As Drake threw away the card, one of the security officers hired for the shows approached Jill saying, “Miss, come right this way.”
~~~
Jill
A long car ride later, Jill was ushered through the front entrance of the spa. Inside, a pudgy looking man was standing behind the desk. He had a certain greasy look to him, that wasn’t helped at all by the flamboyant pink suit jacket that he wore. He looked up from his computer, and smiled at Jill, “Ah! Jill! Welcome! Welcome!” the man walked out from behind the desk, revealing that rather than legs, the man had ten long, fleshy pink tentacles, all competing to help bring him to his destination. “So nice to finally meet you, my daughters absolutely love your work.”
“N-nice to meet you to,” Jill said, still focusing on his legs and the weird way that they wouldn’t stay still.
“The name’s Guillermo Calamari. I know, rather ironic with the whole leg situation,” Guillermo laughed heartily, “but anyways I wanted to personally introduce you to my spa,” he grabbed Jill’s hand, making her realize that her perceived sliminess was more literal than figurative. “Anyways, my lovely daughter Lula will help you out,” Guillermo went behind the desk, picked up a green phone, and whispered into it.
Moments later, a girl about Jill’s age walked out from one of the hallways attached to the main lobby. She looked about Jill’s age, and just like her father she had pink squid tentacles instead of legs. “Eee!” She squealed, “Oh my God! Hi! I’m Lula!” Lula aggressively grabbed Jill’s hand and shaking it, “I’m your biggest fan!”
“Nice to meet you,” Jill said, a little embarrassed at her sudden fame.
“Here! Come with me! We’ve already got the day planned out for you!” Lula grabbed her arm and practically yanked it out of her shoulder as the small squid girl pulled her along.
~~~
Saffron
“Gah! I’m so bored!” Saffron shouted, “With Jill gone, there’s even less going on than normal!” Saffron was in the practice room, simply playing around with some of the props David left lying around.
On the opposite side of the room, Fernando was humorously trying to figure out how to get his foot out of box that he had accidentally stepped in. With every shake of his leg, the box climbed up higher and higher.
“Is this really how next week is going to be. God. Talk about boring television,” Saffron was playing with a knife, cutting off small shaving of her skin.
Meanwhile, the box had completely swallowed Fernando’s entire leg and let go, leaving the bear hopping around on one leg. He fell down to to the ground hard, and began trying to pry the box open with his paws.
“Seriously, I bet Jill is having the time of her life at the spa.”
The box was now busy consuming Fernando’s arm, leaving him to shake it in desperation as it swallowed up another one of limbs.
Saffron simply sighed as she imagined what Jill was doing, completely ignoring Fernando’s struggles in the background.
~~~
Jill
“Ah. This is the life,” Jill commented. The assistant was currently in three pieces, each enjoying a different part of the spa experience.
Jill’s legs were currently relaxing in the hot spring that was attached to the magic spa with all of the other lower torsos of the spa residents, all in branded swimwear. Swimming around in the water were tiny little fishes of varying species that were nibbling at the dead skin cells on the various women lower halves. Of course, while Jill’s lower half was human, there were a variety of lower halves that were relaxing in the nice, lilac scented water. Next to Jill, there was the lower half of an Orc, that had to sit down in order to completely cover the stump on her body. Across the way, a horse sans head was trotting around in the water. Two sets of woman legs and one set that had three legs were lounging pool side, waiting for a spa employee to return them to their body.
Meanwhile, Jill’s upper half, minus her head, was getting a massage from an elvish man. Under his four strong hands, Jill was literally putty. He reshaped her torso to his whims, sometimes pulling in mass from a bucket he held on the floor to give her a more intricate shape, sometimes removing mass by squishing her shape and the extra mass evaporating. Jill wasn’t sure if he had simply disappeared her bones, but she was certain that every single crick she had ever had was gone.
Jill’s head was having her hair scrubbed with shampoo by Lula, a seaweed paste face mask and two cucumber slices covered her features. “Trust me Jill, when you win, you’re going to be living like this every weekend.”
“I don’t think so,” Jill said, “from what Amanda told me, she and David were pretty busy with shows and press stuff.”
