OCT Audition: The Reading- Part 1

Name: Jaren Durtest
Race: Human
Age: 28
Gender: Male
Personality: He is a man who is no longer himself. Whatever he once was he now remains a sullen man, private and withdrawn. He is a man running from his past and from himself and it’s only a matter of time until it catches up with him. Who he may become, is another matter entirely.
Appearance: Sandy blonde hair that was at one time well kempt but now falls lifelessly about his shoulders. Tall, a little over six foot, with a dancer’s build. His skin is ruddy and his eyes, though blind, are a clear blue reminiscent of a cloudless day.
History: Jaren’s history is his own, and it is a carefully guarded secret. He is a blind man gifted with the Sight through his mother before him; he grew up in the capital of Dolmar. You’ll notice he appears to see just fine but it is only through his added sense and it is not entirely reliable.

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Audition: The Reading- Part 1

         The tavern smelled of piss and disappointment. Jaren found it suited his mood quite nicely and it was a great deal more welcome than the dank chill outside. The Shadowed Steep might have been a nice dwelling, once, but like many places near the Border, it had fallen close to ruin. The cheery fire and the stumbling lute player attempted to banish the gloom but it still managed to seep through the windows and under the doors; death was always just a few steps away these darkened days.

         Scantily clad barmaids flitted between solider crowded tables in a mad dance of drink dealing and brazen flirting. Jaren knew enough of drunken soldiers to choose a small table half hidden in darkness, far away from reddened eyes and flashpoint tempers. Settling in his threadbare cloak he tried to still his trembling hands as he drew a deck of cards from his pocket; his head was pounding a rampant beat and it was all he could do to shuffle them. The deck was worn, a few moon-turns old, and he would need another set soon. Pain stabbed like a dagger at his temple and only a quick grip kept him from scattering cards in all directions. He shouldn’t have waited so long, he knew that, but it had become a sick sort of game to him. How long could he last? Till the pain gnawed like a starved dog at every breath he took? Or till insanity tapped at his door with a smile and a promise? There were nights he would have welcomed such an embrace with open arms, but then the dawn would break and his purpose would be renewed.

         Cards shuffled, he dealt. The pain lessened measurably, instant pressure dissipated between his throbbing temples. Scrying would have had more of an effect; water or maybe vodka but he hadn’t scryed in nearly a year and he would avoid it at all costs. So he read the cards. Carefully he separated them into three piles; it was a simple hand, nothing special, but it had always proved the most productive. There was strength and power in simplicity; a lesson he had learned the hard way.

         Three cards each for Past, Present, and Future. He started with the Past, flipping them quickly. He knew his past; how could he forget? The King of Hearts came first, otherwise known as the Suicide King. Jaren stared a long moment at the dagger disappearing into the depicted King’s skull and shuddered. He signified personal destruction; a powerful card when drawn with the two that followed. The Queen of Hearts; a love betrayed coupled with the ten of spades depicted wrongs unsettled. A dark reading, indeed, and all too familiar. Jaren swept the cards into the deck swiftly, moving onto the Present –he couldn’t change the past no matter how he might wish it were otherwise.

         First came the Ace of Spades and this momentarily shocked him; his hand hovered indecisively above the table, unaware of the clamor around him. He’d dealt many hands in the past year, seen the twist and turns of many possible outcomes (though with little clarity, as card Reading was a vague art) but never had he drawn the Fate card. Suddenly anxious, the ever present, however lessened, pain in his head momentarily forgotten, he turned over the other two cards. The middle card was familiar but coupled with Fate it took on a new light; the Queen of Diamonds signified purity and righteousness –he could sense it also alluded to a woman. Drawn in the center of the three it indicated that Fate followed this pure Queen. The final card was the Jack of Hearts; the card which he’d come to think of as his own personal representation –he’d drawn it in every hand he’d ever dealt himself. It was the Fool’s card, the blind man led by a fate he couldn’t comprehend; whether this was the Sight leading him or his own bitter thoughts, he did not know.

         “Can I get you something to drink deary?” A sugary voice snapped his concentration like a dry twig and he visibly cringed as the pain in his head returned with a mocking vengeance. The barmaid was unwashed and pudgy with an unpleasant air about her; Jaren wished with instant fierceness that she would let him be.

         If she was offended by his reaction, she didn’t show it. Jaren tried to wet his lips but his tongue had gone dry; the barmaid gave him a gappy smile, obviously misreading his hesitation in the worst possible way. He should have just done his Reading in the cover of a few trees, despite the coming storm, but something about the night had driven him to seek a fire and the company of others. He was regretting that moment’s weakness now whole heartedly. His nerves were tattered and his patience thin. His Sight was screaming for him to complete the Reading.

         “Or is there something else you be needing?” the foul woman cooed and leant forward, lending her dirty, ample bosom to his sickened view. Gods and Spirits, she smelled like a concentrated version of the tavern itself.

         “N-no, the house ale sh-should be fine,” he mentally cursed his stuttering; he sounded like a love struck fool. The barmaid made a pouting face momentarily, bringing to mind a suckled pig, before winking at him suggestively.

         “Sure thing laddy dear; you just let Sweet Fela know if you be needing ought else, eh?” She placed a grubby hand on his shoulder and he nodded, not trusting himself to speak. By some grace she left him then and he dared to breathe. Offered a moments solace; boisterous laughter erupting at the worn bar across the room, he turned to the Future. The pain eased as he flipped the cards.

         Twos, all Twos. Two of Hearts, Spades and Clovers. Two’s represented uncertainty, a missing element, things left undecided. For the past year, since… He closed his eyes briefly; it didn’t bear thinking of, not in this atmosphere. Needless to say, the hand was abnormal as well as unlucky, and he had drawn it many, many times. He would have felt better if he’d only drawn the hand for himself but the few times he’d been desperate enough to Read for money, he’d drawn Twos for his unconvinced customers as well. It did not bode well. None of it did.

         The Reading done at last he gathered his cards and tucked them away. The pain, which had been near crippling when he’d stepped inside the tavern, had dulled to a deep and ever present ache. He could hardly remember the days when the pain hadn’t been there, his constant clingy companion. Like a lover he couldn’t escape. He had learned to live with it, just as he had learned to live with the demons at his heels and ridding on his back.

         Remiss to return to the shadows outside, he rose anyway; before ‘Sweet Fela’ could return, before he did something that he would regret. He had enough darkness and death on his hands, no need to tempt Fate. He slipped out the door as silently as he had come and when the following night a black clad, nicely dressed man appeared in the same tavern, even Sweet Fela couldn’t remember having seen a blind man with sandy hair and sky blue eyes.