As Promised...

[KB]

"Where ever I want to," he replied, then started to explain before she mentioned frostbite. He nodded, acknowledging her statement. "Yes, it is quite cold, but I happen to be very hard to kill. A little cold weather is not much of a price to pay for money."

He shrugged, going to pick up the pile consisting of his coat and scarf before returning his electric blue gaze to her. "I'm a performer," Monty said with a grin, followed by a lavish sweep of his arm as he bowed. "Little tricks turn out to pay quite handsomely if the time of day is right."

[Clairice-Sarah]

"A price to pay for money, huh?" she asked with a chuckle. "Fair enough." She smiled again when he elegantly bowed. "I've been here for two years and I've never heard about this. Maybe I should get out more."

She followed him outside. There certainly were a lot of firsts happening here, with Monty, she noted to herself offhandedly. Laurel had never met any sort of street performer before. She'd heard about them - her brother interrogating them when looking for street crime connections, or talk at her high school.

"So where, in quiet little Bridgeport, is the best place for a performer?"

[KB]

"Perhaps," Monty agreed as he headed down stairs and out onto the street. "Some place with people, really. And the more public the better, might I add." He glanced around before looping his arm through her's and crossing the street.

"I'm thinking one of the streets near the harbor and shops would be sufficient, what do you think?" Lavender eyes returned to her as he inquired.

[Clairice-Sarah]

Laurel was surprised that he took her arm, she still didn't quite peg him as the type but - she only just met him too, right? She quickened her steps to keep with his longer ones. "Probably anywhere where people would be shopping, yeah." Laurel thought about it.

"In a couple of hours a lot of the local kids will probably be passing through there, too...teenagers mostly, I guess. My boss' oldest daughter hangs out around the docks a lot."

It was hard to hide, but she tried to keep her excitement out of her voice. She really wanted to see what this performance would be.

[KB]

Monty grinned, genuinely pleased with her contributions to the conversation. His disdain for anything human somehow managed to become fuzzy and forgotten when it came to performing. Perhaps it could be chalked up to his innate love of attention, or the Oo's and Ah's and Ew's the crowds gave. Whatever the reason, Monty was more than happy to keep such a job as opposed to a true, legally sound occupation.

"Perhaps with you as a wing-man, or wing-woman as it were, I'll get quite the haul." He only joked, not positive she'd even want to play magician's assistant.

[Clairice-Sarah]

"I'm not sure I'm the right girl for that kind of job," she told him with an uneasy smile. "I'm really...only good at cooking." She tucked in closer to him as people walked past them on the sidewalk. "I'm...not much of a stage person."

That curbed her enthusiasm a little. Ignoring her less pleasant side, Laurel didn't go out of her way to draw attention to herself. "I might be more harm than good."

[KB]

"Okay, okay; pleasant onlooker works just as well." Monty raised a brow when she got closer before looking around at the other pedestrians. Amber eyes returned to her as he asked, "You'll be alright, won't you?" Was that a twinge of concern in his voice? The man caught himself off guard, and he nearly burst out laughing. Him? Concerned? What was happening in the world today.

[Clairice-Sarah]

Laurel nodded. "I can cheer loud if you want." When he looked down to her in concern, she gave him a bright smile. "Oh yeah. I don't want to mess your show up, that's all."

She gave a half wave to a person she knew jogging past, realizing from the stare she got in response that the next time Laurel made her a latte, she'd have to explain her relationship to the man whose arm she was on.

Oh that would get her boss talking if she overheard that too, wouldn't it? Socializing was a whole lot of trouble when you didn't remember how to do it.

[KB]

Monty looked over her a moment longer before his gaze returned to the sidewalk. His lips pulled up into a wry smile. "I don't think it's in danger of being messed up no matter what you do, so I wouldn't worry." He patted her hand with his free one, noting the expression of the woman Laurel greeted.

Should he ask? He shrugged visibly in response to his thoughts and looked about for a section of wide sidewalk around a lot of pedestrian traffic. After a moment he walked towards his chosen location, and released his companion's arm to take off his jacket and other winter clothing. He sat the lump of clothing against a wall and glanced around for a suitable bystander. Monty allowed another glance to Laurel, grinning before he called out to a younger boy meandering past them down the sidewalk.

"Greetings, young sir!" He said with more than a little of the usual flourish; his need for money was usually less than his need to impress someone he knew. The boy paused in response, and Monty's hand waved in an elegant gesture, the sleeve billowing around his arm. "You wouldn't be interested in a little wager, would you?"

"Oh," the lad said with a confused gaze, then looked around before replying hesitantly. "I don't really have that much money.."

He was stilled by a modest hand from Monty. "You need only wager what you want to pay." The man smiled, his horns pulsating under his hat, ready to urge the boy in the right direction if he seemed unwilling; Monty needed to start off well and didn't hesitate to sway the odds in his favor. "What do you say?"

"Uh..." The boy looked around once more, then shrugged and dug into one pocket to pull out a crumbled mass that probably amounted to less than five dollars. He held it out in a fist to the man, and Monty took it and held it up for the odd onlooker to see. "Now I'll bet that using only this...." He ran his fingers over the lump of dollars and coins. "Two dollars and sixty-two cents and a little magic, I can create something a bit more expensive."

His hands closed around the lump, and a dark burgundy gaze gauged his effectiveness in suspense as he muttered meaningless chatter in his native language, sure to sound like fancy incantations to his audience. After a moment of working the secret to his trick up his esophagus, Monty slammed his hands against his face, popping the cash in his mouth and spitting out - yes, spitting out - a puppy into his hands.

