Alcohol, Time-Travel, and Other Pass-times

[saranm]

He was in Venice. Or was it Paris? His mind wandered more than his body, he thought. Yes, it was Paris, the tall tower off in the distance spoke for itself. The people were generous enough, Nikola supposed it was because of their appreciation for the arts. He was in a plaza, tables scattered about around the outer edge of the place, with several Cafe's, and a few apartments lining further out. There were several other performers about, usually bad for business, but it was nice to have a bit of a show, while you gave a show.

It was mid-day, and while he already had enough money to pay for a place to sleep for the night, but that wouldn't stop him. He was quite the attraction, he usually was, sticking out among the mostly petite French people. He was currently performing fire dancing, not exactly a new thing, but it was the individual flairs that made it interesting. His backpack lay on the ground a few feet away from him. In his left hand, a bottle of flammable liquid, whose recipe was a semi-secret from the circus. In his right hand, was a flame proof cloak and a lighter, the cloak partially for his own protection, partially for the purpose of entertainment.

He tossed the bottle up into the air, and bowed lowly, the bottle landing expertly in between his shoulder blades. It purposefully tipped over his shoulders, spilling the liquid over himself. The lighter clicked on, nearly silent to even his ears, and lit it up in a sudden blaze. Acting quickly, eyes closed, Nikola rolled his shoulders and arms, making the fire dance around him in sudden movements, before he threw the cloak over himself. As planned, the flame went out, and the bottle had landed perfectly behind him, no cracks in it.

"Thank you, thank you," he said using the little French he knew. He reached behind him, and picked up the bottle, and 'drank' a little bit, spitting it above his head. "I'll be here for awhile, enjoy!"

[Bryan Wilkeson]

Bryan frowned as he leaned back on a short wall with his arms crossed over his chest. As usual, he wore his gloves to hide the membrane between his fingers, thus hiding the only real evidence of his species. Besides of course his gills, which were hidden under his hair.

He looked around. "Of all the places to be sent, I had to be sent to Paris? They totally over-hype this place," he muttered in English.

[The Fifth Doctor]

The General walked down a busy sidewalk, in Paris in fact, they said this place was lovely, and well, it did live up to his excpectation, it was truely a lovely place.

He walked past a great steel structure, trying to reach the sky, the Eiffel tower they called it. He saw couples, playing, and laughing, and having romantic meals together, they called this place the City Of Love for a reason...

[theboywhowaited]

Rory Williams was lost, truely lost, the Doctor said he should go to the Louve, but was he anywhere near the Louve? He had no idea.

As he walked past, he saw couples together, it made him shed a tear, he and Amy had had an argument, so the Doctor decided it'd be a good idea to drop them at different time periods, he had no idea where the Doctor had dropped Amy, but wherever she was, he wanted to see her again.

[Rio Keâts]

Riocard Keâts was around one thousand kilometers from his hometown. He had made the assumption that Paris couldn't be too unlike Cap-d'Ail - an assumption that was wrong. Very wrong. Paris was full of fish and tight alleys, people and stray cats. Rio only liked the latter two and grudgingly accepted that the former two were a way of European life. Anyway, the bottom line was that the city of l'amour was not cutting it for the Frenchman.

He made his way though countless plazas, all the while muttering something about how the city reeked of fish. He fingered a stolen wallet, and debated on whether or not to go buy something to eat. He glanced at his stomach as if expecting a definitive answer, and, when he didn't get one, decided that it wasn't worth it. Rio put the wallet back in his pocket and glanced around. Life was buzzing all around him, but it wasn't interesting enough for the excitable man to take interest.

Well, unless you count the man on fire over there.

The Frenchman was about to turn back around and head for Spain when he realized what he had seen. A man on fire. Not only a man, but a giant. He turned his head slowly, watching the man curiously. He turned his full body around and crept closer, not sure why he was trying to be sneaky in the public daylight. He hadn't seen anything like that ever before -- and he had been everywhere.

