( video | unlocked | post-feast )

[noirant]

[ Politics and wars are one thing, but magic is quite another; some thirsts aren't slaked so easily by squabbling imps and gaudy fabric. Knowledge is power, and power is every wizard's disease.

Felix is far more rumpled than he'd like, and that hair won't unfrizz any time soon, but the words come calm as day: ]

It seems we've all been busy, so I suppose I ought to be brief.

Magic. If you'll indulge the melodramatic imagery, it's as myriad as a hydra's necks, and almost twice as difficult to pin down. Any sort of rigorous survey seems better left for days without a pounding headache. Perhaps instead, we might just speak. 

Tell me what you know about magic. Stories, facts, vicious gossip if you're so disposed. Magic brought us each here, so let us be kind guests and oblige it the conversation.

[ He flashes a wide, tired smile. ]

Unfamiliarity is quite acceptable. I'd just like to hear it from you.

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[caditquaestio]

Magic is the suspension of reason for as long as fear and superstition gain ground over plainly sighted truth.

[ A pause. ]

And the Pope and his Church will burn you for it.

[ And another. ]

If you're poor.

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[noirant]

How utterly charming.

[ Droll. He's no stranger to pyres -- that is, after all, the point of heresy -- but fuck every seventh saint if he has the first idea what a pope is. ]

Fear, I'll grant you, and superstition's the watch-word of any well-oiled imagination. Do you find all fact in coin?

[caditquaestio]

I find history.

[noirant]

A practical man. But have you studied from the tail or the head?

[ What's your bank like, bro? ]

[caditquaestio]

I'm a courier, sir. My like don't study. My like don't hear, my like don't see. My like aren't heard and we aren't seen. We don't have use for learning.

[ "Me poor." ]

Do you call yourself a magician in the way of the priests or the alchemists or Pythagoras?

[noirant]

[ As though he's ever heard a servant wield words like that. ]

And yet your like speak freely? [ A gentle nudge, but in it, the lift of his eyebrows is almost audible. ] I call myself what I am, a wizard of the Mirador and Curia.

[ A moment's hesitation -- and interior cursing as he nearly drops the locket behind a dresser -- and the feed switches back into video. Felix tilts his head to consider the window curtains, looking rather unaffected as they abruptly burst into green flame. A second later, it falls away, the cloth unharmed.

It would have been easier, and wiser, to choose a smaller trick. But once a peacock, always an insufferable show-off. ]

In what manner do you call yourself a courier?

[caditquaestio]

[ Oh... oh, a ginger. Small wonder he doesn't want talk of the real burning. He might have known a torch or ten - eleven, if he's of the villages.

And then there's the parlour trick, and far from Cesare to judge a man in the throes of improvisation agony, but it's hardly worth more than a gasp, once you've seen the troupes of Venezia and their borrowed Turkish boys, who eat fire.

He has the grace to keep a polite silence throughout the (green) flame wars. Then, sheepishly - ]

Well... well done. For a man without the means of his trade, I commend you.

[ ...is that light clapping? It is indeed. Rejoice. ]

And I am a courier in whatever manner don Lorenzo de Medici will pay me to assume. I don't have that say, sir magician.

[noirant]

[ Is that a polite clap? That's a polite clap, and a soft-handed insult worthy of court.

He bites back the urge to take insult -- surely, he can hold his temper here more than a day. Right? Right...? See, he's building character. Gideon would be so proud. His eyes narrow, flinty, and it's a near thing.

But then Cesare speaks, and there's something to steady upon instead. The losses of translation are doubtless dire. That's what questions are for. ]

Please, call me Felix. [ He seems to be making a pointed effort to put himself at ease, but it's no poker face. ] Your sense of duty cannot be disparaged. Has the don accompanied you to this place?

[caditquaestio]

[ And now for the world's driest, least invested pronouncement: ]

As Fortuna would have it, don Lorenzo's previous engagements conspired to bereave him of this most joyous opportunity to seize misery and squalor.

[ Hmmmmm. ]

And magic.

[ And back to apathy: ]

I present you his apologies and wishes of health.

[noirant]

[ Felix can think of a great many different words to describe this ridiculous state of affairs, and the castle's tedious gloom. 'Squalor' doesn't quite make the list. ]

Gracious, I suppose I must accept them. The don must be a man of great wealth and taste. Certainly such would enjoy the court.

[ Purple and more fucking purple, with perhaps a touch of black for good measure. Felix can feel a hundred Marathine decorators cry out in pain. ]

[caditquaestio]

Yes, don Lorenzo is... [ An increasingly deep-thrusting thorn between the Borgia ribs. ] All that you have said. More.

If your little act should earn his laughs, he might well patron you. Though I should warn you he prefers a troupe to the lone man. He is blood of the bankers. Numbers amuse him.

[noirant]

Then I'm afraid that I must disappoint; my work is spoken for in matters of state. I trust the Don finds amusement enough of his servants.

[ What a pleasant smile. ]

[caditquaestio]

An actor-statesman?

...yes, there were two before. Madmen, but servants of stage and state. Perhaps you'll fit.

[noirant]

All politics is madness, darling.

[ There's no heart behind it. He is so done. going to angrily write about u on his tumblr cesare ]

[caditquaestio]

Shhhhh. Madmen shouldn't make reason.



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