Morgana weighed the merits of telling her the truth versus the potential for her taking advantage of it. "He has been enchanted," she said. "He's a child. A very young boy. He came to me because there was no one else to look after him. He needed a mother."

Acorn immediately grasped the concept of a young boy and looked excited and eager. "Mack?"

Morgana nodded and uncorked the pot. "Yes, dear, your Mack."

Acorn looked sad. "My Mack don't want to play with me. He went all away. No more Mack. He don't come my house no more." It was by far one of the child's longest speeches and Morgana looked both horrified and amused by it.

She balanced on the gate, looking horrified at the prospect. "How?" she finally managed to say, as if the thought was just too alien for even her to grasp. She could not even begin to picture Melekain as a child.

"Is... is permanent?" was the next thought that came to mind, how had she not foreseen this? Why ahd her cards not warned her? She was blinded on this path, beset at all sides by foes unseen.

"It is a spell, and so can be broken. It hasn't yet because no one's found out how. Not e'en he. And furthermore I don't think he wants to find a way to undo it anymore." Nor did anyone else, for that matter, save for perhaps Morgana herself, who had dealt with the child always with the goal of changing him back in mind. Morgana had found long ago that the true seeming was almost always the right one, even when one's heart said otherwise.

"He remembers nothing then?" she asked, with a look of almost wonder on her face. "The universe have a sense of balance it seems, thank you!" She said the last not to Morgana, but to the sky and the birds, and the whole wide universe.

"Round and round we go" she beamed, and even the stinging pain in her feet was laced with blue and fireworks. "He took my mind and memories, now his Art and memories have been taken from him, without my doing. I am content." There was a sense of relief around her now, as if she had dropped a burden she did not even know she was carrying.

Morgana's brows knitted together, her expression vaguely irked. "Be content, if you like. But know that no one at this time will allow him to come to harm. We know what he was, of course. But it's no bearing on what he is now."

"I can let it go now" she assured. "He has had what he values most stolen from him, it matters little whether it was my hand that held the blade or not." She seemed content with the outcome either way.

"I will not seek to harm him unless he moves against me or my kin again, you have my word on that."

Morgana gave a cautious nod. It was, without saying as much, exactly what she had thought herself. "Who are you?" she asked cautiously. "Why do you come here after he's been and gone?"

"I am Alynealin" she answered simply. "Once, before the worlds broke, he was my consort and the father of my child to be. After that, things turned more complicated." She sighed a little, for a brief moment mourning for all the things that had been lost.

So long ago.

"I came too late because my dance is no longer precise. I have too much sense to throw myself completely to the winds of change, and my feet are not healed enough to carry my will where it wishes to go. Thus, I came too late. It is vexing" she laughed softly "I never used to be late... early perhaps, but mostly just in time. Or, perhaps my dance led me to you instead" she pondered. "You have given me answers I would not have found otherwise."

Morgana gave her a light smile in return and bowed her head. "I have found that wherever one is is usually exactly where one needs to be," she replied. Acorn skipped up beside her and hugged Morgana's knee through her dress. "Let him go," she said softly, half-coaxing. "He is not who you want any more. He can't e'en think of himself that way. He's a child who's had to learn to trust other people all o'er again. Let him go."

"He is not what I wanted for a long time" she admitted, not without a certain sadness. "He was, and is, a means to an end. But perhaps even that end has passed. Perhaps..." She looked over her shoulder, at the package by the gate. "I need advice." But it seemed that Morgana was not the one she would seek that from.

Instead, she waited until Morgana had bandaged her feet, then she pulled away her largest scarf and dropped it to the dirt, where it obediently spread out so she could step upon it without dirtying her feet. She winced, sucking in a hiss of pain and sat down, spreading her skirts around her.

"Should I let him go?" she whispered to the deck of cards that she had pulled out from underneath her shawls. "What are we to one another now?"

She started to place the cards, face down, in a rarely used configuration. She usually had no need to ask how she related to people, she knew. They were tools to be used. But just this once, she needed guidelines. The cards went down, seven of them, three on each side in two rows, and one in the middle, like an H.

"Oh" she sighed, mumbling to herself as she turned over the first one, "This is me", she whispered "Five of Cups, reversed, disappointment that is no more. Accepting loss, moving on with life, overcoming sadness. A broken marriage leads to new hope and understanding." She was glad that the cards still were her allies, and that they had strong views on the subject.

She turned the next card, continuing her quiet mumble, as much for herself as for anybody else. Words gave readings strength. "This is how I see him, the Eight of Swords, interference." The woman on the card was bond by ropes, blindfolded and menaced by eight swords. "Chagrin at unforseen consequences, criticism, censure, being robbed of power and rights... inability to go beyond past humiliations and failures. Yes, I see, he is my jailer in this as much as they are." Her heart was beating fast now as she turned the third card, licking her lips.

"How do I feel about him?" she asked the cards, and the answer came up as she looked upon the third card. "The Hanged Man, reversed. Selfish. Unable to make the necessary sacrifices. Life in suspension..." She set her jaw a little tighter. "Had you been the right side up" she told the card "I would still have hope, despite the swords." But not when inversed. Whatever could be gained from suffering was fruitless.

"What stands between us then" she whispered, turning the fourth card. "Nine of Wands, but reversed again, our strength lost, our preparations undermined by traitors. The faltering of will, and our forces scattered on the eve of battle. Did we plan for this so badly? Why did his weave fail at last?" Here the cards had no answer, except the undeniable fact that it had failed.

"So..." she sighed. "How does he see me then?" The fifth card turned and she whispered "The Queen of Pentacles." Her face softened as she looked down upon it. "He does not hate me then, but he sees me as as the head of a household, not as a mother or lover." It was not the Queen of Cups, the card of family. This was more ordered and formal, tied up in the material world. Had she ever been but a means to an end?

"What does he feel about me?" she asked, hesitant. Because this was the card that would decide so much, how far she could trust him. She turned the sixth card and bit her lip. "Nine of Swords, I am cruelty to him. Debilitating mental anguish, he is dragged down by dishonor, unable to escape the shameful acts that he has committed. There is nothing there but inescapable guilt, mistrust and doubt." There was no single card in the deck that could have been worse. She had her answer, but a final card and question.

"So... what is our relationship then, what has brought it to this point of no return?" She turned the seventh card, the one in the center. "The Wheel of Fortune, but reversed. The Wheel of Misfortune. Is this really what it came to? Was this descent into pain inescapable all along? Or did our own actions doom us long ago? Bad luck is taking us all, and the universe itself puts sticks in our wheels." She had bared her teeth in a snarl, she had suspected all along, but to see it this clearly was almost liberating. "Misfortune" she hissed. "Failure and reluctance to use free will." This was the truth.

The sordid, horrible truth, their life spelled out in cards, with no choice but the one she had already contemplated.

Walk away.

But she had never walked away from anything in her life, and was that not partly why this had happened?

((This reading cracked me up, pure, unadulterated crack. The cards do love Aly: http://www.facade.com/tarot/personal/?D ... Reverse=on))