Description: A short and sweet scene that not only shines yet more light onto Alma's character but shows him continuing to grow as a person, as he meets the fabled fortune-teller that seems to know him better than he knows himself -- and who gives him a gift he'll treasure forever.
Alma stands before the entrance to the House of Mysteries, hands thrust into his pockets, and ponders. His brow is furrowed in a slightly worried expression, and his mouth is quirked downward. He looks unsure. And for Alma, Captain, this is highly unusual.
But then again, this entire day has been highly unusual for Alma Towazu, psychic prettyboy extraordinaire. It's not that the would-be bishonen is having a *bad* day; having "Alma" and "bad day" in the same sentence implies a contradiction in terms. If he were having a bad day, it'd be easy, because he'd just get over it and let it blow by him. Instead, the worst has happened: he is in a state of inner turmoil. His natural Zenness has evaporated with the morning dew. His easygoing stoicism, a paradoxical philosophy if there ever was one, has faltered... for he has lost a duel to Li Xiangfei. Again. And again, it was one of the closest fights he's ever had. And again, he walked away from it in good spirits, feeling nothing but the joy of facing an opponent with a fierce and furious fighting spirit to match his own, feeling the perfect satisfaction -- free of any regret -- of the warrior who has fallen with no weapon left undrawn.
That part was easy. It was the getting mooshed part and the getting made lunch part that got to him. Her lunches are just too good, for one thing. And for the other, well, as popular as Alma may be, part of that popularity stems from the fact that Alma's wholesomeness isn't an act. Not only is he a real person, he's a real *good* person. But the real part demands certain things from him -- things like "get really drunk and then tackle Vanessa and bury your face in her chest" -- which he is often unprepared to give, and sometimes lucky to survive. He is always willing to admit being a foolish youth, but as of yet, that admission has done nothing but help him stay humble.
But maybe now, he can actually get some help...
He can't wait out here till he stops feeling off-balance. He'll only feel harmonious again once he's up and done it. And while it's best to go with the flow of the Way... part of the very essence of the Way is that sometimes you have to give it a little push, as natural as can be.
So, managing a warm smile without attempting to disguise the confusion in his eyes, Alma Towazu knocks quietly, and opens the door by the sign, to enter...
For a 'business' (or at least a place where Rose occasionally collects money in return for reading the cards, though lately she's been doing more pro bono work than expected) the House is in an out-of-the-way place, in an affluent neighborhood off the beaten track. It's not easy to get to, and the chill of October at dusk is hard to escape. Still, beyond the gate and stairwell is a dark corridor, lit only by real candles burning in hurricane lamps on the wall. Originally a balcony, apparently it has been shuttered and insulated to deal with the coming winter. A shame, as with the shutters open one would have an excellent view of the city below.
Coming around the corner, Alma would enter into a very simple space: the lamps continue to give a warm glow to the otherwise darkened room, which is spacious for a balcony but not exactly roomy despite the high ceiling. Interestingly, a few places on the balcony rail and floor have tiny burn marks, as if there were a very selective recent fire. The only sound is the ticking of a genuine old-style Bavarian clock hanging on the far wall, and...
...the breathing of the woman sitting in the center of the room, her eyes closed. A striking figure, to be sure, her improbable hair occasionally moving slowly one way or the other in the idle air as she breathes. Before her is a wooden table, round and covered in a red cloth marked with numerous golden, rectangular outlines. On the opposite side is a chair, empty.
And when the fighting model comes near to her, the women simply smiles. "Welcome to the House of Mysteries," she intones, her voice rich and calm. Of course, she hasn't opened her eyes just yet.
Despite himself, the handsome youth can't help but glance around in quiet awe. Highly receptive to native ambiances, the general aura of the place strikes him, so much so that he feels humbled all over again. He is entering the presence of a person whose power he cannot fathom...
"Madam," he says, with genuine respect. Even though her eyes are closed, he feels the urge to bow his head, and does so for a moment. His eyes continue to reflect his state of mind, but he already seems a bit more at peace, simply for coming here. "I've come... for a reading, please," he says, deep voice a bit hesitant, as though only just now having begun thought about what he actually wanted. "And to have my fortune told..." He shifts, his body relaxing a bit, though he can't help but stand straight and poised. He is in the presence of A Lady. "I could... really use some advice, ma'am. If you would... I'd really like to hear what you'd have to say, please."