He flicked a stolen euro into the man's backpack. Rio's grin widened as the giant of a man spoke in accented French. "C'était incroyable!" Rio clapped, grinning widely. He was standing on his tippy toes, ever-so-slightly put off by the massive height different. Even standing on his toes he was was still more than a foot shorter.

He switched back to English. "I'm Riocard Keâts!" he declared blithely, holding out his hand.[/size]

[saranm]

Nikola took his bows, and dried himself off of any fluid that was left from the bottle, now at his side. He took a few steps over to his backpack, hoping to retrieve a shirt, and perhaps something for his next trick, when a euro landed on top. Most people had given him spare change, though an entire bill wasn't rare, it was always appreciated. The man introduced himself, thatwas rare, but the giant responded in kind. He crouched down a bit, trying to come eye-level with the man that was now on the tips of his toes, and shook his hand. "Nikola Eberhardt at your service, Sir."

Releasing the mans hand, and standing back at full height, he stepped back to his bag, and reached inside, breaking eye contact as he continued speaking. "Nothing extraordinary," he said "You should have seen what the man who taught me could do!" He pulled out four clear balls, about a hands-width in size each, and started to do a bit of juggling. "Fire is always a favourite..." he said, more to himself than to anybody else, "But you can't quite beat the fundamentals..."

A couple walking past dropped some change next to his bag, and Nikola nodded his head in thanks at the two, and the juggling stopped. The balls, surprisingly, all landed atop eachother, making their respective 'clinks' as they filed in a line. With the hand not holding the balls, he pulled a deck of cards out of his pants pocket. "Pick a card," he told the man "Preferably the card I'm thinking of, but any card will do!"

[Rio Keâts]

Rio felt a trifle embarrassed as the man had to crouch to get close to eye-level, but he shrugged the feeling off. Surely the man had encountered shorter people than him. He withdrew his hand and placed it in one of his pockets, watching the man with wide eyes. It wasn't a hard task to capture his attention, but it was relatively rare for Rio's attention to be held for so long.

"The man that taught you?" he repeated slowly, watching as the man started juggling. "Was it your father that taught you? Did he teach you how to juggle? Did your mother juggle?" he asked curiously, bouncing on his feet as images of a juggling giant family flitted through his mind. "Can you juggle fire?" his voice was full of awe as he imagined a fire-juggling giant family.

He cleared his throat, deciding that it'd be better not to barrage the random strangers with a million questions. "I can't juggle very well, although I haven't tried since I was nine. My papa could juggle but not your kind of juggling," he rambled, his eyes never leaving the balls. His eyebrows furrowed as the balls landed on top of each other. "Are you magic?" he asked with childish wonder.

He was about to go into another ramble when the man interrupted him with a set of cards. Rio glanced up at the man. "The card you're thinking of? But I'm not..." he trailed off and picked a card sheepishly. "What if I mess up the whole thing with my lack of magic abilities?"[/font]

[saranm]

The giant had to smile though, this man was certainly energetic. Nikola liked energetic, an energetic crowd meant more money in his pocket at the end of the day, and happier people at night. "Trust me," he said, a warm smile gracing his lips "We've all got at least a spark of magic inside us... and that bit never dies." In the effort to keep the crowd entertained, the balls dropped from the stack, one by one, until three of the four landed on his now upright toe. He kicked one back up, landing on his fingertips right in front of the first one.

He let the two on his foot drop to the ground, of which he quickly stepped on, rolling himself backwards, then forwards towards the man again. "So I know even the most mundane of men could do this trick... I should know, even I can do it!"

[Rio Keâts]

A spark of magic? Rio's smile faltered. If that were true, then it wouldn't make magic special, would it? It'd be boring and normal. If everyone had a spark of magic, then everyone should have good luck every now and then, right? Then why did it seem like his life was a comedy of errors? If his father had really had a spark of magic, perhaps he could have dodged the bullet that killed him. "Really?" Rio grinned, mentally shaking his thoughts away.

