The Magicians' Realm Chapter 24: Store Talk, a yu-gi-oh fanfic

Chapter 24, everybody! In which our heroes visit shops based on the myriad little stores in my area, use one of my vocabulary flub-ups (I don't speak as well as I write, regrettably ^^), and heavily reference the Dewey-Truman election of 1948—if you don't know what I mean, put "Dewey Defeats Truman" into a search engine and look at the pictures that pop up. It was enough of an iconic 20th century moment and major goof that I had to include a reference to it. :)

Angiembabe, thanks for the review! Huh, so it's across the board (and ocean)! It did cool down and get wet and rainy here, but the temperature's on an upswing again—it's supposed to be seventy-four Christmas Day. *v* I should send the Heat Miser a gift basket….Yes…it must be the hair. :D And really? *looks up* That's so cool—I was referencing the limestone caves under St. Louis that act as a setting for Lackadaisy Cats, but it's so cool that such a thing (storing loot in caves as such) is so universal. And you've given me something new to research, so that's even better! Thanks! \^^/

Fromtheashtrees, thanks for the review! Uh….*checks* The best references up so far would be the cover for The Magicians' Realm or an old drawing I did of Yami Skellington under the YGO-THK folder—I've got a sketch of Yami Skellington from the Magicians' Realm bumped up the queue though, so we should be seeing a visual soon (until then, picture Jack Skellington with Yami-hair XD). Woo! Hot weather! Mom may be revisiting her idea to travel there when January comes—according to the almanac, it's going to be cold then. Ah…so it's like Harry Potter without the dragons (so notably safer). That's interesting—although now I'm picturing it as something like "Good lap! Ten points to uninteresting house name!" Yes, I need to preserve what little sanity I have left….And I shall check it out, when and if I have time (I'm anticipating some right after Christmas, but I'm not sure—where did all my time go!?).

References:

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

Yami was pleasantly surprised to find someone else loitering around the antiques store.

"Hey, Kels," he chimed, walking up to her. "How's things?"

"Decent," she said, poking through the odds and ends, occasionally picking something up; he wondered if she didn't sense something within the items when she did so, but the one time he asked her about it, she had replied with a simple it pleases me.

Thus rang the reasoning of Kels Klendaniel.

She glanced at him as she put the latest knickknack down. "So…how are you doing?" she asked.

"Decent," he returned, shrugging.

"Really," she noised, flatly. "I suppose that's better than how I'd be—if they'd have pulled that stunt on me, they'd have heard it on both Chaos Coasts."

"What stunt?" Yami asked, although he had a sinking feeling he already knew.

"Shooting down your promotion."

"And how do you know about that?"

"The better question would be: who doesn't know?" she returned, gesturing around. "They didn't put it in the paper, but they might as well have—the whole of Delvaire knows that Yami Atem Montgau did not receive his much-anticipated promotion."

It did take Yami a moment to get his emotions under control. "That…was very unprofessional of them."

"It didn't help that you didn't strut all over town," Kels added, resuming her odd habit of picking items up, holding them, and then putting them back. She hardly looked at the items she selected. "And the fact that quite a few people saw you storming out of the Administration Building."

Yami winced—yes, he reflected, he had reacted poorly to the news…."How bad was it?"

"I'm surprised you didn't summon thunderheads."

He rubbed the back of his neck as she picked another something up. "So now what, O fearless leader?" she asked, still with that faraway look.

"I'm not sure," he admitted. "I'm trying to find a way to keep learning without the Administrators' knowing—"

"How very duplicitous of you."

"Yes….So I decided to look in some of these stores for old spellbooks, and then go from there."

"Good luck."

"Thank you."

"No, I mean good luck finding old spellbooks—I've been in nearly every antiques, junk, and consignment store in Delvaire at least once, and spellbooks are the one thing they can't keep in stock."

"They sell out quickly?"

"The Administrators confisticate them."

Yami blinked at the odd word before it registered. "I think you mean confiscate."

"Right—what did I say?"

"You added a 't'."

"Oh."

"Why would the Administrators do that?" Yami mused.

"Why would they hold you back?" Kels asked.

"Good question."

"So what if you fail in this knowledge quest of yours?"

"Then I start experimenting."

"Idle hands…."

"Well, what else can I do?" Yami asked, flinging his hands up in aggravation. "Spend a year sitting on them?"

"Why don't you tell your parents? I'm sure they'll find something for you to do."

"Oh please no—they'll make me clean the gutters, and I hate that job."

"What's so bad about it?"

"They don't let me use magic."

"That'll do it."

