Circe & The Bard

Circe will hand the deck to her latest client, turning down the lights in her tent. It won’t be a challenge to change the lights, it never is, the lights will be obliging as ever.

The client will remove less than ten cards, then they’ll look at her anxiously. They will not trust the cards, which is often a good thing for them. They will suffer less if they expect little from her.

The past will be—was?—the reversed hanged man (Berserker calls him the floating man), it will look like the client themself.

“You have often backed down from decisions,” She will explain, “You have been your greatest enemy.”

The client will scowl.

The Present will be—is?—the upright king of cups. It will look like the client’s coworker, they will say his name reverently.

“You have a negotiator, they are pushing you towards what you deserve,” Circe will say, “Their care means a good deal to you.”

They will eagerly turn over future, which will be the reversed 6 of swords. The swords in the image will be monitors, glowing without an obvious source.

“What you deserve will be delayed, possibly stopped if your masters are cruel enough. Work may be a boon, but too much may ruin everything. Focus on what is most important,” she will tap the king of cups, “Or risk losing it forever.”

The client will nod fervently, and begin to rush out.

“Please send in the next supplicant,” Circe will request. They will not send in the next person.

He steps in, and Circe recognizes him, except she’s never seen him before, not even in visions. She doesn’t see everything in visions, but she would think someone so familiar would have graced them sometime before.

“Do I know you?” she asks before realizing she’s dropped her accent.

“I don’t know you, yet,” the man admits.

“Then we are at equal impasse,” she announces with the performance renewed.

The man nods, gently sitting down. He is not small. He has dark skin with a strange glow to it in the candlelight. His eyes are almost gold.

“You come with a question?” she asks.

“One I hope can be answered,” he answers.

“What is your assessment?” Bard asked once Quartz came beside him, “And does your paramour plan on joining us?”

“It’s not her,” Quartz answered, “I checked her mind, and though it definitely sees the future, it doesn’t feel like hers did. She certainly doesn’t remember either.”

“She never remembers much,” Bard said, “What does the Lord of the Unseen think?”

“Talisman says she has a different soul.” Quartz repeated herself, “She does not bear Muse’s soul.”

“But her power…”

“She wasn’t the only one in the world who could see the future. The ability didn’t die with her.”

Quartz’s lives always had a temporal bend, the product of being a Kronos, so why couldn’t she see?

“They see probability,” Bard explained, “She sees destiny.”

“Are cards not just probability and generalizations?”

“You had her read for you, I take it. What did she see?”

“That is none of your business.”

She must have shown something uncomfortably true.

“If it were her, she wouldn’t be able to see the past, would she?” Quartz insisted, “It’s not her domain.”

“We’re not as opposite as one might think,” Bard explained, “Reflections of each other, sometimes distorted, but entwined nonetheless.”

Luckily Quartz respected him enough not to blow him off.

“She’s not a demon either. She’s human, which is hardly a match for you.”

“She is one of the evolved, which Muse put into the world. Who better to inherit than one she made herself. For all we know Muse saw and chose her as the best inheritor.”

“I know desperation, Bard,” Quartz said, “It is the fiber of your being right now, but I must advise against this.”

“Why is that?”

“Surely you’ve read those closest to her, know whence she came.”

“And who might be watching,” Bard confirmed, “I still have to know. Surely you can respect curiosity.”

“I know that I can’t stop you,” Quartz admitted, “Respect is an altogether different matter.”

Quartz often acted like she was the oldest, as she was the first to realize she had more than just the extraordinary gifts her domain thrust upon her. Bard however, superceded her on age, and had lived many more lives.

“What do we do if this leaves us without you?” she asked under her breath.

“I’ll be back,” Bard assured. He awakened in his teenage years, consistently.

“What of those absent?” Quartz asked. Of course she worried for their number.

“Mordred is still a child, but his people will keep him hidden for as long as they can manage. I have met with Diadem, and she is choosing to hide. She will be the first to know if I am gone.”

Are you sure I can’t persuade you? Quartz asked one last time.

“You would know better than me,” Bard assured, “But I doubt it.”

Circe shuffles the deck and offers it to the familiar stranger. He places a hand on it, then pulls back, not cutting the deck in the slightest.

“I will trust you completely, for now.”

