The players turned their Home cards next. The lawyer flipped a Cold Dark City and smiled a little. This was a man who knew his cards all right.

The lawyer began to Orate.

Now, this is the part where Parsnit gets tricky. It’s hard to explain just what happens when a player begins to Orate. It’s something to do with the cards, how the cards are specifically theirs, how well they know their cards, each tiny detail of them, and how well the player can tell the cards’ story. Because Parsnit is all about storytelling, when you get down to it. It’s about weaving a story with the cards, until the two players weave their stories into one.

Orating is the best part of the whole game. I had a feeling about this lawyer fella. He was about to do something incredible, that I knew.

The lawyer’s voice was strange-accented, like it had picked up a little bit of here and there along the way. It was rich and gentle, a good dessert of a voice, like hot cider on a cold night. And that’s what I felt all of a sudden, with a chill—I was cold. The Parsnit cards were working, the lawyer was telling the right story for them. I heard him tell of a man gone a long way off for business—his person, the Ornery Banker, the card that always irked me, because who would want to be an Ornery Banker when you could be a Rambling Duke or a High Lonesome Traveler or even a Fish Boy? But as he Orated I began to feel for the person, just a little bit. I was cold and wet and my legs hurt from tramping through the snow, and I ached in my bones for home.

See, all Parsnit decks are a little bit different, that’s a fact, though they all are based on the same ideas, the same places and people and pictures. The difference is in the details. Like Pop’s Cold Dark City card was the absolute pits. The snow comes down long and heavy in great gray streaks, and a woman drags a screaming kid through muddy streets, and the kid has lost his shoe, you can see it sticking up in the mud, all the snow half-melted and sludgy and black. Pop’s Cold Dark City card was the worst and most miserable place I could imagine folks living.

But the lawyer’s Cold Dark City was a different place entirely. Yeah, the snow was coming down thick and heavy, and the town seemed grim with darkness. But that wasn’t all. The snow was piled in soft white clouds all over the rooftops, like something you could fall down in and it wouldn’t hurt. The mom and child darted through the streets, same as Pop’s, only the kid didn’t have his boot stuck, and there was someone waiting for them—the daddy maybe—on the front porch, his hat in his hand, the door wide open. They were heading home. This was the story the lawyer was Orating, this was the exact perfect story his cards wanted him to tell. I began to see the scene with my own eyes, the card wafting through my brain, the ice and snow, that poor man having made it back from his long journey in time to welcome his wife and kid home from church. Just listening to him you could imagine hot coffee waiting for you, a warm fire and thick blankets and maybe even a dog, yapping and running around and licking all the melting snow off your hands. It was a happy home in the Cold Dark City, that’s for sure. When he finished Orating the snow on the card seemed to twinkle and flurry, and I saw the lawyer’s mouth twitch, just a little hint of a smile. He had given the card power, or else the card had called that power out of him. Only the sitting witch knew for sure.