Saul Pierce
July 31, 2010 10:25 PM
[The Fair] That's entertainment! by Saul Pierce
Two years out in the world, and Saul felt like he'd never left as he walked down the paths of the Gardens. It just seemed like his summer break had stretched out way longer than normal. That is, until he stood on the edge of the fountain he was using as his stage (the clearing was one of the largest in the labyrinth, so he was making do with its central decoration for the large group he'd been scheduled to meet with in the afternoon).He'd spent the morning ducking in on some of his former classmates and had been pretty impressed with both what they were up to these days and that his year had a pretty good showing today. Both Geoffs, Morgaine, and Rosalind had all given pretty good shows.
By comparison, he wasn't sure his accomplishments were very impressive. No wedding. No kids. (Both of which his family was trying to change, but he was holding out, more because he didn't want to grow up that much yet than because he thought he'd have trouble finding a girl who'd say yes. He liked being an immature nineteen year old bachelor who still shared a tent with his cousins, thank you very much.) No college or advanced understanding of potions, no cool developments in the broom design industry, no impressive career as a healer planned out.
Just the same family job he'd been working and living since he'd been born. Just like every other California Pierce who stuck to the family caravan.
Still, he put on a bright smile for the large group of people who'd come to see him. He'd been billed as an entertainer, so he started with a short little five minute set of magic and card tricks of the sort that depended more on misdirection and slight of hand than real magic. He threw in a few actual spells, casting an actual transfiguration instead of making a switch, just to see if anyone caught them, but generally the set ran like any muggle magician's would.
When he was done, he fanned the cards out and folded them in and made them vanish in a puff of smoke. (A banishing charm, wordless and wandless, and practiced ad nauseaum into perfect habitual ease. The deck of cards would be right where they should be in his bag of tricks the next time he went to look for them.)
"So that's part of the set I perform everyday in whatever fair or festival or carnival my family happens to be hired by this week. For those of you who are new, I'm Saul Pierce. I was a Pecari Prefect and Quidditch Captain up until two years ago when I graduated." Aged out, more accurately, if anyone were to look at his grades or RATS results, because Sonora didn't fail students in their seventh year.
"It's a show that gets performed primarily in front of muggles, so that's why most of the real magic going on in the act looked like it could almost have been done just as easily by sleight of hand. Brownie points to anyone who noticed the wandless and wordless spells going on." He grinned and snapped a finger, releasing a concealing charm he'd had on a table next to the fountain. "No, seriously, anyone who noticed gets a brownie." They may have smelt the chocolate before, but now they could see where it was coming from. "Raise your hand if you did, or go ahead and lie if you didn't." He waved his hand like a Jedi and started levitating the brownies out to kids with their hands up.
"The thing about entertainment," he continued even as the chocolate treats floated out to their intended recipients, "is that anything goes as long as you can adapt it to your audience. That completely pointless transfiguration you learned last week? You know, the one where you changed a rock into a hippo? The only place that might possibly be useful is on the stage. So if you're good at that kind of thing, you might want to think about auditioning somewhere as a stage magician. Anyone here remember Simon Tellerman, the groundskeeper from a few years back? Yeah, he's performing magic for muggles in Las Vegas these days."
"Or maybe you're not into big crowds and your practical magic is limited so want to work a smaller venue, you could do what I did when I first got out of school. I made a period covered wagon - like the ones you fly to and from Sonora on every year, only it didn't fly - and took the Oregon Trail from Missouri to Oregon. You wouldn't make much money -" in fact, Saul had nearly starved when he used the last of his money to buy a blanket instead of food - "but with some foreplanning," which Saul hadn't done, "you could probably line up some history teachers to bring out their classes as you pass through their towns and give talks about what life was like during that era. If you can imagine it and sell the admission tickets, you can make enough money to live off doing pretty much anything in this field."
He looked around, "I'll take questions on performing, stage magic, the audition process, lining up gigs, running a small family-run business, or anything remotely related to anything the California Pierces do. That's music, acting, magic shows, politics, social activism, fortune telling, and gambling."
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Saul Pierce
[The Fair] That's entertainment!
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Saul Pierce
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