Episode 8: Strength of a Fool

ext/int. darkness

Complete darkness. We hear the voice of The Moon.

MOON
Perhaps now is a good moment to discuss the pair of Alices. But in doing so, we must discuss Alice’s card- The Fool. The strength of the Fool is their intuition.

From the darkness two silhouettes are formed from white- each of a human figure.

MOON
A fool lives two lives. The life we see here, in Real Time, and the life they imagine ending at any moment of any given day.

The silhouettes take form- the one on the left is Second Alice, in full color, unaltered. The second silhouette takes the form of First Alice, who appears drenched in yellow moonlight.

MOON
Some would consider the Fool flighty, panicky or impulsive. But a Fool is amongst the most careful of the Arcade cards. Always looking inward, pondering, considering a dozen different life paths at any given time. Always hypersensitive to the stimuli and potential dangers beyond them. They imagine all the ways an action might resolve- and they always see the worst, most dire results with perfect clarity.

A sword appears from the black, formed first from stars then connected via dotted lines. The sword swoops towards First Alice, and Second Alice pulls her out of the way, the sword missing her.

MOON
This clairvoyance saves lives and prevents disaster. But it drains upon the heart and soul of the Fool. It is not an inexhaustible strength. When this strength is overused it can leave the Fool fatigued and mentally fraught, or lead to a total shutdown of the body and mind. In the land of The Real, these shutdowns can be commonly seen as panic attacks, insomnia or other unseen disorders. Such eccentricities are often given an air of eccentricity, but little do the doctors of The Real suspect that the true answers behind these bouts can be found amongst the stars…

The two Alices fade into darkness, leaving nothing but black.

MOON
This is but one facet of the Fool’s power. Let us see what more she can do.

ext. forest path night

The forest path, now illuminated by the licking flames of fire which casually devour the surrounding greenery. Gnarled trees crack in protest as the flames gnaw at their bark. Flowers groan and blacken under the threat of the advancing flames. Grass wilts, surrendering as easy, browning tinder.

Alice, on the pounded dirt. She is on all fours, her hands to her ears. Her eyes are closed tight.

Tears well at the corners, small blue veins straining at the foundations of the little creases that will someday be described as “crows feet”. She opens her eyes, red, cloudy, milky- and angry.

Removing her hands from here ears, here eyes flit about to the burgeoning forest fire around her. She inhales sharply, emotion welling deep in her throat, threatening to choke her out long before the smoke might. She turns wildly, surveying the scene, stops again facing the Knight of Swords, who upon hroseback still faces her. Alice sways, points a finger at her. Her voice thick with emotion, she shouts.

ALICE
DON’T BE SO CARELESS.

The shout surprises Alice. She is not an angry person. Which means she usually bottles her anger up. This served her poorly in her youth. As a child, Alice got in many fights. She would bottle up the anger until one day it would come spilling out in a volcanic explosion of curses and punches. Her fellow classmates knew this and would often press buttons, delighting in pushing the Alice, who was all too glad to oblige them with all the fights her antagonists could ask for. This confounded those tasked with overseeing her development- teachers and principals and parents and other children. A girl who solved problems with her fists was unheard of, and she had a habit of challenging people well outside of her weight class. There was talk of sending her off to various places- military schools and juvenile halls and behavioral adjustment programs, but it always fell through- mostly because Alice lost almost every fight she started, and that alone seemed punishment enough for her to be pitied. Eventually Alice learned to stop fighting, instead finding new, less overt ways to excise her violent tendencies. She learned the art of passive aggression, an ancient Midwestern tradition passed down from generation to generation- the art of quietly and legally destroying others at minimum risk to your own self. It was a practice she loathed- and excelled in.

But there is nothing passive about the land of Arcana. And Alice was quickly learning that this was a place where she could be every bit the hooligan who used to turn fists and improvised weapons on her bullies on those lonely retreats home after school.

ALICE
(quietly)
Flowers have feelings too, you know?

The knight points her sword at Alice, though her countenance betrays a confusion at the retort. When the Knight speaks, her voice is hard as brass with the bite of a bed of thumbtacks. It is the voice of a woman who has watched every dream die to hard choices that she alone made. It is the voice of a parentless child. It is the voice of the trauma of raising one’s self in absence of any guiding hand. It is forced hardness and practiced callousness.

KNIGHT OF SWORDS
Hail, woman. I am called the Knight of Swords. Have you any way to defend yourself?

Alice looks around nervously. She turns, bends down to pick up a burning stick, which she immediately drops, holding her hands.

ALICE
(cupping her hands)
Hot, hot, hot!

She turns to the Knight and shrugs.

The Page of Swords snorts impatiently, his eyes locked on the Alice. His voice, a growl of arrogant, crushed gravel, rumbles beneath the flickering cracks of burning wood.

PAGE OF SWORDS
This is a disappointment.

KNIGHT OF SWORDS
(beneath her breath)
Quiet, husband.
(deep breath, to Alice)
Well?

ALICE
I got nothing.

KNIGHT OF SWORDS
What is your name, woman?

ALICE
(defiantly)
My name is for my friends. Who, coincidentally, are all on fire now.

