Early Morning

"I mean, it's a Dawn Sparrow, I'm familiar with them adjacent to the Sixth Son...."

"You need to be acknowledging reversals. You haven't even flipped the fifth column's adjunct yet."

"I'll get to it!"

It started every day like a ritual. Delving into the twisting maze of tombs that made up the Necropolis necessitated as much forewarning as possible (vengeful spirits and bound demons would not announce themselves, after all), so every morning Gerhardt would enter that familiar tent to find the ever-weary Mnemosyne working on the morning's forecast. When the kettle sang and the tea was poured, Quartz would join them, nudging his enormous tail-sphere into place with the same ease one might roll a ball into kicking position. It would be the throne from which his imperious rulings would descend, picking granular corrections and snippy arguments out of the array of cards spread out across the floor, a predictive mess holding secrets about the day's unseen movements that Gerhardt wouldn't even pretend to understand.

Today played out about the same, with Quartz all but looming over a dismayed Mnemosyne as the cards piled up. Like clockwork the disagreements had risen and the bickering commenced. Gerhardt was left sitting on the tent floor across from them, scraping the last remains of Quartz-made breakfast from his plate. He should have been considering himself lucky--rarely could someone sneak into this tent to get a personalized reading for the day, and yet he was here every sunrise--but in the moment it was hard to appreciate. With a huff he flopped back. Even the tent ceiling was more interesting than this.

"Okay.... we can pair these two.... and stick on the guiding star role. But I don't think the Wheel matters much."

"Most likely not. Add a clarifier in a moment. For now flip Gerhardt's cards."

Oh, here was the part that mattered. The mercenary didn't bother sitting up, simply lifting his head to look over his own girth to the other sphaerra. "Did we finally come to an agreement?"

The pair looked up in unison. "Liches."

Thunk. There was the tent ceiling again.

"Yaaaay."

--

"Alright, that's tight enough--"

Predictably, Quartz ignored him. The sphaerra was diligent, Gerhardt had to give him that; still, he was starting to feel like a child on his first day of school with how he was being straightened and tidied by the most fastidious creature in a hundred-mile radius. Straps and snaps were made perfect across his armour, with even a fleck of yesterday's grime polished away by a bit of sleeve. Syne was deeper in the tent, scrawling the results of the forecast onto a sizable poster for the rest of the encampment to reference as they readied for another day of delving. They stared sternly down at their work, so Gerhardt looked to Quartz instead. "Thanks again for the updates. Same time tomorrow?"

"Obviously." Asking was all but a formality. "I would never let you face that abysmal place unprepared."

A statement like that could have been sweet, but coming from the likes of this pink creature, it might as well have been a scolding. Gerhardt huffed a sigh, but then a small hand was on his cheek. It lingered a moment before vanishing as Mnemosyne materialized nearby, the poster loosely furled under their arm.

"Can you put this up on your way out please.... ? And, this is for you." Sleepy-voiced as usual, Syne handed the poster over. It was followed by a slip of paper rummaged from the many pieces tucked into their sash, this one fresh with a brilliant green ink. The strange circular calligraphy stared back at Gerhardt, who studied it for a moment. "A charm? What's this for?"

"Um.... the liches."

Gerhardt tucked it into the first pocket he could find. "Right, right. Thanks Syne. I'll see you two this evening at Orpha's, alright?"

A few simple goodbyes and he was gone. Quartz lingered in the tent's entrance as the mercenary faded into the growing morning bustle. Behind him, Mnemosyne crossed their arms. "I thought you were going to start charging him for this."

Pale pink eyes stared a moment longer into the early light before the smaller sphaerra turned back, kneeling to begin cleaning up the scattered cards. "Soon," he answered curtly.

Mnemosyne rolled their eyes. For all their fussing over the future, some things never changed.