He treats the reading like a serious matter of a trivial nature. Two things which should not be together, like familiar strangers.

“Do you have your question?” Circe asks.

He nods.

She places the cards.

“Reveal the past.”

He takes the card in middle, just a hair closer to him than the others.

It is reversed lovers. There is a man with dark skin in a bed, and a pale woman tending him. They stare at each other with what Circe believes to be longing. The man who turned the card over looks disappointed.

“There has been unfaithfulness,” Circe explained, “Faulty decision making.”

The man shakes his head.

“Unbalanced due to loss,” he explained, “The forces they once thought they could take on destroyed them and the absence is felt, strongly.”

Circe is used to clients interpreting the cards on their own. She is generally inclined not to argue, and this man seems to know exactly what the card means for him.

“Reveal the present.”

The man shows greater confidence as the next card is a blurred image, hard for Circe to read, and it flips from upright to reversed and back. Eventually it appears to be the high priestess, whose face looks like Circe, until it turns much paler than her, like the woman from the past, but then it all turns dark for a moment at a time as the image ripples and is hard to see.

“The high priestess,” she explains, warily, praying the stranger explains it himself again, “Your instincts may be right, but there are also secrets, hidden things that may change your opinion.”

“Not mine,” he corrects.

Circe doesn’t know how to respond, so she doesn’t.

“Reveal the future.”

The man turns the card over, except it’s completely blank. Circe does nothing but stare.

It’s a regular deck of Tarot cards. Circe is the only reason it looks like it does. If something is somehow stopping her, then it should just go back to normal, not blank.

The man looks satisfied with himself.

“What did you do?” Circe asks.

“Don’t worry,” he says, “This should only happen with me. Nobody else is a counter to your power.”

His words feel too accurate, but she doesn’t have time to ponder since he’s walking out of the tent, and she can’t let him do that, not without answers.

“Wait.”

“I’ll leave you to your business,” he consoles.

“Right now my business is knowing just what happened there.” she storms toward him, “And obviously you have answers.”

He offers her a hand. For once she doesn’t know where a hand will take her. Who knows what he’s going to do?

She takes it.

Nothing happens as his stare hones in on her eyes.

“What day were you born?”

She shrugged.

“My birthday’s in March, I’m 25. I don’t know the exact date though.”

He nods.

“I had a hypothesis, but I shouldn’t be surprised it won’t be confirmed. Stay safe, Ms. Mysterium.”

She blinks a moment and she will realize he didn’t know her name, not that she knows his. She will not laugh, instead opening the tent flap to usher the next client in.

This one’s cards will work, as will all the others.

“Where did you learn to dance?” Angharad asked.

“Someone taught me.” Bard answered.

Angharad didn’t ask further questions. She was usually quiet. It made him, and anyone asking for her help, share anything on their mind.

“She’s gone,” he said, recalling something she told him, “I’d be with her right now if she were—”

That was a terrible thing to say. It wasn’t like he didn’t love Angharad, so why did he have to mention there was someone else?

“She must have been beautiful,” Angharad said.

He recalled her mischievous smile, The way she moved when she was excited, just how loud she could be…

“She was,” he admitted, smiling at the quiet woman letting him lead her about the room.

“Is she really gone?”

Every once in a while he felt something at the edge of his soul pull taut, then loosen again. Margaret was alive with her husband, maybe even children. Muse was buried somewhere within her, too deep for Bard to excavate.

“She’s gone.”

Angharad lost her form and sat on the bed. She looked relieved. He’d made her worry he would leave her. He brought one of the hands he still held close to his lips to add further assurance.

“Can you stay?” Angharad asked.

“I will stay,” he promised.

"Good,” she looked down at her stomach, “Good.”

It will be a bad night. She will see stars dying, tyrants falling, and one of her closest friends tearing through several realities.

She will see a boy born from a tree, a woman whose arm has morphed into a branch before she pulls it away. She’ll see a woman with strains of gold in pale skin who sits at a table, learning the news of the worlds through the minds of their inhabitants, across from her, as always, will sit a man who looks normal and human, but he is giving orders to an Unseen army.

She will have names: Mordred, Diadem, Quartz, Talisman, and she will know there needs to be more, that she is missing her own, and her familiar stranger’s, a woman in mourning and rage, and a man who will not return for centuries.

