The Magicians' Realm Chapter 50: Odd Sightings, a yu-gi-oh fanfic

Chapter 50, everybody! A landmark chapter….Xohan is one of my original characters, and in his source story of Dragon Tamers, is a ghoul. Here, he's (relatively) normal (for now); Sally is another character who was in his story, and yes, there is such a thing as having a florid blue birthmark all over the side of one's face and neck (one of Mom's customers had it). In other news: I had to look up how to spell "coleslaw," as it's one of those words you know about but never have occasion to spell.

The movie this week is Happy Feet, which we rewatched over dinner today; whenever something goes south and we end up in a better position because of it, Mom always draws the correlation of Mumble going from the Emperor Penguins to the Adelie Penguins: from disapproval to hey man, you're so cool! :D

Angiembabe, thanks for the review! Yes they are! And then you get the hornets the size of my thumb…those I just shut up in the window and hope they keel over. D: Yay! She is! Perchance—after giving him a dressing-down first. That…may be so….Yes, I do too—and you can't go wrong with good barbecue! :D

FicReader, thanks for the review! No problem! Wasn't it great? And yes it is, cobwebs, ghosts, and all. :D They…will not behave, that I can guarantee. Yes, he does that….Oh goodness, no! And then it took me most of the week to work up enough nerve to sleep in my room again after that. D: We checked the attic, and aside from four fair-headed children and a few old board games, there was nothing, so we plugged up a hole in my room with steel wool and…nothing yet….

Fromtheashtrees, thanks for the review! Although I think you might have forgotten to log in….Perhaps…and yes, that's about accurate…and you would think….Oh good, so it's not just us (and yes, those are good movies). Well, my pants have pockets (including the little pocket that's supposed to be for a pocket watch), but now that it's summer most of my shorts don't have that (except for my jean ones that are on their last legs). Surprisingly, I got it at Walmart for ten dollars this past Christmas—but it's a really nice watch, and it works great (you know, one I figured it out). I know—it's sad, really, and one of the reasons I try to make sure to only post stories I'm sure of finishing (I do too—such a great concept…). This is true. Ah, thank you—yes, although I won't start posting any of those others until the ones I've already got on FanFiction are done. Yes, manageable, but stretching it—which may explain her lack of a social life. Tell them to take deep, calming breaths. And to keep calm and carry on (get them the t-shirts—that has t-shirts, strangely enough). And that's all I can reply to, as the e-mail cuts out and it hasn't shown up in the reviews yet—woe! D:

References:

Original characters, + setting © Kineil D. Wicks (myself, not the girl in the story)

They were deep in the woods now, and making a turn onto a road that was vaguely creepy.

"I'm thinking maybe my first impression about you being one of those Magicians was accurate," Teana said.

"I'm not taking you to the middle of nowhere to murder you," Yami said, sounding miffed again. "Xohan likes to work out here because the forest helps keep him cool—he does work over a smoker all day."

"I'm still seriously thinking of running."

"But then you'd miss really good barbecue."

"It might be worth it."

"Trust me," Yami said, smiling that irritating smile of his—that was so open and happy and trusting that she had a decidedly hard time saying no to it. She wondered if that wasn't a bit of magic there and resented it somewhat.

Before she could come up with a better counterargument, however, they had rounded a small curve and arrived at a truck with what looked like a shed on the flatbed, metal chimneys leaking smoke that dissipated through the leaves. A sign leaned against the front tire (which, on closer inspection, was flat) advertising the specials.

"It looks unsanitary," Teana said. It was the first thing that occurred to her.

"The sauce and the cooking kills off any germs," Yami insisted. "And to be honest, this place I have to put a tracking spell on—Xohan has a habit of moving in-between flat tires."

"You never did explain the name."

"Was I supposed to?"

"It needs explaining."

Someone with a shock of spiky white hair stuck his head out, for a moment fooling Teana into thinking it was Bakura Necromancer.

"I'll tell you what," white-hair said. "'Xohan' is not an old Indian name for he who can't hear squat."

"Now Xohan, don't behave that way to new customers," Yami chided. "I'll tell Sally on you."

"Why are you looking at me like that?" Teana asked, noting how Yami suddenly looked at her expectantly.

"You didn't question that one."

"That's because Sally is a normal name."

Yami shrugged at Xohan, who rolled his eyes. "I don't suppose you're related to Bakura Necromancer, are you?" Teana asked. There were some physical similarities, such as the pale skin, white hair, and blue eyes, but Xohan seemed more angular.

"Ha ha! No," Xohan said, stressing that last word and bringing his hand up to pinch two fingers together—

Teana eeked in alarm at the sight of the long blades he had instead of fingers, and would have bolted if Yami hadn't caught her.

"Now see, this is why I suggested you have Sally handle the window," Yami said calmly. "You scare people."

Teana was trying to articulate the problem and failing, instead pointing with alarm at the jointed blade-hand Xohan possessed.

"What?" Xohan asked finally.

Yami had figured it out first. "Your glove."

"Oh," Xohan noised, taking it off and revealing a perfectly normal hand beneath it. Teana started patting her chest in an endeavor to ascertain if her heart was indeed still working.

