A third group for your reading pleasure. This was supposed to go up, oh, about a week ago. Unfortunately my brain spazzed and said must watch all three Lord of the Rings four times in a row now now now and I was capable of no rational thought other than 'damn, Faramir's kinda cute'. I apologize.
Some of these, I freely admit, I am not happy with. Others I find myself liking immensely despite being entirely improvised. My favorite so far is in this group and had no planning or forethought. In fact, it's a scribble. If this weren't a grouping of hundred-word snippets, thus allowing me to sneak in a scribble or two, I'd be sad to throw it out.
Disclaimer: me no own.
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7. Squirrel
"I got it!"
There was a loud thump as something heavy, probably his semi-intelligent apprentice, hit the ground. Balthazar paused, coat half off, staring through the open doorway. Had he just seen some small grey thing-?
If he went in there, odds were he'd be greeted with a 'Balthazar will you do blank', with the blank being filled by 'help us catch this thing'. He thought it might be a squirrel, although how it got in the house was beyond him.
He'd seen Caddyshack. Deciding on the better part of valor, he pulled his coat back on and quietly left.
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19. Coffee House
"Absolutely not."
"Could you try? Or pretend? I just want you two to get along."
"We do."
"She's scared of you, Balthazar. That's not getting along." Dave sighed. This argument was well past the point of diplomacy. "It's two hours of acting like a normal person, it won't kill you."
"Maybe not," Balthazar allowed. "But not there."
He'd told Becky this wouldn't work. It was a coffee house, for God's sake; as anti-Balthazar as anything could possibly be, except maybe Chucky Cheese's. It would take heavy medication and a case of amnesia to get him to voluntarily go in there.
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29. Hell
He'd fought Morgana for two hundred years and been betrayed by his closest friend. He'd watched the woman he loved sacrifice herself for him and had been forced to seal her away. He had watched his master die. For more than a thousand years, he searched alone for something he feared didn't actually exist, fighting Morganians and hiding his powers from a world that no longer believed in magic.
And there was Dave- whose problems included a girl who liked him, a master he ignored, and tame magic lessons- claiming to know what hell was. He didn't have a clue.
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35. Lake
The old man had a strong dislike for the English, like any good Highlander, and was muttering a nonstop stream of disparaging comments in Gaelic. Balthazar ignored it.
"Is there something out there?" he asked, crouching down to trail his fingers through the water.
"Mayhap. Never seen it meself."
If there was something, it was hiding from him. The loch was deep and long, if narrow; tracking anything down would require serious effort.
"Not gonna try?" the old man asked shrewdly, watching him.
Balthazar shook his head, gazing out over the serene black water.
"The world still needs its mysteries."
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43. Bazooka
The violence of today's culture alarmed him. True, there had always been war somewhere at every point throughout his life. And the time he hailed from had been anything but peaceful. The difference was the efficiency of the weapons. In the middle ages, there was no button to push to destroy the world.
Balthazar watched as a boy carted a Nerf gun through the store that, had it been real, could have blown off a rhinoceros' head. His mother smiled and nodded in approval. Balthazar couldn't help but wonder if he'd find the Prime Merlinian before the world destroyed itself.
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47. Excalibur
If he ignored it, maybe it would go away. Or better yet, maybe he would wake up and find this was all some sort of outlandish dream. He didn't normally dream at all, but ever since Morgana's defeat his nightmares had no more fodder. Perhaps his subconscious was filling the gaps with nonsense.
He lifted his head out of his hands and pinched himself, something he had never imagined having to do. No, sadly, this wasn't a dream. Perhaps he'd finally gone insane.
"This is totally awesome," Dave said behind him, hefting the glowing sword with both hands. Balthazar groaned.
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48. Pig
"Do you really think Horvath would have turned me into a pig?"
Balthazar paused, French fry halfway to his mouth. "Pardon?"
"Back on the Chrysler building, right after you saved me from Horvath the first time. You said he'd turn me into a pig." Dave was studying his bacon cheeseburger and looking vaguely ill. Balthazar blinked. He'd said a lot of things back then, alternately trying to encourage and bully Dave into cooperating.
"If it occurred to him, he'd have been happy to. Why?" As if it weren't obvious.
"No reason," Dave replied, busy picking the bacon off his burger.
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54. Musical
There were good things about living in New York. There were also bad ones, such as proximity to Broadway.
"How did you manage to get out of this?" Dave asked, trying to straighten his tie.
"I said I didn't want to go," Balthazar replied, calm and infuriating.
"And Veronica was okay with it?" He yanked too hard and promptly stopped breathing. Balthazar smirked but didn't answer. "You know what? It doesn't matter. I said I'd go, I'm going."
Dave started out the door but paused; Balthazar beat him to it. "Cell phone's on if you need to escape."
"Thank you."
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58. Popcorn
The movies weren't a recent phenomenon by normal standards. To the local ageless sorcerer, though, they were a relatively new and pointless distraction. Just one more thing for the average American consumer to waste money they didn't have on.
This he thought until Becky, who was far wiser than her age would imply, suggested he take Veronica to the movies. She needed to experience the world, Becky pointed out, and she trusted Balthazar more than anyone else.
Halfway through she put her head on his shoulder, the sort of casual touch sorcerers normally balked at, and Balthazar changed his mind.
