Chump Change [OPEN]

From the way the two of them interacted it was clear to him that there was a bit of unresolved baggage between brother and sister. He listened as Zen told him a bit about their home town who's name was beyond his ability to pronounce, and their poor status there. Personally the faun didn't have much experience with being poor, since he and his family got everything they needed from their forest home.

The forest had always been very kind and welcoming to his family. It loved the nymphs deeply and it cared for the two fauns who served as shepherds for its woodland inhabitants. Despite the fact that they had no money, they didn't need it.

Money...

At the mention of cooking, the faun couldn't help but smile. "Well, you never really know unless you give it a shot, right?" He reached over to his food, poking it a couple of times with his fork. It didn't look particularly appetizing anymore, but he was sure that before this lunch period was over he would eat it. It wasn't in his nature to let food go to waste. "Miss Shellie, she's in charge of those kinds of courses. You ought to talk to her.

"She's a good teacher to know in general. She treats all of her students like her sons and daughters."

"What about you, Amphy? What are you taking?"

"Me? Uhh...." The faun blushed. His skin was tanned, so it wasn't the easiest blush to see, but the slightest hints of rosiness colored his cheeks. Did they know about movies? Would they understand what exactly it was that he did? Furthermore, how would he explain?

He rummaged around in his bag for his phone, a phone with a touchscreen and multiple apps that he'd saved up his school allowance for months to have enough money to buy. It helped that once he'd made a few really good vines that people had started donating money to him. Not that the faun was the best with money, but it did help a lot with getting new equipment and software.

"I'm a cinematography major. I do stuff like... hmm... wait... lemme find a good one... Ah, this one!" He muttered to himself, showing the screen to the two drows.

"Making money!" Said Amphy in the vine as he sat in front of a computer screen with a bill of money. He slapped the money onto the screen and it seemed to actually enter the computer. Once the bill was inside of the screen, he copied three more bills and then pulled them back out of the compute, holding four seemingly newly made bills up to the camera with the computer showing a blank screen.

"Neat huh?"

Amphios smiled at the awe on their faces. He took that to mean that they really liked his video. He'd turned it in as an extra credit assignment once, and his professor seemed very impressed with it too. He expected them to complement him oh how realistic it looked.

But then, he'd forgotten that they probably didn't know too much about technology and completely misconstrued the video as him actually doing the thing the video showed him doing. Most people would know that you would never be able to do something like what the video showed without a little editing magic.

Then again, these guys had literally been living under a rock, so maybe not.

"WAIT. Amphios, you're majoring on making money? If I shift to your major... cinesomething... I will be able to mass produce money in that magic box?"

Sad thing was it wasn't exactly a false statement. People who worked in special effects and did the editing on movies made more than their fair share of pretty pennies if they managed to make it big. And Amphy wanted to make it big. That's why he made vines. What better way to show your skill than with six-second snippets of editing magic? He gave a weak smile when the siblings looked at him, moving to tuck his phone back into his bag.

"That was more like... a... a magic trick. Here, lemme show you what I mean." Amphios dug around in his bag and produced a deck of cards, showing the two drows all of the 52 cards, with all four suits and all numbers intact. "Here's a deck of fifty-two cards. Watch closely now." He hummed as he shuffled the cards and clapped his hands together. The deck of 52 was now a single card, the ace of hearts.

"Here, hold that. Don't tell me what is either." He said, reaching into his bag to produce another deck of cards, which he once again showed to the drows as a normal deck of cards with all suits and numbers intact. He clapped again, compressing the deck once more into one card, the two of spades. "Is this your card? Hmm... it's not is it... Oh well..."

Turning the card towards the window and pinching the edges, the single card became a stream of 52 cards, all spilled on the table. When he gathered them up and showed the drows the upturned cards again, all fifty-two cards were Aces of Hearts. "Are these your cards?"

With a laugh, he gathered up the deck.

