“Wonderful…” Ophelia said sarcastically.
“Now, let’s see what you’ve won!” Drake said, taking a step away from the mystery prize as Ophelia uneventfully went forward and pulled the ribbon of the box, the box falling apart and revealing…
“Congratulations Ophelia on your brand new pet Phoenix!” Drake read from a card handed to him by a stagehand, as Ophelia eyed the flamboyant orange bird in it’s ornate golden cage. “This phoenix, or Renovamus Ignis, was contributed to the contest by ‘Macron’s Exotic Pets Emporium’. If you’re thinking about getting your loved one a pet, why not come on down to ‘Macron’s Exotic Pets Emporium’, where they have over a thousand different breeds of pets to choose from. From the mundane to the magical, you can trust ‘Macron’s Exotic Pets Emporium’ to find your next partner that will last you a lifetime.” Drake threw away the ad-read, before addressing Ophelia once more, “Well Ophelia, what do you think of your prize.”
But Ophelia had already left the stage. “Well… I’m sure we can catch up with her later.”
~~~
Leela’s Practice
“Hey David,” Leela said, sounding slightly defeated before their rehearsal had even started, “I need your help with something.”
“Alright, Leela, what’s on your mind?”
“Well… I have a really good idea for a trick for Saturday.”
“Okay, and you don’t think we can get it ready in time?”
“Well… It’s not exactly that. It’s more that, well it would actually be easier if I showed you.” Leela pulled out the briefcase containing the knives and swords that she had won a week earlier. “So, I need you to be on standby,” she said. Even more curious now, David got up, standing next to Leela as she lined up the blade with the highest knuckle of her pinky finger pushing down on it, the knife cutting through her like butter.
Leela gasped in pain as the blade passed through, quickly covering the end of her finger in a cloth as it was now bleeding profusely. The cameras blurred the image as she lifted the blade up, revealing that the upper half of her finger was disconnected, and was similarly bleeding profusely over the table she had performed the trick on.
David moved quickly, grabbing the finger bit and disappearing it, before doing likewise to disappear Leela’s pinky finger, “Now, why would you do something like that Leela?” he said. He wiped the area where Leela’s pinky finger had originally been, before finally reappearing her pinky, completely whole once again with no sign of the bloody ordeal.
“Sorry!” Leela said.
“Next time warn me more than that if you’re going to do something that will actually cause you bodily harm,” David said, wiping away the blood from everywhere that it had spilt. Once he was done, he stood up proper and said, “Alright. Now explain.”
“Well. It’s been an issue I’ve dealt with ever since I started magic, but basically, for some reason that I don’t understand, I can’t be cut up. Well, I can but I mean I can’t be cut up in the magical sense. It’s kind of the entire reason why I searched you out as my next master in the first place.”
David stared at her for a moment, mentally going through all of the tricks he had seen Leela perform in the past, before asking, “Alright… and the reason this is a problem for this week?”
“I have an idea that would require me to be in multiple small chunks near the very beginning of the trick.”
“Well, that’s simple enough to fix, but I can tell you right now fixing that overall issue that revolves around your inability to be cut is going to take much longer than the few weeks we have left together to fix.”
“Could we still work on it anyways?” Leela asked.
“Of course we’re going to work on it!” David said, “I’m just warning you that we’re probably not going to get the effect completely gone by the end of the contest, and that if you don’t win you’ll have to find someone else to get rid of whatever aftereffects we can’t work out.”
“I understand completely,” Leela said, more determined than ever to win.
“Great then,” David said, “We’ll start next week.”
~~~
Saffron’s Practice
“Tell me David, have you and Amanda bought any toys for Isabella yet?” Saffron asked after they had finished their practice.
“I don’t see how that’s any of your concern Saffron.” David said, summoning a cup of tea to calm his nerves after a long day of practicing.
“Well, if I’m potentially going to be your assistant at the end of all this, I would think it would be important that I know about the upcoming heir to the Angel name.”
“*sigh* Yes Saffron, we’ve already got the baby’s room completely set up.”
“Can I see it?”
“Saffron, I really don’t think-“
“Please?” Saffron said, extending the e of please out and giving her best puppy dog eyes.
“Saffron,” David looked at her, which was his mistake, as he was a sucker for puppy dog eyes. After several more seconds of begging, he said, “Oh, alright.”
