“Not particularly,” Cammie yawned, “It’s probably just a mystery box again. Also, did I really have to get up this early again for you to give me this dumb prize?”
“Well, if that’s the case, we could simply just cancel you prize then, although it would be such a shame seeing as how she had to travel so far to spend the day with you.”
“Wait, what?” Cammie said turning around just as the stagehands opened up the curtain.
Standing behind the curtain was a rather short and unassuming looking girl. She had dirty blond hair that looked more brown than it did blond and extended all the way down to her waist. She had a healthy tanned complexion, and the brightest baby blue eyes. She was wearing some dark blue jeans, and a black tank top with the words ‘Team Cammie’ hand written in pink 3D fabric paint. She had the largest grin on her face, revealing her shiny, white, perfect teeth.
“A-Alex?” Cammie managed to spit out.
“That’s right Cammie! The viewers have spoken, and they felt it would only be appropriate if your prize was to have a friend spend a day in the castle with you. As we had each of you pick out a friend before the competition began to bring with you on the possible prizes, we brought over your selected friend, Alex. She’ll be here all day, and be able to answer questions for today and tomorrow.”
Cammie walked over to Alex, doing her best to avoid looking her partner in the face (which was much more difficult seeing as how she was much taller than Alex). “So…” Alex said.
“So…” Cammie returned back.
“When were you going to tell me?” Alex asked.
“As soon as I got home-“
“No silly, not about that,” Alex said, lifting grabbing Cammie’s head and forcing her to look at her, “that you were so much cuter than me?” She stood up on her tip toes and pulled Cammie in for a kiss.
After several moments of holding the kiss, Cammie and Alex broke their kiss apart, although Alex still held her close by her head and Cammie asked, somewhat incredulously, “Aren’t you mad at me?”
“Well when my friend Frankie revealed it to me I was, after I confirmed it myself, of course. But then that just gave me an excuse to watch the show with her every night, and as I watched, I realized that despite the fact that you were a girl this whole time, you were still the same Cammie that I fell in love with. I’m not the sort of shallow person who would deny my feelings for you simply because of the way you look or what gender you are. I love you for you.”
Cammie started tearing up a little, whispering into her ear, “you don’t know how happy I am to hear that,” before going in for another long kiss.
~~~
Dining Room
“So everyone, this is my girlfriend Alex Parpia,” Cammie said, introducing the other assistants to her guest for the day.
“Hello everyone,” Alex said, waving her hand.
Saffron, ever the bubbly personality, was the first to stand up and practically assault Alex with a handshake, “Hi there Alex! My name’s Saffron! I’ve heard so many cool things about you! Is it true that you and Cammie hold the record for most divisions of an assistant in Wyoming?”
“Yep,” Alex said, beaming with pride, “It’s nothing compared to the world record. But it’s still pretty sick that we managed to get it.”
“Especially since you were the one doing all the hard work,” Cammie chuckled.
“Yeah, but just because I’m great doesn’t mean you get to slouch now that I know your secret, mister. I expect you to start pulling your own from now on.”
“But then we’d have to change our whole act!” Cammie laughed again, getting a look from Alex and responding in turn by kissing her cheek.
“Hello, I am Ophelia,” Ophelia curtseyed, “It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance.”
“It’s nice to meet you too, Ophelia,” Alex said, reaching into her bright pink backpack she had been allowed to bring. She pulled out a variety of metal shapes on colored strings and a few old and battered books. “So, I saw that you were into a lot of Ancient Magick sort of stuff. There was actually a brief period when I was fourteen when I really got into it, and I double checked if I had some of my old books and wards, and I actually did! I don’t really practice that stuff anymore, so I thought it would be good if you had them,” Alex smiled, giving Ophelia the books and knick-knacks.
“W-Wow. Thank you,” Ophelia said briefly looking through the pages of the magic books, “I must admit that I’m not as familiar with wards as I am with potions and spells, so thank you for these.”
“No problem,” Alex smiled at her. As Ophelia went to sit down to keep reading, Jill finally approached, leading to Alex to say, “And you must be Jill?”
