Anamnesis - Justice

[IsabellaRose]

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Instructions: Draw one card from the Major Arcana deck. This card is your Shadow and represents who you were in your past. Keep your Shadow face-up next to you. Use this card as a guide for uncovering your past.

Justice

The Justice tarot card is a symbol of truth, fairness, and law.

Also, since I had no idea what kind of world I wanted to play in, I used Mythic to generate 2 civilization descriptions: Fearful, and Religious. and then went to the genre wheel to pick a genre where I ended up with... Western. 

So... a western setting in a town that's fearful and religious, and in the past I was represented by Justice, truth, fairness, and law. Sounds a bit too much like real life to me lol

Let's see what I can do with that.

[IsabellaRose]

Act 1: Pentacles

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You wake up in an unfamiliar place, seemingly within a town or city. You cannot remember who you are or why you are here. All you know for certain is that you are not in your home.

First Pentacle: Ace.
Prompt: You take a moment to familiarize yourself with your surroundings. Where are you?
Major Arcana for Interpretation: The High Priestess

 

My eyes blink open to blinding sunlight. The world smells of dust and candle wax. I am on the threshold of a narrow chapel, its door yawning open like a mouth that wants to swallow me whole. The walls are sunbaked adobe, their whitewash peeling to reveal the darker clay beneath, as though even the building hides its true face. Inside, rows of rough pews face a carved altar draped in heavy fabric. Behind it, a painted woman stares down at me from a high niche, a veil over her hair, eyes solemn, one hand raised as if in blessing, the other holding a small set of scales. A saint, perhaps? Or maybe an idol... I can’t decide which.

It’s quiet here, but not peaceful. The air feels thick with things unspoken, the way two people can sit side-by-side and never say the truth they both know. I push myself to my feet and walk slowly into the chapel. A book rests open on the altar, its pages covered in tiny, looping script I don’t recognize, but I'm certain it means something important.

I have the feeling that I shouldn’t be here. 

[IsabellaRose]

Second Pentacle: 2 of Pentacles
Prompt: You look down at the clothes on your body. What are you wearing? How do you feel about the way you look?
Major Arcana for Interpretation: The Lovers

I lower my gaze from the saint’s painted eyes and see my own clothing as if for the first time. A long, dust-streaked coat of faded dove-grey hangs from my shoulders, buttoned only at the middle, as though meant to guard me. Beneath it I wear a long dress. The hem is ripped high on one side, baring far too much of my legs for comfort, the fabric frayed and clinging in uneven folds. A tear runs up along the side seam, a silent accusation of some struggle I can’t recall. The dress itself is prim in design, the bodice buttoned to the throat, its collar delicately embroidered, the stitches fine and careful. The strangest thing about the collar is that the embroidery feels almost intimate, like a gift made by careful hands. Two tiny red threads run side-by-side through the collar’s edge, meeting and parting again in a quiet, deliberate pattern, the work of someone with patience and intent.

It feels wrong, this clash between the prim restraint of the collar and the scandal of the tattered skirt. As if I’m caught halfway between propriety and exposure, neither one entirely mine. The coat shields me from the eyes of others, but I can’t help the feeling that it’s too late, whatever was meant to be hidden has already been seen. I can’t remember when I last looked at myself and thought this belongs to me. These clothes feel like pieces borrowed from two lives, one cherished, one... not. I feel as if I’m standing on the edge of something but I can't see the shape of it.

Despite wondering what happened to shred my dress, whose coat this is, there’s a lingering weight in my chest that has nothing to do with what happened and everything to do with who I was. It isn’t sadness, exactly. It’s the ache of knowing someone once saw me clearly, dressed me for the world they thought I should face, and I can’t remember their face.

I feel the scales tipping between the person I was and the stranger I am now, between what was meant to be and what has been taken from me.