~~~
Saffron & David
“Here it is,” David said, opening the door to Isabella’s future room.
“Oh, Wow!” Saffron said, spinning around in the center of the room, “this is amazing!” The room matched the normal sense of elegance and excess that could be expected in the Château de L’ange. The walls of the room were bright pink, but the ceiling was black, the glow in the dark stars scattered about to an almost disturbing accuracy to their real world counterparts. Against the wall was a white crib with ornate gold leaf pressed into the wooden columns. Against another wall were a variety of red, blue, and yellow buckets that held a variety of toys, from Barbie dolls and stuffed animals to monster trucks and GI Joe. There were multiple windows that gave a view that was clearly not what was outside of the castle, but instead was a sandy white beach.
“I know,” David said, admiring his handiwork, “Sadly, no magic stuff. Amanda strictly banned them until Isabella can talk.”
“Why would she want to do that?” Saffron said, busy rifling through the various buckets of toys.
“Something about not wanting her to get the impression she can solve all her problems with magic or some such nonsense,” David said, waving his hand.
“Sounds like her loss then. Me and my sisters loved using magic when we were little,” Saffron said, about half way through looking at all the toys.
“That actually reminds me Saffron. You keep mentioning your family. How is life back home?”
“Oh you know,” Saffron said, waving off the question, “it’s fine.”
“No, I mean like, share some details about your family. For instance how many sisters do you have.”
“A lot,” Saffron said.
“And how much is a lot?”
“I don’t know… Like twelve or thirteen maybe?”
“You don’t know?”
“Maybe fourteen…”
“That sounds like a lot for your parents.”
“Parent. It’s just my Dad.”
“Oh dear, sorry for your loss.”
“No need, I never knew my mom.” “Are you and your sisters all from the same mother?”
“Don’t know. Dad would never say.”
“Do you have any brothers?”
“God I wish!” Saffron said, now done looking through Isabella’s toys, and stretching her back.
“What does your Dad do? Is it something magic based?”
“I don’t know,” Saffron shrugged.
“How do you not know?”
“It’s not like I ask him what he does for a living,” Saffron said defensively. “He puts food on the table. Isn’t that what’s important?”
“Fair enough.”
“Thanks for showing me this David, but I got to go back to my room now. I got a hug fight scheduled with Fernando and I’m not about to lose eleven times in a row to that guy,”
“Alright Saffron. Oh, before you go,” David said, stopping her before she could get to the door.
“Yeah?” she asked without looking back.
“Amanda wants to invite you to dinner on Monday. That is, of course, if you make it past the next round,” David said, “I don’t know when you two met, but clearly you must have left a good impression.”
“I’ll see what I can do,” Saffron said, looking back and giving David a big smile before opening the door and returning to her room.
~~~
Ophelia & Jill
“So, have you figured out what you’re going to name her? Is it even a her?” Jill asked, looking closely at the Phoenix Ophelia had won earlier in the day. The bird was much smaller than she imagined a phoenix would have been, being only about a foot and a half in stature. The bird’s feathers were a bright orange that reminded Jill of traffic cones, and had a little tuft of feathers on top of its head that made it look like it had its own little haircut.
“No, I have not given it a name. Nor do I plan to, as I’m not going to keep it.”
“What? Why not?”
“A Phoenix is hardly an appropriate familiar for a witch of my caliber to keep,” Saffron said, waving her hand around.
“What do you mean?”
“Well, it’s not unusual for witches to have familiars, but typically they are animal companions who compliment the Spirit within themselves. For instance, my primary teacher in my Coven has a black dragon familiar, for her strong and formidable Spirit. Or another member of my Coven has a hell hound familiar, which represent their loyalty. And besides it so… so…”
“Orange?”
“Colorful! I’m hardly the colorful type of person, don’t you think,” Ophelia asked, pointing over her mostly dark outfit.
“Well… Aren’t Phoenix’s a major symbol of rebirth?” Jill asked, she was now sticking her finger in the cage, the Phoenix occasionally nibbling on her finger, which thankfully didn’t hurt all that much.
“Yes, but what does that say about me? That I’m fickle? That I’m likely to reinvent myself? That’s not at all accurate, nor helpful to getting a glimpse into my spirit.”
