so there was this deck of cards, right

[lexicality]

Jessica's house is cute. Lexi could see doing a lot of her homework here, listening to the calming chatter of gossip and getting help from Jessica on math (Bella's no help there) and helping Jessica on English. Forks isn't so bad. She doesn't mind the rain as much as Bella does.

Jessica goes to pee before they even start their assignment, after just introducing Lexi to her mom and dad as "one of Chief Swan's kids", and Lexi doesn't want to do work by herself or she wouldn't have come over in the first place. She sits on the couch and plunks her bag down and waits. There's a random deck of cards over there; she picks it up and flips through it. She's been trying to learn to bridge-shuffle.

Comments

[cardistry]

+Hell of a lot of eavesdropping,+ he says ruefully. +And getting played with could be kind of fun, when I was having good days. But yeah. Mostly I was just lonely.+

[incanted]

+That sucks.+

[cardistry]

+Yep!+ he says, brightly but with an edge of irony.

[incanted]

+Were you just going to - bounce around like that forever? Instead of looking for help preemptively?+

[cardistry]

+Yeah, pretty much,+ he says. +I - look, in case you can't tell, I kind of have some issues about this whole wielder thing.+

[incanted]

+I wish you'd tell me what they were so I wouldn't have to risk running into them unexpectedly.+

[cardistry]

+It's not like I've got a map,+ he sighs. +And I do have problems trusting people. So, you know, even though you're better than I ever hoped for as far as wielders go... it's still not easy for me to just tell you everything I'm afraid of and hope you don't use it against me.+

[incanted]

+Yeah, that's fair, I guess. Now I'm wondering what would've happened if Lexi found the jokers and I found the rest of the pack.+

[cardistry]

+Eeeeegh,+ says Brilliance.

[incanted]

+Could've gone really badly, I would not have dithered as long as she did about accepting limitless power. Although I might've been brought up short if it couldn't answer my questions about the nature of the limitless power.+

[cardistry]

+I don't really know if it was a smooth talker or what, but I'm betting not.+

[incanted]

+So you don't, like, remember the conversation?+

[cardistry]

+Nope.+

[incanted]

+Even though part of you was having it? How's that work?+

[cardistry]

+...If someone cut off your, like, arm, and then put it back on a while later, I mean assuming it attached properly and everything, would you remember what the arm got up to while it was on leave? I'm thinking no.+

[incanted]

+Well, no, but my arm can't talk.+

[cardistry]

+Well, this is more like the arm thing than like... whatever you're thinking.+

[incanted]

+I didn't have a specific picture of it in mind. How come your personality is in the jokers? Or could it have been any card or two or three and that was just a coincidence?+

[cardistry]

+I dunno, those ones just felt more like me,+ he says. +My personality's in all of me now, but if I had to go back to just a couple of cards... yeah, it'd probably be those. What can I say, I'm a wild card.+ He snorts.

[incanted]

+Well, there are certainly more comforting one-liners a massively powerful planetbusting entity could have chosen to utter,+ Bella remarks after a pause.

[cardistry]

+Yeah, and?+

[incanted]

...Bella decides she'd best not risk answering that. She probably shouldn't have responded in the first place.

[cardistry]

So, tense uncomfortable silence, then?

[incanted]

Looks like!

[lexicality]

"Are you even talking to him?" Lexi asks, unwrapping a stick of gum. "I can't tell."