[IsabellaRose]

Third Pentacle: 10 of Pentacles
Prompt: When you focus, you can grasp the edges of a hazy memory from just before you fell unconscious. What do you remember?
Major Arcana for interpretation: The Devil

 

A memory comes to me then. It comes in pieces, sharp and uneven, like shards of glass catching the light, flashes of images, sounds, feelings.

I see a sky the color of charred embers, heat pressing down like a living thing. The wind reeks of smoke and something sweeter, something cloying... rotten. My dress clings to me, the collar tight at my throat, as though it were holding me still. 

There are voices, low and urgent, weaving together in a language that sounds familiar but that I can't quite place and somewhere in the sound... laughter, not joyful, but knowing. A circle of lanterns burn low, their light throwing long shadows that twitch like they have lives of their own. I feel the press of eyes on me, dozens or more, and none of them blink.

...and then the figure. It is tall, draped in black, but the black isn’t fabric, it's absence, a cutout in the world where light cannot exist. In one hand, they hold a chain, the links glinting dull red. My eyes follow the chain, and at the end of it is… me. My own wrist bound in iron, though I don’t recall the moment it closed around me.

They step closer, the space between us collapsing until their presence fills every breath I take. I feel fear grip me, and I know the unthinkable is about to happen, but for some reason I do not resist. A gloved hand rises, fingers graze the edge of my collar, a mockery of tenderness, before sliding lower, gripping the front of my dress. A sharp pull, and the fabric tears with a sound that still echoes somewhere deep inside me. Cold air rushes over my exposed skin, the humiliation cutting sharper than the night air.

The chain goes slack, but I don't fall. I can't move. The figure’s voice, smooth as oil, curls around me in words I can’t remember, but their weight sinks deep as I sink to my knees, a promise or a threat — perhaps both. I look up at that figure leering down over me and I know... something. But now I can't remember what I knew. 

And then there is nothing. The memory is gone, and I am still in the chapel, torn dress, long coat, more questions than answers. I look at my wrist but there is no iron bad there, no fragment of chain, but there are marks. I was bound by that chain. That was real. 

[IsabellaRose]

Pause for reflection.

I do this often with solo journaling games. I never know where my mind is going to go when I start one of these or where I'll end up.

This one doesn't seem quite as personal, but... there's something interesting. A question of religion, perhaps an implication of "the devil", the knowledge that she's been exposed to others and feels shame about it, a possibility that she may have been abused or raped. It's not set it stone, but it sure feels like she was taken advantage of in one way or another. But was it physical, emotional, spiritual? Did she succumb willingly? 

And why does my mind always go to dark corners of story telling? 

I'm most curious about who embroidered that dress, and who the figure is that's wearing black that isn't fabric. Although, the details of that little chapel are interesting. Also, what is that language that she can't quite place, and who was watching her before this figure appeared?

[IsabellaRose]

As I was re-reading my posts, I felt like the whole Pentacles act needed a wrap up, a summary. Something for me to come back to later.

 

Act One - Closing Reflection, in character

I awoke in the dust and silence of a chapel that felt more like a watchful witness than a sanctuary. The saint above the altar looked down with eyes that seemed to see past my confusion, past my empty mind, into whatever truth I have yet to remember.

The coat on my shoulders is not mine, perhaps it is borrowed, perhaps stolen, perhaps taken from someone who hurt me. Still, it hides the shame of a dress torn and weathered, its prim, buttoned collar at odds with the raw exposure beneath. Someone once made those careful stitches at my throat, but whether as a kindness or a claim, I cannot yet say.

And in the dark behind my mind, there lingers the figure in black: the chain, the tearing fabric, the weight of their words. The memory is incomplete, but the feeling is whole, the kind of truth you carry in your bones when your head cannot recall it.

But now, in the stillness of this chapel, I feel the faint tilt of unseen scales, the slow, inevitable swing toward balance. I do not remember names, not even my own, but I do know this — what happened to me will be measured, and it will be answered. Justice will be done.