He glances to the chair, but doesn't ask to be seated yet. Goodness gracious, that'd be rude, sitting down right now! ...At least, so he figures. Funny thing is, Alma was never really taught about being polite. He just sort of picked it up himself, through guesswork and intuition. After all, *someone* invented politeness, right? So there are probably the true Rules, somewhere, right? And he should be able to interpret and figure them out on his own, right? Certain things just Ought To Be Done.
Alma has lived a strange life.
The woman gives a chuckle, opening her eyes and fixing them on Alma. While Alma's eyes are often glittering, energetic, Rose's are something else entirely: dark, dark purple that's almost black, disturbingly penetrating. Even a casual glance, such as the one she's raking Alma with, feels as if she's trying to punch through your skull into the very depths of your spirit. However, her faint smile defuses what might otherwise be a cold, arrogant face. "It isn't very often that I get distinguished visitors, Mr. Towazu," she says patiently. "At least, I didn't used to. And I tend not to stand on ceremony. Please be seated."
And while Alma does that, she reaches her hand under the table just slightly, producing a deck of tarot cards (or, presumably such), shuffling them between long, slender fingers with expert ease. "If it is advice you seek, then I shall endeavor to provide it to the best of my perception," she offers. "Though I warn you, the art of divination is often imprecise and cryptic. What you hear and what you perceive are not always simple."
'Distinguished', eh? Hey, that's something. You can call a guy who is the adored idol of eleven-year-old girls all of Japan a lot of things, but usually, 'distinguished' isn't one of them. Despite himself, it does make Alma feel quite a bit more at ease, and his smile grows a bit easier, even though his eyes stay soft. "Thank you." He seats himself before the woman, but even when her gaze turns from him to the cards, he finds it difficult to tear his own gaze away from those eyes of hers.
~ So different from mine... I don't sense passion, exactly. So why do I feel such a powerful, humbling kinship? Why do I feel as though this woman is some sort of much older sister...
...I do know that I don't know anything. That was one of the discoveries that led me to my power in the first place. But even so, despite that, it still surprises me sometimes.... that there's really a lot about myself -- and my power -- that I don't understand at all. ~
Once he's finally able to look away, he tilts his head down to look at the cards, and watches them being shuffled. He's studying them, but not in an analytical sort of way; it's as though, as he does with the people he meets, he's trying to look at the spirit hidden admist the physical form. He is confounded again. Just looking as those cards gives him a strange rising sense of beauty. But they're just cards... He just doesn't understand. This place is overwhelming him entirely.
But still, at her final comment, he is able to respond with a slow nod. "I've come to a similar conclusion myself. But that's why I've come to you." His smile returns as he says this. "I've been trying to follow my own passions, now that I'm... free to do what I will." That pause isn't like his previous pauses; it's an awkward pause, rather than a thoughtful pause. But he continues on all the same. "And part of my journey is not knowing what my passions really are, so I'm not afraid of that. Nor do I feel I necessarily *need* to do my best, as though it'll make me qualify for, I don't know, the right to live. Still, I celebrate the beauty in trying." Alma's eyes are, of course, glittering at this point. His voice hasn't changed; there's no youthful eagerness. But his words are warm and weighty. He means everything he says, that much is clear. "But sometimes, I don't even understand my own feelings. It's not my passions, even... just my basic wants..." Now he starts to falter. "I mean... there's fighting... and there's school... and my art... and now I have friends... and there're girls... and, uh, and... boys too... I don't... don't really know..."
He's flushing. He seems ashamed, now, to have introduced such superficial topics. But high-minded as his words sometimes are, he's not pretentious, not really. So after a moment to compose himself, he lets the embarrassment go. "I guess I just... don't really understand how I'm supposed to act, now that I'm... in the world. As... me." Does he need to say it? 'As a person with Psycho Power'...
Perhaps it is best that despite Alma's confusion, Rose is a rock of serenity. Quietly, she continues to shuffle almost as if it were an automatic thing to her, an involuntary rather than reasoned action. "Even without the cards, I can understand certain things," she ventures, her tone patient and even. "You are young. But you are also nearing adulthood. At such a time responsibility and desire clash. Though perhaps your situation is more... pronounced than most, it is not uncommon."
