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Duo is frowning at the pages of his 'magic book'. Elements, yes. Fire, water, air, earth. He scribbles electricity/lightning? trying to remember everything that was deemed an element by Prospero. Electricity isn't really a 'part of man', except in small amounts of energy, but the theory is the same.

"Hmm," he says to himself, and orders green tea from the bar to help him think. Thinking Duo style involves much foot-swinging, finger tapping, doodling, and braid fiddling. Feel free to interrupt, it doesn't look like he's getting very far.

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Asmodean walked up to Duo with harp in hand. His voice and face were slightly more difficult than usual to read.

"Good evening, Lord Duo."

Duo looks up from his book, chewing on the end of a pen. "Oh! Hello. Jasin Natael, the harp player, I remember." He closes the book and gives him a little smile. "How are you?"

Asmodean considered. Horrible nightmares, wrist slashings, insanity...

"Well enough. How are you faring?"

Duo blinks. This guy is very hard to read.

"Pretty good...? I've been busy reading and practicing, mostly." He leaves out the 'almost blown up' bit for now. "I assume you've been playing. If you don't mind me asking, what else do you do, here?"

Asmodean considered.

"...I talk with people, and generally exist when not playing one instrument or another."

Generally exist...? Uh-HUH.

Duo wonders how he'll take a joke. "Only generally exist? Do you have existential crises at another times?"

Asmodean neither changed expressions nor vocal intonations.

"I usually try to reserve my weekends for those, so that it does not interfere when I am entertaining the bar's patrons."

Duo was about to write him off, but hey! Deadpan humor! He grins in reply.

"Oh, very thoughtful of you. I wish I could schedule mine as easily."

Asmodean continued the deadpan.

"Simply, a matter of willpower, and a lack of priorities. Scheduling is easy when you have only one priority."

And now Duo doesn't think he's joking.

"I don't think I ever got around to asking. Are you bound here?"

Asmodean considered. He maintains the blankness of himself. He turns his dark eyes to Duo. His gaze could easily give the impression that the bard could see right through him. It was the slightly demeaning gaze of a cat.

"I have not attempted to leave. I have no desire to. If that makes bound, then I suppose I am."

Hrm. Duo decides not to ask why. Considering what he learned last time talking to this guy, he doubts it would be anything good.

He sips his tea. "Do you think that fate brought you here for a reason, then?"

Asmodean chuckled darkly.

"All things serve a purpose. The Pattern is always at work. Across all times, and all places, the Wheel turns."

Duo shakes his head. "Sorry. I guess we'll have to agree to disagree. I just can't be that fatalistic."

Asmodean laughed evilly.

"I suppose you can do that. Not having the strength of will to accept your lot in life is common."

Duo scowls. "You think there isn't anything someone can do to rise above what they came from? That we're forever stuck with the life we're born with? Fuck that. Having the strength of will to change your lot in life is more important than accepting it."

Asmodean snickered.

"You do not understand... If rising up is you destiny, then you will rise."

Duo stares at him. "How can you live like that, accepting everything that happens to you?"

Asmodean stared at him with dark eyes.

"You fight what can be fought, knowing full well that the battle has been decided, and you accept what cannot be fought."

He paused.

"I met a man once who was hanging on the brink of a cliff. He was clutching a tuft a grass, and nothing else. He must have known it would give, but he continued to hold on."

Duo shakes his head. "No. Just... I have to think that I have a chance of changing things, and that there's no set fate."

He eyes the bard. "Did you save him? Or was it his fate to fall?"

Asmodean gestured gracefully to his harp.

"Would you care for some music?"

Cue the stare. "One song, perhaps."

Duo has just cued into the fact this Asmodean is quite likely not a nice guy.

He wants to hear what kind of music 'comes from within' after a conversation like that.

Asmodean nods calmly.

"Very well then."

He slowly began to play a grim, powerful march. Not a funeral march, but rather an anti-wedding march. Everything a wedding-march meant, this song spoke of the opposite. The piece spoke of betrayal, loss, sorrow, and pain. The bard poured emotion into the music, his face contorting on certain strains. Thoughts and memories of his fiance dying in his arms swirled in his head, as he gave them life through his music. The bard attempted to reach into the audience's soul with the keening melody. A powerful strain of hopelessness ran through the entire piece. Truly sublime.

The bard glanced at Duo after a long sigh as he finished.

The piece is very moving. Duo is straining not to let it show on his face. His heart doesn't go out to this one any more, despite what's happened in his past. Duo has more than a speaking suspicion that the man hanging from the cliff didn't get any help.

