After the Bell

[Malkavia]

Shimmerlace panted, leaning against the ropes as Eleanor Gray gripped her shoulder and her elbow. She felt worn down to the nub—that kind of knife-in-her ribs, knees prone to collapse tired that always hit towards the last, longest minutes of her sessions.

6:00. The red numbers on the clock flickered bleerily on her peripheral vision, in that sheen of yellow light that always washed over her vision when she was at the very edge of exhaustion. Technically, teeeeeechnically they were out of time.

But both maestro and musician had one more arpeggio in them—or Irish Whip, in Eleanor's case. Shimmerlace bounded across the mat, each footfall cracking agains the plywood boards beneath the mat's padding, while her sluggish mind trailed a step behind.

That was the worst bit of the exhaustion, the dilly-dally, dizzy, stumbly way her mind went numb in its seat and shuddered, dazed and drifting in her skull—as if her consciousness was a drunken asshole her body had to drag after it.

Leap, slide, or kick?

That was the drill. Eleanor and her Feychild protegee had drilled individual moves into a science etched into Shimmer's lizardbrain, but what good was that without a solid ring IQ to play ye olde repertoire?

If she's braced, like she wants to catch you parachuting down, sweep her legs.

She spun on her heel before her back slammed the ropes, giving her just a fraction of a second longer to read ol' Eleanor, but regardless—one to one point five seconds was all you get. Take a deep picture and react.

The picture Shimmerlace got was Gunner Ellie charging at her full-throttle. Her breath caught in her throat and she did what her instincts always had her do when life tossed her into a panic—the biggest damn thing she could, which in this case translated into a leap into the air, a prayer in the form of a keening clenched-jaw laugh, and a flying crossbody straight towards the danger.

[FreestylePoet]

Eleanor flung her protégé out to the edge of the ring. Momentum was on her side -- or, it would have been, had this been a real match. Turning the tides was an important skill in wrestling, and besides, a spot like this was the best way to put her moves into little bite-sized, digestible chunks of practice.

Sweep the legs if low, superkick if high. Play it by ear, but when someone got whipped to the ropes, it was only a matter of time until one wrestler or the other took a big bump. That was one thing Eleanor didn't need to teach Shimmerlace: She'd much rather it not be her.

The sprint was another thing that went untaught. Eleanor had never closed the gap during this kind of drill. But the same principles still applied. Shimmerlace almost applied them right too, if only on the same instinct that let a bird survive when a car got too close to the curb. She flew into the air, Eleanor's apprentice did, arms wide and pointing like landing strips to a hard crossbody.

Right into Eleanor's arms.

She only had to vamp for a little bit, by way of humming until she figured out how to teach this. It was almost a drag, how fast she'd gotten used to this role. "Good of a leaper as you are, you're not jumping straight up, going for a crossbody. And I'm tall." She illustrated the ease of her catch with a quick jostle, then set out to explain the consequences. Eleanor spun her student in her grasp until Shimmerlace's head pointed straight down. Down onto her knees Eleanor went. It would've been a hell of a piledriver, had she not left Shimmer's cranium ever so slightly off the ground. "Night night."

Then she rolled Shimmer out like a red carpet on the canvas, releasing her slowly from the grip: Head, then neck, then back and butt. Eleanor fell back from her haunches into a split-legged, high-kneed sit, each sole on the ground.

"Not bad, though. It'd work on most people. When they come at you, give 'em a wall to run into. Just like I taught you. One problem: You're not a wall if you're in the air, are you? I dunno if you're as bad at physics as I am, but think of it this way: The endpin of a cello." She drew her two index fingers apart as if drawing a line -- or extending a stand. "It pulls out so the instrument can stay grounded. A spear might have worked, since you've got all that forward progress. But for a lankly little thing like me? Just stand tall. A shoulder block'll lay me right out."

[Malkavia]

"A wall, ey?"

