It's To A Castle I Will Take You... [Salem's MagiCastle RP]

[AshCandor]

Do you ever question your life?
Do you ever wonder why?
Do you ever see in your dreams...
All the castles in the sky?

Castles In the Sky – Ian Van Dahl

[OFF CAMERA]


“Ow ow ow, stop drop and roll… get outta my way! Jump! Jump! I’m gonna take those flam-flam fireballs and shove ‘em up your--”

“Salem! Language!” Artemis poked her head in the room.

Salem’s eyes grew wide as she wheeled around to look at her, a finger going to her lips.

“Awwww… must be too much time spent around you and Morgan and Becca and Kaya and Scarlet and…”

Artemis bopped her on the head with a newspaper.

“So it’s that crowd of ruffians you run with, sure. Blame them; couldn’t possibly be sweet lil’ innocent Salem’s fault. I don’t even cuss… much. Especially not now with Lukas in the house. Tell me, Witch...are we gonna have to institute a swear jar? We gotta be on good behavior now, being parents and such.”

Salem let a light smile cross her lips as she looked down for a moment. She then looked up quickly and surprised Arty, pulling her down into her lap with a giggle.

“I suppose stuff like this is out of the question too, hmmm mom? Good behavior, ‘tis not.”

Artemis just blushed and kissed her on the cheek before sitting up beside her on the couch.

“Some things are still… acceptable. Time and place. What are you doing that has you in such an uproar anyway?”

Salem pouted and pointed to the screen.

“It’s this castle level on Super Mario Brothers. I know it should be easy, but I’m just not feeling it today.”

Artemis’ mouth dropped open and she touched a palm to Salem’s head.

“Not feeling video games? Oh lord, are you getting sick? What’s next… no cartoons, no cereal… no, no… pizza?!?”

Salem shook her head defiantly ‘no’.

“Don’t talk nonsense, sweet pea. Unless I’m dead there’s always time for those. And even then I’ll want pepperoni and green peppers on my Tombstone...heh.”

Artemis rolled her eyes and tossed a pillow at her wife’s face.

“It is official, I married the world’s biggest goofball.”

“Mhmm… but you loooooooove me!”

Just then the phone rang and Artemis picked it up as Salem went back to playing her game.

“Hello? Oh hey Nina. Yeah, she’s here. Salem… it’s Madame Stokes.”

Artemis handed over the phone, as Lukas padded into the room. Artemis took their adopted son into the next room to color at the kitchen table. Salem crooked the phone up between her shoulder and chin as she continued to play.

“Neener… sup yo?”

“Hey boo, how’s my Salem doing?”

“I’m desperately trying to save the princess, taking a break from my day job unstopping toilets.”

“Um… what?”

“I’m playing Super Mario, silly. Nintendo, remember? I think it came out brand new when you were a little girl…” Salem snickered.

“Oh hush, I’m not THAT old. You gonna give me a complex.”

“Well we can’t have that. So what’s up?”

“Well Salem, you know that FGA is gonna have that Dynamic Duos Tag Team Tournament coming up soon and…”

“And you want to team up so Wicked Strong can go win all the shinies??? Woo-hoo! I’m sooo down…”

“Ah, well no… I’m a little too busy with wrestling and other things at the moment. And well…”

“Yes, what is it, Nina?”

“It’s Ryan, she really wants to participate. She wanted a taste at doing battle in FGA and…”

Ryan LeCavalier was Nina’s girlfriend. A skilled fighter in not only wrestling but also MMA. She was also a mentor of sorts to Salem’s wife Artemis as well.

“So, wait… Ryan in FGA? Interesting. And you’re busy… what about Datura, what is she up to?”

“Well, you know… she’s coming off injury and a real bad sickness, you know how she can be sometimes. This last time she had a real bad bout. She’s coming back but you know she’s not 100% yet, probably couldn’t commit to a tag tourney gruel, all that.”

Datura was Ryan’s tag team partner in a group called Karma. Datura herself dealt with a lot of chronic pain and took a lot of prescribed medication for that. Interestingly enough, Karma had waged a small war with Salem and Nina… the team known as Wicked Strong (formerly Magic Bullet) in the Girl Power Wrestling promotion, GPW. Each time these teams had fought, the wrestling publications covering GPW had labeled these tag team matches at the five star level, highly competitive with top notch action. It was also during this time that Nina had shocked everyone by revealing she’d been dating Ryan during the feud. Something about competition among people sometimes brought that out. It was not unlike Salem and Artemis, even though they had only faced off briefly in a battle royal… competitive respect had turned into something more.

“So you knew a good tag team partner waiting in the wings, just break glass in case of emergency, huh?” Salem laughed.

