Post by sage on May 8, 2011 17:06:29 GMT -5
Let me tell you a story about the Trickster. Where shall we start? Once upon a time? Yes, that sounds like a good beginning. Once upon a time, in a sea of grass, there was a hill that reached for the clouds that passed by it so far, far above. Built into its steep sides there was a city that sparkled underneath the rays of the sun like a thousand diamonds. Flammar was the name it went by in the mortal tongue, at this point in time the capital of the lycanthropes - the children of the moon. Half men, half beasts. Our story takes place upon the second level of the city, in an official-looking house with a boring purpose: The office of the guards... the kennel of the dogs that patrolled the city to keep it safe. In the dull little house there was a naked little room, and in this room there were two chairs separated by a wooden desk. In one chair sat a hound with seriousness written in his features and an open notebook by his side... in the other a lanky man slouched comfortably despite the chains that encircled both of his wrists. Most of his face was hidden underneath the rim of a black hat, as he seemed more focused upon the deck of cards he was fiddling with than the living being present in the room with him. The guard looked down upon his notebook, and the few lines scribbled within.
Subject: Samuel Winters – male of 27 years belonging to the species of the mages.
Crime: Breaking and entering, unintentional (?) harm.
Following protocol the subject has been unarmed and his magic bound.
So far the subject has shown little to no resistance.
"Sir, can you confirm that you are Samuel Winters?" the guard broke the silence without looking up.
As the words hung in the air the man kept fiddling with the cards, dexterous fingers clad in thin black gloves shuffling and twisting the rectangular paper with practiced ease. After a minute or two the guard cleared his throat, and the man finally raised his head slightly so the light from the flickering lamp illuminated the lower part of his face - revealing the smirk playing upon his lips. "That I can indeed," he said, "Samuel Winters, trickster by name, trickster by trade. At your service good Mister Guard."
The guard scribbled another note in his book, one eyebrow arched slightly as he looked back up at the man. "Yeah I heard about your little nickname, and my colleague warned me you had a flair for the melodramatic. Is that what the clothes is all about?"
Samuel's gaze flickered downwards towards his chest. Melodramatic? The smirk widened slightly. His chest was covered by a smooth silk shirt underneath a leather jacket - black upon purple, his two favourite colours, matched by black pants and a couple of dark leather boots clearly worn from time and use. The clothes hung loose around his 6’3’’ and slightly underweight frame - his body marked by the hunger that seemed to constantly gnaw at his stomach. The masquerade was completed by a black fedora that left visible only a slim jaw littered with stubble. Melodramatic? You might as well describe Eris as "slightly moody". "I guess you could say it's all part of the show," he replied as he leaned forward, tilting his head upwards to finally reveal a slim face surrounded by a cascade of auburn hair. The face of a charmer. For the first time since the guard had entered the room, their gazes finally met - the mischievous twinkle in the grey eyes of the trickster a perfect match to his provocative smirk. "You like card tricks?" he asked casually, his elbows resting upon the table whilst the cards seemed to dance between his fingers.
"We are not here to play, Mister Winters."
"Aaaah, now don't be such a bore. One game, that's all." Samuel's hand slid over the table in a smooth movement, spreading the cards into a fan. The ardent observer would perhaps notice that the symbol upon the back of the cards was unique - a simple pattern resembling a bursting star, which found its brother in a tattoo on Samuel's right wrist. It was his personal little mark – a trade mark of sorts, one could almost define it as... but the guard didn’t notice, for he wasn’t exactly the smartest plimbie in the herd. "One game for one question, fair trade eh? Just pick a card... any card," Samuel urged his new toy.
Reluctantly the guard slid forward a hand to pick up a random card. "You do realize you pissed off a quite important lady with your little tricks, don't you? This is no game.”
"What is life but one big game? Was it my fault the lady couldn’t control her flailing? The plimbies just wanted to play. She probably scared them half to death, the poor things.”
”... are you crazy, Mister Winters?”
