[Sunset Falls] Respite (Lillis + Cerus)

[Lillis]

"I like trade secrets," she murmured, "I like anything that breaks open the magic and lets me see how things are made." She found herself moving close behind him and peering over his shoulder to steal a peak into his saddlebags. And when he turned around again, she took a step back and grinned, hands clasped behind her back.

"A hundred-years war..." she mused, eager to hear how the story would unfold. "Why did the maiden spurn the magician? Was there someone else? Did he try to bewitch her?"

[Cerus]

"You like secrets?" Out of his bag came powders and paper of all colors and he looked from them to her. "If I tell you all my secrets it wouldn't be a good show. You can't know how the mage does what he does. Why peek behind a curtain and ruin what I do. It's far less grand then you imagine anyhow. It's all simple tricks. The power lies in making people believe what you're telling them."

Not that he ever had a hard job at that. His belly was full, his house permanent and his horse was kept better than most. And the people here were intoxicating. He could absorb a thousand stories in one day if he just walked around and listened.

"She spurned him for his brother. I'm thinking that would make it appeal to the gentler section of my audience."

[Lillis]

There was a tiny little gasp emitted from between her lips as he revealed for whom the maiden had spurned the great magician. "His brother? The heartless wretch..." She paused, canting her head to the side. "Was he very handsome, this brother?" A smile broke out over her face, framed on either side by two small dimples.

She took a few steps back so as not to crowd him, but she did not have to confirm that she did, in fact, like secrets -- she loved secrets, loved peeking behind the veil to peer into people's most intimate selves. "If you tell me a very good story," she said, "and show me a very good trick, I will look into your future and tell you anything you wish to know." A lofty promise, yes, so she clarified: "Certain things I can know for certain, others I must divine through the use of cards or runes. But I can look nonetheless. If you're interested. Then we can share more than one secret." Nevermind the fact that both secrets would be his.

[Cerus]

"In the beginning he will be strong and handsome and brave. Only to be struck down by his brother. By the end he will be a broken and scarred man holding onto his victory over his brother until the day he died. Of course, he'll have nothing left at the end but that, the woman having been killed in the same bout as the brother." It was so hard to tell a unique story. They were all used and re imagined and then reused again. And that was what he liked best, to tell the same story in a new way. Not that she needed to know that.

"Read my future?" He smiled widely then, and half shook his head. "No thank you. If you must consider my reading donated to the next person you see who needs such." He didn't need his future read any more than he needed to tempt fate. He knew where he was going, and he liked to think that he was the master of his own destiny even if it turned out to be he wasn't.

[Lillis]

"But don't you want to know how it ends?" She pressed, taking a seat on the flat rock nearby, leaning back on the palms of her hands and crossing her good leg over her bad one, crossing one beautiful, shapely leg over one scarred and pink. "The story of your life -- you, a great story-teller. Aren't you the least bit curious?"

When he did not answer immediately, she peered at him through a thick forest of dark lashes and nodded to the empty space at her side. "Come sit, tell me the story of the spurned magician -- is it, do you think, a little hard-hearted for the magician to have taken such revenge on his brother? A more magnanimous man might have gracefully stepped aside... What would you have done?"

[Cerus]

"The end is the beginning is the end again. It doesn't matter when or how my tale concludes in your cards or stones. I create my own destiny and my own fate." Yet he had to hold himself still, lest he turn around and see if Fate was standing behind him ready to deliver swift punishment.

"I would not have found myself in the situation to begin with." It was as simple as that as he did as asked and sat down next to her in an easy motion without even bracing himself with his hands.

[Lillis]

"So you don't have a handsome brother, then," she quipped, grinning broadly at her own joke. She decided not to press further at him to peer into his future. In a sense, he was right -- the end was the beginning. Only within the last few years had she known for certain. But she had looked into the past and seen her soul die countless times, in countless ways. She suddenly felt very tired; her soul was old.

After a moment's pause, she did say one more thing on the subject of fate: "People think of fate and freewill as something that cannot rightly coexist. This is a narrow summation: Our circumstances are pre-determined. We, ourselves, are not." She lifted her cobalt gaze to his face, cerise lips curled in a gentle smile. "No mason ever wetted clay and then left it, as though there would be bricks by chance and fortune."

[Cerus]

To her first question he just smiled. Maybe he did have a brother, or three, or none at all. "The story isn't autobiographical." And then he blinked and suddenly grinned.

"I've changed my mind. You should show me how you would do these things. So perhaps I can put that into my story. I've never actually tried that before. Yes, I rather like that idea. And you can speak in hypothetical of course. I wouldn't want to tax you before we had even begun." He was setting aside the things he'd retrieved from his saddle bag most in hidden pockets throughout his sleeves.

"What do you think?" He was clearly excited about the idea.

[Lillis]

"Do... what, exactly?" She said, only slightly confused. "Tell the story, or read your future?"

She smiled, turning toward her and crossing her legs, leaning forward with her elbows on her knees. "Because if I were going to tell the story, then the magician would let his former lover live happily with his brother and stay out of the way and find himself a nice girl somewhere down the line, and then eventually they would all sup together one summer's eve and everyone would live happily ever after." She grinned, a light and sparkling thing that lit her eyes up like a summer sky. "But if I were to read your future, you would have to let me know if you wanted truth or parlor tricks. I can only do one or the other, not a combination of the two."

[Cerus]

"It wouldn't make for a very good story if I told it your way. The audience would leave me only the rotten food they threw at me if that were the case. People want action, and romance and things that make them forget about their own lives and troubles." Or at least that's what he thought.

"And don't be silly, I've told you I don't believe in that." And he smiled, like he had actually said that at any time previous. "Just teach me to mimic what you do. Or rather, just pretend and I will observe what it is you say and hopefully I can copy your actions without too much trouble." With that he held out his hand for her.

"Start with--well, you're the expert. You start however you like."