Post by zahkarnole on Oct 7, 2012 15:40:02 GMT -5
Zahkar had always been fascinated with misdirection, illusion and deception. When he was a boy his father took him to the carnival, where freaks of nature and jacks of all trade horrified and entertained bewildered onlookers. From that moment on Zahkar was hooked.
The boy spent his free time at the carnival, watching intensely the bearded woman, the world’s strongest man and the tight-rope walker. He’d chat with the hunchback and play cards with the magician.
It was the magician he modeled himself after.
In his teenage years he delighted the young and old alike with his card tricks—pick a card, any card!—and managed to scrape out a living doing it after he left home. Whenever he looked back he always considered those the best years of his life (so far); traveling from city to city with nothing but his wit, the clothes on his back and a deck of cards. And as success increased and turned to coin he expanded his act, including juggling knives, ribbon, and trick mirrors. All the while his skill increased: his fingers grew nimble, his mind sharper, his confidence greater.
As he became a young man he grew disenchanted with the act. He longed for more, or perhaps to just be taken more seriously. The innocence of boyhood dream was thus morphed into adult cynicism. It started with simple pick-pocketing and grew into outright epics involving lonely wives and their rich husbands. It wasn’t hard. Zahkar was quite the looker: a lean, even six foot of tall dark and handsome, with smoldering eyes and voice as rich as coffee. He found he could coo anything into the ears of a woman and she just might do it. And men? It wasn’t much harder. He was charming, affable and interesting, the kind of guy other guys liked to hang out with. That’s not to say, of course, that Zahkar didn’t get into his fair share of trouble.
There was always one in the crowd, someone paying a little too much attention who might notice the sleight of hand, who looked left when they should’ve looked right. But when the situation got tight and threats were thrown that was when he was at his best, smooth talking, misleading and deceiving his way to freedom time and again.
The jobs grew bigger and bigger, and each time he got away with it, until one day he woke up, 31 one years old and very, very wealthy. Sure, he was as good as he ever was, but age has a way of slowing men down. He wanted to stay in one place for more than a month, maybe even meet someone and settle down. And so he did! A beautiful woman named Natalie who was smart, adventurous, and could always make him laugh. She always seemed to know just what to say, like he was a guitar and she knew just the right notes. It almost seemed too good to be true.
Because it was.
Through law and cunning she had transferred his assets into her name, effectively shutting him out. In the same stoke she revealed his true identity to the world, plastering wanted posters from one ocean to the next, listing his crimes and calling for his capture. Why? He asked her as the men she hired began to close in. Turns out she was the daughter of an old job he’d pulled. Robbed the man for every gold coin he had. The man’s wife, disgusted with her gullible husband, left him and took their teenage daughter. That man eventually hung himself from the rafters of his house.
A stunned Zahkar had no time to process any of it, for the next moment he was sailing through the air and swinging from the chandelier like a regular action hero. He summersaulted forward and burst out the door, disappearing into the countryside, armed only with his wit, the clothes on his back, and that same deck of cards.
The boy spent his free time at the carnival, watching intensely the bearded woman, the world’s strongest man and the tight-rope walker. He’d chat with the hunchback and play cards with the magician.
It was the magician he modeled himself after.
In his teenage years he delighted the young and old alike with his card tricks—pick a card, any card!—and managed to scrape out a living doing it after he left home. Whenever he looked back he always considered those the best years of his life (so far); traveling from city to city with nothing but his wit, the clothes on his back and a deck of cards. And as success increased and turned to coin he expanded his act, including juggling knives, ribbon, and trick mirrors. All the while his skill increased: his fingers grew nimble, his mind sharper, his confidence greater.
As he became a young man he grew disenchanted with the act. He longed for more, or perhaps to just be taken more seriously. The innocence of boyhood dream was thus morphed into adult cynicism. It started with simple pick-pocketing and grew into outright epics involving lonely wives and their rich husbands. It wasn’t hard. Zahkar was quite the looker: a lean, even six foot of tall dark and handsome, with smoldering eyes and voice as rich as coffee. He found he could coo anything into the ears of a woman and she just might do it. And men? It wasn’t much harder. He was charming, affable and interesting, the kind of guy other guys liked to hang out with. That’s not to say, of course, that Zahkar didn’t get into his fair share of trouble.
There was always one in the crowd, someone paying a little too much attention who might notice the sleight of hand, who looked left when they should’ve looked right. But when the situation got tight and threats were thrown that was when he was at his best, smooth talking, misleading and deceiving his way to freedom time and again.
The jobs grew bigger and bigger, and each time he got away with it, until one day he woke up, 31 one years old and very, very wealthy. Sure, he was as good as he ever was, but age has a way of slowing men down. He wanted to stay in one place for more than a month, maybe even meet someone and settle down. And so he did! A beautiful woman named Natalie who was smart, adventurous, and could always make him laugh. She always seemed to know just what to say, like he was a guitar and she knew just the right notes. It almost seemed too good to be true.
Because it was.
Through law and cunning she had transferred his assets into her name, effectively shutting him out. In the same stoke she revealed his true identity to the world, plastering wanted posters from one ocean to the next, listing his crimes and calling for his capture. Why? He asked her as the men she hired began to close in. Turns out she was the daughter of an old job he’d pulled. Robbed the man for every gold coin he had. The man’s wife, disgusted with her gullible husband, left him and took their teenage daughter. That man eventually hung himself from the rafters of his house.
A stunned Zahkar had no time to process any of it, for the next moment he was sailing through the air and swinging from the chandelier like a regular action hero. He summersaulted forward and burst out the door, disappearing into the countryside, armed only with his wit, the clothes on his back, and that same deck of cards.