“I think you’re thinking about this wrong, Ophelia,” Jill said, turning to look at her seriously now, “As your entire belief in magicks relies around rebirth and an original identity, I would think that a phoenix would be the most noble of choices in a familiar. So what’s the real problem here?’
“W-what do you mean?”
“Come on Ophelia, we’ve been hanging out a ton recently, and I can tell that something is definitely eating you up about this bird. What is it?’
“N-nothing.”
“Ophelia!”
“I’ve never had a Pet! Okay?” Ophelia said, sitting down in a chair. “When I was younger, my birth mother wouldn’t let me keep one, and I wouldn’t know the first thing about raising a phoenix!” Ophelia was nearly in tears at having to face her own inadequacy, “Not to mention the budget Lucien and I have is very tight. We get by with just enough for me to pay for my witch training and for us to live together. I can’t be adding a pet into the mix on top of everything,” Ophelia covered her face, disgraced at her usage of common words, rather than the words her Coven had trained her to say.
“Hey,” Jill said, hugging Ophelia, “don’t beat yourself up about this. I know this is a tough decision, but I’m certain if David didn’t think you were ready, he would have pulled some strings to give you a prize you actually needed. I know I can’t force you to keep it, but take it from someone who’s has a significantly less cool, big, fluffy dog back home; I’m certain that this Phoenix will have a positive impact in your life.”
The two sat there in silence for a while, Ophelia just sort of resting in Jill’s arms, until Ophelia finally broke the connection.
“I think I’m going to name her Phaedra.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
& Question Corner &
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
To Ophelia: “What's it like, becoming a gas? Especially being a gas that's compressed from 64000cm^3 to 0.5cm^3? That compression must have been uncomfortable, purely because of the heat and pressure of being pressed to that size.” -FlexibleAnatomy
Becoming a gas is one of my favorite magicks to do, although I find that there are so few situations that necessitate doing such that I rarely feel like taking the effort to prepare it. To feel the very connections that make up your body begin to loosen, your sense of identity slipping away as you become a collection of molecules, with only a loose grasp to a singular consciousness. It’s easily one of my favorite sensations.
I must admit that I have yet to experience compression when in a gaseous form. Typically I just let myself spread out so that I can understand what it feels to be a consciousness free of being, so it never occurred to me that I would have to deal with increased temperature and pressure from the shrinking box. Since I was simply a consciousness attached to a variety of component molecules, the only thing I was truly aware of while in the box was a sense of my ‘body’ moving around more aggressively. I guess it may have been slightly uncomfortable, although it wouldn’t have registered as anything more than a slight headache. I’m very thankful the competition was done with a metal box, since I’m pretty sure the heat I generated would have burnt it to a crisp.
To Jill: “Now that you've seen Leela do it, how willing would you be to attempt being wrung multiple times over?” -FlexibleAnatomy
It definitely looks like a lot of fun! One of my favorite things about this contest is getting to see all these cool things I can recommend to try out with my friends back home! Going through the wringer multiple times is absolutely going to blow their minds.
To Cammie: "Need any water? That Conflagration was impressive. Though I will agree that it might prohibit some ideas for this week's trick: my personal idea was burning to ash, then being rehydrated into a candle, so I would have been back to the drawing board if I were playing. What was your reject idea, by the way?” -FlexibleAnatomy
Oh trust me, the first thing I did after performing that trick was take a nice long bath. I’ve only ever done this trick once before, and I remember coming out of it extremely dehydrated. Like, I had all the symptoms, headache, dry mouth, you get the gist. It honestly makes me wonder why anyone would want to do this trick when they could just melt themselves instead, but different strokes for different folks.
When I mentioned reject ideas, I meant that I briefly thought of using an oven as my focal object for my magic trick on Saturday, and assumed that Saffron also thought of using a blender as her object on Saturday but decided against it. I briefly considered using one of my other rejected ideas for Saturday for the contest, that being a frying pan to melt myself down, but then I realized that turning myself into a liquid would leave me the same volume.
To Ophelia: “Congrats on the victory.” -quad2
Thank you.
To Ophelia: “I can respect that, putting being yourself over the actual competition. You'll go far with an attitude like that, just... not on this show.” -HeraldOfOpera
I signed up for this show under the understanding that I might not win. If I would have to change myself to win, that I would rather not win.