The boy's eyes bugged and a gasp arose from the few lingering pedestrians drawn out of curiosity, and after a moment claps ensued.

((EDIT: I sent this without meaning to and thought I'd lost my post for a second! Whew. Dx Also, Monty's the weirdest magician ever. ))

[Clairice-Sarah]

Laurel returned his smile and stood by his belongings, eventually meeting the eyes of people walking past and gesturing in his direction, though she had no idea what he was going to be up to. She leaned against the wall with folded arms and rapt attention, waiting to see what kind of tricks he had planned.

The kid seemed cynical - and she supposed in a bit of a way, so was she.

Her jaw dropped, along with everyone else, when he replaced the change with a puppy. "Huh?" When others started clapping, so did she. Unlike them, however, she knew he wasn't just human, was something else. And she wanted to know how he did that. Maybe he would tell her later, if she asked. How was PETA not on his case? Was it real? It looked real.

A little girl shoved past her, waving money in her bright pink mittens. Her mother apologized to Laurel softly and followed after her, watching but not intruding.

"Me next please!" she called to Monty. The girl was maybe four, or just barely, and didn't even make it to Monty's knee.

Laurel smiled a little to herself. Yeah right, Monty totally loved kids. She supposed he seemed a lot less threatening here than on an abandoned street at ten. She wondered what about him had scared her in the first place; maybe she had just managed to scare herself...like always.

[KB]

Monty handed the surprisingly dry, wriggling, and yippy puppy to the boy, accepting a couple bills from bystanders and thanking them with smiles and bows as he did before he caught sight of the young girl.

"You?" Monty eyed her with a falsely scrutinizing gaze, kneeling beside her and plucking the money from her hands. He looked over it, his eyes shimmering to match her mittens before melding into a deep plum color. "Well let's see... What do you think I could come up with for this much?"

He only marginally hoped she didn't say a pony, he hadn't exactly been in shape to manage that feat just yet.

[Clairice-Sarah]

Laurel watched as the little girl became more interested in Monty's shifting eye colours than his question. After a few moments of awkward silence, she smiled at him. "Ummm..." The girl took a deep breath, as if about to make a life-changing decision.

"A rainbow?" she asked and then nodded to affirm. "Please!"

Laurel chuckled a little, oh to be a child again. She wondered how Monty was going to pull that one off. He had just spit out a puppy, though, so she crossed out her doubts. Her life was starting to look infinitely boring compared to his, now.

"I'd like to see a rainbow too," Laurel added with a small smile. Would he take it literally? Symbolically? Maybe she shouldn't have backed out so quickly when he wanted her to participate with him.

[KB]

A rainbow? While Monty's expression never faltered and he rose to his feet with a flourish, he was inwardly wondering the same thing Laurel (and probably the others) were.

"But of course, my dear! A rainbow you shall have," he said, grinning at the audience and depositing the money within his mouth once more. He then inhaled and lifted the top of his hat ever so slightly, reaching two fingers inside. With an audible clink that resembled glass breaking, he removed a pointed, very smooth piece of stone that had small bumps on one side. The piece glowed and rippled with a constantly changing array of colors, and grew from body temperature to cold quite quickly as he put it in the girl's hand.

"A very special piece of the heavens for you," He said with a smile, once more kneeling to her level. "Don't lose it, I suspect it'll bring you good luck." With a wink he rose, examining the crowd for anyone else waving cash.

A man with a look of suspicion about him raised a tube about the circumference of one's head, a twenty dollar bill pressed up against one side. Monty shook his head, holding out a hand. "Back again, eh?"

[Clairice-Sarah]

How did he do that? Laurel asked herself once more. Perhaps she ought to keep tally. The little girl stared at the colourful little stone, mesmerized. Her mother stepped forward to pull her back from the growing crowd of people, giving Monty a warm smile and a small thank you.

"See, Mommy?"

"Yes..."

Laurel remained a quiet applauder in the crowd and she frowned at the man who approached him next. That didn't look like the face of someone enjoying a show, and she wasn't sure to relax or not when Monty recognized him.

"Um.." She withdrew as soon as she spoke, she didn't need to intervene on this.

[KB]

"Of course," the man said, slapping only the cylinder in Monty's hand. "This one's the smallest I could find, and I've got twenty dollars that says you can't fit through it." He wiggled the twenty dollar bill in the air, then stuck it in a pocket and crossed his arms over his chest expectantly.

Monty's shoulders rose and fell as he inspected the tube, and he smirked. "You sure you don't just want to give me the money and call it a day?" At the man's no-nonsense expression, he chuckled and took off his shoes. "Which way, head first or feet?"

"Head," the man said, speaking a bit louder above a growing chatter.

Monty nodded, setting the tube down and adjusting his hat before he picked it up again and positioned it above his head. Then he quickly let go of it and pointed both hands into the opening, his forearms and half of his upper arms disappearing into the tube. With a little wriggling of his hands and an odd popping his arms, then head disappeared into it as his hands appeared out of the top. It wasn't a fast process, but the man wriggled and pushed the tube around his frame, his body seeming to fit where it shouldn't as the cylinder went down.

About halfway, when it was positioned around his torso and his shoulders were free, he paused to give an awkward bow as a few people applauded. The man who'd given him the tube was not among those clapping, but rather looked irritated that he'd lost his money yet again.