It begins with the quiet groan of a floorboard under too much weight. Abundance arrives, and she is a heavy blessing for anyone to carry. The gold light from the orange orchard filters through a castle window. It lingers over places it shouldn’t, creating the hint of a gilded cage instead of warmth. There is a white quill and black ink, a nearly-full ledger, and the purple wax with a golden stamp for the sealing of truth by the numbers. Gold and silver is strewn about the room because there isn’t time to count it when it arrives as quickly as this.
The Self feels an uneasy shift in the uncaring way wealth, that could do so much good, had been left to collect dust on the floor. This isn’t growth; it is bloat. Bloat is easily squandered on nonsense and wishes, but growth compounds. She makes a decision, not with a proclamation, but with the simple, unceremonious act of opening the ledger to its next line. An accounting is called.
Count it, the Shadow whispers, its voice the sound of dust settling on a forgotten mirror. Then count what it cost.
Always with the Self but rarely seen, the Shadow takes her observational perch above the Self’s head, settling in with the rest of the darkness in the echoing heights of the room.
Next to arrive is the Queen, wearing the crown of her generations and purple sleeves pushed to the elbow. Her presence creates ancestral weight, a force that can ground or entangle. She sets down her tools with precision and care, nothing out of place: a set of brass scales, pyrite paperweights that gleam with false fire, and a line of hematite stones to keep the base decisions true. The Queen’s gaze fixes on the ledger, a hunger for order in her eyes.
The Sage brings an energy that crinkles the air. She doesn’t speak, but her presence asks a question that hangs in suspension: Is this expansion clean? She runs her thumb over a tiger’s eye gemstone and the token sharpens her already wise insight. She knows the abundance gained is clear of sin or death – it was earned helping others. But could they wield it in the same way it was earned?
Yessss, the Shadow whispers from the pillar, Money doesn’t bless or curse. It obeys your grip. The Sage looks up and nods, a little unnerved that the Shadow can read her thoughts.
Then, a sound that doesn’t belong in the heavy silence: a child’s laugh. The Innocent slips into the room, her eyes wide with wonder, not at the gold, but at the way the light from a clear quartz on the windowsill fractures into a rainbow on the floor. She points and looks at the others, a silent invitation to see what mattered.
The Caregiver follows the child, wiping one hand on her apron after spit-cleaning the rose candy stain from the Innocent’s mouth. She brings with her the solid emotional scaffolding that keeps things from collapsing. A cinnamon stick behind her ear to ward off negative thoughts, a small jade bowl of rosemary leaves for remembrance of past lessons, a bundle of sage, as yet unlit, and a clean yellow cloth, folded into a perfect square except for the beaded tassels along its edges, quivering lightly in the breath of her walk. She sits her bundle of cloth and herbs solidly on a worktable, then she takes her place at the ledger and readies the quill for instruction. The Caregiver’s tasks are to support and mend (and also to do the math),
The Jester explodes into the room, a chaotic splash of orange and momentum. If it isn’t lived, what’s the point of living? Let’s use this abundance to create joy in the kingdom! she declares, a grin splitting her face. A festival! No, a parade! She sees the yellow cloth on the worktable, a flag of joy (!), and gives it a sharp tug.
Suddenly the room erupts in chaos. Rosemary leaves fly like dust in the air. The jade bowl falls to the stone floor, but true to its science, it does not break. A tassel smacks the old Sage in the eye. Surprised more than hurt, she falls to the floor grabbing at the Queen’s scale to catch herself.
The carefully constructed order of the Queen’s tools falls out of alignment. In her haste to save some sort of order, the Queen bumps a shallow tray of citrine. The small orange rocks skitter across the table, finally falling with a muted pitter-patter into the Innocent’s hands, as she avoids the mayhem from under the table.
Disorder is reorder in costume, the Shadow observes, a cold amusement in her tone. What order will come from this chaos?
The Innocent, delighted, rolls the citrine like die across the floor, her laughter echoing in the sudden tension. She kicks one, sending it rolling under the bookcase, where it taps a mouse who runs out the door, startling the Self, who jumps onto the table with a shrill screech. The Queen, with a curse under her breath, lunges to save the wax and stamp, the last objects wobbling, from falling to the floor. The Caregiver, with a sigh, retrieves the sage bundle that had fallen to the floor and laments the chip in her jade bowl and the showering of rosemary leaves that were meant for, well, something more respectful than this.
