whyvette‌:
“Ogam reeds–like–that’s a method of divination, right?” Yvette furrowed her brow, cross-referencing the words in her head against what she had casually absorbed from a few hours of noodling online. She’d had her fortune read a couple times, in various contexts. Yvette had a psychologist’s perspective of divination. There was a certain amount of belief necessary to buy into the premise. She didn’t–or rather, hadn’t–believed in fortune-telling as if it were true, exactly. Yvette the scientist found the interplay of faith, culture, and perception to be mildly fascinating. Not precisely her wheelhouse, but it had a cousin-like relationship to hypnosis, in that sense. It worked better if you went in with a whole heart.
But if fey were real, and illusions and potions that altered your brain state via magic were real, who was to say? Who was to draw the line of possibility, now?
“I … I think I might have something,” Yvette said. She fiddled with the rim of the punch cup she had set aside briefly. She hazarded an attempt at a joke. “Um–to be–to be deployed in a moment of extreme need, of course.”
“Yeah, my aunt taught me when I was young and it just sort of stuck. I’ve been practicing with the reeds since I was ten.” His stomach rolled at the mention of his Aunt Maeve. He could remember the first time she had introduced him to ogam. It’d been close to the autumn equinox, when the sky was dark and the wind was high. There’d been something in the air - something he couldn’t quite explain but it had left him with both a chill and a feeling of intense wonder. Witch weather, his aunt had teased him. They had sat where the festivities were occurring behind Maynooth now but it had just been the two of them then. Emmet had listened as she divined the staves to him, patiently explaining each of the meanings to him. With her help, he had carved his own staves the next day. Feel them, imbue their energy in each one, Aunt Maeve had whispered, creation is magic itself.Â
Years later, only the staves had told him the truth about his aunt’s fate.Â
“Tell you what, I’ll give you a reading for free if you tell a story. Doesn’t even have to be in front of everyone, you can practice on me first.”


