She will know, but she won’t understand, not without the help of the past, and she has seen the past. He is a familiar stranger who remembers everything that she needs to know.

But she will not want to learn. She will cling to mortality, refusing to let it be forced away from her, because if she lets it go, then she will shoulder a burden she is not ready for.

She will wake up, and forget.

He climbs through the window to the lady’s room. No maids, no father, no betrothed to stop him.

“What are you doing?” Margaret asks, trying to push him away, but he doesn’t let her.

He has been her friend, her companion, but it has not been enough. If he lets her go, then he will lose her, and he can’t risk that.

“You’ve known you’re not human for years, so why can’t you…” he trails off as he strokes her cheek. She feels cold, and her look of terror is too much.

“Remember, please.”

He remembers she’s not allowed to speak with him. He puts his hands around her wrist, where the growth of a vow is, and its power subsides. She can remove it after she remembers.

She calms down as the pain subsides, but tries to pull her wrist away. He switches to holding it with one hand, just loose enough that she won’t break her arm as she pulls.

“It will hurt again if I let go,” he explained, “Please, Peggy.”

She stands still.

“What are you doing here, Robin?”

“Please.”

“Please what?”

Suppressing the vow is clearly not enough.

He holds her gently, one hand still on her wrist, and kisses her. They are entwined across lives. Surely, if she only knew it was him, she would remember. It’s the only option left.

When he pulls away, her look of terror is back. She touches her lips, looks at his hand on her wrist, and tries to run, but he pulls her back.

“You need to remember.”

“Remember what?”

Not even the slightest hint of recognition.

“There was once two peoples who hated each other. One was blessed with a woman who could see the future. One suffered a man who knew all that had passed. The only thing these two had no visions of was each other. He was captured, and she saved him, and they realized they weren’t alone. They have loved each other for millennia across countless lives, and—”

She touches his face, and he feels terrible for getting tears on her hand.

“And it can’t be stopped by one measly vow to a terrible man who doesn’t deserve to be your father.”

He came here with the intent to force himself on her, hoping that can be the answer, but there is no answer. Muse is dead, and Margaret will marry and die like an ordinary woman.

“We will have another life,” Margaret comforts, clearly confused.

“No,” He’s still crying, “No, you have been planning this for too long.”

He shouldn’t have kissed her. He has to live with the fact he kissed the woman who is killing his Muse.

“Goodbye.”

He lets go of her, and disappears.

Circe will watch the sky. Something will happen from a corner, as she envisions the night before. She will remember that much of her dreams.

She doesn’t see him at first, but she can feel him. Her world solidifies and disappears from under her feet at the same time. It is another oxymoron the familiar stranger brings to her.

“Why are you back?” she asks, keeping quiet that she’s still surprised she didn’t see him arriving. She can’t see him, but perhaps he also can’t see her.

“I may have changed things for you, and wanted to make sure you were alright,” he explains, “Honestly I wouldn’t have even spoken with you if you hadn’t started the conversation.”

“How can you tell if the future is always blank for you?” she recalls the completely black card. Her readings were fine for the rest of yesterday, so the problem had to be him.

“The past and the future aren’t exactly the opposites they seem to be,” he says, “The future is affected by the past, so one can be used to guess the other. Is that not how your cards work?”

He makes her angry, but she doesn’t want him gone. He keeps being two things that shouldn’t coexist.

“What do you want from me?” she finally asks, “And who are you for that matter? Because you act like you know me.”

“I knew who came before you, but you are not her, as far as I’m aware.”

“And you are?”

Cagey, old, a guardian of some kind. Someone who needs to answer her questions before she gets mad.

“The title I’ve chosen to connect my lives is Bard.”

“Lives?” Plural?

“Many over the years, though not as many as you’d expect. This time around I was born in 1823. Good thing too, because I was just in time to stop a tragedy you—your predecessor—warned me about. The world would be gone about 30 years from now if I hadn’t intervened.”

“What?”

“Not important, the world should stay intact, don’t worry.”

Circe has seen people far older than they look. It is the way with superhumans. He isn’t even the oldest person she’s met, but this is only his most recent life.

“How long ago was your first life?”

He shakes his head.

“I should stop before I say too much. There is a balance to these things, and I can’t risk getting it wrong again, not after—” He stops himself. It’s like he’s trying to push her curiosity further, or it’s like he says, that he doesn’t want to tell her too much because of something that’s happened before.