Alice gestures wildly to the burning wood. As she does so, she notes the red burns on her hands- they are receding before her eyes, healing, as it were, at an impossible rate, absorbing within her. Alice, ever quick on the uptake, notes this and gains some composure. She reasons she must be invincible, or something adjacent to it. This is a very bad conclusion for a Fool to come to- a Fool who believes themselves invincible is capable of great mischief- and, of course, Death. Which is why it is often handy for a Fool to have a caretaker or handler.

But Alice is alone for the time being. So she grins, turning her gaze toward her attackers.

ALICE
To you, I have no name.

KNIGHT OF SWORDS
(insulted)
It is not honorable to withhold your name from a challenging knight.

ALICE
Well, you killed my new flower friends and tried to stab me in the back so…fuck your honor!

At this, Alice offers a friendly hand gesture to aid her expletive, eliciting callbacks to a favored wrestler of her youth who might have done the same.

PAGE OF SWORDS
(to the Knight)
This is boring me.

KNIGHT OF SWORDS
She is right, this is not a fair challenge.

PAGE OF SWORDS
The Sun does not consider fairness. It shines on us all without consideration.

KNIGHT OF SWORDS
(sighing, to Alice)
You who are about to fall, consign your fate to the will of the Sun, may its holy rays have mercy on your soul.

PAGE OF SWORDS
(bowing his head)
From fire we come, unto fire we return. Pardono.

KNIGHT OF SWORDS
(bowing her head)
Pardono.

The Knight turns to her partner and softly nods.

PAGE OF SWORDS
I would not have you tarnish your honor, my wife. Allow me to hedge this blade of grass in your stead.

The Knight of Swords lowers her visor, obscuring her eyes.

KNIGHT OF SWORDS
As you wish, love. But remember- we need her alive.

PAGE OF SWORDS
I’ll leave her alive. Mostly.

The Page of Swords closes his eyes for a moment. When they reopen, the pupils are swallowed in glowing pools of green Arcane energy. A green aura gathers around his tense, crouched body. Like a coiled spring released, the Page of Swords springs forward, his chest jutted forward, his shoulders hunched down, his sword behind him, wrists locked- a mechanism prepared to spring, bringing the sword into a perfect arc at the right moment.

Alice has had some time to consider this danger. For normal people, fight or flight is an unfamiliar sensation. Like a drug hitting for the first time, it frightens, paralyzes, draws you into yourself. But for the Alice, not a day goes by where she doesn’t consider it might be the end of her life. She imagines a dozen different ways it could end- a car not stopping at a light, an office building collapsing, an unchewed french fry caught in the throat, a gun owner who’s had one bad day too many- there’s a myriad of ways for a life to end and Alice has imagined them all. Except this, of course. A magical sword hewing her in half was not something she had imagined, ever. Nonetheless, Alice’s masters degree in fear gives her a single degree more of control in the moment that the average person, and in this moment, Alice makes a choice.

Alice, for the first time in her life, gives in to the swelling waters of panic that have threatened to drown her for the past ten years.

The age old tightening of the throat. The swelling of that invisible ball of emotion that chokes her out, steals the oxygen from her veins. The swaying sensation of a ship off its course. The eyes threatening to switch off like lightbulbs near the end of their life. The fingers curling inwards, bloodless.

Her hands instinctively crawl up to her neck, two fingers searching desperately for a pulse, pressing deep into the skin mining for the artery, the other hand massaging the imagined pressure point beneath her ear. Tears, unanticipated, well up and release, breaking through the practiced dam that until now has not given way in many years.

PAGE OF SWORDS
Are you crying? How weak.

This panic, the beast that haunts Alice at every corner of her life, continues to morph into something beyond what even Alice anticipates- it becomes a genuine attack, the sort of thing you only expect when strapped to a dentist’s chair or accidentally waking up during a surgery. Alice knows she has passed beyond what is normal, what she can control, what she can anticipate. Her heart, a delicate, damaged piece of clockwork flesh, sputters, grinds against the strain of what is to come. Beating violently, it cries an apology to Alice, begging her to understand.

Alice’s reply is simple- she wants to live, and if the heart fails to live up to its end of the deal, she will not be forgiving.

Alice’s hands clasp around her own throat, attempting to will the passage to open even a few centimeters to allow for some iota of oxygen. She begins to gag, her knees buckling forward. The Page of Swords continues to advance.

PAGE OF SWORDS
AT LEAST HAVE THE COURAGE TO FACE YOUR ENEMY WITH DIGNITY.

At this, the Page of Swords wings his green sword of Air forward, the tip meeting Alice’s face. Alice’s eyes roll back, the iris flickering to jet black. Her mouth opens and time stops- the tip of the magic sword halting mere inches from her face.

Silence. Total. Absolute.

ALICE
(choking out the words)
Please.

The green, glowing sword flickers violently, and the emerald aura of Arcane air magic strains. Alice’s mouth opens wide and the aura pulls from the blade of the sword to her mouth until it is devoured within her, leaving absence where a blade once threatened. The pommel remains, a useless grip in the Page’s hands.

The Page of Swords cannot stop his follow-through, the weight of his blade suddenly gone, he stumbles forward.

Alice’s mouth curves to a sly smile. She juts out her leg, tripping the Page of Swords in his passing. He falls forward with a loud THUNK, faceplanting into the hard, trampled dirt of the path behind Alice…