The question seemed rhetorical, but the lanky man tilted his head to one side, lips perched slightly as he considered it quite seriously. ”That’s a very good question Mister Guard. Some people say I am. Oft I’ve been accused of being a narcissist – but don’t we all put ourselves above the rest of the world? Some people also point their fingers at me and call me a psychopath, but that’s not true. I’m quite human, and I bleed and feel like everybody else. I’m just more… careful… with whom I give my affections to. Also, the card in your hand’s the Griffin of the House of Beasts.”
Samuel knew he was right even before the guard’s brow furrowed in front of him, and he held out a hand to retrieve his property. Gloved fingers recovered the card from the man’s hesitant grip, and without even looking at it he let it disappear back into the deck. ”Call me a bastard if you want, but I’m good at what I do. I’m not just a trickster – like everybody else I do what I do for a reason. Now don’t get me wrong, for I enjoy tricking people,” the ever-lasting smirk still in place Samuel twisted his hand so the deck balanced upon the back, and with a flick of his wrist sent it into the air to catch it with the other and with an almost invisible movement make the cards spread out like a fan in his hand. ”I enjoy seeing the awe in people’s faces. Their expressions of confusion as they wonder how I did it. But I’m not nearly as weird as you might think… you see, the eccentricity is my shield – it is what allows me to hide in plain sight. I can do anything, and people won’t think twice of it. Why should they turn their heads when I pace in front of a house mumbling to myself? After all I’m just a peculiar and harmless fellow, probably whacked one time too many over the head during the war. And before they know of it, half the valuables inside the house are dancing out the chimney on their own.”
”So it’s all just an act, then?”
”It started as one, but it’s difficult to say. Some of it has become an ingrained habit by now, and it’s difficult to say whether I could stop if I wanted. Perhaps it’s just part of my nature by now… run with the lycanthropes and you’ll learn to howl in the night, right? But it doesn’t matter anyhow, for I’m having way too much fun as it is… now pick a card.” Once again Samuel spread the cards out on the table, and his interrogator sighed.
”You said one game.”
”One game for one question, and I gave you plenty more. Just humour me – I promise this one’ll be spectacular.”
The man rolled his eyes, and it was difficult to tell whether he chose to play along or if curiosity actually won the fight. But in the end he let notebook be notebook, and carefully picked out another card. When his prisoner gestured for him to put the card against his forehead, a look of confusion flashed across his features. The look that questioned whether Samuel could really be serious.
”Don’t spoil the game. Place the card upon your forehead, right here,” Samuel tapped his own, ”now think hard about the card you got. Don’t say it out loud – just focus upon it. You can ask your question in the meantime, if you wish.”
The guard sighed, but finally complied with the wish of the “magician”. If nothing else then it kept him talking. ”You mentioned the war. Did you fight in it?”
Samuel collected the rest of the cards and leaned back in his chair. Bending the cards slightly he sent them flying from one hand to the other, almost absentmindedly – the fiddling a habit that always served to calm him better than any form of meditation. ”You’ll be hard pressed to find anyone besides old women, and children below the age of ten, who didn’t fight in that war,” he replied evasively – his past obviously not his favourite topic. The grey eyes strayed to the card still pressed against the guard’s forehead, and a faint sigh passed his lips as the trickster seemed to change his mind. He’d promised the guard an answer, after all. ”My dear father was a battlemage, one of the major chess pieces in the army of my race. My mother on the other hand, was a healer, and like so many others she’d specialized in taking care of the river of wounded that trailed after the army. I didn’t just fight in the war – I was born into it. After she’d given birth my mum wanted to send me to their home, to be raised by their servants far away from the war… but my father insisted I stay with her, trained with the soldiers, learned the ways of the battlemage. And so I grew up with the screams of the dying as my lullaby and the back of a cart as my cradle.”
”So how did you go from fighter to thief?” The guard was leaning forward at this point, the notebook and the card on his forehead seemingly forgotten – at this point he seemed to be asking out of genuine curiosity, and one corner of Samuel’s lips twitched with amusement. ”At the age of 17 I was thrown into the battlefield. By the age of 18 I’d earned myself the proud title of deserter,” he stated dryly, ”It was always my sister who shared my father’s blood-lust, not me. I fled to Siriath, to finally walk through the streets of the city I’d seen our men die for. There I sought refuge in the underworld of the city – shaped myself a life amongst the thieves in the shadows. For the punishment of a deserter is nothing against the wrath of my beloved father, should he ever get his hands upon me… his disgrace of a first-born son.”