“Oh no. David is in here practically every two weeks, and he almost always brings Amanda along. Although I will admit she’s been absent the past couple of months due to the baby.” A bit of silence passed as Lula washed out the shampoo in her hair, now covering it in a volumizing mixture, “So. What are you going to do if you win?”
“Well. I’m going to put the money into a savings account so that I can hopefully get some money off of it, while taking out what I need to help pay off the student debts I’ve already got. As for the Assistant contract… I’m not sure. I don’t think I can just drop out of school, so what I’m probably going do is ask my university if I can take classes online so that I can still work as David’s assistant. If they say no, see if I can do a gap year, or try and spin it as some sort of work-study thing.”
“Man. I wish I could be an assistant,” Lula said, desire filling her voice.
“Why don’t you?”
“I can’t. My dad needs my help around here.”
“Why. He seems to have things covered.”
“He might seem that way, but without me and my brother Pablo, this place would probably fall apart.”
“Yeah, but if that’s the case, you could just be an assistant in your spare time then. If it’s something you really want to do, you shouldn’t let anyone stop you.”
“I don’t think my dad would like it if I did that though.”
“Well, my parents didn’t like it either, and now I have the chance of a lifetime. Trust me. Things have a way of working out if you’re going for your dreams.”
Jill couldn’t see Lula’s face, but from the sound of her voice during the rest of their conversation, Jill could tell that she had helped make her day.
~~~
Cammie & Amanda
“Hello Amanda,” Cammie said as she walked into the dining room for some lunch. “There you are,” Amanda commented, “I’ve been waiting to talk to you.”
“You have?”
“Yes. I’ve been meaning to talk to all of you one on one since the party we had last week.”
“About what?”
“Well. I felt it was only appropriate to have a one-on-one with all of the woman who could potentially replace me in David’s act.”
“Ah. So what do you want to talk about?” Cammie said, slightly awkwardly.
“Alex was sharing at that party that she never got to see any of your shows before she met you, so I was wondering if you could share some details.”
“Um. Yeah. No problem. I mostly did shows at bars as some extra income from my job as a hotel assistant. One time there was a convention that came through and their live entertainment was a no show, so I got to do a show for them, which was pretty fun.”
“Very nice. What did go to College?”
“Yeah. I have a degree in Hospitality with a minor in practical magic from Northwest College.”
“Very nice. Ooh. I’ve been meaning to ask ever since you came out. Where did you happen to get that stopwatch you were using to disguise yourself? If you don’t mind me asking that is. When David and I looked it over it had some of the most advanced magic cloaking I’ve ever seen.”
“I don’t mind. It’s a family heirloom. According to him, one of our great-great female relatives realized that her husband was nearing his death and never had a proper male heir, and if their next baby they were having wasn’t male, they were going to lose everything because females could not own property. So, she had this stopwatch made in the scenario that the child she was carrying was not male, so that she could use it to fake him being male and keeping their property. Luckily for her, the baby was male, so this has just been passed around from generation to generation. My mom gave it to me when I turned eighteen, the same as hers did, and the rest is history.”
“Oh my! That’s a wonderful story.”
“Yep. Apparently my love story with it isn’t even the biggest romantic adventure it’s done.”
“Really?”
“Oh yeah. I could tell you if you want.”
“I’d love to hear it, but before you tell me it, would you mind doing something for me first?”
“Sure. What?”
“Would you mind getting David? I believe my water just broke,” Amanda said, complete calm in her voice. Cammie looked towards the cameraman, who similarly began to rush to the door to try and find David.
~~~
Jill
Jill walked into the dining room, refreshed from her visit to the day spa and stopping by the kitchen and dining room to enjoy a light snack before having a nice, long rehearsal with David. Of course, rather than an empty room, she found Cammie and Saffron frantically pacing back and forth in the dining room.
Extremely confused, Jill asked, “What’s going on?”
~~~
David & Amanda
“Okay Amanda, honey. Just breathe! Everything is going to be okay! You just need to push!” David said, his voice on the edge of panic.