“Yep-“ Jill was caught off guard as Alex jumped her in a hug, which Jill awkwardly returned, “Um… Not that I don’t mind, but why are you hugging me?”
“Because you’ve been so kind to Cammie ever since she came out to you before everyone else,” Alex answered, squeezing her tighter, “I can’t thank you enough for your kindness.”
Eventually, Alex broke up the hug, and Saffron had to ask, “Well Alex, you’ve seem to taken this whole gender reveal thing pretty well.”
“Well yeah,” Alex said, snuggling back up with Cammie, “I mean, I love Cammie. Whether as a boy or a girl, it doesn’t matter.”
“Wow! That’s so awesome!” Saffron said, “What are you going to do if Cammie wins? Seeing as how she’s your assistant.”
“Well, it’s going to suck not having an assistant for a whole year, but I’m going to be supportive and cheer her on at every show!” Cammie kissed her on the cheek again.
“How sweet,” Saffron said, the slightest hint of resentment in her voice.
David then entered the room, spotting Alex and giving her a hug, “Hello there Alex! It’s so nice to meet the magician of one of my wonderful assistants,”
“Nice to meet you to David. I used to watch your tricks all the time when I was a kid. Your trick where you changed Amanda into her component atoms and used her carbon atoms to form diamonds is still one of my all time favorite tricks.”
“Why, thank you so much!” David beamed, “Funnily enough, it was forming the diamonds that was more difficult than breaking up a human into their atoms. Anyway, I’m glad I caught you all. I’m hosting a dinner in honor of Alex’s visit, and was hoping you all would come along to celebrate with me,” David addressed the room.
After everyone had agreed, reluctantly or otherwise, David said, “Excellent! See you all later then!” leaving the room once more and allowing the group to go along their merry way.
~~~
Jill’s Practice
“Well Jill, I think your technique has greatly improved since we first started practicing,” David said at the end of her rehearsal.
“Thanks David! Cammie and I have been practicing almost every day together and she’s been really great at helping me work on my magic ability, and timing in general.”
“Yes, I can see that.”
“Ooh! And she’s even helping me start practicing using magic on others.”
“Really now. Do you think you could demonstrate on me?” David asked, gesturing towards the many loose cabinets he had simply lying around in the practice room.
“Um… Sure, but I don’t know if I want to use something as deadly as knives yet on others.”
“Alright then, just use what you feel comfortable with,” David said.
Jill walked her to where she had left the rolling pin from Tuesday’s rehearsal with Cammie. She instructed David to lay down on a table, and placed the rolling pin down on David’s stomach. She focused on her vision of being flattening she had used when practicing with Cammie, and began rolling David all over. While she wasn’t able to get David to be as flat as a piece of paper, she did manage to get him down to about three inches thick. “Excellent work!” David cheered, “I’m so impressed!”
“Thanks, you might want to restore yourself though, unless your fine with spending another hour trying to get you to the proper thickness again.” “Well, my practice with Ophelia is in a couple minutes,” David said, his body blowing up back to his normal proportions, “so I’ll pass, but we should definitely focus on practicing on that if you’re still around next week.”
“I’d like that,” Jill said.
~~~
Ophelia’s Practice
“So Ophelia, have you figured out what you’re going to do for Saturday yet?” David asked.
“I believe I have, although I fear that if I share my plan, you will make fun of me.” “Ophelia, when have I ever made fun of you?”
“David, there is no need to hide your dislike of me, I already had a conversation with your lovely wife Amanda. She told me you said I had a ‘strong personality’. I may be old-fashioned, but I am not stupid David.”
“Ophelia, I’m hurt that you would think so little of me,” David said, placing his hand against his chest.
“So you’re denying it?”
“I’m not. I told Amanda you had a strong personality, but I did not mean that as a negative. Quite the contrary, when I was starting out I dealt with so many assistants who had no personality. They might be good for beginner magicians to help learn the ropes, however the problem with assistants who have no personality is that they bring nothing to the act. They are simply props who will do anything with a smile. I hate that! I want an assistant who’s going to challenge me! One who’s going to come to me with their own ideas for the next great trick, or newest illusion to test out on her. Why do you think I’ve stuck with Amanda for so many years? It’s because she’s got the strongest personality of any woman I’ve ever met.”