He watched the balls carefully. "Having magic inside of us would be very inspiring, monsieur," he admitted quietly, enthralled by the display. "I wonder if you're being honest, though?" he asked, unable to discern the difference between the metaphorical and the truth.

"You're not mundane," he replied, scratching the back of his neck. "Not at all. You're a huge juggling friendly giant, monsieur. I've never met anyone quite like that. So you're not mundane at all," he concluded with a grin. "Anyway, perhaps mundane people could do that, but I'm very clumsy," Rio smiled sheepishly.

[The Fifth Doctor]

"Paris, Adric, The City Of Love!" The Doctor looked around, "hmmm, let's get out amongst the frey," they had landed in an alleyway, so they decided to get out of there, and start walking around.

---

The General had walked for a while, so he had decided to go sit down in the nearby plaza, watching a man seemingly light him self on fire, he remembered the firewalkers of Gallifrey, they had given him much entertainment as a young boy. He walked over to the bag, and dropped some change in, he sat down.

"Nice act there," he said to the man.

---

Rory walked around town, asking people where the Louve was, none of them understood what they were saying, so, so that wasn't much help, he eventually bumped into two men, one with blonde hair, and wearing some sort of Edwardian clothes, he seemed nice, the other had black hair, and was wearing a yellow shirt, he also seemed nice. The peculiar thing is that the blonde man was wearing a sprig of celery on his lapel, for what seemed the 1000th time, he asked,
"Hello, would you know where the Louve is?" He asked.

"Actually, we were just going there ourselves, we'll lead you there, so, what's your name?" The man with the black hair answered.

"Rory, Rory Williams," He said, he wasn't sure about these too, but he would have to trust them.

"Well, i'm Adric, and this is the Doctor." Adric said.

"Hmm, I know a Doctor, I bet your's doesn't travel around time and space in a police box!" Rory said, chuckling.

"In fact, that's exactly what I do," the Doctor said puzzled.

[saranm]

Nikola chuckled. This man was... interesting. He acted much like a child. This was not necessarily a bad thing, children, after all, were the ones most bewildered by his techniques. He lifted one foot up, and the ball under it came with it. He looked at it funnily, and tried to shake it off, this received a bit of a chuckle from the crowd, as he started to... scold it, as though it were a live thing. It fell off, and he bent over to pick it up, doing the same with the other.

He stacked the balls back inside his backpack, before walking back, and picking up his bottle as he went. "Here," he said, "I'll pick a card for you." He spread the cards apart, making a full circle of them in his large hand, a smile spreading across his face at the same time. He took a swig from the bottle, before throwing the cards up into the air, and lighting his breath ablaze, the cards seemingly disappearing into the fire. The last of the flame died out, and Nikola had a false look of disappointment on his face. "Oh..." he moaned "Darn, there was supposed to be one card left over..."

Excitement crossed his face suddenly, as he began patting his pockets down. "Check yours too, it's around here somewhere, I can sense it!" Another man had dropped change into his bag, and compliment his work. "Thank you sir, always appreciated."

[Rio Keâts]

Rio widened his eyes as the man shook the ball off him. This man had to be magic. He glanced over to the new man and smiled widely, wondering if the giant was as inspiring to him as he was to Rio. His attention flicked back to the performer curiously. Rio covered his mouth to surpress laughter - it was rude to laugh at people, wasn't it? But he couldn't help the few chuckles that came out. "You're funny," he grinned.[/size]

His grin fell as the man held out the cards again. He held up a hand to stop the man from drinking the fire-water (or whatever that weird stuff was, Rio didn't really understand the technicalities), but lowered it lowly. He had seen fire many times, but when he was a child it had seemed terrifying and destructive. The man took all the scary out of fire and made it funny. He was torn out of his thoughts when the man glanced around and started talking about there supposing to have been a left over card.[/color][/size]

"See? I told you I'm clumsy! I messed up the trick without even realizing what I was doing! Je ne sais pas! Oh, man, I'm like a magic repeller or something! Je suis désolé! Très très très très désolé!" the Frenchman flailed, slipping back and forth between French and English. He was about to launch into another full-scale bilingual apology rant when the man addressed him directly. "My pockets...?" he repeated slowly, rubbing his head to try and make his brain process faster.