"What," she managed finally, before deciding on a better word. "Why?"

"I got this from some surgeon-guy last year," Xohan explained. "Snikt, I think is the name. Anywho, it's supposed to be for surgery, but it works nicely in getting meat prepped for barbecue."

Teana stared.

"You really are trying to kill me," she said finally. Yami, to his credit, was massaging his forehead, as though he finally realized that this probably wasn't a good thing.

"Oh dear," a new voice said, prompting Teana to jump. "Is he giving you a hard time?"

She turned to see a plain young lady her age and height coming up the way. "You're going to have to be more specific," Teana declared, indicating both men present.

"I'm going with the one in the truck," the lady said, coming even with them. Teana noted the hat and the basket—and then quickly averted her eyes when she noted the dark blotches along her neck and cheek. "Yes I know," the lady said. "And no, it's not what you think—I was born with that."

"They're birthmarks," Yami explained. "Teana, this is Miss Sally, who is the poor unfortunate tasked with keeping Xohan here in line."

"The sad thing is, I volunteered for it," she said in an aside to Teana, although she was smiling. "Now, I'm guessing you came all this way for food, not pleasantries."

"I'm certainly not getting the latter," Teana said, with a pointed look at Xohan. He started twiddling his thumbs and whistling.

"I'm sure," Sally said, coming around and climbing up into the truck. "And you're lucky you've beaten the traffic."

"What traffic?" Teana asked, indicating the area—she made a small noise of alarm as a few Hippies came down the street.

"Dude," one noised, flashing her the peace sign. "And dudette. We come in peace."

"Yo," Yami noised, returning both the hand signal and the sentiment.

"For you," Sally said, leaning out of the truck and handing Teana a bag. "On the house for putting up with Xohan."

"Uh, thank you," Teana said, accepting the bag.

"Do we get free food?" one of the other Hippies asked.

"Unfortunately, no," Sally said. "You weren't early enough to be bothered by him, so no."

"Don't encourage them," Xohan muttered from somewhere in the truck. Teana heard snicking noises and had the sinking feeling he had that weird glove back on.

"Well then," Yami said. "Thank you for the wonderful meal, Sally. Shall we go?" he asked Teana.

"If you can keep up," she replied. Then, to Sally: "It was nice meeting you."

And it was fortunate that Yami had such long legs, as it enabled him to easily keep up with her just-short-of-running pace.

*/*\*

They were deep in the woods now, following one of the old brick paths through. Chances were it fed out into a Gypsian camp, but Yami was hopeful that they'd run into a Hippie first.

Anzu, meanwhile, was digesting everything he had said.

"Wow," she said finally. "That's…um…." She looked around before looking directly at him. "This isn't the part where I find out one of those recipes requires a human life, is it?"

Yami grimaced. "No. I wouldn't touch one of those spells."

"They exist?"

"Unfortunately—there's some sick people out there."

"Like the boogie-mage?"

Yami sighed. "I have no idea—no one knows about this guy, because no one talks about this guy. Just oh he's horrible and he wiped out a village and he knew a cannibal—"

"What was that last one?"

"Oh, yeah," Yami said, gesturing to a side road that looked good and creepy—there wasn't any going down it by accident. "Apparently, Skellington knew a cannibal—ate one of the Civic Agents."

"Ew."

"Yeah. Honda loves to pull that one out when we go camping." Yami gave that some thought. "Come to think of it, I wonder how he ever heard of that…."

"Yes, well, moving on…what if the Administrators find out?"

"That's occurred to me."

"And?"

"And I'm working on it."

"That's not really an answer."

"That's because it's a work in progress."

Anzu scowled, scuffed her shoe.

"Wait," she noised, looking up. "Why was that book in your attic to begin with, if it belonged to Skellington?"

"Good question—and one I don't have a good answer for." It occurred to him that maybe Thomas Montgau had confiscated it—but that made no sense; if the boogie-mage was so horrible as to have been thoroughly erased from history as he was, then they wouldn't have risked one of his spellbooks being found. They would have burned it, as horrible as that was—burning books was supposed to be one of the fastest ways to get the Bookman after you.

"Should you have an answer?" she asked.

"Not necessarily," Yami replied. "Some things in life are mysteries, after all."

"That doesn't necessarily seem like a safe answer."

"Life isn't safe."

"Maybe I'm being too opaque," she said, stopping him at an intersection. "I would much rather you live a long, healthy, boring life than a short, exciting, deadly one. I don't like dating fellas with short life expectancies."

Yami gave her a look. "How many guys like that have you dated?"

"None—guys with short life expectancies are generally teenage boys who haven't figured out they aren't immortal yet."

"I guess I'm too immature for you."

"I'm beginning to think so," Anzu said, hands on her hips—and then she glanced over his shoulder and blinked in surprise.

"What?" Yami asked, looking over his shoulder. Nothing.

"It's funny—I thought I saw a couple that looked just like us. Only the one with funny hair was the taller one."

"So now you think my hair's funny?"

"There is an awful lot of it."

"I like it that way. My parents kept it short for years, and I hated it. That's why I started wearing hats."

"Hmm…."