"It's just little stuff like that. Nothing hard. But it's super impressive to see, right?"

Amphy finished gathering up his cards and tucked them away into his bag. He never had much of a chance to do any card tricks. Maybe he could start integrating them into his vines. People seemed to like the mysticism of his magic-trick vines, and also the goofiness of his simpler, "i tripped over my own feet and rolled down this hill into a trashcan" vines. He could use a bit more of both, actually. Now that he thought about it.

"No, nothing like that. Just a bit of slight of hand and distraction." He said, waving away her comment. "The mind can only focus on so many things at once, so if I do a lot of thing and give instructions, naturally your attention lets some small movements slide."

The faun chuckled slightly. "I can't say more though~ that would ruin the trick!"

Still... if they were friends... he supposed he should tell them.

"Though, there may have been a little bit of illusion involved... in my voice..." He said. It was hard to explain. He didn't want to describe it as hijacking someone's mind--that was a little too harsh--but it wasn't exactly a suggestion either. "I can sort of make people notice or not notice things... I can make people behave a certain way with my voice. But I don't like using it much."

He slid his meal back in front of him, eating it happily if only to have something to do with his mouth. After a few mouthfuls his stomach was back in rebellious knots.

Damn.

"I come from a forest you see. We had all kinds of animals, magical and not... and to protect them me and my father used to use our voices to confuse hunters, or make them leave... or if they really made us mad we would make them panic... sometimes they got so scared that they would die of heart attacks."

Amphios didn't look particularly proud of that. "It affects anyone who hears it though... so I can't do it at school."

Amphy watched as Zen showed him her spell. He didn't know the person who'd come over to answer the drow's call, but he seemed just as confused about the whole thing as he did.

Though... the faun couldn't help but notice that Zen's spell seemed to affect Ardos to some degree as well. In fact, at first glance, it seemed like it was affecting him a lot more than this other guy.

But still, he looked impressed when the guy's plans changed according to Zen's words.

Then, he felt the token brick of guilt he always felt when using his own powers on the forest wanderers.

"Ah..." Amphy said, playing with his food. He didn't want to say that he actually objected to the changing of other people's emotional state on a moral level, especially not since she said that she only used it for special occasions. He didn't know how their lives had played. The faun was certain that in the underground it was harsh and scary especially if you were poor.

These two...

He couldn't really say much of anything to them. "That's cool. I can't do anything as specific as that. I can just... do general stuff like, 'now you're lost' or 'now you're confused' or 'now you're so scared that your heart beats right out of your chest'."

He grabbed his food and quickly finished it.

"Have you two met anyone else since you got here?"

"Amphios, dealing with problems without shedding blood is an admirable tactic."

He nodded at that, running his fork along the bottom of his empty plate. What could he say? What could he do? His mind went back to what Ardos had told him earlier. He couldn't fight with his body, and he was unwilling to use his voice. It was just like he had no powers at all.

"I agree," He said quietly. "The fewer people who have to get hurt the better."

He looked up at Zen's exclamation.

Sid?

The faun let out a little laugh. "There aren't a ton of kids in the college that don't at least know of Sid... He's basically just a guy who's convinced he's the coolest thing since ice, so everyone else things to too." Amphy punctuated his words with a shrug. "But we're different majors, so I've never met the guy in person."

His hands went to his head, rearranging his hair underneath this winter hat. When he heard about Ardos apparently being assaulted by Sid as soon as he stepped off the boat, he had to cover his mouth to keep from laughing. Being assaulted by someone like him when you first step off the boat is almost the exact opposite of what he would call a warm welcome. He'd heard a lot about the drow being a party guy. Not a ton about him apparently physically attacking people.

Maybe that was a drow thing...

But... these two seemed shocked by it too, so maybe it was just a Sid thing.

Man, he really didn't want to meet him now if his first instinct was to beat someone up when he saw them for the first time.

"Well, I've found that most people here are pretty nice."