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Post by Ϛ The magician on Jan 8, 2009 1:54:03 GMT -5
The magician, simply put, did not fit in here. He got strange looks left and right, was constantly harassed, and for some reason, everyone kept asking him for his wallet, trying to trade him a knife or a gun for it. And whenever he told them he didn't need a gun of a knife because he had plenty of his own, they tried to hurt him. He thought he was being perfectly polite, but apparently people here had a different sort of manners.
Well, the magician didn't like being hurt, so these meetings generally ended up with the person who wanted his wallet lying in an alley with a knife in the gut. Sometimes, he had learned, it was the only way to get people to be quiet and leave him alone. And he never lamented the loss of a knife; he always had plenty more if he needed them.
He had just had one of these such encounters, and was staring vacantly at the street while wiping his hands clean of crimson on a horrified man's suit, when he noticed something different. There was someone crossing the street, which he had found to be pretty normal, and there was a car driving, which seemed unavoidable in such a place.
What was unusual was that the person was crossing the street into the same piece of road the car was driving to, and neither seemed particularly aware of the other.
Cocking his head to the side, which caused the precariously perched piece of plumage on his chapeau to flay about nonsensically, he removed a black and white wand from a pocket and waved it about.
When time stalled for him, he made his way out into the street, and, staring at the crosser for a moment with a look of utter confusion on the visible portion of his face, he tapped them on the shoulder with the wand, bringing them into the time field with him.
"I'm sorry to interrupt," he said, his odd voice fitting for one dressed the way he was, "but I'm terribly curious. Did you mean to be hit by that vehicle?" He motioned at the approaching (though paused) SUV. "Because I think that would hurt. But if you really want to, you can go right ahead."
The uncovered portion of his mouth perked upward in a twisted imitation of a smile.
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Post by aaron on Jan 10, 2009 8:01:35 GMT -5
This was Aaron's first trip to a human city.
And likely his last.
He absolutely hated it here. He had tried to keep to the more high end places, filled with snotty rich people doing whatever fickle human style is popular at the moment. At least environmental friendliness was in, so the stench and pressure of smog was less evident.
He looked up at the filtered sunlight, hating every inch of this cesspool for ruining the most likely once beautiful scenery of the land.
And cars.
How he hated cars.
How he loathed their exhaust pipes choking out gallons of unchecked smog, the acrid smell of burning rubber on asphalt. How he despised the screeching of the brakes, and the rudeness of a honking horn.
However, sometime during his loathing, he had attempted to cross the street. Then, everything stopped, and a quite suddenly appearing... thing... was directly in front of him, tapping him with some sort of perverted stick.
"Did I mean to get hit by wh- HOLY S**T!" Shock and awe over washed Star as he stared at the deathtrap that was stopped in mid run, some business man with his mouth gaping open, cellphone in hand, in the drivers seat."
Star braced for impact.
Impact never came.
Star realized nothing was really moving, except for him and the... human... er.... thing.
Making sure to step on the other side of the human, away from the SUV, he said. "Thank you! Thank you so much! Are you.... one of those gifted? Thank you, by the Queen, Thank you!"
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Post by Ϛ The magician on Jan 10, 2009 12:13:59 GMT -5
When the faerie loudly cursed, the magician jumped a little and put his hand to his mouth in surprise, somehow releasing a dove from his sleeve with the gesture. The dove, which seemed to not care much about everything being paused, flew to a nearby rooftop and preened. The magician didn't seem to be overly upset about the loss of the bird, and his attention stayed fully on Aaron.
He gazed at the boy with a look of puzzlement on his face as he readied himself for the car to hit him. For a moment, the magician took this to mean that he did wish to be hit after all, and had just about resumed the flow of time when the boy moved out of the way. The magician cocked his head slightly to the side and listened as he spoke.
"What are 'those Gifted'? I'm one of me. Am I 'those Gifted'?"
The magician had no idea who the Gifted Ones were, and was never enrolled at the Academy. In fact, he didn't even know it existed. His Gift had been passed off as a talent for sleight of hand his entire life, and that fact coupled with his clear issues with sanity led very few to believe he could possibly be special in more than the one sense.
As an afterthought, he added, "Are you British?"
Yes, he didn't know who the fae queen was, or even who fae in general were. As far as he was concerned, nothing supernatural existed besides the hallucinations he saw, and his power wasn't actually a power, it was something everyone could do. In fact, he often wondered why no one else seemed to actually use their ability, but even though he was insane, he knew that the very nature of the ability was that no one but the user would be able to tell what was happening.
