"Hah, royal flush! I win!" Devon placed his cards down with a grin as Gabriel groaned and slumped his head against the table. "Another round?"
"Sure, sure, just give me a second to shuffle," Gabriel said, gathering the cards together into a pile. He perked back up as he began to shuffle the cards, hands moving with finesse and expertise like a casino dealer, or more accurately a conman from the streets. "I'll win next time, just you wait!" He declared cheerily, ignoring Devon rolling his eyes with a fond smile. Before they could spread the cards, though, Lisi called out to them.
"Dev! Gab! This is... uh, well, they're a new resident here! And this is Devon and Gabriel! They're basically the doctors around here."
New resident! Devon and Gabriel turned their heads in unison. They saw Lisi dragging a kid who looked around fourteen with brown hair, who seemed a bit weirded out. Devon readjusted his spectacles and shot a welcoming smile at the boy - girl - person, while Gabriel placed the pack of cards down with a cheery smile that looked identical to his brother's, reaching up to tip his hat in greeting.
"Hi!" They said together.
"Do you guys think that you could show the new kid an example of your abilities? You could go ahead and use them on me if you need to!"
The twins exchanged a couple of looks. Even if it was only a couple of seconds, it seemed as if a whole conversation had passed in between them.
Dev raised an eyebrow. It'll hurt Lisi.
Gab raised an eyebrow back, shrugging. She volunteered, and I think it'll help out her pal there! Show them their not all alone and stuff. Why not?
Devon's eyes narrowed apprehensively, then sighed. Well... alright, fine. Just... nothing too much, ok?[/color] A light smirk touched his lips. Let's put on a show.
Gabriel grinned. Knew I could count on you bro. Would I ever make it boring?
Internal conversation done, they turned to face Lisi and the new resident with identical large grins, who was now joined by Elise. [color=darkgreen]"We'll do it Lisi, just take a couple of steps forward. New kid, stay where you are." Gabriel instructed, gently guiding her forwards to the desired spot. Devon, meanwhile, took a step forwards towards Newkid, holding up the pack of cards in his hand like a microphone.
If they were going to do this, they were going to do this with style.
"Lady or Gentleman, girls and boy and hermaphrodite genderqueer kid, people of all ages!" Devon grinned welcomingly at Newkid and Elise, holding the pack of cards in his hand up to his mouth like a microphone. "Welcome to the Whimsical Residence for Wayward Children, where children of all ages gather! I, Devon Zarzuela, am your announcer for tonight! We here at the WRWC are proud to present our opening act - the amazing Zarzuelas! He stepped to the side as hewaved his hands jazz-style at Gab and Lisi, grinning. Gabriel grinned and bowed as if he was performing a show as Devon added Sponsored by Mr Cosmo, owner of the WRWC!"
"Thank you Devon, I'll take over from here! Gabriel Zarzuela speaking, the show is about to begin! As you can see, we have a girl from the audience to help with the act." Gabriel spread his arms out in a wide gesture, showcasing Lisi. He gently took hold of her wrist and held it up, showing it to Newkid and Elise with a flourish. "As you can see, her skin is smooth and unmarked, totally unblemished and unharmed! But wait!" Gabriel gasped theatrically, pointing to Lisi's arm. "Something's appearing!"
As he spoke, a small cut was appearing rapidly on the middle of Lisi's forearm, growing until it was a large but shallow vertical wound that spanned from wrist to the middle of her forearm as if an invisible knife had just sliced her skin open. It would be obvious to the spectators that there was no way that it had been created by any physical object. It wasn't lifethreatening, but it still looked pretty nasty. As they looked, blood began trickling thinly out of it, flowing down her arm.
"And now I pass the next part of the act to Devon," Gabriel said hurriedly, holding the arm still. Devon was already standing next to Lisi, ready to heal the wound.
"Don't worry, Lisi, it won't scar. Now watch as I make it go away! Y uno y dos y..." Devon pressed a hand reassuringly against Lisi's arm away from the wound, presenting it firmly to the audience so that they could see what happened next. It was almost as if time had sped up - the wound stopped bleeding, clotted and began to close up into a rapidly disappearing scar. Within seconds, there was nothing but smooth skin where the wound had been. "...tres." Devon finished, grinning at the Elise and Newkid. "As you can see, the wound has disappeared! Thanks for helping out as a demo, Lisi."
Gabriel tipped his hat off to her as Devon bowed like a waiter, and they both turned to the audience. "And that concludes our show! Thank you, thank you!" They bowed to imaginary applause as one; Gabriel bringing his hat in front of him, then they looked up with identical mischievous grins.
"So what do you think, Newkid?" Gabriel asked Newkid cheerily. At the same time, Devon turned to Elise with an equally cheery grin, asking "Want to be our closing act, Elise?"
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Dennis blinked when Cecil allowed him to join, then nodded quickly, pleasure radiating off him like a cat who'd just seen salmon in its bowl. He really liked how pretty the snow was in the dark, especially in the forest...
The pleasure turned into surprise when something warm slammed against his back, arms enveloping him from behind and jostled his cap down over his non-bandaged eye. He radiated startled surprise at Willow and the others as he swallowed down sudden panic at not being able to see and blinked in the sudden darkness, trying to get an arm free from Willow's tight hold to get his hat out of his face. Dennis was so focused on wriggling an arm free that he didn't hear anything.
After some squirming, he freed an arm and pushed his hat back up firmly on his head. The white flakes blended into the white of Dennis's hat as they fell down onto the people outside, although it showed up well enough against his navy coat. He craned his neck around to look at her, confusion evident on both his face and the aura that generally surrounded him like an invisible transparent cloak. Teach you what? was the general thing she would feel from him.
Dennis wasn't quite sure what Willow was talking about. All he did was ask Cecil if he could join the late-night winter walk out, and Cecil agreed. He tilted his head quizzically at her, but then Cecil said something about finding somebody and Dennis turned back to face Cecil, curios as to what was going on.
Dennis tilted his head questioningly as Willow asked if something had happened, radiating confusion so palpable that one could see figurative question marks flying around his head. It was obvious that he hadn't heard anyone, but...
Dennis wriggled out of Willow's hug and walked over to Sapphire, standing next to him. Looking at Cecil and Willow, Dennis pointed at Sapphire and nodded emphatically, radiating an air of agreement. I didn't hear anything, but I agree with Sapphire. Then his aura turned questioning, and the words were clear on Dennis's face. I'll help you look if you want?
