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There once were two-
No, hold on, that's not the proper way to start this.
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The first time someone had seen {even a fraction} past your {perfected, planned, dangerously thought-out} disguise, you very nearly panicked. But it happened in the middle of the street, at your makeshift magic table, and you were in the middle of a conjuring trick that might not
entirely have been slight of the hand, and it might have caused a scene.
"Mister, mister," said the little girl tugging at your coattails {where was her
mother?}, and you catch her wide brown eyes in the cracks between butterflies' wings, an endless swarm spewing from your black velvet top hat. She was perhaps five or six, and a crimson swallowtail had landed on her nose.
"Mister, why do you have a halo but no wings?"
You held yourself together for the remainder of the performance, but mindful of the cloud of butterflies; in case {god forbid!} the disguise had begun to slip. And afterwards you clamped your hat down atop your head, stuffed your pockets full of change the crowd had graciously thrown to you, and ran.
Later you were simply glad she'd only seen the halo. But it still disturbed you to no end, and so you made a call.
It wasn't a call that could be made by phone box, and it certainly cost more than a few coins to connect.
And somewhere, a butterfly not under your spell began to flap its wings...
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"You've gotten paranoid." Said the angel, who was leaning against an aged well somewhere in the Higher Plane, staring pensively into the still water. A worldly reflection of itself stared back, more miffed than anything else, with a few strands of his lengthy, charcoal hair trailing the surface of the water. "And you look ridiculous."
The man huffed, tugging at one of his locks and looking to the side. "It's better than nothing. I don't want a repeat of... Last time. This way, it won't happen again."
"And here I thought," sighed the angel, "that I'd grown out your hair in order to donate it to
charity."
It was its job, technically, to cater to the whiles and whims of the dark-haired double,
provided that he did something good with it. The higher-ups would not like this- Though, in the spirit of credit where credit is due, the style did hide his halo particularly well.
"This
is a charity!" Smile, smile, all fake and plastic. When had he gotten so bad at that? "The charity of Angelic Protection. Or, alternatively, If They Find Out, We're Both Dead."
"I already am."
"Not technically~" Sang the man on the mirror's other side. A ripple from his pond disrupted their conversation for a moment- when he returned into view, he was looking worried. "I, um... Should go. Sorry, Amour-"
"Think nothing of it," interrupted the angel, watching apple blossoms tangle themselves in smoky hair. The man's eyebrows furrowed as he tried to catch them before they fell into the water. "I understand. Enjoy the flowers, Makki."
Makki's eyes {brilliant, golden, a testament to his heritage} swung back to the angel, and he smiled, his relief evident. He settled back into a crouch and lifted his hands, bursting with petals, above the water's surface. He probably would have waved if he were able to.
"See you soon, Amour."
He let the petals drop, and soon there were nothing but white flowers in the water.
Makki dusted off his trouser legs, stared a bit at the sinking husks, and left.
And on another plane, another world existing in the same space, an angel fished out a bucket from the well. It was filled with flowers.
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Dustin was lost.
This was not, entirely, an unusual occurrence- for a man who can navigate tombs and ruins with ease, he seemed hopelessly lost in today's modern steam-cities. You could say his mind was in the wrong time zone; or the wrong era, rather.
He stared hopelessly at the map he had obtained. There was a large splotch of oil obscuring half of the paper, and on the back, some diagrams for a new flying machine. He'd have to look over those later, even though he hadn't the slightest idea how all of it worked. It was just the novelty of it that fascinated Dustin, not the particulars.
Still reading, he turned a corner, ducked under a inn sign, dodged a small clockwork cart, side-stepped some people headed to
another inn, turned left into an ally, avoided killing a few suicidal rats that scurried around his feet, and stopped at the end of it. Then he looked around, confused, wondering how he managed to end up exactly where he had been.
"Where's the bloody inn?" He asked the world, and burred his nose back in the grubby map. He began to walk again.
A few brass gargoyles watched him from the rooftops, their mouths open and their eyes blue morphos. Their wings flapped, listless.
They waited. They had the patience of stone.
...You'd probably have to, to make a deal with Dustin.
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