As the blood flushed Shimmerlaces face — six parts gravity to one part embarrassment — she huffed and blew the air out between her lips like horse. Her heart sank—or did it rise? Up was sort of down at the moment. By now she was used to these confusing and edifying humiliations, at least to the degree one could develop such tolerance. Still, it would've been...well, something to finally get one over on ol' Ellie. Alas, though, down she went, plop, unfolded on the ground, while her mind explored the advice, a spider testing out a web.

"Yeah, alright. Wall then. I guess I see that a fair amount. Folks drop down and make like a cement-bag to break the ribs, knees, or ankles of whichever...person is charging them." She swallowed the word cunt. She knew Eleanor would understand Shimmerlace intended the word in the general case, not in application to her, but. Still.

The mat was cool against her back, and she enjoyed the way the world always seemed to gently rotate when she stared up at the gym's yellow lights. As she explored the move Eleanor suggested, she realized it felt weird to imagine herself in the wall's boots. So why's it feel wrong, hm?

"Guess I feel kinda small to be playing the wall for anyone’s bull. Though, that's obviously silly, I s'pooooose, particularly going up against, as you elegantly framed it, a lanky little thing like you." But then, Eleanor felt anything but small, particularly when she was tossing the Feychild from corner to corner.

—But, the hour was upon them, and after these several weeks of training, Shimmerlace knew the routine. She glanced over her shoulder to make sure Eleanor was indeed out of the ring wiping her face, then — half listening to the recaps and last insights from her coach — she rolled out of the ring on the side opposite and ducked briefly beneath the aquamarine mat.

Not long thereafter, she'd pop through the apron on the other side of the lioness training ring, rolling to a stand with a pep that would have seemed impossible half a minute earlier. She met her mentor's eyes, and as she did, she tilted her head back just a few degrees, smiled with just a scoop too much coyness, and almost imperceptibly lidded her eyes. Once Eleanor gave her attention and an opening, she stuck out her hand — like a cowgirl playing quickdraw — fanning out a hand of playing cards. Each cardback sported an identical pattern of pink hearts at the center of a golden baroque fey design over a dark, lightly textured background reminiscent of a deep woods.

"I belieeeeeeeeve, Madame Gray, you are familiar with the 'pick a card, any card' routine?"

[FreestylePoet]

"That's the idea." Eleanor hup-hupped to her feet, then strolled across the canvas and on out of the ring. She pulled a bottle from the cinch-sack on the sidelines. One swig in her mouth, and a small splash onto her face. Then came the towel, as automatic as the rest.

Not that routine meant anything with Shimmerlace Snuggleblossom. She came crashing into her mentor's cooldown like a semitruck through a squirrel sanctuary, with sneakers bounding just as loud and a night-road driver's high beams stretched across her face.

Before Eleanor had a chance to pray, the cards came out. She knew the ones. Heavy stock with a design straight out of Barnes and Noble's most-trafficked sections. Tiara-like curls of gold, set as filigree upon an umber backsplash, with pink hearts inlaid.

She narrowed her eyes. "...I am." A few months ago, Eleanor might have enjoyed the memory of some storybook door, or fifty-two laid out before her, each the start of a fantastical journey. But she'd been with Shimmerlace long enough to know that "magic trick" was both more and less than a mere compound phrase. The only way to win was not to play -- but wasn't it the same way in a practice ring? She'd given Shimmerlace plenty of bumps. It was only fair to step into her turf every once in a while.

Unlike her ward, however, Eleanor Gray always kept her guard up.

Without another word, Eleanor ran her hands down Shimmer's arms, from elbow to palm, like so many referees before a match. And like almost all of them, she found nothing. No snapper, no joy buzzer, no Chinese finger trap. A sting in her eyes reminded her how much a weapons-check was really worth, so she hooked her fingers around Shimmer's wrist before sliding down and tracing between the cards themselves. Above and below.

She stayed locked on Shimmerlace the whole time, searching with her hands and with her ears, and with the nose for trolling that once led the TIME 100 to call her the nation's first mayor for the digital age.

(But not with her eyes. Never with her eyes. Not on anything that could give up the game.)