Her eyes turn back to the skies.

“Then leave me alone," she says, not daring to look at him.

“As you—”

She remembers why she was looking to the skies, because of an unseen sniper.

Bard clearly noticed it somehow, because he’s pushed her down, covering her with wings she hadn’t seen before.

The wings are teal, or purple, or green, or maybe a little bit of all three, with what looks like eyes dotting throughout.

The obvious allusion is a bird, but peacocks don’t have eyes on their wings, just their tail feathers, and these are wings.

Mages don’t come with wings.

Empowereds don’t live that long.

There are others, but there isn’t another soul on top of his, and the humans that live this long wouldn’t have wings and the ability to see the past.

Whatever she thinks doesn’t matter, because his shirt is being stained with something radiant, and some part of her knows it’s blood.

She focuses on the sniper, then his bullets, and with a small strain of will, she is sure he doesn’t have any more bullets to attack with.

She grabs Bard to drag him somewhere she can take care of his wound.

He isn’t sure where he wakes up, and that is how he knows something’s wrong.

The bed he’s in tells him nothing of its existence. All he sees is now, and now is unfamiliar.

You’ve healed from your wounds, the attendant says. She is staring at him, no physical contact. Though she shows no vows, she is too pale to be his kind, so she must be a demon.

She nods, and he remembers demons don’t speak. She must be in his mind. He’s about to force her out like his brother explained to him, but thinks better of it. He doesn’t know if she can even speak.

“We can speak,” her voice sounds clear and lovely. He wants to lean into it, except he knows it is merely a sound.

“Why am I in an unused room?” he asks. The place must have been so thoroughly abandoned, there is no past to see. That is his problem, “Surely your leader would prefer me in a cell.”

She cocks her head.

“It is not unused,” she says, “But you are here because The Satan owes me a favor, which I used to keep you.”

She is not an attendant. She is a captor. He should know that. Is she blocking his powers by fuzzing his mind?

“If you are unable to fly, it is because those injuries haven’t healed. You sustained many blows on the battlefield.”

“I wasn’t supposed to be on the battlefield.”

“They forced you?” she deduces.

He shakes his head. He chose to go.

“I thought I could be more help, but now I am a captive, sold to pay off a debt.” He remembers that again. She is not a comforter for him, no matter how comfortable he feels with her, “What is it you demand of me?”

She watches him silently. It seems unfair that she knows his thoughts but he’s forced to guess at hers.

“I’ve never seen you before,” she answers.

“We are strangers,” he informs her.

She shakes her head.

“I saw everyone in the battle except for you.”

He’s hesitant to understand, but he knows it exactly. The demons knew their every move, and he had gone to learn why from any demons he could find, but instead they targeted him.

“You’re the reason they were after me.”

He’d assumed it was because of his brother’s reputation, but she’d planned this.

“I didn’t know what you would do.”

He should try to escape. She was a foe, yet…

“You know the future?” he asks, grabbing at the sheets, the bedframe. She is the reason he doesn’t sense anything in this place.

“You have been alone.”

“It is better that way,” she explains.

“I don’t see you either,” he says. Neither of them have to be alone.

“So you assumed the room was unused,” she added, nodding.

“You are the one person I don’t know,” he says, “And I think we’re the only ones who understand each other.”

She offers her hand, and he takes it. He likes the feeling of her hand in his. It feels right, and that is the only thing he knows about her.

Circe doesn’t know what to do. She doesn’t have visions around him, and he is something else. For all she knows, his organs are in a completely different arrangement.

She grabs an old but clean rag, holding it over both sides of the wound so he’s not bleeding all over her Aunt’s trailer.

“And the cycles continue,” Bard mutters. He seems lucid despite the blood loss.

“What do you need?” Circe asks, “Would a hospital be able to help you?”

He shakes his head. At least she could see that much coming.

“It will stop hurting in a moment. The blood may take a while, but I will be fine.”

“Am I supposed to just let you bleed out?”

He takes the rag from her and gently shoves her away. She takes a few extra steps afterward.

“You’re not safe here,” he says.

Why should she trust him? If the bullet doesn’t hurt him, then it shouldn’t matter that much that her took it for her.