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62. Zombie
When Balthazar was twelve, Merlin took him to a field and showed him how to reanimate the dead. The spell was one Balthazar would never master, but not for lack of power- the lesson wasn't in how to bring the dead to life.
When he heard Dave had brought him back, there was a moment of fear that was settled by his own beating heart- reanimated hearts were still. There was a difference between reanimating the permanently dead and reviving the recently dead, but it was a thin line. The thought of Dave crossing it, for him, made him sick.
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64. Gryffin
"It was an experiment," Maxim said earnestly.
"It's eating a horse," Balthazar added from near the window.
"Clearly I did not intend for it to get that big."
"At least it can't fly."
"I started with a barn cat and a prairie falcon. It seemed safe enough."
"Well, maybe it can."
"I've seen you do it before, and nothing like this has ever happened."
"Not very graceful, though."
Merlin tracked both boys' comments with ease, arms folded over his chest and expression thunderous. With every one of Balthazar's observations his scowl deepened. Maxim saw this.
"And it was Balthazar's idea."
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65. Dryad
The tree stood proud and tall in the center of a clearing off on the eastern end of the recently declared Central Park. Balthazar had been passively watching it for several weeks. Finally he sat down by it one day, settling himself in a manner indicating that he wasn't leaving without getting what he wanted.
"Sorcerer," the tree acknowledged. Its voice was soft and musical.
"If you want to move, I can help," he said simply.
The dryad considered. People made her nervous, but she knew this one's reputation.
"Somewhere with no humans," she said.
"I'll do what I can."
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67. Sky
Wait for it, he'd been told. It was bitterly cold and he was most likely lost, but he had been told that there was quite a show to see. How they meant him to see it, he had no idea, for it was black as pitch out here, except for one small trace of… green?
Balthazar glanced up and caught his breath as the sky came alive. Colors, greens and blues mostly, flexed and shifted silently across the midnight backdrop. He could even control it, he found, forming patterns and altering colors a shade or two.
Aurora, they called it.
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71. Conscience
Being a Merlinian was all well and good; fighting for what was right would always be hard but necessary. Balthazar learned that the good guys don't always live happily ever after. The greatest mercy for them is to die young, before reality took its toll.
Experience had smoothed down the sharper edges, stripping away the complicated moral code he once lived by, leaving him with only the basic integrities. Even those he compromised depressingly often. He was a rock on the beach, slowly but surely surrendering to the relentless tide.
The greatest enemy of Good wasn't Evil. It was time.
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73. Science
When Balthazar was first learning his trade, magic was truly magic and not even the greatest of sorcerers understood it. Sure, they understood how to make things burst into flame, but they had no names for the molecules, and didn't understand what they were and why their vibrations caused fire. To be honest, it didn't matter.
Balthazar watched science grow. He watched as every discovery ran parallel in some way to his own powers. The scientists even taught him a thing or two about the magic they refused to believe in. Science taught him the how to his magic's what.
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79. Wrath
There was a teenage girl sitting on the bench at the bus stop. Balthazar, waiting for the light to turn green, watched her as she produced a doll and proceeded to jab it with a needle. With each jab, he winced.
"What's wrong?" Dave asked, leaning forward so he could see what Balthazar was looking at. After a moment he gave a disbelieving laugh. "What, voodoo? Come on, Balthazar, you should know that doesn't work."
"Should I?" Balthazar challenged. "You would be amazed how many people like her can get things like that to work just by being angry enough."
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82. Basement
Three things, Balthazar kept hidden. None were truly his; two were held in trust for someone else, and one was borrowed from Merlin. All of these he kept hidden, more because of what they represented than anything else: freedom, for himself and Veronica, and success. He highly doubted any of the three would ever be used.
He kept them hidden in a cubby hole, normally in the basement. No thief would ever take them- no thief would ever want them, but that was beyond the point. They were important to him, because they were all he had left of hope.
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85. Door
Three days after Morgana's defeat, Dave kicked Balthazar out of his lab. This led to house hunting, an experience none involved save Balthazar with his twisted sense of humor would ever submit to again.
For reasons never made clear, Balthazar looked at one thing in each house. Veronica would nod and ask questions and Balthazar would look at- the front door. If he didn't like it, they left. No explanations. Dave chalked it up to yet another personality quirk.
First time he visited, when the front door closed and he suddenly knew nothing could get in here uninvited, he understood.
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91. Sight
It wasn't, as Dave claimed, that he took pleasure out of reminding the boy how much of a gap there was between them. That was understandable; he'd spent more than a thousand years learning all the tricks. No way could Dave catch up. He didn't need to. Not with a million years' practice would Balthazar have been able to beat Morgana, then turn around and revive a dead man.
It was simply that, every time Balthazar thought about Dave beating Morgana, he also recalled the sight of the boy losing a fight with a mop not even twenty-four hours previous.
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98. Lies
"You know, considering your Merlinian honor code and whatever, you lie a lot."
Balthazar sipped his tea and spared Dave a glance. They were taking a break in training and Dave was reading his Incantus.
"No more than necessary," Balthazar said.
"I guess it would be hard to explain why you don't have a birth certificate to the people at the DMV," Dave allowed. "Born before paper was invented-"
Balthazar nearly choked. "Excuse me? How old do you think I am?"
"Old enough," Dave muttered.
"I lie because I have to," Balthazar growled, tone a warning. "Now back to work."
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