drawing a wild card (Felicity)

It had been a week or so since Felicity's indoctrination and acceptance as a regular teacher. She taught several different grades of classes, and it was a bit of a challenge to prepare study material for all of them on such short notice. Once the first year was over, she would have some breathing room, but that was the hard part of it all- that dreaded first year of teaching. The fair variety of different students she had also surprised her. Perhaps all children needed an education, but she wondered if some of them could even appreciate Austen, Woolf, Eliot.. their inspirational words marked down for generation and generation to come to elucidate the minds of the latin world's youth.

Perhaps she got carried away sometimes. Regardless, she started off easy. Shakespeare was someone everyone knew, and it was pretty easy to explain old English and tended to expand the vocabulary of anyone who paid attention. Of course, if the students weren't invested, then they would get no benefit from it. There wasn't much she could do about that, and she still wasn't completely comfortable with the environment. She could straighten up her plans first, then make things fun later. If that was in her repertoire, at least.

For the time being, she had started her new classes with a very simple and straightforward classic, The Tempest.

“O, brave new world, that has such people in't!” - One of the most famous quotes from the play, the namesake of Huxley's later 20th century novel. She found The Tempest to be one of her favorite of his works, as it spoke to her on some internal level. The mystery- the magic- some romance, some metaphor, some allegory. Absolutely beautiful. She loved sharing her admiration, but it wasn't always reciprocated.

The students.. at least the ones who showed up, were here for this hour's class. This was the sophomore class she taught. She looked over the plans she had written the night before. They were going to begin on Act II, scene 1. It was a comedic segment, ending with Ariel, the sprite, convincing the King via magic to become paranoid and continue searching for his son. She closed her notebook, standing as the clock hit the hour.

"Good morning, everyone. We've been making good progress as it is, so we're not going to let up now. Open your books to page thirty-two, line 705.." Felicity began to lecture. She opened her own book on her desk, the pages instantly fluttering open to the correct page. At least she had learned a few tricks so far. Being able to do it without worrying about the people around you made life so much easier, too. She turned to the board behind her.

"Beseech you, sir, be merry; you have cause.." she began from memory, but then stopped. No marker. She hummed impatiently to herself, and stepped back to her desk. She kept spares in her top drawer, at least. With a quick motion, she opened it; and promptly got a face full of confetti. At that moment, it was like all the adrenaline hit her blood all at once. Some dormant force of nature that hadn't shown itself since the last time she hung to the ceiling of a bank vault for dear life while garde armé were searching below. She tripped backwards one step, catching herself with her other foot, and as the back of one of her oxfords tapped against the wire, she instantly recoiled and caught herself again on the wall beside her. Her second foot caught against the wire, tripping it, and she detected the movement from above. In another fluid moment, she let the momentum of her backwards fall take her, rolling on a sort of squatted cartwheel a length away from where the wire was. As the eggs squashed harmlessly against the carpet (ugh..) she stood erect again, panting.

It was a minor show of agility, but she still hadn't truly done anything like that in a few years. It had become unnecessary. The reflexes were still there, and she was glad of it, or her hair would have been ruined for days.

She looked disapprovingly at the eggs, then at the class, whatever the reaction. She wasn't happy- not at all.

"Now, who decided they wanted to be funny today?"

Well, that was easier than she thought it was going to be. Felicity had done some classwork back while she was getting her AA and BA, and it was pretty common for no one to ever admit anything when something like this happened. Of course, Felicity had only begun memorizing her student's names- but at least, she recognized that one as being 'Joker'. That name made some sense now, at least. It was pretty easy to notice that kid that wore sunglasses indoors. That she wasn't expecting something like this from someone named Joker of all things made her feel a bit naive. There must have been too many other things on her mind.

"Well, thank you for admitting it," she sighed. "since I don't intend to teach this class standing next to something that might make me throw up at any moment, I'll release most of you early to break before your next class. Joker gets to stay and help clean this up."

She doubted it would change his behavior at all, but at least she wouldn't have to bother the janitors. If he felt the need to act out, he was probably just bored of the lessons. Maybe she could get a student's opinion on how to make things more interesting.

"Dismissed. I expect you to at least read over scene 1 tonight, even if you don't really understand some of the lines, so we can move faster tomorrow. Joker, stay."

With her words, the rest of the class- excited and probably throwing a few high fives Joker's way- began to file out. Felicity walked carefully around her desk, examining the drawer to make sure that was the last of the trap.

After a quick onceover of her desk and the depositing of the schematic on her desk, she was satisfied. She tapped the schematic a little closer to herself, looking down at it as Joker gave his final spiel. She shrugged at his initial comments. A Joker indeed.

"This is decent for something jury rigged, but you may want to consider using something like paint instead next time. The ceiling panels aren't really that thick, so you can smell the eggs from almost outside the door. While I didn't know what it was at the time, I knew something was weird."

