fool
Samantha
“We should talk,” said Samantha. “Like, really talk.”
“I’m going to piss in your princess bag.”
“Is it light enough down there? Can you see anything?”
“No.”
“The antigravity crystal should be emitting some light, should be enough to light the lantern.”
“Well, it isn’t.”
“It’s probably covered in clothes. Try moving the clothes around.”
“I vomited, too, it’s all over the clothes.”
“Why’d you do that?”
No response.
“Okay, yeah, this isn’t sustainable. Hang on to something. Woah, horse.” She hopped off and tied the horse around a shrub. She took the bag off her back. She increased her bellows’ squeeze speed. “Do you know tarot?”
“What? No.”
“Okay, well, it’s got all these different cards — the ‘major arcana’ — that represent different aspects of reality. The magician, the stars, death, that sort of stuff. The first one — zero — is The Fool. You are a fool, Vincent.”
Blink.
“Are you alive in there?”
“Yes.”
“Being a fool isn’t a bad thing. The fool goes on a journey and becomes more than a fool. I think that’s a recent development, the journey bit, but it’s true. The fool is potential, unrealized. Innocence. Harmlessness. You following me?”
“Unwillingly.”
“Good enough. See, you have all this potential, Vincent. You’re a magician, you have the will and the ability. You’re a hierophant, with the respect for the institution. You’re the star, with the faith you have in princesses. But it’s all chained up in the middle of nowhere. It’s all potential.”
“So that gives you the right to kidnap me? So my ‘potential’ can be ‘realized’?”
“Oh, no, what gives me the right to do that is because I’m a princess. Wait, no, you’re right, yeah. Er, no, wait, I have a right to call myself a princess because I’m realizing potential. Or, rather, that’s how it should be. I’m a fool too, Vincent.”
“Yup.”
“But that changes now, because I have the means to make things better.”
“And those means are?”
“You! And your books! And your magic compiler!”
“All covered in vomit.”
“You and your brilliant, stupid mind. We’re going to make thousands of spells, Vincent, and thousands of golems! And we’ll send them all across the country, and they’ll make everything easier! And we’ll be heroes! We’ll meet up with artificer-prince Hendrik in Dianthus, and the mage Verris in Felkner, and they’ll help! We’ll teach the engineer’s guild, and go to Blisbane for the miners! I see the path in my mind, Vincent, it’s beautiful!”
“Felkner? You expect me to survive in here for 5 days?”
“6. And, uh, no.” She did, initially, but this was obviously intractable, and she could only speak over his guilt-inducing words for so long. Exactly as planned, of course. “No, I thought, you wouldn’t leave Northpoint on your own, but once you were pulled away for a bit, you’d be convinced to come along of your own free will.”
“I see.”
“Do you see the vision?”
“I see it.”
“Do you want to come and make people’s lives better?”
“Samantha…”
“Yes?”
“Does there exist someone with your passion and vision, who isn’t completely insane?”
Her smile melted. “Yes. And honestly, getting her on board is the first step.”
“Getting me on board is the first step.”
“Zeroth. Fool.”
“You’re just making things up as you go to protect your ego.”
“No I’m not! Yes, I’m making things up, that’s true, but someone has to, and no one else does! Everyone is content to just have the world as it is! They don’t care that they spend all day picking up wheat, or that they’re illiterate, or that their house doesn’t have a clock! They’re all blind! They don’t know how things could be! Imagine being born blind, and not knowing what a sunset is. Or being born without a tongue, and not knowing that you could share stories! These people, these static, impotent peasants, they need their souls wrenched out of their skeletons to be bathed in enlightenment. God. And think me crazy, fine, and think me stupid, and think me, I don’t know, evil, or amoral, or broken, or a failure of a princess, fine. But I’m trying. Or maybe I just tell myself that. If everyone else tried, too, then criticize me, call me a failure. But they don’t.
“Real plan: we go to my sister, Anisa. She is sane, she is stable, she should recognize this potential. And then we all work together for something better. Please.” Tears came at some point.
No response.
“Vincent?”
No response. Distant hooves.
“Oh god damn it.” And she failed to untie the horse and failed to untie the horse and turned the bag upside down to pour everything out, and she held her hands up to be arrested.