Goodbye Ceremony

    “Ophelia, I must say working with you has been one of the best and most unique experiences in my life," David said, offering his hand to Ophelia, who shook it readily, “and as such, I felt it would be best to give you one of the more unique gifts I can give,” David reached into his pocket, pulling out a golden key.
    “Since I know you’re still training to be a witch, I imagine you’ll want access to as much information about the Ancient Magicks as possible. As someone with one of the largest collections of magical literature in the world, I hardly have the time to be able to read them all. As such, I’m offering you the key to my magic library,” David handed her the key, “You can put this key into any door, and it will take you to my wonderful library. Unfortunately, that key won’t work until the end of the competition, so I’ve made sure all the books and such that were in your room will make it home with you.”
    Ophelia wasn’t sure what to say. She was overwhelm with the kindness that David had shown her over this moment, and all the others that he has done for her and everyone else in the competition. She rushed forwards, hugging David, hiding her face from the audience in an attempt to maintain her shell of composure in public. David did not resist, allowing her to gain her composure before she broke apart.
    “Now then, as much as it pains me to say, it’s time to perform our last trick together.”

    For their final trick together, Ophelia had allowed David to wear his normal clothes while she wore her classic black wedding dress. She was tied up to a stake that sat upon a pile of logs. “Ophelia has wished to leave the show, in the only way that is appropriate for a witch,” David said, striking a match, “By burning at the stake.” David flicked the match into the pile of logs, where it immediately began blazing.
    Ophelia let loose an inhuman scream as the flames engulfed her, her body transforming wildly with each attempt at an addition to her body being burnt to cinders. Her skin was bubbling and her white skin was slowly approaching the same black as her dress.
    From the left side of the stage, Phaedra swooped down, doing several laps around the auditorium, lighting several candles set on the edges of each balcony with a glorious magenta flame. The members of the audience cheered as the bird got near them, the cheers of the crowd encircling the auditorium.
    Just as Ophelia’s body had basically turned into a lifeless corpse, Phaedra quit her routine and flew towards Ophelia, landing on her head. The bird screeched, momentarily blinding the audience with a single large blow that could have easily burned the entire thing down if David hadn’t been protecting it with some cleverly placed magic barriers.
    The flame died down, and the audience looked to find the stage empty once more. Where the pile of wood had been were simply cindering ashes, the residues of a dark purple flame dwindling away.

~~~
Foyer

    “Well Ladies, we’re officially on the home stretch!” Drake said excitedly, the girls entering the foyer from the auditorium. “With only half of the contestants left from the start, this is typically where other reality shows would introduce a huge, game-changing twist. Of course, we’re not like other reality shows, our game-changing twist is coming next week,” Drake winked towards the audience. “Anyways, as sad as it is to see her go, the show must go on!”
    “So last week, we challenged you all to design a show themed around the purposefully vague theme of the future. This week, your task will challenge your acting chops, just as much as it does your magical ability. The trait we have decided upon is ‘a good assistant must be theatrical, able to tell a story through their performance’.

    “Your task is simple, your trick will have to convey not only an impossible feat of magic, but it must also tell a story to the audience. Will it be a good or happy ending for you? Well, that’s up to the audience to decide, as the person with the most votes will be removed from the competition. So, ‘May the odds be ever in your favor’ and good luck practicing!” Drake left the three girls standing in the foyer as he went to take a much deserved break.