He scratched the side of his face. "Um, listen…in retrospect, I should have…called…or something…."

"You should have," she said, nodding. "And I can't stop you from doing ridiculously dangerous things, I realize…but I would like you to actually think about what you're doing before you do it."

"I'm being careful," he said, feeling miffed.

"Are you sure?"

"Maybe."

"That's not a good answer."

"That's all I have."

She sighed, shook her head before smiling a little. "At least stop dropping off the face of the earth for a week or more."

"I didn't drop off the face of the earth," Yami countered, leading her down a road that would take them out of the woods. "I just forgot to call."

"In my mind, that qualifies as dropping off the face of the earth."

"I'll work on it. And I'll try to be more careful."

"That's all I ask."

*\*/*

Teana didn't slow until she was out of the creepier path, and was a mite irritated at the sight of Yami Skellington not being out of breath.

"You could at least pretend to be winded," she said, prompting a look of confusion from Yami. "Never mind."

"I can do that," Yami said, smiling as he came over to poke at the bag of food. "So what did we get?"

"What is this we you speak of?"

"I'm pretty sure the barbecue was my idea."

To be honest, she wasn't all that sold on sharing this, considering how good it smelled, but she finally broke down and opened it, revealing a pair of barbecue sandwiches all wrapped up and a pair of containers that might hold coleslaw. She handed one sandwich over to Yami, and then handed him the bag after he had unwrapped his so she could get into hers.

"Well?" he asked, after a moment of silence.

She considered as she chewed.

"It's not bad," she said after swallowing. "Savory, but really kind of sour."

"Xohan uses vinegar in his sauce."

"That explains it then. And something spicy, I'm going to guess."

"The secret's in the sauce."

"I'm sure."

"Good though, right?"

"I'd eat it again."

"Was it worth the aggravation?"

"No."

"Oh."

She shook her head, glanced away—

Blinked in surprise—

But when she looked again, it was gone.

"What?" Yami asked, looking where she was. "What is it?"

"I…have no idea," she admitted, pointing. "I swear I saw two kids down that way, but when I looked again they were gone."

Yami simply shrugged. "Probably tearing off on some new adventure. I did it all the time when I was a kid." He gave that some thought. "Still do, actually…."

"Normal adults don't do that, I'll have you know."

"'Normal' adults are remarkably boring. Unless you consider yourself normal, then in which case you are most decidedly not boring, so there."

"And you are the epitome of weirdness."

"Thank you—I'll take that as a compliment. You never did answer my question, by the way."

"Which one?"

"If you could do any job you wanted, what would it be? What is your dream job?"

She gave that some thought, took a bite of her sandwich so she didn't have to answer right away, took her time before swallowing.

"I think…I'd want to do entertainment," she said finally. "Singing and dancing? My grandmother said I could sing like a bird to charm the trees, but…."

"But?"

"But there isn't much market for that around here. I'd have to go to Norkyew, maybe, or that one town out on the Western Chaos Coast, and I don't want to do that."

"Why not?"

"The first one is built on a dead city, for one—you can't tell me that's not at least a little creepy. As for the second one—firstly, I hear the western coast still glows in the dark. Secondly, they're called the Chaos Coasts for a reason."

"As I recall, you have met and subsequently charmed a Chaos Creature already—remember Brutus Kaiba?"

"He's a little hard to forget, yes."

"And for the record, I've been to both places you want to go, and I can tell you that they are neither creepy nor bioluminescent. Granted, some of the surrounding area is bleak, but that's because people let themselves be driven away by superstition."

"Not everyone is like you."

"I'm not sure whether to be happy or sad at that news."

"Besides, it's not like I can just pull up stakes and leave," she said, taking another bite of her sandwich.

"Why not?"

Of course—only Yami would ask that. She swallowed to answer. "I have jobs, I have rent, I have a real need to not starve, girls really shouldn't travel alone….Shall I go on?"

"Why shouldn't you travel alone?"

"Not every girl is like Kineil, in which any perceived threat subsequently loses their teeth."

"Now that is a pity. But as I recall, you have expressed a distaste for your employment and your rent. As for your other two points, you do have me."

"I don't know you from Adam."

"I keep trying to fix that."

She indicated their surroundings. "It's enough of a concession that I came out here with you. For a woman living by herself, this is a big deal. Visiting your house on Thursday is a big deal. Running off with you into the wild blue yonder? As they say up north: fugedaboudit."

Yami actually started laughing at that. "I wouldn't have guessed you'd know that word."

"I'm aware of its existence, yes."

"All right, fair enough," he said, rubbing his face and apparently trying to control his expression. "But if we're still interacting after the agreed year, can I take you on a trip then?"

"I'll think about it."

"You drive a hard bargain, Miss Gardenier."

"It comes with the territory."

"What territory?"

"Of being a woman."

"I don't doubt that." He offered her his arm. "Now why don't I escort you home? It's getting a little dark out."

Teana saw no reason to argue that point. And while he did see her safely home, she was a little disappointed that it didn't take longer to do so.

No matter, she thought, shaking it off. She'd see him again come Thursday.

A prospect which, surprisingly, pleased her immensely.