"Thank you." He nods to Asmodean.

Asmodean nodded calmly. He watches Duo.

"You are very welcome."

And, just across from him, Puck grins.

"Study, study, Master Maxwell."

Duo glances up at Puck, stares at him briefly, then looks back down. He is going to try a lot harder not to put his foot in his mouth this time.

Puck chuckles.

"I fare well, thank you." He snatches up Duo's note deftly and hops back out of reach. "Come, let's have a chat. I never was thanked for fishing you out of that lake."

Duo scowls. "I can swim, you know. You wanna give that back?"

He's not playing 'hold stuff above the short guy's head', especially not with someone who has wings.

Puck considers. "What will you give me?"

And he sneers at Duo a little. "Your youth is still upon you, Duo Maxwell. You'd do well not to imitate your master's love affair with books."

"Those aren't worth anything to you, why would you want to keep them?"

Ooooh, two can sneer. "Nothing wrong with learning. I've had enough of being treated like a child because 'my youth is still upon me'. If people don't tell me things, I'll just learn 'em myself."

Puck rolls his eyes, and in a 'duh' kind of voice explains patiently, "Because, sweet child, they are worth something to you."

He grins back in the face of sneering. "And what will you do when you learn what you wish you had not? You've been warned of that already, no doubt. When the secret knowledge in your head turns to fire in the blood and whispers to you at night?"

He shrugs his shoulders in a curiously elfin way, eyes never leaving Duo. "You'll be a proud lad then, Duo Maxwell, if a little broken about the brain."

Oooooh. Duo knew he was a bully.

Duo goes still. "I've been in wars, Puck. I already know too much that I can't give back. I know what it's like to have a brother die in my arms from my failures. I know what it smells like when a man bleeds out. I know what it feels like to scrub brains and guts out of my hair. There isn't much I'm afraid to know."

He gives a tight little smile. "And I'm probably already more than a little crazy."

Puck smiles sweetly.

"I knew there was a reason you held such an attraction."

Duo snorts. "Some experiences even I can do without. Gimme back my notes and bugger off, willya?"

Duo starts considering testing out his theory of lightning summoning.

And suddenly, it's a lean wolf with silver fur who has Duo's notes in its maw.

Why can't you

Duo gasps and starts, almost knocking over his chair before he makes it to his feet. His hand flies to the gun That he isn't wearing, idiot!

The wolf chuckles. Puck likes fear.

This is real magic, little one. Pain, horror, laughter, passion, sweat ... your dusty tomes and scrupulous notes are only good for the fireplace.

He leaps gracefully off the table and trots over to the fire, notes in mouth. He glances back at Duo mischievously, as if to ask, "Should I?"

Duo flares with anger. "LIFE is real magic. This... learning is just another way to express it! I don't understand what you want from me, Puck! Why don't you stop with the games and just tell me!"

Electricity crackles around him. He might not be entirely aware of it.

Puck senses the electricity as much as he sees it, the energy from it tickling his magic-sensitive skin just slightly. He's leaning against the hearth now, back in human shape.

"What do I want from you?" The hand not holding the notes taps his chin. He smiles, looks at Duo, and deadpans, "Sex."

Little lightning bolts crackle in the air and writhe on the floor before fading away, as Duo loses whatever train of thought he might have been following.

He... stares. And um. With some more staring. He might even blink a little.

"WHAT?!"

Puck gauges Duo's reaction with a grin, head tilted to one side. He takes a step forward.

"Is something amiss with your ears?"

He sputters. "No, something is not wrong with my...! Are you telling me you've been harassing me this whole time because you think I'm cute?! Like this is grade school and you've been pulling my hair?!"

Puck chuckles, continuing towards him.

"I'd not thought to pull those fearsome locks of yours," he says. His grin is honey-sweet and feral. "But I will if you choose."

Duo might notice a change in the air, soft like a summer breeze that could not possibly have entered the bar. There are soft whispers in Duo's ears.

If Puck gets any closer, Duo is going to start stepping backwards. He shivers, despite (or perhaps because of) the change in ambience.

The whispers play down his spine and make him feel like he's had a few too many shots.

"What... what are you doing?"

But what if he doesn't see him getting any closer?

Without appearing to move at all, Puck is suddenly just a few steps away from him. Is it magic? Did Duo move? Who can say?

"Playing games, little one," he says sweetly. "Playing games."

He darts forward with inhuman speed, pulls Duo to him, and kisses him hard. Then he sets him down, dusts him off, and disappears.

Fairy laughter echoes in his wake.

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