Ophelia genuinely felt upset that she had misinterpreted David’s message, and made him upset. “I’m sorry David,” she said, “I-I didn’t realize-“
“It’s fine,” David said, his tone softening significantly, “I understand how you might have misunderstood the comment out of context. Now, why would I make fun of you for this idea of yours?”
“Well, because I’m going to need your help to help dress me for the first part of the act,” Ophelia said.
“Is that all?” David asked, a grin forming on his face.
“No, but that’s what I’m going to start with.”
“Alright then,” David said, rolling up his sleeves, “So, explain the whole act from the top and I’ll tell you what you need."
~~~
Jill
It was almost time for the big dinner David had planned to celebrate Alex’s visit, and Jill was looking for Saffron, as she had hardly seen her all day since they had gone their separate ways after breakfast. She knocked on the door, focusing on Saffron’s room, and was rather shocked when it was Fernando who opened the door, letting her in, instead of Saffron.
“Oh, hello Fernando,” Jill said. The room looked the same as it always was, an everlasting party of sentient stuffed animals. “Hey Fernando, do you know where Saffron is? David’s dinner party is about to start and I thought we could go together since Ophelia wants to go alone.”
Fernando nodded his head, and opened up the door, leading to a place Jill would not have expected Saffron to be.
~~~
Jill & Saffron
Jill stepped out onto the roof of Château de L’ange. The roof was mostly flat, although with the slightest hint of an edge so that things wouldn’t get stuck up there. The red tile felt secure as the door she had walked out from vanished into thin air. Overhead, the black sky was filled with stars, as all of the ambient light from within the castle never escaped from the actual walls of the building.
Near the edge of the building, Saffron was sitting with her legs over the edge of the roof. She had her head detached, and it was angled slightly upwards to look at the stars. Jill approached her, announcing her presence by asking “Saffron?”
“Go away!” Saffron shouted, doing her best to angle her head so that Jill would be unable to see her face. Her voice sounded more nasally than usual.
“Saffron, what’s wrong?” Jill asked, getting even closer to the edge of the roof.
“Nothing! Just go enjoy David’s party!” Saffron practically shouted again. Now Jill had reached the edge of the roof, sitting down and dangling her own feet off the edge of the building.
She pulled Saffron’s head out from her lap, much to her and her body’s dismay, and turned it to look towards her. Saffron was clearly crying, although now that Jill could see her she was doing her best to hide it. “Saffron. Seriously what’s up? You’ve been MiA ever since Alex showed up.”
“Nothing! It’s just- It’s just-“ “It’s just what!” “It’s because I can’t be a magician’s assistant!” Saffron shouted, breaking into another bout of tears.
“Saffron, calm down. What do you mean.”
Between sobs, Saffron began explaining, “Alex got me thinking. About how she said that she was going to be with Alex every step of the way. And you know it made me realize, how alone I really am. My family has never approved of my dreams. I mean, look at how successful my older sisters are! My oldest is a news anchor and the my other sister is the CEO of a multi-million dollar company! Magician’s Assistant doesn’t exactly scream success of the family, now does it? You know, my younger sisters absolutely idolize my older sisters. Saying that when they grow up they’re going to be so rich and successful. But you know, when you actually go out there? It’s not that easy. I didn’t even earn my first job! My sister had to pull strings to actually get me this stupid tour guide position.” Saffron’s body reached over, snatching the Smithsonian beret off her head and throwing it off the roof.
“Do you know what they said to me when I told them I made it on this show?” Saffron asked, not really looking for an answer, “They said I was probably going to get kicked out in the first round. That I’m childish for wanting to chase my dreams! All of my friends at work or in school were people who didn’t even think magic was real! Even when I showed them what I could do! Like, you can’t possibly understand what it feels like to have nobody support your dreams.”
“Actually,” Jill said, “I understand it more than you’d think.”
“Oh yeah!” Saffron sniffed, “How so?”
