A series played using Anamnesis. This post is published under the CC-BY-SA-4.0 licence.
Shadow: The Moon (Anxiety, Illusion, Intuition)
ACT 4: WANDS
SCENE 1: QUEEN OF WANDS
I turned the pages over, no longer wanting to look at them, and took a moment to sit in silence and contemplate their blank backs. My mind was filled with the echoes of my past actions, swirling fragments becoming ensnared in a web of implications. I didn't like the pattern taking shape, and the looming presence lurking at the centre of the web - something patiently observing my reflections - was all too real. I stood and began to ransack the room, pulling open cupboard doors and desk drawers until I found, at last, my stylus and a small pot of ink that had not entirely dried up. I gathered the pages from the box and stacked them, still face down, on my antique wooden desk beside the stylus and ink pot. I took a seat at the desk, allowed my breathing to settle, and began to write.
The stylus scratched on the dry, gossamer-thin pages as my shaky hand inscribed a halting letter to my family. I tried to find adequate words to express what I'd seen since my return, how the sight of the fallen grandeur of the palace had shocked me, and how seeing their final resting place had rendered me silent. As I wrote, the shadows of my past deeds gathered about me, peering over my shoulder and whispering to themselves about the omissions in my account. I pushed them from my awareness and wrote as if in a trance, my stylus tearing the pages in places, until finally I could write no more and dropped the stylus. As I clenched and unclenched my hand to relieve the cramp, I felt my eyes drawn to the page, compelled to read the words that had flowed from me in an uncontrolled torrent. The handwriting was little more than a scrawl in places, but I was nonetheless able to discern key words and phrases. What I saw confirmed my fears and I pushed the pages away from me in the vain hope that they now held the memories and that I could cast them away forever.
SCENE 2: PAGE OF WANDS
I gathered myself and rose to my feet, I could remain here no longer. As I crossed the room to the door, my attention was drawn to the orb, it still lay where I had left it, but the bloody fingerprints somehow seemed more prominent, more accusatory. It stopped me in my tracks and, after a long moment, I picked it up and carried it with me as I left the palace. I retraced my steps back to the great dining hall, where my family were waiting for me, patient as ever. I reverently placed the orb in the hands of who I assumed was my eldest child; it was only fitting that they take their long overdue place on the throne. Gathering my shroud about me, I exited the palace, closing the ornate bird- and flower-carved doors behind me for the last time. The gates swung open at my touch, as before, and sealed behind me after I crossed back into the city. I did not pause to check if they would readmit me to the palace grounds, instead venturing along the main boulevard towards the city gates.
At each junction, I paused and listened in all directions, hoping in vain to hear the sounds of life somewhere in the city. Silence hung over the city like a shroud and I was accompanied only by my guilt. As I passed the ornate park, where I had taken my past paramours to break their hearts, I heard the words of that last one as loud as if they were standing beside me. I picked up the pace and practically ran to the gates, not stopping to listen at the junctions I raced over. I only paused once I was safely through the gates and had put a fair distance between them and myself. The dark night around me offered no indication of where else I might go, so I returned to the only other place that I knew; the cliffside tomb where I had first awakened.
SCENE 3: TWO OF WANDS
I sat on the edge of the cave mouth, crossed-legged and in silent contemplation of the crashing waves beneath me. There was no place here in this world for me anymore, and I confess that for the longest time I gave serious consideration to leaping from the cliff to the rocks below. My grim reverie was interrupted by the rise of the sun on the horizon before me. What began as a soft glow became a pale blue light spreading across the sky, and then a river of gold began to extend itself lazily towards me. I raised an outstretched hand as if to grasp the golden light, but it remained forever just out of reach. Realising that it wasn't me that it was trying to take hold of I crept back into the cave and gently lifted the crown from the dais. Holding it out in front of me, I edged towards the cave mouth, offering the crown to the rising sun. As it pulled itself free of the horizon I had to close my eyes in the face of its glory, but kept the crown extended to it. As the sun's warmth touched my skin and I felt its embrace fill me, the weight in my hands slowly lessened until my hands were empty. I opened my eyes, shielding them with my now empty hands, and saw that the sun was now clear of the horizon, surrounded by an intense corona unlike anything I had seen before. I slowly lowered my hands, feeling the shroud slip from my shoulders and crumple to the floor. I stood in the full light of the sun and allowed its light to fill the cavern utterly. Its light touched every surface, washing away all shadows, until there was no trace of the past left.