme isolation, the witch might spend entire weeks sequestered in her treehouse without even once setting paw on the land below.

As the ocelot stirred honey into her cup of tea, she decided today would be one of those days. The peppermint scent reminded her of simpler times, when Pincher’d still been alive and Coldblue often paid her a visit for magic lessons. She sighed into a paw, tapped the spoon telekinetically against the cup, and inhaled the delicate aroma—

Thunder jolted her and the treehouse, quivering her teacup and jostling the drying herbs on the floor. The ocelot froze, four eyes wide and unblinking, until she realized the treehouse had, in fact, not been hit by lightning. She breathed a sigh of relief—she didn’t think she could take rebuilding and moving into another treehouse after lightning struck her home for a second time--and glanced at the door. It’d creaked open.

Her amber-orange eyes narrowed a tad suspiciously, but the witch knew a sign when she saw one. Rosemary sighed, forked tail flicking, and poured another cup of tea. Her smaller pair of eyes glanced at the Tarot cards, and she neatly slipped her personal reading back into the deck. When her visitor arrives, she will find the door half-open, her arrival almost anticipated.

Rosemary telekinetically shuffled her Tarot deck and poured a second cup of tea.

[member=16148]VAYNE CIPHER-VANTAS.[/member]

PEACEFALL

peace comes at dawn, but yours comes at night

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“Come in, Vayne, come in, get yourself out of the rain.” Rosemary motioned with a paw for the fluffy not-kitten to step further inside. “You’ve just recovered from the long journey here! You don’t want to catch a cold, do you? There’s an old rag hanging next to the door. Dry yourself with that, please don’t get my seating cushions wet.”

In spite of the grey skies, the treehouse overflowed with flickering light. Little candles burned in strange places; a bundle hung from the ceiling like potted plants, another burned bright on the table, and a cluster of tiny ones burned close to a pile of furs and blankets in the corner. None of the windows had windows, but the pitchers and buckets to catch the falling rain blocked the worst well enough.

Rosemary pushed the second cup closer to the edge of her table, not so subtly showing where Vayne should sit. The cards shuffled themselves on the table, pattering together and waterfalling into a tidy deck with a snap! She sipped her tea, watching the cards and Vayne simultaneously.

“Are you happy you came back to the Typhoon?” Rosemary asked, bluntly, with a soft smile. “Well. That might be a heavy subject. Let me backtrack. Do you want to talk about anything, Vayne?”

PEACEFALL

peace comes at dawn, but yours comes at night

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Rosemary smiled as the fluffy not-kitten joined her at the table. The witch glanced at her pitcher and filled an empty cup with the peppermint tea, then gently pushed it towards Vayne’s side with a paw. “It’s hot, but if you’d like it iced, let me know. It’s no trouble at all with my magic.” She shrugged, her forked tail coiling, as she added, “Or if you only want to smell it, that’s fine, too. Half of the benefits from herbal teas is from the aromatherapy.”

Nodding as Vayne spoke, she waited for the snowshoe-bengal to speak. When Vayne switched the subject to the cards, Rosemary flowed with the topic change, and didn’t remark or show a sign that she’d noticed.

“The cards are a tool for introspection. Have you ever been caught between two choices you can’t decide between? In that situation, you can flip a coin and use that to decide your choice—but, by the act of allowing randomness to pick, you end up deciding what you wanted.”

Rosemary tapped the top, and the deck instantly quieted into a still pile. “Before you came in, I used them to gain a new perspective on a difficult personal question. Though, I’ll admit, sometimes I use them for silly games… it can be fun to ask the cards to pick which tea I brew.” She chuckled into a paw, and tried to forget the previous reading. She’d known it was a bad idea to ask about Jiyu, her ex-girlfriend, and the answer she’d received hadn’t made her happy.

“Would you like to see what I mean? We can try a simple spread for whatever question you like. Or we can talk about something else, since this rain doesn’t seem to be letting up at all.”

PEACEFALL

peace comes at dawn, but yours comes at night

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Rosemary smiled softly, flicking her forked tail before it coiled around her white paws. “I’m glad you like it. If you want, I can give you a little tin to take home with you.” Rosemary wouldn’t be offended if the child refused—after all, white lies to smooth over social bullshit were stupidly common, and not everyone had the magic or materials to boil water in their home.

She leaned forward, listening silently and seriously as the child asked her question. For this was a serious question. She’d almost expected Vayne to brush off her feelings, ignoring the cards entirely or asking them a silly (but fun question) like whether Roxanne was wearing a hat today or not. But the child surprised her by getting straight to the meat of the matter; the kid had guts, even if her shy and soft-spoken nature disguised that personality trait.

“I can ask the cards this, sure.” The witch hesitated. She wanted to push the cards away and talk to Vayne without their influence, tell the young girl exactly what she thought… but that wasn’t how self-discovery and character growth worked. Especially with a youngster on the cusp of their teenage rebellious phase.

She tapped the deck, and three cards shot out to the table, fluttering down against the wood, face-down. She tapped each one with a paw, speaking softly. “The one on your left stands for Aphra. The one in the middle stands for you and your siblings. The rightmost card… this one stands for your relationship.”

The left card flipped over, revealing a happy middle-aged man in front of an orderly arrangement of filled cups, reversed. “The Nine of Cups. This card represents fulfillment and satisfaction—but only after fulfilling one’s innermost desire. Aphra, like all animals, wishes to fulfill her goals and motivations… but I do not think she knew what those were. Since the card is reversed, the meaning is reversed: the card representing your mother implies she is unfulfilled, unsatisfied, and has lost the pursuit of her true desire.”

Rosemary’s main pair of eyes watched Vayne steadily, as her second pair jumped to the middle card as she flipped it over. The image depicted an old wizard at the center of water, air, fire, and earth swirling around him; in his hand, he held the four suits of the Tarot: a cup, a pentacle, a wand, and a sword. “The Magician. The card drawn to symbolize you and your siblings is complex and layered in its meaning… but its chief meaning is manifestation and pure willpower. When it is drawn to represent you and your sisters, I see that you are all individuals full of potential.”

Finally, she flipped over the third card. This one showed a beautiful woman sitting on a throne with a dead rabbit at her feet. “Ah, the Queen of Pentacles. While the Cups suit is concerned with emotional matters, the Pentacles suit represents material objects, like luxurious goods and accumulated wealth. This card represents success and prosperity—but the dead rabbit warns us of the pursuit of material things.”

Her four eyes flicked to the fluffy not-kitten, and Rosemary nodded, gestured with a paw to Vayne herself. “So, Vayne, what answer did the cards give you?”

PEACEFALL

peace comes at dawn, but yours comes at night