“Mhmm, and it’s not just that. Out of our whole circle, it seemed like you and Ryan hung out the least. She’s trying real hard to be sociable these days. Wants to get in real good with her woman’s bestie, you know? Might be good for all of us, familiarizing ourselves. So she really wants in this tournament, and she really wants to team with you. And I really want this to happen, too. So… please?”

Salem thought about it a moment, and everything Nina said was true. She knew just how formidable Ryan was in the ring… the tag matches and even a singles match where Ryan had beaten her.

“How can I say no to my best friend? I’d be happy to do it, Neener. For this tournament, at any rate. You’re still my official tag team partner… Wicked Strong Represent!”

“Of course, of course… there’s only a handful of people I’d ever want you teaming with other than me, and this one certainly qualifies. Ryan is taking a nap right now, but we’ll work out the details and you can come down and train or whatever. That tournament is going to have some good competition I bet.”

“Sure thing. We’ll get ourselves prepared, no doubt.”

They exchanged a few more pleasantries before ending the call and Salem went back to Mario.

-

But the light, it falls on my castle walls
And my basketballs pelt me with bricks in my dreams
Tonight, well maybe what you need I hope it finds you

An Ode To Maybe – Third Eye Blind

Salem pulled her old purple Gremlin up to the curb, checking the address that Ryan had given her during a brief phone conversation. She rarely got the Gremlin out anymore, after it had broken down the last time Nina had gotten her an SUV that she used for normal driving.  But sometimes the Gremlin got her in a certain focused mindset, especially for wrestling.  She looked at the wrought iron gate, swinging open even as she sat there; a long winding drive up the hill through overhanging trees. A grey stone building sat atop the hill.

“Okay Mario… here we go.”

She wound her car up the drive and parked. She got out and looked around, it was still… almost too still. She walked toward a large slatted oak door, held together by iron bands near the top and bottom, huge iron hinges on the side. She went to knock and it swung open. Dimly lit inside, Salem took a few steps in, peering around.

“Hello?”

A bird rustled up and flew past her out the door, startling her a bit. She composed herself and walked further along, when suddenly a masked man in a black jumpsuit leapt from the shadows at her. Silent but possibly deadly, Salem ducked his strike and hiptossed him briskly to the ground. He tried to scurry at her but she kicked him in the face, and he lay still.

“Uh… Ryan… you know this place is infested with ninjas?”

She walked further along, entering what looked to be a banquet room. Another hooded man snuck up behind her and wrapped his arms around her. Salem struggled and slammed him back into the stone wall, knocking the wind out of him, before wheeling around and monkey-flipping him over her head and he crashed through a wooden table, dispatching him.

Salem dusted herself off and walked up a stone stairway. Another assailant emerged from behind a regal looking tapestry with a club in hand, but Salem chopped his wrist to disarm him. Thinking quickly she knotted the tapestry around his waist and threw him over the rail of the stairway, and he hung there flailing but stuck.

Finally she got to the top of the steps and walked to the end of the hallway, entering what appeared to be a library. Ryan LeCavalier sat behind a desk reading a book, a laptop sat on the table with cameras trained on various parts of the castle; she had obviously been watching the festivities.

“Hey… quite the welcoming committee you’ve got there, RyCav.”

Ryan looked up from her book, almost absent-mindedly like she hadn’t even noticed her enter. A tinge of a smile teased the corner of her mouth.

“Oh that? Just a little gag on my part. I considered having knights, but I figured they fought too slowly with the armor and all that. I hope you didn’t break any of them, I spar with those guys for Judo and MMA training.”

Salem walked over and ran a hand over the edge of the desk, examining the dust on her fingertips.

“They’ll live I suppose. But why all the spectacle… this place.. Those guys?”

Ryan just shrugged, looking back at her book.

“Isn’t it fun? Nina always says you like to have fun.”

Salem chuckled in spite of everything.

“Fun? Yes, I do. I just never expected having to play Chuck Norris raiding the castle in order to meet up with my tag team partner for Dynamic Duos. You set yourself up in here like some sort of Bond villain. This place yours, or what?”

Ryan put the bookmark in the pages but did not close the book… looking up at her.

“I figure you of all people can appreciate the unexpected. Plus if you hadn’t got past the ninjas, I would’ve had to called the whole thing off. Consider that a test. I’d say you passed… with flying colors, hmm? And it would be proper for the so-called “Lost Monarch” to seclude herself in a private castle from time to time right? But no… this place doesn’t belong to me. This place gets rented out for various functions… paintball, capture the flag corporate team building, renaissance fairs, you name it. And witches aren’t foreign to castles, at any rate. I thought it was appropriate. Did I disappoint you?”

Salem closed the book and put it on the table, surprising Ryan a bit.

“If anything, in this life I’ve learned to expect the unexpected. I actually had a smile on my face back there at the ridiculous awesomeness of this whole scenario. If this is but a taste of the magic in store, I’d say this is going to be a whole lot of fun.”

