The Left Angle Cross of Alignment (Version 1)

Full breakdown

The gift of left-angle people is their constant relationship to the geometries that came before them, which gives everything a sense of motion — and nowhere is that motion more visible than in Alignment. These are people who know how to catch the moment of transition and give it the right direction. It can't be done without risk, which is why this cross so often carries disaster with it.

Picture riding a motorcycle when a car suddenly backs out onto the road in front of you — that's the right angle's unexpected. Alignment knows how to take the hit, twist the body at the right angle, and land in the bushes instead of slamming into the wall on the other side. Whatever the unexpected brings, this cross can put it to use and fold it back into the flow — a blip on the radar that disappears.

It's like Jupiter swallowing comet Shoemaker-Levy: bombarded by twenty-seven fragments, any one of which could have ended life on Earth, Jupiter absorbed them all like nothing. All that was left was the smell of dead fish — Ra's favorite detail, since the chemical signature scientists found afterward literally read that way.

But there's a cost. With the unconscious Earth in 28.5, the line of Betrayal, these people leave a lot of people behind. A student is perfectly happy with their teacher, and then a new teacher comes to town — this person switches immediately, aligning with the unexpected and leaving the old teacher behind without a second thought. The abandoned teacher feels betrayed; the community calls the student disloyal. But the truth is, this alignment is simply taking them where they need to go — even if, along the way, it looks like nothing more than following a detour sign and ending up in Timbuktu.

The sixth line brings its own trouble here, because it's the Blaze of Glory — one of the deepest lines of depression and suicide on the wheel. These are people who throw themselves at the unexpected, try to make the most of it, align with it — and can pay a heavy price in their relationships, always chasing the next moment of movement and leaving people behind along the way.