Tortallan Talents

George walked out on stage with a microphone, and waited for the applause to die down. "Hello, and welcome to tonight's show, The Talented Tortallans! I'm the Master of Ceremonies, George Cooper! Former King of Thieves at your service." He bowed to the audience. "It's going to be a night filled with fun, laughs, and amazing feats! Let's give it up for our first act, my lovely wife, ALANNA!" He walked offstage, and Alanna took his place.

"I'm going to do a transformation act for you all. Here goes!" She clapped her hands, and the curtain closed. When it opened again, she was wearing a lilac dress. "Here I am as a girl. See the dress?" She clapped her hands again and once more the curtain closed. It opened to reveal her in dressed in breeches, a shirt, a long tunic, her hair cut short, and a sword at her side. Using a slightly lower and deeper voice, she said "And her I am as a boy!" The crowd was silent. Alanna brandished her sword. "Clap for me, or I'll kill you all!" The crowd erupted with applause and cheers. "Thank you, thank you! Oh, you're all too kind!" Waving to her audience, Alanna stepped offstage.

George came back. "Oh, that was wonderful, dearest, simply wonderful." He rolled his eyes. Jerking a thumb at stage right, he said, "That's what I put up with all the time. You don't do something, she threatens you." Alanna came back on stage and waggled her sword at him. He blanched. "Sorry, muffin. Won't happen again." He sighed with relief as she walked away. "Anyway, our next act is one I think all you ladies out there will enjoy. I give you His Majesty, King Jonathon the hunk!" George bowed to Jon as he came onstage and backed away.

Jon went to the center of the stage and stood there in a Speedo. He flexed his kingly muscles, and women in the audience screamed with delight. A few fainted. Several men did too, but we won't get into that. A chant of "Jon is hot, Jon is hot" came from the spectators.

After several minutes of this nonsense, George came back and shooed Jon away from his adoring fans. "Well, that sure will be a tough act to follow. But if anyone can do it, Queen Thayet can!" He left when Thayet entered the scene.

Her hair had been dyed atrociously blonde. She said, "Like, hello!" and waved. "I like, have no talent or brain cells, so I'm just gonna like stand here, and you can all like gaze at my beauty fondly. Like, ok?" She twirled her ugly hair and stood there. This went on for five minutes, and all the time people were booing. But all she did is wave, and look very puzzled. (She's good at that, you know.)

George came to the rescue. "Well, Your Highness, thank you for taking time out of your `busy' schedule to grace us with your presence." He kissed Thayet's hand, and pointed offstage. "Why don't you go paint your nails? Go on." He gave her a little push in the direction.

Thayet examined her nails as she walks. "Like, do you think maybe blue?"

George smiled patiently. "Yes, blue is good. Now go on, scat!" When she was finally gone, he sighed. "That's the queen, folks! Anyway, on to a new act. You all know him, you all love him, and you've all sprained you necks looking up at him! It's Numair, the amazing, jugglin' mage!"

Out came Numair. He cleared his throat, looking a little nervous. "Um, h-hello. Good evening ladies a-and gentlemen. I am going to, uh, juggle a bit for y-you tonight." From the pockets of his black mage robe he pulled out a package and unwrapped it to reveal five very sharp knives. "The knives are first." He began to juggle them. It went quite well, and the audience was captivated by the shiny things that were flying in the air. But then Numair missed one. It clattered to the floor of the stage, and that caused him to drop another. This one flew into the crowd. Someone screamed, which resulted in Numair dropping the last three knives. More screams. "Okay, obviously you didn't like the knives. How about I juggle torches?" The crowd screamed "NO!" but the tall mage didn't hear them, because he was too busy digging in his pockets again. Five large torches were produced. He lit them with magical fire, and commenced juggling. He didn't start off so well this time. Still upset
from the knives, he dropped four torches right off the bat. The curtain and several people in the audience caught fire. "Oops." Still holding the fifth torch, Numair stared at the audience in horror. Suddenly George appeared with a bucket full of water. He threw it on the fire. Numair dropped the last torch in surprise, this time on George. "Oops," he said again, as George abandoned all hope of putting out the fire and ran offstage screaming. "Guess I'll juggle some eggs now." The audience was too busy burning to notice when Numair pulled a carton of eggs out of his pocket and tried to juggle them. Each and every one landed on his head. "Well, I guess I'm done now. Unless you wanna see me juggle boulders?" he said hopefully. "NO! Gods, NO!" screamed the audience. "Well, all right." Numair walked offstage dejectedly.

George came back out, looking rather crispy. "Thank Mithros that's over with! Next up is Ozorne and Rikash, the astounding, back-from-the-dead, tap-dancin' Stormwings!"

