The Play: Between Devil and Fool
"The Serpentine is?" "Is Satan." "Devil card, then." "as the same." "does that make of me a devil?" "Devil is just in a name. Koyol, Kyle, Devil, Satan, Lucifer, Snake, The Serpent." "ah, but in your game, by your cards, every name has meaning befit the person it's given, just as my culture. This so, 'Koyol besmertnyy', the immortal man of universe, and 'Koheu Ishrah', Ender of all things and world's." "true. even still, Devil is not the worst name." Sayrus softly flicked a random card over from the face-down tarots lain between them. as luck- or as fate- or as universe- the card he flipped was The Devil. Kyle reached and picked it up, examining the time worn, ages-old piece of what Sayrus called his most treasured play. The Devil, a foreboding figure of many religion across many times and universes. Satanael, Lucifer, Belzeboub, Iblis, Abaddon, Apollyon, Satan. "Who plays a worse name then a card of hell, a card of sin?" "So plays dependant. To the Card of Satan, the worst enemy is truly God. So plays another to a different." "God?" "God." a spark of flying purple smoke snapped and flipped another card in the behavior of a whip. exposing the underside, a depiction of a higher calling and angels. But, the words enscribed at the bottom: Judgement. Not god. "The Name of God, Card of Judgement. I have myself yet to meet someone for the name of God. I have, however, met two Judgements. Of Course, judement is a Fluid card." "fluid?" "assigned, per se. you are The Name of Serpent, Card of The Devil, but for myself, you are Judgment. Another Judgemt is the one we have met, you most recall. the, heh, the- the collar incident." "indeed. you have my apologies, my friend." "Keep them." Sayrus remained in silence for a moment, brooding, before swallowing it back and continued despite it. "He, no less, is The Card of the Hermit, and his name, The Experiment. as is your case, Snake Prince, Name of Serpent, his name comes more literal than I expected." "the child is an experiment?" "wouldn't call him quite a child, koyol! I hear rumors. perhaps not linear as you, but he has lived and seen many years." "he seems young. bodily. mentally. spiritually. energy. he is quite young. not as young as you, Kotridva." "there you see, though, my friend. you know I am, say, 8? 7? but I have lived much more; resets, my friend. Time in our universe, it is strange and not linear like you, my many-centuried friend. that, and the life of a fusion is only so long as they've been fused! I certainly am not physically 8!" "the boy is not a fusion, you said." "I don't know what he is, honestly. he is not one, he is not two, and he isn't a fusion. I don't think they had fusions, like me or like other fusions, in his timeline. he is strange." "interesting." "ah, you know I could talk about him forever, but this isn't what you asked me explain to you, was it?" "ah. indeed. frankly, you monsters are very interesting, I am always sidetracked by the ideas of Undertale." "I think my universe qualified as Fusiontale, actually." "there are too many names and branches of your universe and its smaller AUs." "I agree. You are from the Universe of?" "Adventure time. Naruto. and others. Best not tread that path; by this point a little of me is everywhere. As they say: I Am 'Universe'." "Correct, snake daddy." "must you?" "you know I must." Sayrus laughed and Kyle rumbled in monotone, his own version of chuckles. "Well then, tell me more cards. More enemies." Koyol was avidly copying the sketches of the two cards, and notes on the play, into his notebook. As Sayrus had recommended for their lessons, he'd bought a new large one, as The Play was expansive and Kyle was determined to learn it all. "Well. I am the fool. The Devil is my Anti, but The Papess is my Enemy." Sayrus held up the card he'd said, though Kyle had not seen him pick it up. It's was written empress rather than papess, but the two words were synonymous, so that was irrelevant. Just a sign of how old these cards were. In sayrus' other hand, Kyle notes he held another card, 'fool'. "My worst enemy, dear serpent, is the Scientist. He is my primary negative. The scientist is card of Papess, and only one of two who can throw judgement. Such the other, is God. Only God and the Scientist can break judgement at law." "God is my enemy, yes?" "Indeed." "Who is, as you sad, my primary negative? What does primary negative mean?" "The negative and positive are your values. Positive is The World. Negative is The Tower. your value cards." "Good and bad." "No." Sayrus was firm. "Koyol, there is no good and no bad in the world. You cannot use The Play under black and white, or even grey scale; not is everything just the same shade. It is a theory of perspective. Every angle is neither black nor white nor blacker or whiter than another, but still not clear, still not scaled, but as if one is green and another is purple and another is blue. Is blue any more 'good' than green? Is green any blacker than purple? Is purple any more anything at all than blue? There is no objective scaling of the cards." Koyol was silent, nodding. He scribbled out as Sayrus spoke, notes in the foreign language of his mother tongue already filling two pages. Sayrus had learned this Russian-esc-not-quite language from the snake man himself, and was pleased that Kyle wrote every word of the brief lecture in earnest, in quotes, with Sayrus' name skritted at the end in a professional manner. "Then the values are?" Sayrus hummed, and shrugged. "They are decided by name and changes by the person. The brother, myself, card of the fool, values The World as family and loved ones and The Tower as depression and punishment. The Tower is always chaos just as the World is Happiness." Sayrus stretched his hand out, and with a soft pop, there it was, Sayrus had so casually pulled out his companion's soul. "Your values are your consistency, what you are made of. I myself am depression and love. You are like me, Kyle." The snake man's soul was a more visual example, a glowing transparent green but within, a second soul feeding like a parasite, Koheu. "Your value of the World is loved ones, but also freedom. Your value of the Tower is depression, but also insanity. We are very similar, but we have differences. You are The Serpent, The Devil. I am The Brother, The fool. The devil card is my anti, not my enemy." "Anti?" "Aye. Like an... antihero, per see. The devil is the enemy of my enemy, but not my ally. But in every anti, there is a true negative and a true positive and a true neutral. The serpent is the Brothers' true positive, and the awarded of Judgement, and the odd man out of the Devil Cards. A positive, rather than the negative of the devil. True negatives align better with the scientist. True neutral aligns with god." "This is a lot to take in." Koyol was skittering wildly with his pencil over the paper, trying to chart it all down. "How on earth do you remember it all, Sayrus?" Said skeleton man gave him a pitying smile. "It is more like first nature for me. I make sense of the world with it, rather than use it as a tool. I didn't need to learn it, I just... saw connections and studied people interacting." "Help the universe should you ever have self esteem, Sayrus. If you weren't so sure everyone hated you on some level, you would be the most manipulative man I'd ever seen. Your capabilities are frightening, and I'm a considered immortal mutant mass murderer figure head of a religion with a second insane person in my head." Sayrus sat up sharply. "Hey, my self-esteem is- fine. I'm just not oblivious to the obvious fact that I'm a shitty person." "Aren't we all?" Koyol smirked, taking his own soul(s) in his hands, looking at the small soul within his own. "We're very similar, as you said. Uncontrollable murderers in the both of us." "Except mine is rage and forcefully embedded, and yours is insanity from a mutating instability?" Kyle laughed; a train wreck sound that quite literally sounded like glass shattering and a car crashing in his throat. unsettling. "Yes, of course there's that. No less, we're both a couple of freak shows. The Devil and The Fool. Allies against a scientist. With a few allies in between." "You should meet freckles, you know? Your both my judgement. Plus, you did save his life. Or, Uh, at least, from that. Incident." "Perhaps."