As he contemplated the answers to these pressing issues, he waved his wand once more, and the cars started whizzing by again. Both the magician and Aaron were now on the median of the road, and thus somewhat safe from the flow of traffic, but the wind from the vehicles rushing past them whipped at their clothes and accosted their ears and eyes.
The magician didn't seem to notice.
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Post by aaron on Jan 10, 2009 12:24:51 GMT -5
Honks from the agitated cars assailed the two, not seeming to stop anytime soon. Thankfully, a red light blinked somewhere, and all the traffic came to a more natural stop. The honks and cries of "Get off the road" still assailed them, but at least Aaron could move to the sidewalk, talking to the gentleman who saved his life. He had no idea what to do in this kind of situation.
Aaron couldn't tell if the Magician was joking or not. "Yes... you are a gifted. You stopped time... didn't you? And no, I'm not British..." Aaron was confused by this man.
"Who are you?"
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Post by Ϛ The magician on Jan 11, 2009 18:30:20 GMT -5
The magician followed Aaron to the sidewalk with the gait of a royal, oblivious to the negative attention most everyone in the vicinity seemed to be giving him. Or so it seemed, anyway, until a man got out of his car with anger scrawled across his features and approached the pair, yelling curses and looking ready to swing his fists around haphazardly, and the magician stared right at him.
And then, suddenly, he was in a different position; walking away from the man, who had now stopped his approach, probably due to the knife that was stuck through the leg of his pants and, amazingly, right into the ground. As the man struggled to free himself, the magician continued walking lazily away as if nothing had happened.
"You mentioned the Queen," he said aloud, not facing Aaron but clearly still talking to him. He seemed to not be planning on speaking about whether he did or did not stop time, nor about his exact logic in assuming the fae was British.
"I'm a magician," he said insistently, his tone that of a young child playing make-believe. Apparently he didn't intend on answering that question properly either. He continued walking down the street, away from Aaron and the pinned man. He would soon be out of earshot if Aaron didn't follow, yet for some reason, he still asked, "Who are you?"
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Post by aaron on Jan 12, 2009 17:12:02 GMT -5
Aaron yelped in surprise as The Magician skewered the man's leg.
... No, it was only his pant leg. Maybe Star was a little jumpy, probably something to do with ALMOST GETTING KILLED!
In any case, Aaron jogged to catch up with the man that was now walking swiftly away.
" I was talking about the Faery Queen...
and when I asked my question, I was looking for a name. Although I must say, you make a good magician."
"I'm Aaron Staar, Star to my friends."
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Post by Ϛ The magician on Jan 19, 2009 14:43:26 GMT -5
The magician stopped and spun quickly on his heel, coming face to face with Aaron. Face to multiply-masked,, clown-makeup-ed, crooked-grinning face. And the latter of the two had the nerve to ask, "Are you a lunatic?" He raised his (visible) eyebrow questioningly, but a scant few seconds later, he had turned around again and resumed walking. You could cut the irony with a knife.
"Lunatics aren't safe to be around, you know, and you seem pretty harmless. Only a lunatic would swear by a queen of fairies, though." Time stopped for a moment, and when it resumed, he was fingering a wad of cash that would later be missed by the woman who had just walked by. For the time being, however, she didn't even know someone had rifled through her purse, and he was left to count his spoils in peace.
"And I don't want your name, I want to know who you are. Names are stupid. If you name was Aar-inSane, then your name would tell me what you are, and it would be useful. I don't know what an Aaron is, so your name doesn't help one bit."
He seemed almost agitated by the whole encounter, as if this sort of thing was blatantly obvious, as if he shouldn't have to explain it to anyone.
At that moment, he finished going through the money, and had separated it into two wads; one of $1 bills, the other of other denominations, totalling maybe a few hundred dollars altogether. He held the more valuable bills out to Aaron. "Do you want these? George is my favourite, and I have lots of these other ones anyway."
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Post by aaron on Jan 19, 2009 16:37:58 GMT -5
Aaron had more witty, clever, and all around life changing remarks in place for the Magician's reply.
What he wasn't prepared for was being called a lunatic by a man in a magician suit who walks around with half a clown mask on and can stop time.
"Hey, look, I'm not insane! I'm just... uh... never mind. How do I explain who I am... you can't... you know..." Aaron hoped he did, because god knows he doesn't.
How Star missed the wad of cash being presumably pulled out of the Magician's pocket, Aaron would never know. "Er... thanks?"