 

(and damn, that last line feels like such a badass wild west woman thing to say! I don't know who this character is yet, but I'm starting to like her)

[IsabellaRose]

Act 2: Swords

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After getting your bearings, you walk around town. You know this town. You know it well, but you cannot remember it.

First Sword: 6 of Pentacles
Prompt: People are looking at you and whispering. What are they saying?
Major Arcana for interpretation: The World

 

The town isn't empty... far from it. People walk and lounge on the wooden boardwalks, no one is in the rutted, dusty street. As I step onto the boardwalk, they part for me without speaking, but not without sound.

“Saint’s scales, it’s really her.”

The hush moves in waves, there is a name in there that I can’t quite catch, a tone I almost recognize.

“The balance will be restored now.”

Their voices tangle in the air like windblown threads, slipping through my grasp before I can knot them into meaning.

"She escaped the chains, but the Devil still owns her.”

The way their eyes follow me makes me feel like I carry something vast and distant inside me, something too big for a body in a torn dress and a borrowed coat.

“Pray she’s not here for you.”

Some look at me with awe, others with the weary suspicion given to strangers or omens, even though I know they all know me.

"They said she was dead."

I see hands twitch toward holy symbols, some crosses, some the sign of the saint with scales, lips moving in silent prayers or curses.

“She’s here for the guilty.”

A woman pulls her child closer.

"The saint turned her away."

A man spits in the dust after I pass.

“Don’t meet her eyes..."

From one shadowed doorway, two men speak low enough that I can't hear, but I know they say something like the rest.

They do not agree on what I am, savior or trouble, blessing or sentence. But they are all certain of one thing: I am not just another passerby.

I do not confront them. They are not responsible for what happened to me, except through the inaction of their own fear or apathy. So I walk on, the borrowed coat around me, the faint tilt of unseen scales in my chest, wondering whether the weight they see is something I’m meant to carry or to set down... if it will set me free, or pull me down.

[IsabellaRose]

Second Sword: 4 of Pentacles
Prompt: An abandoned building stirs up memories. What used to be here? Why did it matter?
Major Arcana for interpretation: Death

 

The building slumps against the earth like it’s trying to sink into its own grave. The door is missing, the windows yawning open, their frames bare of glass. Weeds push up through the boards of the porch, brittle stems rattling in the wind.

Suddenly, I’m not standing outside the ruin, I’m back within its walls, whole again, my dress unmarked. The air is close, warm with too many bodies, the scent of sweat, oil lamps, and dust kicked from the floorboards. The benches are packed. Every eye is turned toward the front, toward the figure who speaks from behind the table. But I am not watching him, I am watching the accused, standing in the center of the room, hands bound before them. I can hear their breath, see the tremor in their jaw, the stubborn lift of their chin. 

This place was not just where sentences were given. It was where the town came to see the scales tip. It was theater, brutal, final theater, and I was a part of the performance. I remember the weight of it then. Not the heat, not the murmurs from the benches, but the unspoken understanding between me and the one who spoke the sentence: that I would see it through. I knew my role. It was more than being a hand of the church or the law. I was the last face they saw before the end. It was my task to make them understand, in those final moments, why the end had come for them. 

What I felt was not cruelty. Not pride, either. It was certainty. That there was a line between what could be forgiven and what could not, and I had to be the one to hold it steady. And yet… in the silent space after the sentence, before the hall emptied, there was always a flicker. A thought I never dared to voice: What if the scales had tipped the other way?

That flicker returns now, stronger, standing before the ruin. Whatever justice lived here is gone, but the questions it left behind have teeth, and they coil tighter, looping back on themselves until they circle me like a noose. What price had I paid to end up in the Devil’s chain? Was it coin? Betrayal? Blood? I search the empty hall, trying to fit the pieces of my humiliation... the torn dress, the eyes upon me, the figure in black, into the shape of this room. Was it here? Was this where the decision had been made? 

