From the firmament, STAR XVI Seireios twinkled constantly. It was twin to SUN XIX and MOON XVIII alike. At day, it was the only star visible to the naked eye. Its permanent luster bid Dreamland vision in the predatory darkness of night. One would do right to appreciate the STAR in its evening splendor…
And on this night, if one got close to Seireios, they would begin to see its cloudy, gaseous silhouette…
The heavy billows of Hydrogen, Helium, Neon and Xenon spilled from Seireios, tumbling across the cosmos…
Ephemeral crackles of multicolored electricity cast across the overflowing clouds…the STAR’s great fog was deadly. Seireios decanted its miasma of starstuff infinitely and with fury.
And at the eye of its storm, at the nucleus of its legendary tesla field…
A Jack waded heel deep in the condensate of the fountain of youth. Above them the many, lesser siblings of Seireios glistened. Below them, their sandled feet were made good as new by the gentle roiling. Jack Moriogoch stood in the middle of it all with the anxiety of a nervous rabbit. The spirit of Law that hung about the place made them want to vomit. Nevertheless, Moriogoch was to insure that Dreamland was protected from its own MAJOR ARCANA. They were Jack of Wands, after all. They held two stopwatches, one clockwork, and one astrological, in anticipation of the arrival of the LOVERS VI.
The clockwork watch chimed. The astral convergence would happen in 30 seconds. The analogue clock was needed no more, so with a flick of the wrist, Jack Moriogoch replaced it with their ritual warhammer, Seth, and focused on the astrological clock.
The planet hand ticked towards 🜨 and laid upon it…
The sign hand converged onto ♋️, Moriogoch clutched this watch with white knuckles now…
A million other auxiliary hands raveled and spun, and Moriogoch devoted all of their attention to parsing them for the exact moment-
They somersaulted perilously and involuntarily over the gaseous meniscus of the STAR from the shockwave from LOVERS VI arrival…They grasped a lucky rock lodged in the STAR to hold onto its surface and kipped to their feet. Soon after they drew Seth at it’s TOWER-blessed hilt.
The source of the titanic splash stood blasély in the gas of the fountain: a 3 foot possum in clown makeup, wielding a big hammer, bearing an inconvenienced look. The LOVERS, or rather, the most important one, had arrived.
"🤡 >:/ 🤡" said Posso. They were quite inarticulate, but this was expected; The LOVERS were still very young in the grand scheme of things.
"LOVER of Chaos," cried Moriogoch. "Take one step further, and I will strike. The spigot of the fountain is not yours to tamper with!”
Posso looked around in dimwitted confusion. "🤡 <:c 🤡" they said.
Moriogoch sighed: Puppy eyes, how pathetic. "No,” they replied firmly, “It's not happening. Go home. It’s your bedtime isn’t it?"
"🤡 >>>>>>:0 🤡" roared Posso, erupting into an unfathomable cyclone of tantrums. Fearing the possibility of being sucked in at close range, Moriogoch deftly flung several illusory copies of Seth at the twister. These copies could usually kill in one hit, yet the tornado was entirely unapprehended.
Then an object extruded in a rapid blur from the twister: Posso’s hammer. Moriogoch had a horrifying realization: “Holy shit, it’s aiming for the spigot, it’s going to toss its damned hammer at mach unbelievable, and then the spigot’s going to be pulverized like a macintosh apple!”
With a jolt of pride and desperation, Moriogoch flew between Posso and the Spigot, and began conjuring as many illusory barriers as their soul would allow for stopping power. “Don’t do it, Posso!” They cried, “If the youth from the fountain has nowhere to flow, then the whole of Dreamland will st-ŒEAUCHKKK!!!”
Not only was Moriogoch nailed with a direct hit from Posso’s hammer, they were knocked straight into the spigot. To make things worse, the spigot was a mass of blades, and the gas it issued from its many orifices began as solid, razor tesseracts. Moriogoch’s body technically destroyed the spigot instead of the hammer. They were instantly flayed. They landed in a pulverized heap on a little island of earth on STAR XVII.
Posso raved in tornado mode for three solid seconds more before looking at their neutralized bedtime enforcement.
"🤡 :DDDD 🤡" they cheered, delighting in the sudden absence of lectures. The flow of gas from the fountain had halted. Epic.
Suddenly, a conflux of spectral black ooze encroached upon the fountain's star, whistling past a confused Posso. It congealed into an apocalyptic robed form. A corpse piloted these gossamer rags, one with a fearsome crown adorning squinting, hungry grey eyes…
"You stupid, pathetic thing!!!" Roared HANGED MAN XII, "You little twat! You really were the easiest to convince! Thanks to you, the whole universe will die in five minutes. That includes you and your stupid, squishy, idiot marsupial polycule!!! And you're all alone, too!! You even mauled your own ally! Moriogoch is dead!" The HANGED MAN's lifeless claws flared with magic, he hurled every manner of vile hex at Posso as the metaphysical space around STAR XVII began to flake away:
There were 144 vile, mistral scythes shot at HANGED MAN XII’s adversary, a plaintive spell. He created a tear in Posso's heart, subsuming space within and without the creature. He turned the constellations into a putrefied rose garden and issued forth thorns from it at the little Posso. A barrage of countless arrows blotted out the night in splendor and assailed LOVERS VI. It was magnificent.
Finally, for good measure, HANGED MAN cast Finger of Death 144 times into the small cloud of debris he created from his arcane nightmare of missiles.
Thus a half minute of hatred fueled spell spamming had been completed. The HANGED MAN peered from beyond the settling dweomer, and found, completely unscathed, Posso.
Posso then hurled 1296 spectral hammers at the HANGED MAN in a 6 second timespan with the fury of an earthquake, clobbering the HANGED MAN's vacuous aorta 36 times more than necessary to kill him instantly.