Finally, she clicked her tongue. There really wasn't anything there. Nothing obvious enough to let the mouse beat the cat, anyway. "Alright, then. Any card, huh..."

She pulled one out and tilted it up. The three of clubs. The boring, ordinary three of clubs. Not so much as a "KICK ME" sticker on the front. "I'm guessing you'll want this back?"

[Malkavia]

Like any good magician, Shimmerlace knew the best medicine for skeptics and wannabe stage detectives was to pretend they didn't exist. She continued on, as if the TSA-style feel-me-up were as natural a part of things as her breathing and blinking.

"A Threeee of clubs! Thank you...very much!"

She snipped the card between index and middle finger, twirled it round once over her ring finger, and slid it face up in the other hand's fanned-out display.　Then she scooped the cards back to their lowest energy state, the 54-card stack, promptly cut in two between her two hands.

Shuffles came next. Cards flew from her palms with enough force to kick up a light breeze against Magician and Participant's face. Yet when they met in the middle, somehow the cards crisply settled all neat-like into a controlled deck between Shimmerlace's fingers.

"A fortuitous card, though—one ripe with a certain power don't you think?" A second shuffle followed the first, and a third the second, each one a new style. Here she riffled, there she weaved, and each time she savored the fluttering music of textured laminated paper in motion. "I'd go so far as to say this deck resonates with that number."

The cards were back in a deck, and Shimmerlace held them up in both hands, clasping the short ends like a sandwich. This allowed Eleanor to read the sharpie etched into the newly ordered deck's side:

3♣

"You see this deck has its natural inclinations. You might feel you pick the card, oh. But this deck? This deck chooses you. I doubt it would let me choose nought but..."

She flipped the top card—fast, so you could hardly see her fingers make the move if you watched with a eagle's attention—and indeed, there lay the three of clubs. Another flick of the wrist, and she plucked second card with her free hand. In defiance of all rules of deck composition, another three of clubs.

"Peculiar, right? NOW. Our canny and shrewd Eleanor, she may be having thoughts—thoughts like what if all the cards in this deck are threes o' clubs, huh? Well."

Flick and shuffle-shuffle-shuffle, then one quick motion with her wrist and the whoe deck all fanned out between two hands. All face up except for three. The face-up cards gleamed with the reds and blacks of a full deck.

"Canny and shrewd thought, my good and lovely coach. But no. Now if you would be so good as to take the face-down cards, one at a time, from your left to my left. We can show you just how deeply this deck vibrates on your frequency."

Shimmerlace extended the hand, eyes glittering, head at just a slight angle. She was still. This bit of the trick required Eleanor's cooperation, preferably without any paranoid flourishes lifted from the CIA. The Feychild didn't want to make any moves that might startle.

And if Eleanor took the cards?

Card the first: 3♣

Card the second: 3♣

The third card, however, was not a playing card at all. It had the shape, the lamination, the texture, even faintly the plastic-paper smell of poker playing cards. But instead of a number, it had balloons, and instead of a heart or diamond, a birthday cake. Or the remains of one anyway. A pixie burst through its topmost batter in a cartoonish shower of icing and cake. And below that:

Spoiler

HAPPY

3♣ 3♣

BIRTHDAY ELEANOR!

[FreestylePoet]

Of all Shimmer's tricks, these were always Eleanor's favorites.

It wasn't as if Eleanor had never seen close-up magic before. She wanted to say that it made for a good enough night on the town with her friends back home, but on any given Friday, that was a fifty-fifty shot at best. "Street magician," it turned out, was the most common two-month hobby for a techbro going through a mid-life crisis -- second only to "standup comedian" -- and, really, was it ever the humble, competent ones who went through one of those?

On that basis alone, these wide springs and flourished dribbles were a new frontier for Eleanor. But that was true the first time Shimmerlace Snuggleblossom had fanned the cards before her face. Since then, Eleanor had spent far more time than is totally healthy thinking about magic.