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Post by Ϛ The magician on Jan 19, 2009 17:27:57 GMT -5
"I can't...? Can't what? Don't you know it's rude to tell people they can't do things?"
He continued walking down the street as he said this, flailing his arms around angrily as if to express just how absurd the whole conversation was. In the distance, sirens were sounding, but he didn't seem to notice them. "And if you're not a lunatic, what are you? Did you mean fairy queen like an incredibly gay man? Swearing by that sort of person if still pretty insane if you ask me."
At that moment, two police cars swerved into view. Apparently the St. Louis Police Department didn't appreciate knife-wielding maniacs roaming the streets, pinning civvies to the sidewalk. They all seemed really eager to shoot him too, for some reason; their guns were unholstered and brought to bear as soon as they'd reached the car. Luckily for the magician, the police didn't seem to think waving a wand and yelling 'Abracadabra ' was much of a threat, and didn't shoot him when the white-tipped instrument of false magic was thrust skyward.
Of course, this proved to be a mistake when their guns turned into bouquets of flowers.
"Where were we?" he asked absently of Aaron, keeping his eyes on the mightily-confused officers. In the confusion, no one seemed to notice that a flower shoppe nearby seemed to have been burglarized, or that there were a good few handguns populating the sewers now.
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Post by aaron on Jan 19, 2009 17:52:06 GMT -5
Aaron was starting to wish that he had been hit by the SUV.
"WHAT!? NO! I... er... never mind. Let's say that I was incredibly drunk when I said that, and now have miraculously been healed by your presence."
Star was eager to change the subject. "In any case, can you really do that magic... I mean, back there?" The two were walking at an incredibly fast pace, and the very confused police officers were starting to become farther and farther away.
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Post by Ϛ The magician on Jan 19, 2009 19:31:59 GMT -5
The magician stopped walking for a second and gave Aaron a searching look. "Hm," he hmed, "you sober up fast, Lunatic." And with that, he continued walking, turning a corner into a mostly deserted alley.
"Of course I didn't do magic. Magic doesn't exist, Lunatic. I just walked over and put the flowers in their hands. For some reason, they didn't notice. Sometime I don't understand why everyone doesn't do 'magic'. It's pretty easy. I'm not the only one who can do it."
He was referring not to other Gifted, but to the likes of other magicians and illusionists; David Copperfield, David Blaine, Criss Angel, and the like.
"Are you going to follow me all day? Because those men won't wait back there forever. They usually don't give up until I've disappeared completely, and you might not want to be associated with me. They have these nasty places called jails..."
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Post by aaron on Jan 20, 2009 19:30:04 GMT -5
Aaron smiled. "I've got my own brand of... magic. I can lose them. And you did not put the flo-" The truth struck Aaron like a brick.
"Oh! You mean the time stop thing! I know I can't do it... and I'm pretty sure not many other people can..." Star made a resolution to stop trying to reason with this.. Magician.
"And don't call me Lunatic. I told you my name is Aaron."
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Post by Ϛ The magician on Jan 21, 2009 1:39:43 GMT -5
"Oh, a fellow magician?" the Magician said delightedly, though his features were clouded by confusion when Aaron mentioned 'the time stop thing', and how he could not himself do it. However, his twisted mind wasn't in the mood to try and comprehend to consequences of this, and so it went mostly ignored.
Instead he focused on the bit where Aaron said he could do magic too.
"Well then, you might want to leave before the catch up or send more. I'll eventually get tired, you know. I'm only human." Not that one could tell by looking at him. "In fact, I think I'll be off right now, since you can handle yourself."
Time stopped for another moment, and the scene froze; the officers running down the street toward them with batons and a taser pulled, civilians panicking, a bum down the alley staring at the magician and his flashy clothes in amazement.
"Pleasure meeting you, Confused Comrade," said the magician merrily, still refusing to address Aaron by his useless name. "I'll see you again soon, no doubt."
And with that, he climbed a fire escape ladder and took off. Time would start again for Aaron as soon as the magician got about twenty feet away from him and lost his hold on the boy's temporal signature.
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Post by aaron on Jan 21, 2009 15:27:59 GMT -5
Star just stared in dumbfounded amazement as the Magician just upped and left. His fingers flicked as he changed his basic facial features, and how his clothes looked.
Time regained it's territory, and Star ducked into the alley, only to re emerge and shout at the officers about some madman escaping into a sewer system.
He didn't even pause for a response as he ran to catch a stopping bus.
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