I feel like I can see it if I let my focus drift... the same full benches, the same smell of heat and dust, my own name (if I knew it) passing from mouth to mouth, heavy with judgment. I’m not at the front now. I’m standing in the center, bound. The people lean forward to watch me fall. The man at the table reads a sentence that no one will ever write down, but all will remember. And in that moment, in that imagined or remembered moment, I feel the scales tip, not for someone else... for me. 

Did they deliver me into the Devil’s hand here? Did I walk from this hall and into the circle of lanterns by my own feet, or was I led?

The air is thick with dust and the echo of that final verdict, whether it was truly spoken here or not. I take one step toward the place where the accused once stood, and the floor seems to bow under me, as if still remembering the weight. If this was where it happened, then the ruin is not only the grave of others’ endings, it is the site of my own.

[IsabellaRose]

Third Sword: 10 of Pentacles
Prompt: You find yourself wandering through a graveyard. What do you find there?
Major Arcana for interpretation: The High Priestess

 

The graveyard sits high on the hill, the town falling away beneath it like a half-forgotten dream. I don’t remember choosing to come here, only lifting my head to find myself already walking between the stones. The air is still, the light strange as day gives way to night. Every grave feels as though it is watching me pass, their names and dates blurring when I try to read them, as if they’ve been written in water. Near the far wall, I stop. There, half-shadowed beneath the warped arm of a cedar, stands a tall stone, its face smooth except for one thing: the carved image of the saint with scales. But here, the figure wears a dress whose carved collar is inlaid red stone showing a peculiarly embroidered pattern... I recognize the tilt of her head, the way her hidden eyes seem to pierce.

It is me.

Below the carving, a name I do not recognize, yet feels like mine. Prudence Lawton. The dates are meaningless, but the chiseled dash between them feels like the length of my breath.

I kneel, pressing my palm to the cold stone, and the ground falls away. I am no longer kneeling before it, I am standing before her, the veiled figure, my own shape writ taller, heavier with knowing. She looks at me as though she can see the whole of my life at once: the sentences I delivered upon myself in the hall where verdicts were made into past facts... the bargain I made, the moment I stepped into the Devil’s circle.

“You know why you’re here,” she says, though her lips do not move. And I do know, though the knowing comes without words.

I am both her and the one before her. Both the voice that delivers judgment and the one being judged. The scales she holds are mine, but so is the weight that tips them. 

When I blink, I am alone again, my hand on the stone, the cedar’s shadow falling over my shoulder like a hood. I remain there for long moments before I stand again. I know now that I am guilty. I know now that I made a deal, that I paid a price, and that the price condemned me. I turn and leave the graveyard knowing that I have already been measured... and found wanting.

[IsabellaRose]

Act Two Reflection

Well, I feel like this character is developing into something I hadn't quite expected. Perhaps some sort of avenging angel? I don't really know, but the fact that "you did this to yourself" feels very personal, like I'm trying to tell myself something about my own life through this roleplay... which I think happens more often than not with these journaling games.

 

Act Two Reflection In Character:

As I walk through the town the weight has grown heavier. They whisper when I pass, some in hope, others in dread. To some, I am a savior. To others, a curse. And to more than a few, I am judgment itself. The abandoned hall showed me why. Its rotting walls remembered the heat of bodies gathered to watch verdicts fall, the shudder of an ending pronounced. I had stood there once, certain of my role, certain of the line between what could be forgiven and what could not. Until the questions came, questions about my own price, my own sentence. The graveyard gave me an answer, though it was no comfort. My name is Prudence Lawton. I have been both judge and judged. Somewhere, the scales tipped against me, and whether by my own choice or theirs, I was delivered to the Devil’s chain.

The chapel’s stillness, the saint’s eyes, the coat shielding my shame... they are now joined by the murmur of the crowd, the hollowed-out hall, the stone with my name cut deep. I do not know yet why I walk free if I have already been measured and found wanting. But I feel the scales within me shift with each step, and I know this: the balance is not yet settled.