You all remember this little bit right? The Audition was my first attempt at a story with Dr. Strange, and I gotta say, it was super fun. SO here's my shot at a full-length fic with the Sorcerer Supreme himself!
The Doctor looked over me now that I was set to rights. “Well, that was pretty impressive. You're obviously a very talented young lady. But tell me, you have a reluctance in your eyes and I sense no interest in you about being here.”
I put my hands on my hips. “Doctor, sir, I don't care to learn to read cards or make elixirs. I don't want to learn to recite spells or incantations. I would, however, like to learn to not set things on fire by accident, or blow pipes in the street up when I walk by, and I'd really honestly like to know what it's like to hold a dim lightbulb.”
A dim lightbulb? Great job, Emil, that will convince him that you aren't insane.
“You're saying you have an excess of energy?”
“Pure, raw, matter-bending, lightbulb-glowy-making energy.”
He picked up a bag, and took out a little glass ball, little smaller than a baseball and tossed it my way. It slipped right by my hand, and he reached out, stopped it in midair, and said, “whoops, wouldn't want that to land. Take it.”
I delicately plucked it from the air and spun it in my hands, looking closely at the inside, which was an opaque white cloud in the center of the little transparent sphere.
“Try to focus on the center of that ball. Imagine that you are – oh my.”
That's never a good thing to hear from a guy like Strange. The ball started to glow with a cool white light, almost blue in hue, but soon the light was so bright that I couldn't see anything else! Great! I'd broken it!
The Doctor took the ball calmly and dropped it into the black velvet bag. “That was even more impressive,” he said.
“I would say I can pay for it, but I don't know what it's worth and I'm on a college student budget here.”
“You didn't break it. . .”
“Oh, nevermind then!” I said, smiling with relief and literally shrugging the burden off my shoulders.
“It is a sort of gauge of energy, and something tells me you have too much of it. You literally have power rolling off of you in sheets, it's rather refreshing as it stands, much like a breath of cool air on a hot day or an icy rainstorm on a summer afternoon.”
the Docteur began pacing around me slowly, and I was perfectly content to stand still. He took in little details, from my wildly wavy auburn locks to my sneakers, which I wish I had ditched in favor of my favorite little blue pompadour heels, the ones that made me two inches taller, added height that would have made me seem a little less. . . teenage. I suddenly didn't want him to see me as a child.
“What did you say your name was?”
“Emil Lockhart. English father, French mother, Willamette Valley upbringing.”
“You came here all the way from the Pacific Northwest to find me?”
“No, I live here in New York. And from what I've heard, sir, I am not the most well-travelled of your applicants.”
I raised an eyebrow to him, and he rolled his eyes. “Wonderful, a little coquette has found her way to my office. Tell me, do your parents know you're here?”
“I'm fairly certain, sir.”
“Where are they?”
“My mother's dead, sir, and my father. . . well he's dead to my mother,” I said, with a grin and a little shrug. The Doctor was starting to fall for what had been called 'my charms', but I was actually trying sincerely hard not to be charming. I couldn't help it!
“So are you asking to be my apprentice?”
“I'm not asking, sir. I'm begging.”
Wong glared at me suspiciously. He didn't like me (which I didn't blame him for, I had already accidentally broken three glasses with my shaking hands), but he fascinated me. His comings and goings about the Sanctum Sanctorum happened with quick, economical, but utterly silent steps. He was like a cat, quiet in his suspicion, but every glance was like screaming dislike.
I wondered why he was gathering bedding, moving lamps, then moving lamps again, then carrying rather large end tables and buckets of paint and curtains. Was the Sanctum under renovation?
The Doctor also bobbed in and out of view, as I sat in the guest parlor watching silently. I think at some point I had started hovering, but if I wasn't wearing a skirt then what did it matter? Eventually, I was resting my chin against my hand, my stomach parallel with the floor, watching and waiting for a decision to be made.
Strange stopped in the doorway, his icy green blue eyes staring at me as though he'd never seen something like me. “By the vishanti!”