She paused, prompting Yami to note that she had been holding the same thing for over a minute now. "I think I'll get this one," she decided, heading for the cashier. She held up the trinket as she did so, looking at it—it was a smooth stone owl, just big enough to fit comfortably in one's hand.

"Why that one?" Yami asked.

"It pleases me."

"How did I know that?" Yami muttered, following her to the cashier.

*\*/*

It was the night they announced the new Head Mage, and nearly everyone Yami knew was at his house, milling around, drinking, eating, and comparing presents. How nice, that his friends were so certain he'd win.

Ah well—time to bring them back to reality.

Yami tapped his finger against his glass to get everyone's attention.

"Hi everybody!" he chimed, once everyone was looking in his general direction. "And thanks for coming to my loser's party! And bringing refreshments, aside."

"'Loser's party'?" Kineil echoed.

"I'm not winning, remember?" Yami asked.

"I want my present back, then," Bakura stated.

"You brought me a present? Then I'm sorry, all presents are non-refundable."

"Forget about his—mine is better," Skulduggery said.

"It's a hat," Idgy supplied.

"Now look," Skulduggery said, feigning aghast. "You went and ruined the surprise."

"I suppose the Pleasant present is this distinctly hatbox-shaped one?" Vulcan asked, holding it up.

"Well, yes…."

"Great! I won't bother stealing it then," Vulcan said, putting it aside and looking at another.

"I thought stealing was my forte," Bakura argued.

"Do you get the feeling we have very peculiar friends?" Yami asked Kineil in an undertone.

Kineil gave him a funny look. "You're just realizing this now?"

"Hello!"

"Oh, hello, Mitzi!" Yami said, turning to see the curvatious co-owner of the Lackadaisy Revue. "I see you brought a commiseration present."

"Nothing like a bottle of booze to say 'I lost,'" she said, handing him the bottle. Ooh—expensive. He ought to fob it off on Marik before Marik took it upon himself to steal it. "And I brought a little something else you might like."

Yami laughed appreciatively at her other gift. It was the Delvaire newspaper, and in big bold lettering it said SUMBINIX VICTOR.

"This is the advance copy, by the way," Mitzi told him. "The Revue gets them for our patrons."

"Speaking of," Yami noised, accepting the paper and unfolding it to read the article. "Shouldn't you be at the Revue?"

Mitzi waved him off. "Atlas can handle it, even if he is as nervous as a cat in a rocking-chair store—everyone's glued to the radio anyways."

"Can you blame them?" Idgy asked, sitting on the arm of the chair nearest to the radio and fiddling with the knobs. "It's not every day we get a new Head Mage."

"And one that puts us to sleep, asides," Skulduggery observed. "I can't wait for his fireside chats—they will cure the country of insomnia."

"Now, play nice," Yami commanded. "He's going to be Head Mage for a very long time….Wow, I just depressed myself."

"You should open that and undepress yourself," Marik pointed out, indicating the bottle Yami was still holding. "And the rest of us, besides. Mostly me, though."

"Your concern for the rest of us is touching."

"Hey, I found it!" Idgy declared. "I found it! They're about to announce the results!"

She turned up the volume knob so they could hear.

"With ninety-nine percent of the votes tallied, we should be hearing the results any moment now," the radio announcer said.

"Can't we find something better to listen to?" Yami asked.

"Oh, don't be such a spoil-sport," Mitzi scolded, slapping him on the arm. "I want to hear this."

Yami grumbled under his breath—the announcer was discussing with another person about the candidates, and it made Yami uncomfortable to hear his name bandied about by people he didn't know.

The announcer chimed in, prompting complete silence. Yami wished he had an airhorn.

"The final votes have come in, and the winner—by an overwhelming margin—"

"Is Sumbinix," Yami muttered, taking a sip of his drink. Mitzi promptly shushed him.

"Is Skellington!"

Yami felt like how the announcer sounded—completely floored.

He never was sure what happened to his mouthful of drink.

His friends' silence didn't last long.

Yami suddenly found himself in the middle of a swarm of congratulations, with the additions of chidings because he swore he wouldn't win—and then Kineil came up.

"All right, fine, rub it in," Yami declared. "Go ahead and say I told you so."

"Boy I told you so," Kineil sang. "But that wasn't what I was going to say."

With that, she held a box up in front of him.

"Please tell me that isn't what I think it is."

"It is," Kineil crowed as Yami opened the box, revealing his worst fear. "You said you'd wear it if you won, and guess what: you won!"

And with that, Kineil joined the wild cheering.

Yami pulled the tie out of the box.

"I…guess I could learn to love it," he said finally.

Mitzi patted his arm. "It suits you," she declared.