@absintheabsence
"You, of all people, should remember that suggesting I not do something is a perfect way to get me to do it simply to be spiteful." Despite (or in spite of) an earlier sniping back and forth that had ended with Calleo brushing aside--as he could, now--Grindelwald referencing some vision or another with a declaration that he'd be more inclined to believe his deck of cards if being made to choose between believing two various forms of nonsense as the cards at least had a decent track record of not being catastrophically incorrect, he certainly didn't sound antagonistic about it.
It was difficult to be antogonistic in the face of someone ending the argument with, "Fuck your fucking cards," pausing, and adding on, "And you also, seven times over." There was always something about an argument falling to that level that left Calleo entirely unable to take it seriously.
It only got worse when his own, "You being mad about it doesn't make me wrong," was met with, "Your being a smug, insufferable little shit does not make you right either."
And it was one thing to laugh it off with, "I'm not afraid of you" and entirely another to say that and immediately pull the deck of cards out to see if they agreed with the vision that had been hinted at. This time, he'd even handed the deck to Grindelwald to let him shuffle it, taking away any doubt that it was a marked deck that Calleo had simply learned to shuffle expertly and get the answers he wanted that way.
"All right, then!" Calleo snatched his cards back, "Let's see what they think about this whole situation--just in general, high level view, considering we're up in a tower."
He canted his head at the first four cards, "Huh. Eight and Nine of Swords, the High Priestess who has an expression that is an entire mood in and of itself, and the King of Pentacles. Good to know the deck's still consistent in its use of the first few cards confirming what it is I've given them a prod about."
"You're the deeply unhappy, anxious, isolated, backed into a level of completely learned helpelessnesseses--whatever--fueled by isolation, guilt, and regret one. You know, apart from it being obvious, because the first one also centers a great deal around imprisonment, and I'm not the one stuck here. So, at the moment, you're a bunch of swords again."
"I'm going to discount the fact that the High Priestess can mean common sense on account of my not having a lick of that on any given day but, apart from that, I'm too creative for my own good, have unfortunately decent intuition, and, despite my best efforts, am relatively grounded, stable, supportive, and stubborn enough to see things through to whatever their outcome even when I probably shouldn't."
Calleo laughed and drew four more cards, "Polite of them, I think, to go with 'All right, so we're talking about a complete mess and another, different sort of complete mess. Got it.'!" He narrowed his eyes at the last card, "I don't like ending on the Moon, and neither does this deck; it's usually good about something more definitive if I keep pestering it."
The final card drawn came up the Ace of Wands.
For awhile, he simply looked at the last four cards and squinted at them even more, despite having remembered to put his glasses on.
"They're just repeating themselves, only they've blurred the first four cards together into the last four. Not--a bit, either, a lot. And that lot, all eight, I mean, comes out as generally not...horrible."
Calleo had seemingly forgotten he was leaning against the wall while looking at the cards laid out on the cell's small desk. It wouldn't have been nearly enough to turn him into a battery for the building, not with the state the overall system was in, but it was still enough that he noticed it certainly was trying and it seemed to remind him of where he was and what he was doing. Instead of moving away from the wall, whatever thought had struck caused him to cover his face with both hands in an utterly futile attempt to disguise proper laughter this time as he slid down the wall to sit on the floor, looking much more like something that was not nearly a century old.
Once sitting, he folded is arms over his knees and leaned forward to rest his chin on them and positively grin up at Grindelwald, "You wouldn't happen to know if that common sense was something taken by one of your guards on intake or if I'd already misplaced it by the time I was thrown into a cell, would you?"
"Because with all the references that card," the Ace of Wands leapt upright and did a little dance, "makes to sparks and re-ignition of things like creativity, passion relating to work and in general--mostly work, though work is so broadly defined, and nearly everything I do these days constitutes work--growth, and a good lot of starting over, I'm absolutely going to need it."
“The common sense, I mean, not for you to throw petrol and a lit match at me.”