The Jester, her bravado deflated, has the grace to look sheepish. Fine, she mutters, and begins to pick up the citrine rocks, the artfulness of her movements a silent apology. The Innocent’s laughter softens, becoming less about chaos and more about the simple joy of finding what is lost.
The Self, with pink cheeks of embarrassment, steps from the table onto a chair then back to the stone floor. She takes a deep breath then extends a hand to the Sage who, insisting she isn’t hurt, accepts the help then looks to reclaim the scroll she’d tossed in her fall. The Self returns it to her. And now it is time. The accounting begins.
The Queen, her composure regained, weighs the contents of the room; not just the gold, but the commitments, the half-finished projects, the unspoken wishes and resentments. The call to give everyone what they cried for thunders, but the Queen knows better. No matter how much abundance came in, no one would be completely happy with its use. Her grandfather’s voice rings in her head, reminding her to be commanding and sparse with explanations. She looks to the hematite and the pyrite, knowing at least they will hold down the pages so the numbers cannot rearrange themselves into lies.
Aaah, Queen, comes the Shadow’s voice, quiet and echoey, Let your ancestor’s voices guide you in other decisions. You rule in a new time. Remember that net worth is math. Self-worth is not. Hold them separate and gain freedom.
The Innocent, having retrieved the last of the citrine, notices the Queen’s white-knuckled grip on the scales. Unprompted, the little girl gives her a cup of steaming lemon balm and ginger tea. A simple act of gratitude and care that breaks the tension. The Queen, surprised, takes a sip, and the tight line of her jaw softens.
The Self holds a gold coin to an open column of the ledger. With a flick she sends it spinning. Heads, she would remain factual and cold, as intended. Tails, she would embrace the chaos of reordering priorities. It is not a game of chance, but a method of surrender. Overthinking this would lead to exhaustion before even starting.
The coin slows its spin, scraping across the ledger’s paper with a drawn-out sigh before it tips and falls tails. The Self takes in a breath and smiles a little, indicating to herself that the choice is the best one mostly because her body reacts as it does. The Self returns the coin to its pile.
The Caregiver places her gentle hand over a line in the ledger that reads, simply, repair. It is an acknowledgment of the cracks in the foundation, the things that had been tabled or ignored entirely at the last accounting—or perhaps the accounting before that.
The Jester now stands by the doorway carefully folding the Caregiver’s yellow cloth. She had wanted to create a celebration in the accounting room, but she disrupted the very foundations of order (the Queen and her gemstones), wisdom (the Sage), and care (the Caregiver’s healing herbs and colors) that they need to support such a celebration. A parade can’t be built on a mess; abundance requires a structure to thrive. She returns her gaze to the Queen and Caregiver, suddenly grateful for both of their strong spirits.
The Queen, with a steady hand, seals the first allocation. The Caregiver writes in the journal where the abundance is headed and accounts for it not only with numbers, but with words: saved, shared, repaired, released. The ledger is no longer a dull accounting of assets, but a testament to the work and joy of living.
The Sage marvels at all there is to still learn, even at her age and position in the court.
The sunlight shifts, and the rainbow from the quartz vanishes. The room is quieter now, not with the heavy silence of before, but with the peaceful quiet of a space that is reordered properly. The archetypes sigh a collective breath, looking at their dirty hands and the abundance sorted and logged. Some wealth in vaults, stored for later with ideas attached. Some wealth packaged and ready for a new home. But those are jobs for tomorrow.
Out of the quiet chimes a little girl’s voice: Let’s have a snack! the Innocent suggests as she remembers the beautiful cake the Caregiver had made that morning. A cinnamon chocolate covered in sugary powder.
“So, again tomorrow,” the Sage says.
“Again,” the Self replies.
The archetypes talk to one another as they leave the room. The Self stays behind for a moment. A single, overlooked piece of citrine lies near the scales. She picks it up. It’s warm, infused with the day’s sunshine—a light that began as a cage and ended as warmth. She places it in its tray, and the room feels complete — not finished, but ready for tomorrow. What remains is not a fearsome, disordered hoard of abundance, but a renewed set of practices: gratitude, humility, joy, responsibility, and the wisdom to know the difference between what you have and what you are.
Prosperity is not a prize, the Shadow’s voice echoes, It’s a test you must keep passing.
The Self looks at the sealed ledger, the tidy room, and feels the quiet satisfaction in the air. It will be so, she says more to reassure herself than the Shadow.
Prove it.
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