“If the sniper was you’re doing, I’ll let you know I’m friends with Berserker. I can sic him on you if I want.”

He gives a small laugh.

“You can leave that tactic in reserve for now, but I would keep it ready for the future.”

She sees the woman in mourning and rage again. This time it’s clearer, like the past she’s never known clarifies the future she recognizes.

“Dunamis,” she names, and for reasons she doesn’t understand, she fears.

“Yes,” Bard confirms, “If she can’t control you, she intends to curb you. She may have found you because of me.”

The name makes her want to run, the intentions more so.

But she knows Beebi will walk in, and she can’t leave Beebi.

“I can’t leave.”

He doesn’t argue, just stares at her her for a minute.

“I have seen this work once, but it wasn’t us.”

She doesn’t know what he means. She can see Berserker’s endgame, but not Bard’s, and she should know Bard.

“Who was it?”

“The mind and the soul. They can cover our scent, but they need to be around for it to maintain. They cannot come here, not again.”

“Again?”

He does not elaborate.

“They can hide us because their domain is over what makes us different. Together, we may be able to hide you, because our domains counter each other.”

She sees the logic. She does not know if it will work. That is always the gamble when they’re together. That much she knows she shares with her predecessor.

He offers his hands, she hesitantly places hers inside them.

The door to the caravan opens.

“Pheny, why do you have a strange man in my caravan?”

“He saved my life,” Circe switches to Beebi’s mother-tongue, “He does not want a hospital, and I had to help him.”

“I should be fine in a moment,” Bard interrupts, speaking an older dialect, but still understandable, “I only need to do one more thing.”

“Propose?” Beebi jokes, earning a glare from Circe, “You seemed to be close to him.”

“Not like that, Beebi.”

Bard shakes his head.

“I have brought danger to you,” he explains, “So I will do my best to keep the danger from finding you a second time.”

Beebi looks at Circe.

“Whether or not he saved your life, I can still remove him.”

“I trust him,” Circe says, he is still her familiar stranger. There is no other option. That may just be a bad sign.

“Then, let us begin.”

Circe gives him her hands again. Last time was gentle. This time is explosive, as she sees farther than affects her. She knows she will live long, but not long enough to see worlds she didn’t even know existed form treaties, for her friends’ work that has not yet been laid to be disbanded, then reformed centuries later.

“Too much of you,” Bard muttered, “I was so afraid of overpowering you, I made you go haywire.”

“How could you tell?” Circe asked.

“There are some things you share with your predecessor.”

They join hands again, the visions do not start, they push and pull from nothing to glimpses a few moments in the future, to a personal funeral in too few years, to children wrapped in destiny, to one friend with a sword in his chest and another wielding it.

Then she stands, in a caravan, and knows it has worked hopefully.

“Your abilities may not be as strong, but this should protect yourself and others in the vicinity of this trailer. I will return in a year’s time to make sure it still works.”

Circe nods. He will stay true to his promises, she does not see it happening, but she knows he will.

“I will see you then.”

He steps out of the trailer, and disappears.

“And who is he?” Beebi finally asks, “Who can keep you safe just by holding your hands for a minute.”

“A friend,” Circe answers, “A very old friend.”

Bard joined the line to the tent. He would watch the show later, but for now he had a promise to keep.

The people moved at a regular pace, some hiding tears, some overjoyed, most in a neutral state, clearly affected but unsure how.

He noticed, absently, that no one could hear what was happening in the fortuneteller’s tent, no matter how close. Perhaps it was a thicker fabric, or perhaps Circe was practicing more of her power.

He enters the tent and it feels familiar in the way it did with his Muse, but it is not his Muse, for she is gone. She doesn’t even seem to live on through Circe.

“Happy anniversary,” Circe says, not looking up as she shuffles her cards again.

“Have you been safe?”

“I haven’t been attacked,” she offers, “At least not by… well, you know.”

He does know, and he doesn’t push it.

Circe offers her hands.

“I could teach you more,” he offers, “There is much more to you than—”

“I don’t want more,” Circe insists, “I can’t go back if I become more.”

“I wander plenty. You can always—”

“I can’t stay. I have to stay.”

Bard nods. He understands, and he takes her hands, building a neutral zone once again. It does not take visions to know he will make this offer every time, and someday she will accept.

What will happen then?