[D6LM] You're the Best

[Manny Donos]

"Yeah, I know how that is. You need money to make money, huh?" Manny sighed.

He rubbed his hands together, brushing off some of the sweat and grime. "So, hey. Let's do this again sometime. I wanna be able to protect myself better. If feels like I'm gonna need it more, you know. Stuff is getting serious."

[Raven Cadera]

"Of course. Protecting yourself is a most important thing to learn. Could be that the League of Magicians or Watch-sellers might come after you someday." Raven teased warmly.

[Manny Donos]

"Hey," Manny said, chuckling. "You gotta watch out for the League of Magicians. They'll mess you up. Every single one of them, head to toe with concealed weapons. A garrote that when you pull it out, it just gets longer and longer, and changes colors. Or maybe they saw you in half, and then they don't put you together again!" Manny said dramatically.

He raised his hands, waving his fingers. "And then they make you... disappear!"

[Raven Cadera]

Raven's eyes narrowed as she looked at Manny, almost seeming like she half believed what he was saying.

"You're joking..." and yet a hint of doubt in her voice.

[Manny Donos]

Manny looked at her for a few moments. He probably should stop...

"You know how some magicians carry wands?" He held up his hand as though carrying one himself. "Some of them reinforce them with duranium. Makes a perfect club. Or you can get a shocker built in. If you ever see a magician who claims he can shoot lightning with his wand, it might be more true than you think."

He went on, his eyes growing wide. "And some have both. Or even three. Magicians can usually juggle too, so then they're really just switching between three deadly weapons."

[Raven Cadera]

Eyes narrowed further and there was a long silence before Raven gave Manny a good smack in the back of his head.

"I'm not that dumb."

[Manny Donos]

"Ow!" Manny laughed, even as he winced, rubbing at the back of his head. "Hey, what can I say, I was just messing with you a bit. That's what friends do, you know. Mess with each other. It's why we can be in a band together. Or a crew!" He grinned at her.

He waved a hand. "Okay, we've done your thing. You want me to show you a trick real fast? Just a simple card one?"

[Raven Cadera]

"Sure, but where I come from we also punch our friends from time to time. Or fight." She was being serious but was also playing it up to return the favor to Manny.

"Teach me a trick. I wanna know how it's done."

[Manny Donos]

That made Manny laugh. "Okay. Well, I guess I'd better keep practicing then, huh?"

"Okay, uh..." Looking around, Manny pointed at a flat rock nearby. "There." Moving a little more slowly than usual, he sat himself down next to it, pulling out his trusty sabaac deck. His fingers almost seemed to blur as he shuffled it, then pulled out three cards, flipping them over to show Raven. It was two numbered cards, and the Queen of Air and Darkness.

"Okay, this is a pretty simple one. And it's an old scammer trick, so it's a good one to know about. I show you these three cards, you note which one is the queen. Then, I move them around, and you tell me which one is the queen still. Easy enough, right?"

He flipped all three cards, and began to shuffle them about, both hands moving. Sometimes he would just move one card to another spot. Sometimes he would pick up one card, then a second, before depositing them in different spots one at a time. Still, it was fairly easy to follow the queen... or so it seemed...

Manny stopped, spreading his hands. "So. Where's the queen?" It would seem to be the one on her right...

[Raven Cadera]

Sitting down opposite of Manny, Raven watched with some awe at how fast his hands were with those cards.

"Uh, sure. Sounds easy enough." So she said, but the moment the cards were shuffled around, she completely lost track of where the Queen was supposed to be.

And then... the time to point it out. She at least got it correct that it was on the right side of the spread, but she still picked the wrong card. "That one?"

[Manny Donos]

"Whew!" Manny said, smiling. "You almost got me. I think I made it too hard." He flipped over the correct card... which was actually on her left. "Done this way, someone picking at random actually does better than someone who can follow it. Let me show you why."