His eyes widened. Did the man realize that he was a thief? A no-good rummaging street pickpocket?[/color] "I didn't steal it I promise, monsieur!" he turned out his pockets as if to prove his point, and the card fluttered out. Rio looked from the card to the man, his face slowly paling. "Oh, I see, that was part of the act, no?" he asked quietly, feeling his heart stop pounding. He cleared his throat and picked up the card. "Sorry for freaking out on you, monsieur," he apologized sheepishly.[/font][/size]

[The Fifth Doctor]

The General smiled, and pulled a card out from his pocket,
"Is this the card you're looking for?" he said to the man.

---

"So, let me get this straight, you're the Doctor, from the past?" The Doctor had told him, to ask what body he was in, if it was below, what was it? Seven? I think, he didn't know about the Time War, "what body are you in?" he asked.

"Hmmm, i'm in my fifth, looking quite young arn't I?" The Doctor said turning around, holding out his hands.

"Well, not as young as you are when I meet you, you're in your eleventh body then," Rory said smiling.

"Wow, what have I been doing to myself? Anyway, where we going? Oh yes, to the Louve!" The Doctor said walking off in the complete wrong direction.

"Does he still do this?" Adric asked curiously.

"Yup," Rory said.

---

An abandoned building on the outskirts of Paris

The building was quiet, as it normally was, but suddenly, something moved, a normal person wouldn't have noticed it, maybe out of the corner of their eye they would have seen it, but no notice would have been taken, maybe a "what was that?" but nothing more.

The something suddenly moved into the courtroom, it said,

"Shadowlings, come here," It said as some unnecessary shadows formed into two small, huminoid beings.

"Yes Hive Mind," they said in syncronization.

"I sense Time Lords, two of them in fact, that isn't right, of course, it may be two different incarnations of the one known as the Doctor but just to make sure, you must locate these two time Lords, and return them to me, now go, before I get bored with you," The Hive Mind said.

"Yes, Hive Mind," They said in syncronization.

As the shadowlings went to find the two Time Lords, the Hive Mind once again faded into the shadows, waiting for the two Time Lords to arrive.

[saranm]

Nikola smiled widely at the two men, the crowd was already applauding, but he wasn't quite done yet. "Actually..." he said, making a wide sweeping gesture with his hands, before plucking the cards from their hands. "Niether is the card I was looking for... buuuuut..." He held the cards above his head, and rubbed them together quickly, until they would have become a blur to many people. "A five of hearts, and a three of hearts..." The cards suddenly flew from his hands, falling on the ground, mostly face-up, showing them to be all... one of hearts? "Makes eight!" he finished with a flourish, bowing lowly for the crowd, which now had renewed vigor.

[Rio Keâts]

Rio tilted his head, his eyes going wide at the display of..of... he didn't even have the words in his vocabulary to describe it. He sat down on the ground, putting two more stolen euros in the giant's bag. "Guh.. how can you do that? You're the best giant I've ever met, although I can't say that counts for much since you're my old giant friend..." he said thoughtfully.

"All right, I've decided that you're going to be my favorite giant friend even if I meet other giants!" he said blithely. It didn't really run through his mind about how the tall-man-with-the-name-he-couldn't-pronounce felt about him. He was Xavier Riocard Keâts. Since when didn't people like him? He exuded charm like... like wrestlers perspired!


ooc; forgive the lameness, svp. :c[/size][/color]