She walked over to one of the cupboards on the other wall of her room, opening it and pulling out a neatly folded rag, some paper towels, and some sort of carpet solution bottle. She set them on her desk closest to Joker, then sat in her chair.

"I thought we all have a few tricks, mon élève. That's why we're here, isn't it?"

She gestured to him to start working. They could talk while he was cleaning.

"I have survived so far by keeping my secrets tightly concealed. Even though I'm free to tell them on these islands, you'll excuse me if it still doesn't come easily to me. Tell me something of yourself, first. You're obviously not very traditional, either."

Felicity was a bit surprised. She still wasn't used to what all these people were like, but even if she had used magic her whole life, it still sounded far-fetched. In fact, everything in front of her suggested he was telling the complete truth, but her brain just could not register it as reality. Everything was all so.. overwhelming. As she had been doing before, at least, she simply shut off all doubts and accepted it at face value. She stayed saner that way. She recalled Lovecraft's writings; maybe he wasn't just retelling his nightmares, but had some key to an underworld somewhere and was retelling reality.

"I can't begin to assume what 'torch mod' means, but that's fine. I understand. Thank you."

She smiled nonetheless. He was clearly impressed about something, even if he had no idea the things she had actually done. It had been so long since she had been able to actually tell someone about her life without it being considered either an insane fantasy or a damning conviction. At the same time, though, she didn't want to offload on the poor boy, especially not while he was cleaning up his mess.

"One's interests and talents do not always match up. It's a sordid fact of life. I spent the majority of my life in the.. 'normal', world, whatever you call it," Felicity started, going one drawer down in her desk to pull something out. "and the funny thing is that most of the western world probably knows who I am, even if they will never know my face or name. I guess you could call me a master thief."

She pulled out a little pocketbook. It was, in fact, one of the few possessions she had brought with her. She rarely left anywhere without it, and kept it on her person at almost all times. If someone with some sort of moral code would get hold of it; well, she would be royally screwed, to say the very least of things. It was in code, and rather vague, but a court would still be able to use it to convict her, without problem. It was a list of her accomplishments, so to speak.

"La Banque Postale. 400,000 euro. Société Générale. 240,000 euro. LCL. 870,000 euro. Cassie d'Epargne. 1.2 million euro. Federal Reserve, New York. 800,000 dollars. Century Bank. 1.5 million dollars. The list goes on. Each of these has its own story attached to it, some short, some tragic, some violent, some not. Some of them make me upset just reading the words."

Her accent was coming through ever so slightly. She normally had complete mastery of English up to and including a Harvard accent, but sometimes it fell apart just long enough for the French to come out. There was nothing this boy could do to her, especially since she was so distant from INTERPOL or the CIA. She had to stop being afraid of police at some point, and being on a magical island full of demons and clone-fire-constructs seemed to be the right time.

"I've watched people get gunned down by police teams, I've been in the middle of betrayals and classical Mexican standoffs. Honestly, my life is one long dramatic novel. After one job, we had to burn one man alive. The mafia is seriously fucked up."

She suddenly really needed a smoke. "Excuse my language. That's not appropriate for a teacher. There's a point where a woman just gets tired of it. Gets tired of seeing friends die, or consumed by greed, or betray her. Or break her heart. Or more. There were so many times when I slipped so close to death himself I could feel the cold breath on my neck. The only reason I survived and didn't go like one of my partners was that I could cheat. With magic. And they couldn't."

She let out a long, heavy sigh. "I thought as a teacher perhaps I could bring some sort of class into this world. I could try to help students make a more legitimate way in life. It's kind of hopeless, though, I guess. Especially.. well, I don't know what I can do here. I don't know where you kids are supposed to end up. There's still a lot I need to learn about this place."

Felicity then realized just how much she had rambled on. Was it dangerous to tell this much? It was one student. Even if she made him promise to keep it a secret, he'd still probably tell everyone he knew. Though.. it did give her an idea.

Felicity didn't immediately answer as he continued to make a serious mess of himself, scooting her chair a little ways back to avoid any collateral.

"It felt good seeing my bank accounts double each week. I met a lot of interesting people, and went to neat places. I'll be honest, I was no Robin Hood. I did not give to the poor. Once you're comfortable, there's not really much more money can do, especially illegitimate money that you can't flaunt about. The government had never cared for me, and people only cared for me and my talents and no further, so I felt no particular moral obligation to anything. In the end, it was probably the paranoia that got me." She said in a somewhat conciliatory manner, shrugging.

"I don't necessarily want to teach you or anyone else to do what I did, because it wasn't good for me or anyone else. It was just life. I had gotten so deep that it took this place to truly escape. My advice would be to at least find something productive to spend your time on, and don't make bad behavior your primary motivation, as it will only lead to that- or worse."

Felicity shuddered as the goo splattered everywhere, "Have you ever cleaned anything up in your entire life?" she said, inching away further. "You're doing a horrible job."