“Back home, my parents were super strict conservatives. When I started getting into magic during my senior year of high school, not even practicing mind you, but just watching others perform it, they freaked out and banned it from the house. When I still kept going to stuff, they gave me an ultimatum, either I could remove all connections in my life to magic, or I could find somewhere else to live and someone else to pay for college.”
“So, I moved into an apartment with five other strangers, I go to a community college in the next town over, and I work a full time job so that I can hopefully save up enough to maybe transfer to an in-state school. Literally, besides the people in my flattening club at school, I know next to nobody in town. I’m sure if I won I’d never even be allowed to talk to my family again to show them how misguided their way of thinking is.” Now Jill was in tears too, thinking about the various negative turns her life had taken ever since she had been introduced to magic, and it was Jill’s turn Saffron’s head around so that she wouldn’t be able to see her tears.
Saffron had gone quiet, listening to Jill’s tale of woe, and after the two had cried for a good while, she tried to lighten the mood a bit, saying, “Would you look at us. Two assistants on the verge of greatness, with absolutely no-one to share it with but each other.”
And so the two spent the evening staring up at the night sky neither really saying a word after this. After a little bit of time sitting together, Jill laid her head against the flat expanse between Saffron’s shoulders.
~~~
Alex, Cammie, Ophelia, David, Amanda
Everyone else had done their best to wait up for Jill and Saffron, but David decided the food was going to get cold if they didn’t start soon. “Well everyone,” David said, standing up from his seat in the dining room. On the table was a spread of some of Alex’s and Cammie’s favorite foods (mostly a mix of Italian and Chinese food), and in his hand was a tall glass of red wine. “I would like to propose a toast tonight. To Alex and Cammie. If their relationship was able to withstand as a massive a change as this, I’m certain it will last for many, many more years to come.”
Everyone else echoed his sentiment before taking a sip of wine (or grape juice in Amanda’s case). They then started digging in to the odd pairing of food in front of them.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
& Question Corner &
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
To Trina: “To help assure the security of such an illustrious company, how well do you imagine the contestants would have gone in a proper scenario, beyond just this one facet of your company's security system?”
Oh trust me, if their task was to get past all of our security systems, there’s no way any of them would have succeeded. I’m not going to go into it in detail, because revealing our secrets is something magicians don’t like doing, but if any of the volunteers actually tried to go up in the elevator, they would have been immediately trapped.
To Cammie: “How is it, meeting an idol to many? And how is it, knowing that your gender reveal made you about as famous as her, at least for a couple days?” -FlexibleAnatomy
Cammie: Oh my God! I wasn’t this starstruck since I met David for the first time. Seriously, Jessica is just as much a treat as all of her photoshoots make her out to be. She gave me some tips for my performance that I hope will come off well this Saturday. She said if I ever needed anything, that she would be glad to help, but I’m pretty sure she was just saying that to be polite.
I really don’t know if my gender reveal made me as famous as her, even for that brief period of time where it was big in all the tabloids. For starters, she’s had years in the magic community to form a following, while I’ve only just made it big because of this show. Yeah, we get a ton of fans show up to our live tapings, but I’m pretty sure they’re more so here to see David perform than they are for us. I don’t know, what do you think Alex?
Alex: I wouldn’t sell yourself short sweetie. I mean, you got the second lowest amount of votes last round, and you’ve practically become a household name back home. Even Vivian was boasting that she knew you before you got famous.
Cammie: What?! But Vivian hates me!
Alex: Exactly. You know she wouldn’t be acting that way unless she thought you were really famous.
Cammie: Alright, I guess I did get that famous then? Um… I feel about the same I guess?
Alex: Really? That’s all you’ve got?
Cammie: What do you want me to say? I’ve been cooped up in this castle for two and a half weeks without access to television or the internet. It’s not like I get to enjoy my fame! And unless I win all that fame is going to go away in less a week when I get back.
Alex: Well… Win or lose you’ll always be famous to me. *Kisses Cammie on the cheek*
Cammie: Aww. Thanks Alex. *Hugs Alex*
To Saffron: “In terms of the Body Rebellion, I heard that it involve some planning from bodies and some evolutionary thing in that one town. Not near mine of course or else I would not able to talk to you.
