The Perfect Knight and the Illusionist (BL)

LEO

At first, when I ended up sitting on the left end of our group of four, I was nervous that Mario would come and sit next to me. He came in later than us and took that empty spot as expected, but hadn’t really looked at me, let alone said anything. Those moments waiting for the show to start were rather uncomfortable and awkward, as I kept feeling like I should say something to him but couldn’t think of anything to say.

But my worries lessened when the show began and two clowns walked onto the stage as the first performers. One had his face painted white, as clowns usually do, but the other had a completely black face. They played out a lot of funny jokes and made everyone laugh without saying a single word, and it was amazing how they could act like something was really there when, in reality, they were just grabbing empty air.

As they performed, I kept glancing at Mario, who never noticed me doing so. He was completely focused on watching the clowns, as if his attention had been fully captured. He also laughed—not as loudly as everyone else, but there were moments when he let out genuine laughter of enjoyment.

After the clowns came the acrobats, and this was when Mario became completely engrossed in the performance. I always liked watching acrobatics as well, and I was rather okay at it myself—like, I could do a backflip, which neither Abe nor Davi could do—but the circus acrobats were obviously on a totally different level. Mario clapped at every flip and jump through hoops, his jaw dropping at the impossible body contortions, and even let out a little ’wow’ at the surprising strength of the performers when one of them lifted someone with a single hand and the other could stand on the lifter’s palm.

I, of course, was enjoying watching them too. But to be honest, I found it equally entertaining to check out Mario’s reactions as well. It was like when I found something cool in the forest or a new cave and brought my friends over to show them. Their reactions and facial expressions were great to see.

Then came the exotic animals. This was something I could hardly take my eyes off even for Mario! There were small monkeys with red fur, a kind I’d never seen before, pulling off pranks on another clown like they were expert clowns themselves. There was a white elephant, not so massive but still huge by animal standards, that walked over—actually stepping on!—a performer lying on the ground. Then there was a striped lion—I hadn’t even known they existed—with ferocious teeth, yet a performer rested her head in its mouth and looked so safe and comfortable, as if she were lying on a pillow. It was only when the animals all bowed—seriously—to the audience and made their exit that I looked around to see how Mario and the others liked it, and I was so happy to see that everyone was clapping in delight.

The show got even better when a magician came onto the stage. He pulled a rabbit out of a hat, chose someone from the audience to come onto the stage and pick a card, then somehow picked that exact card out of the deck after throwing the whole thing into the air. I’d seen some of those tricks before at other smaller circuses I’d been to back in Erdville, but this was the best and smoothest performance I’d ever seen, and it still amazed me. Mario, on the other hand, looked so serious and focused on the magic tricks, as if he were trying to figure out how they were done. It was also funny to see Isabelle and Beatrice—themselves good magic users—fascinated by the magician’s performance. These certainly weren’t the kinds of magic we were taught at the Academy.

"And now, for the final magic—" the masked magician announced toward the end, "I will show you something truly impossible."

The magician then conjured up a small fireball. Not as impressive as what Isabelle or other fire magic users in my class could do, but Isabelle and Beatrice gasped and looked at each other. Mario flinched a little as well. I didn’t realize what the big deal was, but right after making the fireball, he made a water sphere that was a little bigger than the fire in his other hand, so that he had fire floating above one palm and water above the other. Isabelle suddenly jumped up from her seat but was promptly told to sit down by the people behind us, which she did with an apology.

Once the water and fireballs were ready, the magician closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and, to our amazement, the fireball entered the water sphere—all the while, the flame was still alive!

Even Mario let out a word of disbelief.

"What—?"

"Marius, we must report this," Beatrice quickly told him, and Mario got up immediately as if he were going to leave the tent. The magician opened his eyes, then saw Mario and smiled.

Then he covered himself, hiding himself completely behind the large cape he was wearing, and disappeared before our very eyes.

There was thunderous applause, and I was so impressed and happy to see this magic too, but Mario, Isabelle, and Beatrice were already running out of the tent while Dorian sat with a kind of surprised expression that I had never seen from him before.

I really didn’t want to leave, but seeing that the rest of them had left in such a hurry, I followed.

Once I got out of the tent, Mario was trying his best to steer his way through the crowd that was slowing him down, which made it possible for me to catch up with him.

"Mario—what’s wrong?" I asked.

"Mr. Falken. We must report to Mr. Falken," he said in a rush, powering his way through a few people before disappearing. Isabelle and Beatrice, who had also been struggling to get through the crowd, got to where I was just as Mario left on his own.

"What’s going on?" I asked again.

"Look for Sergeant Becker," Isabelle said.

"Why? What do we need to do?" I was getting so confused.

"Leo—" Beatrice said slowly and clearly, "the use of magic that can be used for combat is strictly forbidden without a license. That includes fireballs. And no licensed mage would be performing in a circus like that."

"But—but I suppose fire magic users would use it all the time to light lamps and stuff...?" I asked, even more puzzled by this new ’rule’ I had been unaware of.

"That is technically illegal but accepted in practice. But performing it for public display and profiting from it is certainly not an accepted practice," Beatrice explained further.

"Let’s just look for the Sergeant," Isabelle said and began to run toward the checkpoint.