The HANGED MAN, and his many backup cortices which he was hoping to use in subsequent phases of battle, were rent from reality by this. “AAAAAAAEĖAAAAOUUUUUUUUUGHHHHGHHGHHFKKOG121212121212121212121212—————-“, he remarked, issuing a primal, space shattering howl as he was slurped up into the fabric of Dreamworld with a spectral whisper. All gone.
"🤡 c: 🤡" said Posso, so delighted in their own triumph that they neglected the incredible vanishing in their periphery. They nearly tripped and tumbled through the dematerializing surface of the STAR. Moriogoch wheezed in a corner, convulsing from things like their gallbladder, testicles, and left lung phasing out of reality before reintegrating moments later. Moriogoch salvaged their diplomatic voice despite their unfathomable trauma:
"Posso...would you pretty please,” Moriogoch coughed up vile humors and something that looked a little too close to a disintegrating tonsil, “...repair the spigot?"
There was a horrific, ambiguous silence for about 15 seconds…
"🤡 :> 🤡" said Posso, scuttling up to the fountain and banging the tatters of the fractured spigot like an in-need-of-repair jukebox. Now it was even more defiled, yet the delicious fluids of eternal youth flowed once again.
Moriogoch sighed in relief and whined as their internal organs stabilized. They were still too discombobulated to recognize the significance of what had just happened. For now, Moriogoch had simply abided in their head by the time-honored Wands tradition of solving any problem of consequence within an inch of their life. The job was done. Moriogoch could slip away from what was, at this point, the most lethal force of nature in reality, and risk no longer being in the crossfire of their attention-
Wait, how did Posso pick up Seth? They were playing with it now like a toy mallet, banging their own head with the thing. That was a gift! Moriogoch needed it.
Moriogoch fished around in their pockets for suitable barter and found just the thing: an intact, chilly mint chip ice cream cone from 3 days ago. They stood up and staggered before Posso, who was busy gnawing their own tail. "Celebrate?" asked Moriogoch in very simple Old Egyptian.
Posso crossed their arms and flailed around rebelliously in the fumes of the star. "🤡 >n< 🤡" they said. Moriogoch wasn’t even sure what begged the hissy-fit, Posso was about to get a damned ice cream, they hadn’t even offered the damned cone to trade yet and-
A silhouette of a spade could be seen in the distance converging on STAR XVI. Off of it dismounted a little wallaby with a blank drama mask and a distant stoicism. It was Ruru, LOVER of law. They ambled and sat Posso up properly "🎭 👏 🎭". They said warmly, prompting Posso to agree: “🤡👏🤡”
Soon enough, the three were quietly sharing a picnic at the base of a date palm on the STAR. Ruru had brought delicious food with healing properties made especially for Posso, so of course Posso was busy licking their mint chip ice cream cone instead. More for Moriogoch, whose injuries were recovering to a point of restored lucidity. It finally occurred to them to ask:
“…Why were you interested in breaking the Spigot to begin with, Posso?”
“🤡<:o🤡”, they chirped, and produced from an errant hammerspace a crude note with the following:
I dare you to break the spigot of the fountain of youth do it or you suck lmao.
"Oh,” tutted Moriogoch, “Posso, it was the HANGED MAN who wrote this note; you were lied to. Abrogating the fountain of youth’s flow leads to a chain reaction in which the metaphysical label of life is erased from its load bearing position in the fabric of reality. That won’t do. He was lying to you, that HANGED MAN. Don't do that."
Posso blinked in surprise "🤡 :,,c 🤡" said Posso.
“Oh, cut it with the tears, it was an honest mistake you have nothing to-,” and Moriogoch was too late, Posso now wailed implacably. At least they had dropped Seth at this point, but Moriogoch felt too confused and guilty to retrieve it. They swiveled towards Ruru with a desperate look, craving advice. “🎭¯\_(ツ)_/¯🎭”, Ruru replied.
Moriogoch’s career of placating more reasonable archfey and managing the welfare of tens of thousands of Wands had met its match. They grumbled. Entirely at their wits end, they picked up Posso’s writhing body and swayed them gently in the delicate mists of the Fountain of Youth…
They bid Posso an ancient charm which was sung to them during their childhood in an orphanage incessantly. By about the 15th repeat, they noticed that their head had cleared. Then they noticed that Posso was fast asleep. Balancing Posso in one hand, they picked up and stowed away the hammer Seth somewhere safe and let out a deep sigh.
Moriogoch immediately knew the sensible thing to do, but in a final surge of frustration, they cried out to Ruru:
“Bah, it’s so stupid! This thing could snap reality in twain if it puts its mind to it! It can kill and rend and destroy whatever it wants, I’m…By Apep, I did nothing by being here, today my job is to be a babysitter to the Messiah! Why even have mortals? Why have Kings or Queens or Knights or Jacks?!”
Ruru’s stone cold deadpan pierced into Moriogoch’s eyes. They were clearly offended by what Moriogoch said. It dawned on Moriogoch that Ruru had about 2 millennia on them: Moriogoch was the guilty child here.
“We,” began Moriogoch remorsefully, “All need nap time, don’t we? And reminders to keep the universe intact. Some more than others,” they said, looking at dozing Posso, “But guidance, generally. Guidance is important.”
Moriogoch thought of the many urchins that wallowed in the beggars chute, their territory.
“We all need an adult sometimes,” they declared resolutely.
Then they felt ready to give their slumbering slinky of bristly fur back to Ruru, who nodded and vanished in a Red and Cyan flare of spades and swords.
And Moriogoch marinated their youthful heels in the fountain’s clouds and laid their eyes upon the slurry of stars in the sky beside Seirios. Then they declared with tired triumph, to no one in particular:
