Chapter Text
Orchestraful felt nostalgic today. It’d been so long since he had done the simple tricks, the ones that required no effort from him anymore. It was always the flashiest ones he did now, the ones that took away all of his energy, the ones he’s grown bored of. He thought maybe going back to the basics would perhaps make him feel something again.
He slowly lowered the hat from his head, gently grabbing the wand from one of his hands, tapping it gently against the top. Then he slowly tilted the hat downside up, tapping the top once more. He reached his hand inside, down to the elbow, and grabbed onto something that didn’t feel fluffy.
He was confused. It felt more like plastic than fur… So he quickly pulled his arm out, looking in his hand to see… A CD…?
He blinked before he quickly put his hat back on, checking both sides of the CD only to see there was nothing written nor anything unusual about it. It was merely just a disk.
How was this possible? He’d only ever brought out rabbits, birds or flowers from his hat. And that was only because he could imagine them precisely in the moment. Sure, he could’ve imagined the CD perfectly fine, but the problem was he wasn’t. He had been thinking of a rabbit’s ears. He’d never had something like this happen before…
He started to wonder if perhaps working with such high level magic had inadvertently led to him forgetting how to do easy tricks, a terribly worrying thought that led him to consider practicing his old tricks more.
But ignoring that, he just stared at the CD. He had to have pulled this from somewhere. Perhaps he should put it back into his hat, it might have important or private memories. Last moments of a late grandmother, a movie that means a lot to a young couple, a home movie of a child’s birthday… It could’ve been anything that he just stole.
… But he was also curious. Who still kept these things around during these critical times? Who still used them? Who could still even watch them? He doesn’t remember the last time he ever saw a DVD player, though granted it had been years since he last was around any kind of normal civilization.
He decided it might not hurt just to see what it could contain. Not like the owner would probably even notice if they still cared for it. Maybe it was abandoned like most things now. That somewhat calmed his guilt of looking through it as he closed his eyes, trying to remember the last DVD player he saw.
He tried to list each detail he remembered, the slot for the disks, the power button, the rectangular build… He began to wave his wand around in circles, trying to imagine one right in front of him. When he opened his eyes, he was surprised to see he somehow had conjured one, then felt the immediate loss of energy, having to breathe slowly as he got accustomed to the pain nipping at his nerves.
Then he realized he had no screen to pair with the DVD player, trying to think. Unfortunately his hat was far too small to pull out something like a laptop, and a cellular device obviously couldn’t work, forget about a TV... He pondered and pondered before realizing many of the abandoned homes he’d seen had TVs still inside.
He remembered many were broken, but he remembered some still looked like they worked, suddenly knowing what he had to do to find out what was on the disk.
…
Was all his effort really worth one simple CD? He knew it wasn’t, but perhaps he had just been wanting an excuse to waste his time. Regardless, he came back to his mobile home after night had already set, TV and remote held up behind him from his extra hands.
He was thankful he hadn’t encountered any civilians on his journey at least, gently setting the TV down behind the DVD player. He put his wand’s tip gently on the screen, allowing some of his magic to course through it, acting as a temporary source of electricity like his lights. He then spent far too long figuring out how to plug in the DVD player and display its contents on the screen.
But eventually he got it, the screen playing light white noise as he finally picked up the DVD, carefully putting it into the slot and allowing the old thing to slowly insert it inside, the screen taking a moment before it came to life.
He was right about a home movie, but it wasn’t featured in a home. Rather, it was pointed at pink-shoed feet on dark marble ground before the camera was suddenly lifted, for a second there was only a blur before the filmer was focused on somebody on a stage only a few rows of seats away, the camera taking a moment before it could zoom in and gain more clarity.
“Hein?”1 He whispered to himself once he saw the star himself.
He looked… Similar to himself before he got more serious about his magic. The same skinny build and face, but… His outfit was completely different. His mask fully covered his eyes, his hat was much bigger and had dollar signs on it, he wore an unbuttoned white and black suit with a dark vest and tie underneath, a bowtie covering his neck connecting to a cape flowing behind him, and his wand wasn’t even a wand, more so just a stick with a dollar sign attached to the end.
What the Hell was this? Some kind of cosplayer? Someone inspired by his old persona? Should he be happy? Proud? Angry? All he felt however was confused as he watched with the recorder his first trick.
Perhaps this copycat had done his homework because he got Orchestraful’s movements down exactly. Removing his hat, tapping the top three times, flipping it, tapping once more before putting his arm elbow length inside and pulling out a rabbit. He heard how the crowd cheered, and though he could barely see them, he could see the auditorium the man was performing in was packed.
Envy. That’s what he was supposed to feel. It hurt his heart to see this man was getting the attention he missed so much while doing the same things he did. Copying him entirely and facing no consequences.
He didn’t even pay attention to the doppelgänger’s show anymore, he was sure he could guess each trick if he was so accurate, only focusing on his bitterness instead of any logical questions. He deserved this audience, these were his tricks, this was all supposed to be for him!
Each cheer, yell and applause caused his thoughts to grow darker and darker, staring daggers at the screen as he thought of how he might reclaim his popularity from this impostor, allow everyone to see he was the one they were meant to celebrate, not a mere ugly, small, useless, uncreative, untalented copy!
Then he blinked from how bright the screen suddenly got, attention caught again as he saw fireworks made entirely of magic were being fired into the air, the man’s entire body being brightened by the scene, showing just how happy he looked to be performing.
Orchestraful looked away, realizing how awful of a person he still was. To get so jealous over another person finding success where he couldn’t. He felt shame wash over him, breath shaky as he tried to calm himself down, not able to look back at the screen until he heard for the first time the words of the performer and the last words of his show.
“I wish you all a magical rest of your evening, and please, don’t forget to visit the gift shop for reminders of the greatest magician to ever exist; Artistry!”
Then suddenly fog swooped in, obscuring the view of him, and once it dissipated, he was nowhere to be found, the crowd erupting in cheers and claps, the recorder quickly shutting off their camera, leaving the TV on static now.
Artistry, huh? Though it’d been some time since he last heard the news of the world, he was sure he had never heard the man’s name before. But he supposed with how little he interacted with the world now, it was possible he could be missing out on new and upcoming magicians such as him. He didn’t want to reflect further on this for now, he should just focus on returning it instead now that his curiosity had been satiated,
He sighed as he walked back over to the DVD player, pressing the eject button and carefully pulling out the CD, making sure not to scratch or otherwise damage it as he gently carried it. He then used two of his extra hands to perform the hat pull once more, sticking his arm with the CD back in.
Though, once he let go of it, something caught onto him. Panic immediately rose in him as he felt it tugging on him, trying to pull more of him inside. He quickly overpowered it, pulling his arm out before it could get a better grip on him, just staring inside of his hat as if he expected something to pop out.
But nothing did and he quickly threw his hat away from himself, looking at his sleeve to see it undamaged, the feeling of fingers gripping it tightly still lingering however.
Maybe it wasn’t that he had forgotten how to do simple tricks, but simply that he could only advance them now. That was his only explanation for what had just happened and gave him enough motivation to quit practicing his old magic for now until he could figure out exactly what just occurred.