InsaneJournal

Tweak says, "DO NOT WANT"

zarataz (zarataz) wrote in silverage,
@ 2011-08-21 16:42:00

Entry tags:

!log, remus lupin, zatanna zatara

Who: Remus and Zatanna
What: Show tickets in exchange for helping her out with her boggart problem
When: Sunday night
Where: CBS Studios
Warnings: Nada!

Zee smiled brightly at the crowds of people applauding her from their seats in the audience. It was taking them forever to let her off the stage and she knew that Ed would get tetchy if she took up too much time in the limelight past her allotted ten minute act. She held up her hands and took one more bow before beginning her slow backing off the stage. As was customary Zee paused to plant a kiss on Ed's cheek, thanking him for having her on yet again, and then passed another cheeky smile and wave to the audience. "Thank you and good night, everybody!" Crossing her fishnetted legs, Zee blew a kiss to the crowd and muttered behind her hand, "Raeppasid ot ym gnisserd moor. Ekoms stceffe!"

Her dressing room greeted her with a welcome silence.

With a loud breath, Zee collapsed into the plush, velvety chair that sat in front of her changing screen. The show hadn't gone horribly that night, but she was an utter perfectionist and couldn't help going through every minor thing that had gone wrong. To be perfectly honest, they had been minor, but she was still going to curse the fact that her rabbit had been a little too sedated to be stage ready. These things happened when one was working with 1960s tranquilizers. But hell, at least PETA didn't exist. That would have been bad.

She reached to the side, picking up a ribbon so that she could pull her hair up off her neck into a pony tail. "Eight o'clock," she mumbled under her breath. Could she go home and take a bath now? Something with bubbles in the ancient, clawfootted tub she'd been using since she'd been a child. Zee closed her eyes thinking about it and decided to take just give herself a moment complete, and total silence before--

Knock, knock.

Zee opened one eye. "What?"

"Your guest here to see you, Miss. Zatara!" What? She thought, both eyes opening now. She had guests? No, that couldn't be right-- the staff at the Ed Sullivan show knew that she hated to be bothered directly before or after performances and she'd never had a problem with enforcing that desire. "A Remus Lupin for you?" The name tumbled clumsily over the staff woman's tongue but it gave Zatanna the information and memory she needed. Remus Lupin, the magical teenager who'd helped her with her boggart problem. The magical teenager she'd decided to keep an eye on because Zatanna, in general, simply didn't trust magical teenagers to always make the proper decisions, no matter what their intentions.

Of course now she remembered giving him tickets to the show as thanks for dealing with her boggart issue and telling him to come say hello back stage. "Gnikrow setholc ffo." Zee pushed up off her chair and pulled her robe down from where it hung on the edge of her changing screen. Teenaged boys (usually her cousin, Zachary) always seemed to catch her at her worst.

"Come in!" she called.

(Read comments) - (Post a new comment)

zarataz
2011-08-24 05:25 pm UTC (link)

"I am boggart clean and free," Zee announced. She smiled and turned to pull open one of the many drawers in her dressing room table. She pulled out a bottle of white wine, a little after show tradition she had. "Thanks to you. They're fascinating, but I can't have them running around here."

She started rustling around for some wine glasses. That was the nice thing about the 1960s: one never had to look far. One of the show's assistants had left them to the side of her table. "It took me about six months to get over the hesitation at offering this, but when in Rome-- do you want a glass? I swear, everyone here's already an alcoholic." It was a wonder there wasn't more liver failure, to be perfectly honest.

"So..." she started pouring a glass for herself. "Can I ask you about where you're from? There're so many new magics in this city."

(Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

tufty
2011-08-25 01:03 am UTC (link)

Remus wasn't quite in the mood for drinks but if the good hostess offered, then who was he to decline? Besides, a few drops of spirit might actually help him feel better -- if only just a bit. "Thank you," he said as he received his glass and held it out for the wine.

"It is fascinating, isn't it? How many forms magic can take," he said to begin. "I belong to England of 1981, although I do not walk among Mu-- the uhh...non-magical humans, we call them Muggles back home so if I slip..." he gave a bit of a shrugging gesture. 'There you have it,' it seems to want to say. "There is...a statute back home that wizards and witches -- that is to say magical people -- are to live away from the Muggles for fear of persecution. After all, we have such a colorful history of that. But we aren't all very incapable because of the lack of support; we have our own hidden communities, laws, lore, schools..."

He laughed a bit as he stroked a gray lock off his face. "I'm sorry but I might ramble. What exactly did you want to know about us, anyhow?" The way Remus might have sounded and looked, the way his body was poised so comfortably, it might look as if he was ready to divulge the secrets of his world. But it wasn't like you met a fellow magician in just about every Boggart-ridden corner...

(Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

zarataz
2011-08-25 01:41 am UTC (link)

"So there are people in your England who can't do magic? There seemed to be so many of you --I always see you speaking on the bulletin boards-- that I sort of assumed you'd come from a place where everyone had abilities." Zee poured the wine and handed Remus a glass. "Are you born with it?"

She didn't really have a list of questions she was planning going through. This wasn't meant to be an interrogation. Zatanna was just genuinely curious and, still, slightly worried. Zachary, Klarion, and several other magical teenagers she'd encountered over her career had left her prematurely leery of any she encountered in the future. If nothing else, she'd known herself as a magical teenager. Bad decisions became ten times worse than the bad decisions regular homo sapiens made.

"You could say I'm hiding too. I don't make such an effort of it back home, but here I'm strictly an illusionist. At least that's what I want people believing."

(Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

tufty
2011-08-25 04:53 am UTC (link)

"I suppose you can say that many of my friends or at the least, those affiliated with me, have been somehow absorbed here. But there really isn't many of us if compared to the non-magical humans who still outnumber us by a good mile," he explained as he raised his glass to his lips and took a timid sip of his drink. "But me and my friends, we are born with it. There might be a way for our magic to be learned but," he shook his head, "I am not aware how effective that is. Anyway, before you can learn magic, you still need to have magic in your blood." He was talking about the wizard-born non-magic-capable people.

But when he thought to venture into that part of the magical politics of his world, he decided against it. He didn't know a lot about them and there really was no point, anyhow. "Muggles will believe anything, won't they? I mean," and here, he might have shut his eyes and shook his head quickly, "I'm sorry, that must sound very unpleasant. I did not mean to talk them down..." He was not in the position to do that.

"But it is true, isn't it? In a way, I mean. They would believe that you are non-magical who learned magic but you really are magical...you are born with it, too, aren't you?" Or was his assumptions just going wild, again?

(Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

zarataz
2011-08-25 05:29 am UTC (link)

She couldn't help smirking. "Muggles, as you call them, tend to see what they want to see. I disappeared into thin air back on stage and even though he was standing right next to me when it happened --and he is every Sunday-- Ed will still think it's a clever trick of smoke and mirrors." There were no amount of smoke and mirrors that could do what she did.

"I was born and raised a homo-magi," Zee nodded. "I come from a long line of magicians and my father did what I do. I was his assistant before he--" Explaining the real would have been too personal and taken far too long. Zee hesitated. "--before he died."

She lifted the glass of wine to her lips to hide any unease. "Anyway, yeah. Born with my powers. Using them to entertain the masses and save the world. The usual." Her trademarked grin passed over her lips again.

(Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

tufty
2011-08-25 02:24 pm UTC (link)

"Your father must be proud," Remus said lightly. It was always nice if a daughter or son would take after their father. Thinking about it instantly shifted his thoughts to his friend's son and he found himself wondering what could happen in the future...

It came and went just as quickly. "You must have learned everything from him. Even those pocket dimensions you've sent the boggarts to. Honestly, that's some complicated magic you do there." He wondered if maybe he could open one himself but ahh, such fancy thoughts were likely not workable.

(Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

zarataz
2011-08-27 11:18 pm UTC (link)

"Oh, it's not that hard. A lot of this stuff was enchanted by my father," Zatanna admitted with a shrug. "But with the way my magic works... I do have to practice, but making these things become old hat after awhile-- no pun intended." She felt around over her shoulder until her hand gripped on the brim of one of her many top hats. This one, made from beaver skin, had a bit of a sheen to it. She leaned forward and handed it to Remus.

"Stick your hand in. It's bigger on the inside," she winked. "You might bump into Chanel, but don't worry. Friendliest rabbit ever." The pocket dimension allowed her to, among other things, perform the famed rabbit out of a hat trick without a cloth covering the table she worked on. Unlike other magicians, her trick actually left the crowds wondering how she'd done it.

Zee leaned back. "I have one inside a chest that's just a pit with chains and alligators. I call it the Land of Ex-Boyfriends."

(Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

tufty
2011-08-28 04:59 am UTC (link)

"That is a very creative name," Remus said while the entirety of his arm was submerged into the hat that Zatanna had offered. "I feel sorry for your past boyfriends. We do have a similar charm back home, though: the Undetectable Extension Charm," as he said this, he began to pull his arm back, "It works very much like this. It is also what we use to keep our wands in our pockets, among many others." And out popped from the hat, a rabbit.

"When you called them your pocket dimensions, though," he went on as he slipped Chanel back inside its hat, the cavity devouring his entire arm again, "I thought that you'd meant that there were worlds within them...spaces where you can walk inside." He was embarrassed to admit that he thought some of them might have a village inside them. "Much like a portal of sorts to another...well, dimension," he finished as he drew his arm back and out the hat. "I didn't realise that you'd meant extra spaces for objects all along..."

(Reply to this) (Parent)

(Read comments) -