Card of Cards
It was safe to say that Taylor Bright usually heard him over the quiet din of Zootopian mornings before she actually saw him on her way to work, the low baritone voice singing snippets of songs to the rhythmic thwip thwip of the playing cards in his paws. The pine marten had been an almost perfect constant with his habits on the street corner across from the café that Taylor waited at, and the squirrel would watch him during the slow hours. Though a hood covered much of his face, she could see the cream of his throat shift beneath its tame collar, the whiteness of his teeth gleam, and the lips tilt in the half-smile of one who knew some amusing secret about whomever it was that had just passed him on their way to a nine-to-five job. Sometimes the singing would stop, and the mouth would relax into a heartfelt ‘thank you’ mumbled to a charitable soul that dropped a few dollars into the can at his feet. Only for a moment, though- the smile was always eager to play among the notes in his voice, keeping time with the dance of cards.
And what a dance it was that played out between those fingers; the deck opened up like a music box for the marten’s tunes, pips and faces flashing like so many printed jewels. One deck became two packets, became three, became five, before folding and spinning into a kaleidoscope of red and white and black. Cards would take to the air sometimes, spinning like faeries as the deck roiled and shifted below, only to land gracefully into a paw to play with the others. Every few weeks, the marten would have a fresh deck of some new design that Taylor had not seen before etched onto the backs, and she would glance at him teaching these new paper children of his how to dance now and again before returning to the burbles and steam and pens scratching orders onto paper pads.
Eventually, though, her shift would end, and the squirrel would clock out, don her cloak, and step outside. The marten would watch her, she knew. Her path home led right past him, and his eyes would always follow her, but she could never return the gaze. The singing would always stop when she neared, and the silence would always send chills up her spine and open a pit in her stomach.
It wasn’t always that way. Once, Taylor was always greeted with a murmured “be safe” upon passing. He never asked her name or for any charity, and he never deviated from those two words since she began working at the café. It was merely two words, nothing more, nothing less, but the weight of their sincerity somehow lifted her spirits enough to get home. She once looked at him when he said it, when that smile split open his mouth and those sharp predator’s teeth glittered in the afternoon sun like so many tiny knives. Martens preyed on squirrels, in those dark times immemorial, and not even countless millennia of enlightenment and years of shock collars could not suppress the instinct to flinch and hurry away from the well-wishing of a well-collared stranger.
The farewells stopped after that. The voice was silent, the mouth shut, the teeth hidden away until the marten was sure Taylor was far past him. She, in turn, would hurry to the subway, eager to be rid of the gnawing in her mind by a nap brought upon by the rustling of newspapers and quiet coughing of those who refused to acknowledge their allergies.
She hated him for it. She hated the hidden teeth, the flattened smile, the momentary stillness in her presence. She hated the pit in her stomach and the ache in her heart. She hated ending her shift, and it in turn gnawed at her.
Another day had ended, another punch on her card. The bell on the door rang, but it was already lost in the sounds and movement of city life in the afternoon. The marten was there, watching her cross the street. Her paw hit concrete sidewalk. The voice halted, the lips closed, the stillness of the song louder than the city. How dare he quiet his voice? How dare he stop singing for her? How dare he not say a word of reproach? How dare his collar ever be dormant? How dare he mock her?
Fur bristled. Teeth bared. Taylor’s arm lashed out, striking the marten’s arm.
For a moment, the cards hung in the air, their dance interrupted. They fluttered, panicking, begging with their silent spinning to be rescued, before scraping across the concrete in a scattered sea of dead paper to drown in a puddle or trampled underfoot. For a moment, the collar gleamed yellow. Nearby animals halted, watching, waiting for the red flash and spasmodic thrashing of a predator punished for his feral instincts, but it never came. The pulse of yellow flashed once, twice, thrice, before the placid green of a well-trained predator returned without retribution. The paws hung limply at the marten’s sides, his right cradling the last survivor of Taylor’s insult before he ferreted it away into a pocket.
He didn’t say anything. Taylor hurried away to the rustling and coughing of her railed sanctuary.
She couldn’t rest on her day off. The violin lay still in its corner in her apartment, untouched despite Taylor knowing that practice was necessary for her recital next week. The television was silent, as was the radio. Taylor didn’t even get out of bed, save for food or relieving herself.
She wasn’t a mean person. It was his fault, surely… No. She wasn’t going to delude herself with self-flattering white lies and half-truths. Trying to shift the blame on the marten was in no way reasonable, and she knew it. If anything, her struggle was never with how to cast herself in an innocent light, but, deep down, how she would apologize to the marten the next day.
A simple “sorry” would be hollow, worthless, and more insulting than anything after what she had done to the objects of his art. The cards.
The cards!
Cash was crumpled into the pocket of her pants, keys were locking the apartment door, feet already trying not to go faster than a brisk trot down the complex’s stairs. It was dark, but there was a drug store near her café that was open all night. It would have cards, wouldn’t it?
The clerk manning the desk nearly had a heart-attack when Taylor burst through the doors and demanded to know where she could buy playing cards, the antelope’s glasses jostled off of his face. He fumbled for them on the counter, hooves clacking alongside the tapping of her toes, but he answered the question well enough when he gathered himself. Aisle 5.
Taylor couldn’t help but breathe a sigh of relief upon seeing the boxes sitting on the shelf. She didn’t know where any of the more exotic decks had come from, and a pang of regret tapped the guilt a little deeper into her heart. Still, the red Bicycles would have to be enough.
They had to be.
Taylor kept telling herself that, kept telling the stars that the deck on her pockets would absolve her of her transgression, on her way back to the subway. So lost was she in thought that she almost missed the police cruiser stopped by her café, and only the thump of a car door brought her eyes up and her heart to a halt.
The marten looked back at her through the back seat. His hood was pulled back, and for the first time she could see that his eyes were green. The cream of his throat stood out so brightly from the shadows, no longer covered and muted by a collar, but stained so dark by smeared blood that still leaked from his nose. He met her wild, horrified gaze placidly, responding to her gaping mouth a little half-smile that shone so brightly in the streetlights. Then he was gone, leaving behind nothing but the sound of an engine and the smell of exhaust.
It was a long time before the apartment door was unlocked, before the keys dropped onto the shelf beside the door, before the sheets were moved, and the silence of the bedroom punctuated by quiet, guilty sniffles before sleep came to call.
On the nightstand sat a deck of new playing cards.
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Once more into @nicolaswildes zistopia au. I’d like to think that a certain fox is to blame for unlocking our marten friend’s collar, but it isn’t my place to point fingers.
Fun facts: Hoodies have been around for centuries, but were only really made mainstream after the theatrical release of Rocky in 1976. Cardistry, on the other hand, is only just now being considered a separate hobby from card magic, though I do not doubt that proto-cardistry has been around for much longer.