With a complete lack of ceremony, Rose places the deck on the table, and fixes her gaze on Alma once again. "Normally, I would ask you to cut the deck. If you'd like the reading, you are welcome to do so. But..." And then Alma can likely sense it: the feeling that Rose's gaze isn't the only thing that's looking into his spirit. "I think the answers you seek are not found in the cards. Rather, destiny brought you here... just as it has so many others recently. You tread a dangerous road, Alma Towazu," she adds, her voice grave with the tones of warning at the last. "As do we all, but for people like yourself... and like *myself*... we constantly tread a careful line between light and shadow. Your concern over your 'passions' is just the surface of this greater conflict."
~ Now I remember. I felt a bit like this the first time I met Megumi. But it was not nearly... not anywhere near as strong as... ~
Alma looks down at the cards, and thinks only for a moment before looking back up and smiling again. "No, I think you're right. I don't think I really wanted to look in the cards." He pauses for a moment, and the smiles fades away quietly as he thinks for a moment. He speaks again, hesitantly. "I think I just... wanted to meet you, Miss Rose."
He listens, respectfully, and pauses again, when she speaks of light and shadow. But only for a moment.
Alma is not usually one for thinking of the world in terms of a conflict between good and evil, so this concept is foreign to him. But this may be because he has spent the majority of his life thinking only about himself and those very close to him. He has never... 'gotten political'. Yet perhaps just because he's never done it *before*...
~ I can trust her. ~
"What should I do?"
For a moment, Rose looks... positively weary. It passes soon enough, but there is something 'old' about her despite her apparently (relatively) young age for just a moment. "Ah, that's the eternal question, is it not?" she responds, looking out at one of the shutters, as if it weren't there and she were stargazing. However, she soon turns back to Alma, fixing her gaze upon him carefully. "I have watched you, as I have watched many others who place themselves in the public eye. Many come to Southtown, as I was drawn here. I do not know why... perhaps the old legends of leylines are true, and Southtown itself is a place of power."
Reaching out, the stately woman takes the deck of cards from the table and again puts her hands under; when they are back in sight, the cards are gone. "What is does mean," she adds, with a touch of ruefulness in her voice, "is that I have had occasion to make many mistakes in presenting myself to people such as you. You ask 'what should I do', but is it possible that you already know? That inside -- not on the level of logic, but in your very 'soul' -- all knowledge is clear to you? The key is to become aware of that knowledge, and to realize it."
Alma stares at Rose, then lowers his head slightly, thoughtfully. His long eyelashes shade his eyes as he remains silent. "I--" he begins, and then stops short. When he does speak, it is as though he is working through a puzzle, and can only do so by naming the steps aloud.
"I used to think I should be everything my parents wanted me to be. That was very hard, but I seemed to succeed all the same; until my father died, because he'd never told us he was so sick. My mother needed a strong man, but I couldn't be as strong as my father. At least... at least not in the same way, I'm beginning to think. If I'm strong like bamboo... he was strong like oak, or steel." Pause. "Then I thought I should be as good as my father. But he died when I was seven. I didn't really remember, so I invented a father who was... well, better at everything than I was, and told myself to become him. I didn't even need my mother telling me I wasn't good enough, then, because I told myself. But without realizing it, I never envisioned a world without me working to help my mother -- my brilliant, wonderful, tragic mother -- to make up for all she had lost..."
"...when she... when she decided to die, all that was cleaned away. I realized that because I had grounded my very sense of self on being of service to her, when she was gone, I did not really exist. For a moment, I was really, truly empty. It was then, when I accepted, simultaneously, that I had no self, and that I did..." He smiles, looking bemused even behind his lashes, and shakes his head. "I found peace. I found rightness. I knew I didn't *have* to do anything. I felt no desires. And yet... and yet... I knew I should live. I didn't need to. I didn't want to -- though I didn't not want to. The only word I could find to describe it... was that it was Right for me to do so. And I've... stuck by that word."
"I should do... what's Right... just because." Finally, he looks up. "But then, there's Right, and there's what's right for me... and I don't really... I still don't really know what that means, yet."
The violet-haired fortuneteller listens to all of this quietly, unmoving, absorbing. She does not cluck over Alma's loss as a mother hen, nor does her expression take a turn for the piteous at the tale of such woe. Rather, she simply lets him unload all of that grief and work through it, giving a good few moments of silence after he breathes the last word to be certain he has said all that he wishes to.