As for the head shop, this one magician asked a friend of mine to talk about it is all. Apparently the place has some decently priced heads and you don't have to worry about consciousness. It's odd and its best if you contact the place. The store's number is (CENSORED).” -quad2
Well, it it was an evolutionary thing, there must be something in the water by that town that the government should investigate to make sure something like that doesn’t happen again.
Alright. I’ll call the place when the contest is over, since our phones don’t really get connection in David’s place. Actually, there’s a lot places I need to call now that I think about it.
To David: “Hey David, a friend of mine wanted me to tell you that the owner of this Head Shop he visits was a former magician by the name of Rei and that she gave him a message to pass on to you: "Hey Davy! It's Rei! To think my little magician in arms got this big. Wish I was as rich." He said that she would normally contact you herself, but she had time restraints and something about Amanda having issues with her.” -quad2 (Rephrased a bit to make sense being addressed to David.)
Oh wow! I haven’t heard from Rei in years… I’m glad she’s doing well for herself, although it’s sad to hear that she retired from stage magic. I’ve always considered inviting her over, but I’m pretty sure she’s right about Amanda still being sore with her. If you’re watching Rei, we seriously need to catch up some time.
To All: “Yeah, Cammie proved that social engineering attacks are basically the only way past modern security other than sheer overwhelming force. I guess Ophelia technically proved the latter as well, and would have won if nobody else had gotten through. Did any of you consider the possibility of ignoring the front door entirely and trying to sneak in elsewhere? My broadcast cut off in the middle of explaining the challenge, so I didn't hear anything about that not being allowed…” -HeraldOfOpera
Cammie: Yeah. Most security is just security theater anyways, so I felt like my approach would be the most simple to execute.
Saffron: Gah! That sounds like a smart idea. Wish I had thought of it.
Ophelia: I did not consider it, but even if I had Julienne go through the back, I’m pretty sure my plan would have caused her to not get through anyways.
Jill: I’m still pretty certain if they hadn’t forced Karina to go before me, she would have gotten by security scot-free.
Drake: Unfortunately, your plan wouldn’t work because the only other ground floor entrance to the building has the exact same security systems in place. I guess they could have instructed their partner to scale the building while they caused a distraction, but then they would have to deal with the armed guards on the roof, and then we’d have to deal with insurance and lawyers, and really it just all sounded like too much effort for our producers. That’s why we had the contestants make sure to tell us their plans so that we could approve it before filming the attempt. I’m impressed by your out of the box thinking though!
To Cammie: “Your unique situation results in a non-mystery prize option having the same, if not more, potential for interesting results. If I have my way, Alex will be learning about you sooner rather than later... Actually, given that you didn't bother with a pseudonym, what are the chances that she'd already figured it on her own?” -HeraldOfOpera
Cammie: Well, since Alex is here right now, she can answer this question for me.
Alex: Hello Harold. I don’t really watch much television if I’m being honest. I’m more into bingewatching shows when they finally get uploaded to Netflix, Hulu, or Amazon Prime. I actually found out the news from a friend of mine who watches the show religiously (which, by the way, Hey Frankie! I’m on TV!).
I honestly had no clue that Cameron was actually Cammie this entire time before hand. Like yeah, he was always a little bit effeminate, but like half of the guys in this industry are a little flamboyant or extra so I didn’t really think anything of it. Plus, I met his older sister Rachel (who was kind enough to come clean when I revealed that I knew the truth) and she had told me Cameron always looked up to her and got a lot of her hand-me-down toys and movies.
I hope that answers you question.
Cammie: Oh, as for why I didn’t just use a pseudonym. Alex and her friends knew I was going to be a contestant on the show, so it wouldn’t have made much sense to use fake names since they all knew who I was anyways. Also, the prize is a year’s assistant contract, I wouldn’t just spring this up on her, since I am her assistant. In fact, I wasn’t going to accept originally, since it would mean I would have to leave her alone again, but she insisted that I go on, since it was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.