~~~
Saffron’s Practice

    “So David, do you think you could get two more giant teddy bears? Because then we can totally do a Goldilocks and the Three Bears situation!”
    “Saffron, I don’t think you got the point of the challenge.”
    “No seriously, think about it. I could try on their three bodies and be like ‘This one’s too big’ and then ‘This one’s too small’ and then, ‘This one’s Juuuuuussst right.”
    “Saffron, the task is to tell a story, not to reimagine a fable.”
    “Well, why can’t we do both? The story follows your lovely golden haired assistant as she realizes that she shouldn’t go and steal people’s body parts and whatever that story was actually trying to teach people.”
    “Okay, and how would I fit into this story then?”
    “You can be the story teller!”
    “The point of a magic trick is that it at least appears like I’m the one doing magic on all of you.”
    “I didn’t get that impression from Ophelia’s shows,” Saffron whined.
    “Ah. But if you actually paid attention, you would notice that while she was the one in charge, she always commanded me to do stuff to her,” David corrected.
    “Alright then, you can be Goldilocks then, and I’ll be the story teller.”
    “That doesn’t really fix the issue though.”
    “C’mon Davy! You never want to even try out my ideas,” Saffron complained.
    “Ugh, have you been talking to Rei?” David said, facepalming himself.
    “Oh yeah,” Saffron grinned, “And she told me allllll about the adventures you two used to go on.”
    “Look Saffron. I’m not buying you two more teddy bears. You’ll just have to come up with something else.”
    “Alright, get me three little stuffed pigs, and then we can do ‘the three little pigs’. You can be the Big Bad Wolf.”
    “*Sigh* This is going to be a long rehearsal.”

~~~
Cammie & Jill

    “You know Cammie, you’ve been so nice in helping me out with all of these practices, but I don’t feel like I’ve helped you out at all,” Jill commented after another long rehearsal of trying to perform magic on Cammie.
    “That’s not true,” Cammie said, sitting up from her position of lying down on the table, “You’ve helped me in loads of ways.”
    “Oh really? How so?”
    “Well, you’ve helped me work through a ton of my emotional baggage.”
    “I don’t think that was necessarily my work alone.”
    “Yeah, but you were a pretty big player in it.”
    “Okay, that may be. But other than that, I haven’t helped improve your performance out all that much.”
    “That’s not necessarily true. When we do these rehearsals, it forces me to pay attention to a lot of the basic things that I normally do without thinking. So, for instance when I was teaching you how to walk and behave on stage, I realized that I was getting a little too lax on how I held myself on stage and wasn’t focusing on presenting myself to the fullest either.”
    “I never thought of it that way…”
    “But… If you want to take a more active role, it’s been a while since I’ve performed magic on others as well…”
    “Okay. Let’s do it!”
    “Seriously?” Cammie asked.
    “Sure. Well. Not today. I’m a bit magiced out right now. But maybe tomorrow?”
    “Okay then. It’s a date,” Cammie said, moving her eyebrows up and down in a quick manner.
    “Cammie! What have I told you about flirting!”
    “Don’t worry. Alex knows I’m just joking,” Cammie said.
    “She might be okay with it, but I’m not!” Jill said, lightly punching Cammie in the arm.
    “Why do you think I do it?”
    Cammie laughed as Jill punched her in the arm again, leaving the room.

    To Ophelia: “It's a shame that you lost but you did say that this day will come. I am glad that you did achieve what you want to do. I will miss you being in this show.” -quad2

    Thank you Quad, I shall miss our discussions as well. When I get home, I will be preparing you a charm of good luck as well.

    To the Producers: “You know, it just occurred to me that I have basically no idea how the broadcast schedule for this show works. One of the downsides of using streaming services instead of actually owning a television, I guess.” -HeraldOfOpera

    Hello Harold. We do our best to simulcast our episodes onto our dedicated streaming services everyday with the show at 8:00 pm PST. However, we are not perfect, and often times we have to delay the launch to our streaming services until the show is over (in other words, roughly 9:00 pm PST). If additional editing is required, say for our live elimination episodes, the episode can potentially get delayed as late as 10:00 pm PST or later.
    We hope you’ve found this information helpful.

    To Ophelia: “So sorry to hear of your eviction, but I agree: in what you set out to do, you were victorious. And you've proven that there can be an appeal in a show focused around demonstrations of the Ancient Magicks. Showing the power and might, and the grace and beauty, of such a historically dark force.
    And I hope that this experience has taught you new things about yourself. That you can show emotion without appearing weak, that you can "give up" control without losing it. That you don't give up any part of your identity by enjoying things that don't fit with, or go against, the archetype. And I wish you the best in learning more about yourself.” -FlexibleAnatomy

    Thank you once again for the kind words Penny.
    In many regards, leaving now has left me very upset with how Leela and Holli left the show. I wonder what life changing lessons they might have learned if given the opportunity to have kept going.
    When I look back on my time on this show, I shall look back fondly on the friends that I have made, and the lessons I have learned, both in a magical and personal sense.