When Rose finally does speak, it is in tones of utter calm, a serenity so powerful it's almost overwhelming. "You speak of 'Right' and 'right'," she says, emphasizing the difference as Alma did, just so, "as if they were separate concepts. You speak of 'desire' and 'lack of desire' as if they too are separate concepts. There is no such thing in this world as purity, Alma. Our cosmos strives ever for balance. Where there is good, there is also evil. Where there is light, there is also shadow. To separate those two..." And here she pauses taking a breath and closing her eyes for a moment before opening them again to continue. "...invites disaster."
And then the piercing gaze returns. "I can see many things, simply by looking at the outermost shell of your spirit. You believe in simplicity, yet you complicate your life with unnecessary distinctions. You believe in intuition, yet you muddy your thinking with unecessary concern." And here she finally, at last, becomes soft, perhaps even tender in tone... motherly, though not overly so. "It is good and right to be aware of the consequences of what you do. It is good and right to want to better yourself. But when these cloud your ability to see things for what they are, they do you and others harm."
~ ...that's true, isn't it. ~
Alma looks into Rose's eyes, and his gaze is clear and wondering.
~ Here I am, the boy who talks about the Way, who talks about celebrating both oneness and individuality, who says that going with the flow and acting from will and passion are actually the same thing, who breaks all dualities by revealing that, paradoxically, they come together... and I'm trying to split up "Right" and "right for me"? Ridiculous! Here I am, thinking about how my martial arts and my visual arts and my school training, while all experiences on different paths, can all help me grow as a person in the same way... and I'm embarrassed about my feelings for Xiangfei, as though they aren't as important as my philosophical ruminations? Ludicrous! What appalling irony! ~
He continues to stare at Rose, almost blankly. Did she hurt his feelings or something? He's a young man, after all. They're very sensitive, so--
He grins. Starts to chuckle. And then, actually *blushing*, he laughs heartily, his shoulders shaking. It's a pleasant laugh. And by the look on his face, he's just laughing at himself. It's rather becoming of him.
"I get so caught up trying to perceive how things really are," he says, scratching the back of his head, his face still a bit flushed, "I seem to sometimes forget to really look at them. I'm trying so hard to be wise I'm being foolish. And all the while, I tell myself not to try."
He tilts his head slightly. His eyes are warm, and they glitter, again.
"Thank you, Miss Rose. I feel much better, now."
He sounds like he really means it.
Well, if Alma is amused, then Rose is amused for him. Or something to that nature. She does laugh; a light sound, quiet and short but heartfelt, as if she has always known how but is out of practice. "It's human nature to try and reduce our complexity to simple things we can easily comprehend. It's not a bad urge, but occasionally we all must break ourselves of it. If I have in some small way allowed you to see things in a different light, then I am glad to have been of some service." Idly, she reaches beneath the table again and produces a card... the Sun, one of the major arcana depicting a woman in a beautiful golden gown embracing rays of sunlight. "When she came to me, Athena Asamiya drew this same card for herself. She and you have much in common, I believe."
Holding the card out, she gives Alma a serious look. "Take it. Perhaps it shall serve as a good luck charm... or a reminder of today." Hopefully he'll have the good grace to actually take the thing; either way, after a while she withdraws her hand. "The cards tell us only things we know, though sometimes we do not see. Other people are much the same. We call it 'divination', but in truth it is simply an adjustment of perspective." And then she stands, though she does not hold out her hand; rather, it is as if simply standing to be on equal footing when Alma leaves is enough. "You are always welcome here, Alma Towazu, should you need advice. Please come and see me again someday."
"Oh..."
Rather overwhelmed all over again, Alma reaches out and takes the card from Rose's hand gently. A card that Athena Asamiya herself drew? From the hands from Rose herself? This is an incredible day.
But it's a good card for him, isn't it? While always the cheerfully blind Fool, for whom every journey is just beginning, then the radiant, live-inspiring Sun. In fact, if you think about it, were he a Greek god himself, he'd probably be Apollo, wouldn't he? Ha!
He rises at the same time she does, unthinkingly. It feels like the right time to go. The Right time to go, you might say -- not that there's any difference. Not really. "Thank you, Miss Rose," he says, heartfelt, and bows his head again in gratitude. He looks up, and his smile is warm and earnest, and his gaze is bold and true. "I will."
~ To think that there are people in this world like you... that there always have been...
What a world has opened up before me! ~
And the youth exits, no less awed, no less confused, yet somehow, fully satisfied and at peace. It's time to greet the new day with passion and fortitude. And time to figure out women...
Well, that can't be *too* tough, right?
Log created by Alma, and last modified on 01:42:23 10/15/2005.