The damaged spectators looked up in surprise as the two supposedly dead Stormwings walked on stage, adorned in top hats and red bow ties. "Hello!" Rikash waved merrily at the audience. "We've been practicing our talent in the Realm of the Dead, and we are just tickled pink that we have a chance to perform for you all. It's just too bad that the Black God couldn't be here, (he's busy, you know). He was our teacher, and he's quite good at tap-dancing!" Ozorne looked like his normal, happy-go-lucky self. (A/N: Yes, I AM being sarcastic here.) He scowled at the audience. To Rikash he mumbled, "Let's just get this over with. I feel like a fool."

The two immortals danced. They were very good, for beings that are really ugly and can't walk on their talons gracefully, but the audience was too petrified to notice. They just stared in horror, until the Stormwings' number was over. They left the stage quietly.

When our Master of Ceremonies returned, the crowd was revived. "I'm surprised no one applauded. I think those boys have real talent. But hey, what do I know? Now it's time for Sarge to serenade us with some opera! You know he's got the lungs for it."

Sarge appeared. He was dressed in a pointy metal bra, a skirt, a horned helmet, and braids. He carried a spear. Several spectators laughed. Ok, a lot of them laughed. Could you blame them? Sarge glared, and they all shut up. He took a deep breath and then sang in Italian at the top of his mighty lungs. As his voice grew higher and higher, things began to shake. At the highest possible note audible for human ears, all the glass in a ten-mile radius shattered. But Sarge was still singing. Dogs barked at the sound unable to be heard by humans. The building around him began to crumble. Then, with a squeak, it all stopped, and Sarge was wracked with coughs. The ex-slave lost his voice!

Out came George again. "Thank you, Sarge. That was very, er, nice. Now go away." Sarge walked away, clutching his throat. "Thank the gods that's over. Up next is Numair again-," the audience screamed, "and his lovely assistant, Daine, with a new act. This time, he will be doing magic. May the gods be merciful on us all."

Daine appeared, wearing a skimpy little red dress and long white gloves. Numair had donned a gaudy black robe with stars and moons all over it, and a matching, pointy, wizard's hat. He looked absolutely terrified to be onstage again. "Hi folks, remember me?" The audience groaned at his feeble attempt at humor. "Well, anyways, I shall now pull a rabbit out of my hat." As he pulled the hat off his head, and the crowd looked skeptical. Numair reached his hand into the hat, and yelled "ABRACADABRA!" and pulled his hand back out, clutching air. "What the heck?" He stuck his head in the hat and inspected it carefully. "Daine!" he screeched. "Where is my rabbit?"

Daine looked at Numair in surprise. "What, you actually expected me to agree to stick a poor little rabbit in that hat? I set him free. He's probably halfway to a carrot patch by now."

Numair took several calming breaths. "You're right. It was cruel of me to try to stuff a rabbit in a hat. I'm sorry." To the audience, said, "My next trick will to make a cake in my hat. I will need milk, eggs, sugar, oil, and, uh, all the other ingredients necessary to bake a cake." Daine handed him the items, one by one, which he mixed together in his hat. "ALAKAZAM!" he shouted, tapping the hat with a wand. "Now when I put the hat back on my head, a cake will appear under it."

"Numair," whispered Daine frantically, "I don't think this is such a good idea." He shushed her, and proceeded to put the hat on.

SPLASH!

As you all probably knew, this trick didn't work either. All it did was make Numair wet, messy, and very unhappy. "Told you so," taunted Daine. He glared at her, and scraped together what little dignity he had left. "For my last trick, I will need the help of my lovely assistant Daine." He gestured to the smug girl. "I shall being sawing her in half."

Hearing this, Daine turned ashen. "You're gonna WHAT?!" she cried. "We didn't rehearse this! I don't think so, mister!"

Numair pleaded with her. "Please, Daine. This could save the act!"

"Screw the act! I'm outta here!" As she turned to leave, Numair grabbed her arm and pointed a saw at the magician's sawing-a-lady-in-half box, indicating for her to get in it. Daine, in response, turned into a large, shaggy, and extremely angry bear. Numair dropped his saw and ran of the stage, Daine the bear close at his heels.

George stepped out on the stage when the bear was gone. He shook, face gray. "T-thank you f-for coming t-t-tonight." He stammered. "We h-hope y-you enjoyed t-t-the show." The curtain closed after he walked, um, RAN offstage.

The End

A/N: Did ya like? I had fun writing it, thinking up all sorts of silly things for the characters to do that they would try to pass as talents. Sorry about turning Thayet into a ditz. If you've read some of my other creations, you'll notice she's like that a lot. I don't like her. ALANNA AND JON FOREVER!

Disclaimer: I am the owner only of the plot. The characters, ideas, and other such thingies belong to that wizard of the pen, Tamora Pierce. WORSHIP THE ALTER THAT IS SHE!