True Colors (Lillis & Sam)

[Sama'el Sunsinger]

He laughed, as that sounded like his old, dead Nana's response to most flippant questions from people.

"Well, you might want to practice first if you don't know what you're doing or you'll waste the good cloth. Unless... are you also a seamstress?" He figured she would be doing that work if she could, as it was probably more lucrative even if she did have a Gift. "And... oh! There was this woman I knew one time who... well, she wasn't nice, but she read cards on the side. She would pull a card for me on my birthday every year. Just one card. Seven years in a row it was the Hanged Man. Strange, no?"

[Lillis]

Lillis laughed and curled her fingers 'round the wine bottle, picking it up and placing it against her lips. She sipped, and laughed again, her mouth stained slightly red from drinking. "I am all thumbs, my friend," she answered on the wings of a chuckle. "I would destroy anything I took a needle to. No, I think the silk is fine enough to be worth waiting for a proper tailor. If you happen to come across one, do let me know."

She listened to him speak of the Hanged Man, and slowly began to nod her head, drawing the image of the card into her mind. "Mm," she murmured, "Strange." She paused, brow furrowed in thought. "The card is often misconstrued to indicate martyrdom, but it does not -- I think perhaps it represents someone between things, as the image suggests. A man between life and death. But for you... perhaps it means surrender. Perhaps it signifies that you must propel yourself out of one thing and into another -- surrender a past life for a new life instead of existing in some dead space in between."

She shrugged then, and took a generous drink from the bottle. "But really, it could also just be a coincidence."

[Sama'el Sunsinger]

"I will keep my eyes open for a good tailor," he assured her, trying to remember if he had heard anyone indicate a preference for one over another. Well, he would just have to keep his ears open too.

"I was in suspension," he said. "Just hanging there, bound and helpless. The eighth time she drew my card, though, it was different. And that year, someone offered me an opportunity and I surrendered to it, and it all worked out. Well, so far so good."

He grinned. It wasn't so bad if he was vague about the details, but even after two years, he didn't want someone to decide that there would be a reward for him in Sunberth and send him back there.

[Lillis]

"Good," she said evenly, smiling. "And what was the card you drew the eighth year?"

She would press for no more details than that, easily picking up on the fact that whatever he'd been through he preferred to keep to himself.

[Sama'el Sunsinger]

"Oh," he said, looking abashed for leaving that out. "It's sort of funny. It was the Sun. And she was so surprised that she threw down another card, Seven of Wands, and another, the World." He paused, thoughtfully rolling around the images in his mind. "I'm still not sure of the other ones, but the Sun... that was me not long after. A boy riding a grey horse... not bareback like in the picture, though I can do that too... Riding out from behind closed walls, and there were flowers, and the sun was so bright. He was happy, and then I was. Though I didn't put much stock in it at the time."

[Lillis]

She smiled at the description, giving a slow nod of her head as he spoke. "Seven of wands... courage in the face of hardship. And the world, the end of one part of your life and the beginning of another."

A hand came up to toy absently with the chain around her neck, evoking the gentle tingle of several charms clinking together.

"You've had quite an adventurous young life, it seems," she mused.

[Sama'el Sunsinger]

"Yeah, one guy with a staff was fighting off a bunch of others... and then a naked dancing lady with candles and garlands and animals and stuff. I don't know if that happened or is supposed to happen, but..." He shrugged. "I always heard that 'may you live in interesting times' was actually a curse, though."

He popped another berry into his mouth and chased it down with wine, enjoying how the sweet, tart spring berry eased some of the wine's sourness.

"That's pretty," he said.

[Lillis]

"What?" She blinked owl-wide eyes before it occurred to her that her hand was on her necklace. "Oh." A smile. "Thank you." And she dropped it again.

May you live in interesting times... She pondered it quietly, chewing at the inside of her lower lip and nodded slowly. "Could be a curse," she said, "but so many curses are manifested by the cursed themselves that I think it's what you make of it. And any adventure has it's risks, but so often the journey is..." [i]worth it[i]... She held the words on the tip of her tongue, but did not say them. Worth what? The loss, the trauma, the injury? "So often the journey offers it's own satisfactions."

[Sama'el Sunsinger]

"It's the hard times that shape you," he agreed. "Like taking an uncut gem from a river and cutting it down into a gem. Nana said, 'perfection is not achieved when there is nothing more to add, but when a body has been stripped down to its essence and there is nothing left to take away'."

He chewed on that while chewing on his food, then blinked and colored slightly.

"Sorry. I remember a lot of the things she said. Never met anyone wiser."

[Lillis]

"She sounds like an extraordinary woman," Lillis said with an earnest nod of her head. "Like my Grandmother, actually." A pause. "Well, not exactly like my grandmother... She was a woman of few words, but unparalleled gentleness and skill -- she was a healer. Is a healer, I should say. Er, I think she is, anyway. It's been a while."

Lillis smiled, helping herself to the second-to-last berry on the table. "It sounds like you loved her very much -- are... you still close?" She ventured this carefully, making the question sound as casual as possible.