He picked up the Queen, and then, in the same hand, one of the numbered cards, the numbered card on the bottom. "When I set a card down, it looks like it's the bottom card, yeah? But if I hold it right, I can drop the top card, and you won't be able to see. Like this..." Demonstrating, he let the card drop back towards his wrist before falling to the table; doing it as slowly as he was, Raven could see it was actually the top card sliding off, rather than the bottom card just dropping.

"See how it works?" Manny said. "If you were following correctly, that means I just switched these two cards."

[Raven Cadera]

Her arms crossed over her chest as she watched and tried to understand how Manny managed to do it. "But you made it look so easy! This doesn't look easy at all..."

[Manny Donos]

Manny smirked at her. "How did you get good at punching? Do it every day, keep trying to get better?"

He began shuffling the deck with one hand. "It's the same thing with this stuff. You gotta just keep doing it, practicing until you can do it every time. That's part of the magician's code, you know. If you can't do a trick without showing how it's done, that's as good as breaking your word."

[Raven Cadera]

"Hmm... I'll need to get some cards then, if I'm gonna try this."

Raven held out a hand for the deck, so she could at least give it a try. "The magician's code sounds complicated. Damned if you tell people, damned if you don't?"

[Manny Donos]

Manny shrugged. "Not really. It's all about keeping secrets... so that people can still be entertained. It's all about a sense of wonder. I mean, once you know how it's done, it's not really a miracle anymore, is it?" He smiled. "But even if you know it's a trick, until you really know, well, that's where the magic is."

He hesitated a moment, then offered her the deck. "Just remember, a light touch." He said.

[Raven Cadera]

"A light touch... ok..." she could do that, she was fairly sure.

Taking the cards in hand, she gave them a quick look-over to see if there was any other trick to the cards themselves. And then tried to shuffle them. Which was a slow procedure compared to what Manny did as her fingers were not exactly used to trying to keep track of cards. "This is so much harder than I thought it would be," Raven admitted honestly, nearly fumbling a bit with them.

"Where did you learn how to do this stuff?"

[Manny Donos]

Manny shrugged. "Here and there. You see them on vids, or you read about them. Or you teach each other." He smiled. "You don't usually teach each other everything, though. A lot of magicians have a special move that only they know."

He linked his fingers gracefully together, then stretched them, making them pop. "I started picking things up back at one of the homes I was in. One of the older kids knew some things, and he showed me." He chuckled. "Come to think of it, it started with this one. Find the Queen. Maybe that's why I thought of it for you."

[Raven Cadera]

"I've seen some gamblers and card-sharks handle these cards pretty well," she paused to look at the Queen as Manny mentioned that it had made him think of her. Or rather, for her. "But I'm a pretty terrible card-player myself... and it was never something I had the money to throw away at."

Raven nodded approvingly though, as it seemed like Manny had had some kind of family to relate to back at the homes. "So did you learn to use those light fingers for stealing before or after you learned the card tricks?"

The deck was given another shuffle as she tried to find the rythm and feel of it.

[Manny Donos]

"Not bad, not bad." Manny nodded encouragingly. "That's right, get a feel for the cards. Once you do that, they'll move just how you want them to."

The question made Manny chuckle. "That came later. Or... no. Before. I didn't really start stealing until I was out, in this gang of teens. But before that, well..." He shrugged, smirking. "Well, sometimes you want an extra roll with dinner. Or maybe you want to go visit someone special in the girls dorm." His shoulders sagged a little. "Or... someone else asks you to pick a lock so he can go visit someone special in the girls dorm." That much more accurately described his experience.

[Raven Cadera]

She raised an eyebrow and kind of gave him a pitying look. There was a question that came to mind, but she figured that asking it would just be... wrong. And inappropriate.

"Well, uh... 'fraid I can't really give you any pointers on the 'someone special'-part, Manny-No-Girlfriend." Raven chuckled a little as she hadn't used that particular nickname in a while. "I know this guy though who's got the nickname Ladykiller. I assume it's because he's good with the ladies, and not because he, you know, kills them. Should I ask him to share some tips that I can pass on to you?"