“Sir, we’re not at that point yet, her water has simply broken,” A male orderly said. He wore some blue scrubs, and an id badge that listed his name as Tyler. Amanda had been successfully brought to a hospital with relatively little fanfare. When asking whether or not they should be filming this process, David told the producers to film it, as if it didn’t make it into the show proper, they would simply buy the footage for personal use.
“Sorry,” David said, giving the orderly a sheepish look, “I’ve never done this before, if you couldn’t tell.”
“I could tell sir,” The orderly was busy laying out various things in the room, fluffing Amanda’s pillows for her, and various other tasks to keep his six arms busy, “Currently, the only thing that has happened is that Amanda’s water has broken which means that the amniotic sac surrounding the baby has been breached. This means that contraction should begin in the next twenty four hours. If not, we’ll simply induce labor. In either case, contractions will begin, and it will take another twelve to twenty four hours until her cervix is wide enough for her to begin pushing.”
“Oh…”
“Normally we wouldn’t even allow her admittance until contractions have begun, however the director has allowed us to make an exception in your case.”
“Remind me to send Quincy a nice fruit basket and bouquet of flowers when we get home,” Amanda whispered to David.
“Now then, I have many other patients that I must get to. If you need anything at all or begin to feel contractions, feel free to press this button,” the orderly pointed to a red button that was located right next to where Amanda’s hand naturally fell on the bed, “and one of our available doctors or nurses will arrive as quickly as possible. Good day Mr. and Mrs. Angel,” Tyler said, giving each of them a slight nod as he left.
“David,” Amanda said, grabbing his hand, “What are you going to do about the show?”
“The show!? Amanda you’re giving birth!” David was not handling the situation well at all.
“Yes David. The show, that thing you signed to host and perform in. Remember?”
“What? Oh! Right. The show the show the show…” David repeated, tapping himself on the head as he tried to think of what to do. “I guess we’ll simply have to cancel that.”
“What!?” Amanda shrieked.
“Well, at least for this week anyways. We can start it up again next week.”
“David. What happened to the man who told me ‘the show must go on’ when I caught food poisoning in Japan and you disappeared my stomach.”
“Well-“
“Or that ‘the show must go on’ when your gorgon niece accidentally turned me to stone right before we were supposed to go out and you used the statue of my body to perform tricks while the paramedics were making a cure.”
“Okay, but-
“Or that ‘the show must go on’ when we did that entire free show in Iran despite the fact that our location was destroyed literally the night of due to a terrorist attack.”
“Alright I get it!” David said, panic in his voice, “The difference is that those instances didn’t include the fact that my wife is literally in the process of bringing another life into this world! And I’m not going to miss it like my Dad did for me!”
“Oh David-“
“No. Okay. I know it’s silly, but you know that my Dad missed out on practically every single major event in my life. He wasn’t there for my birth, nor when I learned how to ride a bike, first day at school, any of my school performances. I’m not going to be that type of dad for Isabella!”
“David! You don’t have to be!” Amanda shouted, silencing David before he could begin an even longer rant, “and I’ve already figured out how you can do both.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
& Question Corner &
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
To Jill: “Perhaps aim for the smaller ones instead. Like ones that only require experience in magic as there has to be scholarships based with those. Also congrats on your victory.” -quad2
Thank you!
Going for the smaller magic scholarships would be nice, but if I’m going to be juggling school, a part time job, and performing magic on the side, I’m going to want to aim for the big ones so that I don’t have to work that part time job and can focus solely on magic. As much as I love magic, I still have a ton to learn about it, and most magicians who would be willing to get an amateur assistant probably aren’t going to pay much.
To Saffron: “Dissolve into grass?” -Rei
Eh. I’m not sure if that would have the same dramatic effect though. Oh well, I still have two days to figure it out. Assuming of course that the contest is still happening.
To Drake: “If you really want to see how inconsistent the Greeks could be, go look up the respective origins of Athena and Hephaestus. Each of them requires the other to have already existed.” -HeraldOfOpera
Yep. I really recommend asking David more on this subject, as he has a large interest in the History of Magic, as opposed to me. He’s the one who helped in creating all the stage two questions for the show. I simply read them.