“Hmm… magic… castle.”

Salem smirked.

“MagiCastle. Seems right to me, no?”

“You are correct, witchy. Now, enough with the welcome party. Shall we train?”

“Sure. You gonna tap a button and a ring gonna pop out of the floor, or?”

Ryan shook her head.

“No of course not, we have to go to the gym back in town. Silly witch.”

“Ah… right. Can we go to...uh… White Castle after?”

“How you get so big eating food such as this, hmm?”

“Ancient Wiccan secret, Yoda…”

With that, the two of them made retreat to go train in a more traditional sense, leaving behind the ninjas for hire to nurse their wounds.

-

The clouds are really low
And they overflow with cotton candy
And battle grounds red and brown
But it's all in your mind
Don't think your time on bad things
Just float your little mind around

Spanish Castle Magic – Jimi Hendrix

[ON CAMERA]

The shaky camera phone comes on, framing Salem Cartier sitting at a table and feeding her face. She waves a greasy hand at the camera, mouth full of food.

“Ah, excuse me. This is Salem Cartier of the new team of MagiCastle… formed for the FGA Dynamic Duos Tournament… coming to you live from the castle. Not just any castle… White Castle. Because when the crave hits, the crave hits, know what I mean?”

She shrugged.

“Anyway… on this Vertigo the tournament kicks off, and Ryan LeCavalier and I draw the team of none other than…. Silk and Cyanide?!? Sounds… and looks like a Lords of Acid song come to life if you ask me. Whether in your favor or not, I know very little about the likes of Sara Mason and Erin Mariani. They seem to me to be two gals that got let loose from the loony bin a bit too early and took their life savings over to Frederick’s of Hollywood to flesh out their wardrobes.”

She took a sip of Big Red.

“It’s been a long time ago, but I think I might’ve gotten a lap dance from one of you ladies when I hit some Toronto nightspots with Felicity Banks and some of the HKW crew back in the day. I could be wrong. And that’s not an insult to you gals. You’re pretty. And also scary at the same time. But…”

She holds her wedding ring up to the camera.

“I’m all wifed up these days and she’s plenty pretty and scary enough, I don’t need to hit up those type of establishments anymore. So don’t quit your day jobs… or would that be night jobs? Because you’re obviously new to the whole wrestling business. I’m sure you’d love to make a splash here and shock the world, knocking off Salem Cartier and Ryan LeCavalier, eh? Not so fast, my friends. See… Ryan and I have been training hard, honing our skills… becoming a well-oiled unit. Usings our friends in the business to spar with and make sure we’re at our best in the short time we’ve had to get ready… Scarlet Flint, Misha LeCavalier, Artemis Kaiser… a list of accomplished fighters we’ve been pitting ourselves against. Isn’t that right, Ryan?”

She elbows Ryan slightly off camera who is sitting next to her reading a book. Ryan nods.

“Well… I’m sure Ryan will have more to say to you ladies in her own time, this is the Witch sounding off right now, ya know?”

She pounds her fist on the table in mock defiance.

“And what have you ladies been doing, hmm?”

She waited as if expecting an answer.

“I mean, flogging middle aged men into spitting out safewords does not sound like proper wrestling training to me. I can only assume that is what you two have been doing. In between psyche evaluations and trying on jackets… straightjackets, I mean. You plan on being angry, arrogant, hurting us? Well my partner and I know about hurting and being hurt. We prefer to do the hurting ourselves, but we can also endure a lot. Heck, we’ve beat each other up as opponents before… we know what we’re capable of. I think that’s what you’re not prepared for most…. The actual preparation we’ve made to our bodies, over time. To be able to absorb pain, shrug it off and turn it back around, inflicting even more on you.”

Ryan seemed to agree, shooting a thumbs up.

“See? And even your team dynamic is so out of whack. Obviously, Erin is the lead dog. Sara better not spend too much time checking to see what her boss wants her to do. To be a tag team, to be a true fluid and dynamic tandem… it should be equal. To know that sometimes one will take the lead, and vice versa. Sara, if we isolate you in the ring, Erin won’t be able to tell you what to do. Can you think on your feet? I’m willing to guess, not so well. The both of you might certainly look the part of flashy cutting edge wrestlers, but by the end of our match you most certainly won’t be looking like winners. Because for Dynamic Duos, the safewords on Vertigo will be:

MagiCastle Advances.

And the Lost Monarch and the Witch will celebrate with our people, and if you two are lucky… it will still be early enough in the night to go hit a rave or a burlesque show, whatever floats your boat. Anyway… back to the real magic here… these miraculous sliders! Salem Cartier signing off.

‘Tis the Season!”

Salem reached for the phone and took another bite of burger as the video cut out.