I screamed briefly as I fell out of the air and hit the floor with a loud crash! “Sorry, sorry! I didn't mean to . . . well I don't really know what I did,” I said as I was standing up again, my back straight and my shoulders up. “I didn't mean to!”
“Are you. . . hurt?”
“No, no, fine, just fine,” I insisted. Although my forehead hurt.
“You're bleeding,” he noted dryly.
“That happens sometimes,” I retorted irritably, dabbing at my forehead with my fingers. Sure enough, there was a tacky red goo on the tips of my nails.
Great.
“Do you have a bandaid?”
He walked over and tilted my head to the side, and I fell over, hitting the ground again. “What was that for?” I asked.
“You should sit down.”
I sighed and sat in a chair as Wong brought forth a small plastic box. “Dr. Strange has a first aid kit. My mind has been blown.”
The Doctor rolled his eyes, then paused as his hands started to shake as he reached for the box. “Please take care of this, Wong,” he said suddenly, and I watched as he walked over to the fireplace.
Wong took a sharp-smelling towelette and dabbed my head lightly. He smeared a little ointment on it as I watched the Doctor stand with his back to us and a fire in the fireplace. “You will stay here, in the Sanctum Sanctorum. I will teach you, as per your request, to use control yourself, but nothing else. I except you not to ask about their use, understand?”
“Yes sir,” I said with a grin that hurt my bleeding head. Wong carefully pushed a bandage to my head, then took away the rubbish and the kit, then left.
“It is odd. . . I am frequently confronted by young people about taking an apprentice, but many of them are not so. . . demanding. Why is it that --”
“I don't do occultism, sir. I don't dabble in witchcraft. I don't do sorcery. I just want to be normal. I don't want to be different. I just need to be. . . average.”
“Have you considered that you are not destined for normalcy?” he asked, turning and looking pointedly at my clothes.
“Sir. . . Some people my age want to be different. But in being different, they want to be normal. Now, we could get into the hard questions, like, 'what is normal' and whatnot, but I would really just like to not be weird. I mean, I don't normally dress like this. . . and I don't know how to not be charming, and I don't really know what it's like to angst.”
“You are a churchgoer?”
“Yeah,” I nodded. “Every sunday since I was born.”
“Then I will respect your wishes. And ask that you keep your opinions of my lifestyle to yourself. As an apprentice should.”
“Of course, sir.”
He looked at me with eyes I realized were a very startling color, his dark hair, streaked with early gray at the temples was carelessly raked back. If I hadn't known better, I would have said he was a very handsome man. He hadn't bothered to trim his short beard in a few days, and his clothes were a bit rumpled, like he'd been sitting all day, so what would have been the clean appearance of a well-trimmed, well-kept man was a bit messed up.
Still, it was like there was a little vanity in him. Which could have just as easily been a sign of the arrogance I'd heard about.
“Come along, I'll take you up to your room.”
When he said that, I finally realized “Wait, you mean, live in the Sanctum Sanctorum?”
“Yes,” he sighed irritably.
“Whoa, whoa whoa, you mean. . . live in the --”
“Are we going to do this all day? Yes, you are going to LIVE in the Sanctum. Please don't drool on the carpet.”
I think it was too late for that.
“But what about --”
“Wong has left to get your things.”
“But how does he know --”
“You dropped this,” he interrupted me again, as he held up a familiar red square. “My key card!” I cried, reaching out for it. I couldn't help but notice that his hand trembled as he took it. He tucked his hand into his pocket and started walking down the hall, naturally expecting me to follow. “SO. . . how do I earn my keep?”
“I'm sorry?”
“My keep? Y'know, chores, work, stuff like that. I don't expect to live here on a free ticket.”
“I'll, uh, I'll work it out with Wong. In the meantime, just be quiet.”
“Right. Got it.”
“Oh, and, if you don't want to be trapped in the Sanctum forever, don't open any doors without knocking.”
“Uh, got it.”
The first step in our reluctant young apprentice's journey!
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