NEFERTARI
We've Become Disillusioned
So We Run Towards Anything Glimmering
It was only the first day of festival activity and Nefertari was pretty sure she had made a mistake by offering her talents to the masses. While there were plenty of patrons who were polite and curious, there were still just as many others who called her a hoax, despite living in a world full of magic. She’d managed to contain her irritation and her sharp tongue for the most part, flicking her audits in frustration and pointing out the obvious. How could you call her a charlatan if you yourself walked around able to conjure fire at will? She would never understand the cognitive dissonance that overtook people when confronted with the truth.
The couple had departed and the seer was now going about cleansing her deck and re-grounding herself. The mare didn’t like the sticky residue that clung to her cards after the stallion had left in such a huff, refusing to acknowledge that his wife was absolutely going to find out about his mistress, especially if he kept parading her around the festival site. Foolish men. The woman snorted, forcing out the disgust she felt to make room for neutrality once more. Her dusky pelt shivered as she tried to shake off the last tendrils of his presence in her tent when another customer appeared.
She noticed the flowers first, the way they sprung from nothing and reached for the delicate pistons they grew around. Those limbs were attached to a fairly pretty mare, a fae-thing with pearlescent dragonfly wings dusted in a glimmering powder that seemed to prompt more plant growth. Her mane and tail were soft waves of stark white against her rich blue roaning and sooty dark points. A tangle of starpointed flowers wove through her hair and just kept appearing, much like the flora that danced at her feet.
The fae creature shifted nervously, tucking an errant lock of hair out of her vision, soulful chocolate eyes meeting golden disks. She doesn’t hold the eye contact long, her gaze retreating to the colourful buds at her hooves, digging at them shly, explaining that she’s curious for a reading, but doesn’t want to impose.
If Nefertari had to describe the woman in one word it would be unsure. She stood in the entryway of the tent, not crossing the threshold, her plants carefully arranged in a halo about her feet so as not to intrude. She held her slight frame so that it would take up even less space, her voice timid, even as she fought to be polite and vibrant.
As the mid-day sun caressed her backside, the clairvoyant thought she might see a flicker of who she really was, buried underneath. She introduced herself as Caelum, and that while she might have been lost, this felt right. The fortune teller couldn’t have agreed more.
The mare motioned to the empty pillow across from her, offering a gentle smile to the fae. “Well met, Caelum,” she said softly. “You may call me Nefertari. Do not apologize; if the universe has brought you here, it has done so with a reason.”
The clairvoyant reached for her deck, beginning to shuffle, alternating her gaze between the cards and the summerchild standing between the realm of earthly things and the cosmos. “Even if you do not have a question in mind, I can assure you the universe has an answer for you.”
She continued to shuffle, and regardless if the mare chose to come inside- though the clairvoyant was fairly certain she would- she started to place the well loved deck into three distinct piles of equal height in the center of her table, the soft gold inlay glittering in stray sunbeams against the black silk tablecloth.
“Please, pick a deck for me to read for you.”
art by pacificdash character by scapeh table by sunny