”And would this father have a name?”
Samuel contemplated the question for a second or two, then finally shrugged. ”Aaron… Aaron Sanchez. My mother Rosalie died a year back, though Gabriella – my sister – is still going strong and as temperamental as ever.” As he was talking Samuel could see the recognition slowly spreading in the eyes of the lycanthrope.
”Aaron Sanchez as in… Aaron Sanchez of the first circle?” The guard didn’t have the same awe in his voice that Samuel was used to whenever a mage uttered the name of his dear daddy-oh, but that was quite understandable… why would a lycanthrope respect a mage, after all? The deities could command peace all they wanted, but even Deitero himself could not kill old grudges that easily. The name Sanchez stemmed back from the days of Cydria’s creation, and apparently it was still known beyond the borders of the mages’ own lands. Small world huh? Samuel thought sarcastically to himself. It seemed like everywhere he went, his father’s shadow was following him. He simply gave a nod and a smile to the guard, who stared at him for a moment – seemingly trying to comprehend the fact that this lanky, card-fiddling trickster could turn out to be the first-born son of one of the most powerful mages still alive.
”Mortimer damn your soul, this changes everything,” the man swore to himself as he pushed himself away from the table, smacking the card down upon the wooden surface. But as he tried to rise he swayed slightly, forced to grab the desk to prevent himself from falling over. Samuel simply watched with a smile as the man blinked rapidly, very well aware that he was trying to dispel the mist that had descended to cloud his gaze. The guard looked up at his smirking prisoner. ”What did you do?” he hissed between clenched teeth, his knuckles growing white around the edge of the table. Samuel simply chuckled, and reached out to carefully pick up the card the guard had chosen.
”Contact-poison,” he said with a smile, holding up the card between to gloved fingers. ”That’s the problem with you people… you always assume a mage is powerless without his magic.” With that he let the card rejoin its brothers, and the deck disappeared into one of his many pockets. Casually standing, the trickster strolled over to the lycanthrope, a hand upon his shoulder forcing the guard to slump back into the chair, his breath shallow and laboured. ”Congratulations hound, you’re one of the sacred few who know my identity. Unfortunately it won’t do you much good,” Samuel conversed casually as he rummaged through the pockets of the guard until he found the key to the chains that bound his hands and his magic. He saw the fear in the pale face of the guard, and rolled his eyes towards the ceiling. ”Come now, I already told you I wasn’t a killer. The poison just knocks you unconscious for a few hours, with the little specialty that it also wipes your memory. It’s difficult to say for how long, but from the tiny bit you absorbed? At worst you’ll lose a day or two. Most importantly, you won’t remember a thing that happened during the last hour.” A twist of the keys and the chains clattered to the floor, and Samuel sighed with satisfaction as he felt how the magic once again rushed through his veins. Placing the key upon the table, he patted the cheek of the pale, near-unconscious guard.
”Sorry about this, I actually quite liked you. But I refuse to become a pawn in someone’s chess game - neither yours nor my father's. If I have to run to the top of Terramortus, or through the Gate of Obsidian to hide amongst the damned in the Valley of Bones, so be it… at least I’ll be caught knowing I tried.”
And here our story ends, as the Trickster disappeared into the shadows once again. Few know where he comes from or where he is headed, seldom leaving anything behind but a puzzle no one has solved. Who is he? No one really knows... a riddle not even he knows the answer to.
FACE CLAIM :: Taylor Kitsch.
ALIAS :: Sage.
EXPERIENCE :: On-off for about 6 years or so.
CHARACTERS :: Samuel, none other so far.
HOW YOU FOUND US :: Advertisement.
HOW ARE YOU DOING? TEAM ADMIN OWNS ALL.
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HEAVEN IS WRAPPED IN CHAINS ©
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HEAVEN IS WRAPPED IN CHAINS ©