See, card tricks reminded Eleanor of a past life. The means and ends were really the same, after all. With nothing but clever legerdemain, a game of lookie-here, you could make an audience believe anything. That was enough to make most people feel as if it was all lies from top to bottom, and nobody could really begrudge that. Still, they were the kind of lies that could do a world of good, if the whole room saw fit to buy in.

As the cards twirled in perfect geometry in front of her, Eleanor laughed. Funny to think that way, she realized, after so many cards miraculously ended up behind her ear. Maybe that was why she could never hide a smile at the sound of a riffled deck.

Or, maybe it was just the other part of a past life kicking in.

"'Frequency,' huh? You know I'm not into crystals or balance bands or any of those other things they sell at the mall, right?" She pulled the first card then flicked its corner, spinning it longways up and into the air and smiling as it went.

Eleanor caught it. Three of clubs, as expected. Now for the fun part.

She pulled the next one, simply laying it face-down in the palm of her left. Her right shaded over it, and when she pulled her hand back, the card was face-up. Another three of clubs. Eleanor clicked her tongue in amusement, then tapped the impossible card against her temple with a wink, as if pointing to the spot where an ace of spades might have been tucked into Gunner Ellie's bowler hat once upon a time.

This wasn't the first time she'd given some magic right back to Shimmer, and surely her ward had seen at least one night where Gunner Ellie had donned the guise of a mafioso...besides, it wasn't as if her line of work would begrudge nimble fingers. Full-on tricks were out of her wheelhouse, but this was something where she could play a bit of ball, too.

Eleanor capped things off by taking the third card and flipping it from finger to finger, knuckle to nailpad and back again, careful never to catch too long a glimpse of its face. It took far more of her concentration than she might have liked. "God, how do you make this look so easy?" Finally, with a flick, she spun the card on her finger and held it at nose level. When it finally slowed down, she palmed it.

"Happy..." She furrowed her brow, then let out a single guffaw. "Did you draw this?" Eleanor asked. "Shimmerlace, this has got to be by far the best trick you've pulled on me. I'd offer to sign it, but—" Her eyebrows raised, and even after all this time she found a way to laugh in disbelief. "—it looks like you've got a perfect rendition of my autograph on here already." She winked. "At least the first name."

[Malkavia]

"Thaaaaank you Eleanor, thank you," said Shimmerlace with the exaggerated verbal flourish of stage performer. Her bow, low with one leg thrown back, only added to the pomposity—an impression undercut only by her exceptionally unprofessional grin. "Alas, can't take all the credit though. It's not so often I have the pleasure of beholding someone else's cardistry, miss Ellie 'Nimble-Fingers.' I'll have to start watching my wallet around you."

Crass joke? Perhaps. Shimmerlace let it slide water-on-oil like down her back. By now, she'd come to accept Eleanor wasn't about to drop her at the nearest rainy bus-top on account of a maladroit comment.

In fact, it was hard to imagine sunnier training in fields any greener. Well. Fine, yes, her record perhaps could be greener—or contain any green at all, for that matter. But that would come. She was running longer and faster, dodging more gracefully, flying with ever-mounting precision, and at the core of everything was...Well. Ass-kicking. Lots of it, and from a one-time icon who knew how to cut a deck one-handed. If God made YL mentors in a better mould, such divinities were beyond Shimmer's mortal comprehension.

Which is why Shimmerlace still felt the flutter of mothwings in her chest. A touch of the familiar dry-mouthed, wet-palmed nerves. If there was one thing she knew, nothing hurt like a good thing lost, and if something isn't getting better, it's getting worse.

After one last mid-air riffle for play, Shimmerlace stowed her cards — minus one — in one of her many pockets. Then she clasped her hands behind her back, crossed her legs, and crooked her head as she leaned against the ring in a mostly plausible imitation of comfort.

"I'd sing ya happy birthday to match the card, Eleanor, but..." She unclasped her hands so they could add color to her shrug. "...Eh! Doooooesn't seem like the setting for it, now, does it? Why don't you let me treat you to something somewhere with better acoustics?"