While half of the school were tearing each other apart in some sort of magical dick-measuring tournament, Anthony was out in Rosebury, trying once again to woo the local elderly couples into emptying their purses into his guitar case.
"Buy me a ticket on the last train home tonight.. ♪" Singing and playing had become as thoughtless as breathing or blinking to the Autumn, leaving his mind free to wander as he worked his way though his song.
He didn't even plan on showing up to spectate any of the tourney matches. Thinking about gifts, talking about gifts, seeing them in action - God, it pissed him off. It wasn't because everyone else's gifts were flashier, or more practical, or more powerful.. But because the participants understood their gifts. They could control them, manipulate them to their advantage. Even if they didn't win, they had something to show for all their trouble trying to figure out how they worked. Anthony had been at the school for nearly a year, and by now, it was beginning to feel like he didn't even have a gift - that his jump from 1980 had been some sort of blue-moon coincidence. A wild card from some sort of sadistic god. He'd tried everything he could think of - getting advice from other temporally-gifted students, staying late after class with the gift mastery teachers - hell, he'd even tried meditation, and he'd been rewarded with exactly what he'd expected: jack-shit.
He'd never go back at this rate. He'd never see --
The guitarist exhaled heftily through his nose as he played the bridge once more, stubbornly pushing the thought into the back of his mind, where it belonged. The past was the past, he had to remind himself. Moping and whinging weren't gonna make momma sympathetic when the cookies he wanted weren't even there, so Anthony diverted his attention back to his patrons, which were, at the moment, a pair of cooing old ladies a hair's breadth away from pinching his cheeks. He offered them a shallow dip of his head and a grin as they poured an inordinate stream of change into his case. Score. God, he loved old people.
As they continued to waddle their way down the sidewalk, out of the corner of his eye, Anthony just barely caught a lean figure toss a bill in his direction. As quick as he'd come, the boy stalked a little off to the right and planted himself stiffly at the next bench over. Jesus, one could literally feel the anger leaking off of this guy as he passed. The air seemed to ripple around him, like an oven. Vaguely, he recognized this guy. Wasn't he one of those French kids with the solar-whatchamacallit gift..?
The Autumn slouched back a little further into the curve of the bench. "Hey," he called over to the blonde, "If I cracked an egg on your head, d'you think it'd cook?"
