~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Prologue
At a time that turned out to be crucial to his future path, Magnus ended up in Tanzania, however, the question becomes: why was Magnus in Tanzania in the first place? It's not that Magnus traveling even to countries that might be considered of little importance on the global map was uncommon, rather, the insatiable nature of the reader. The following is a not-so-secret story about Magnus's motivation, and takes place in 2005
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Chapter One
As everyone knew, Magnus liked to travel. People were the same everywhere he went, and yet, at the same time, not the same. There was... what had Darwin talked about? 'Varification under domestication' which when he'd read it, Magnus had been annoyed to say that it was about adaptation to the environment. He'd held hopes about domestic versus single family men.
There was always great deal of amusement to be found in pop culture as well in every city that was what they used to claims to uniqueness. Someday, there'd likely be something more exciting than 'home of the Olypmics before I was born,' home of the 'biggest ketchup bottle (spoiler: it held no ketchup)' or 'home of the the most famous baking contest this side of the Saint Louis.' Indeed, boring.
One time, a year or more before the visit to Tanzania, Magnus's wanderings took him to a city that promised some interest. It was a city of highs and lows, dependent on the ever fluctuating energy market. It was a city that crossed extreme conservatism with a liberal, light-hearted flippancy, depending on the neighbourhood residency. He'd grown curious about what this place was like because he'd used the debatably irritating or amazing medium of the internet to explore message boards and discovered the this paranoid distrust - but in a nice, safe industrialized way - between so many groups of people. He was avoiding this city's claim to fame carefully with his timing. No 'Greatest Outdoor Show on Earth' for Magnus: it was full of sheep, cows, horses, screaming and all sorts of curiousities happily passed on.
Welcome to 'The Heart of The New West' scrolled past him, then Welcome to 'The World's Most Innovative City' in much newer paint with pomp and circumstance came up.
Calgary was about to meet Magnus Bane, The High Warlock of Brooklyn.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Chapter Two
The Word Magnus would've used to describe this city was banal. Truly, not much of interest happened. Obese men ate steaks and drank heavily in a downtown core where the price of oil and gas was obsessed over. He wondered what would happen when the inevitable economy hits happened: like predecessors would they jump from their windows? Probably, their windows were too strong for that now, actually.
At this moment, Magnus was in a specialty Halloween store. Human beings - or Mundanes as the Shadowhunters would call them - seemed to obsess over All Hallow's Eve. How the trite pagan holiday had become show chique was one of those questions he wondered. It was the one time that they thought about the evils coming at their world. Or, at least, it used to be. Now, it was about partying. Magnus could think of much worse things to do than find a happening place to party when the lovely young women and men were ready to loosen up their attitudes and play 'come as you aren't' for one night.
His admiration of the atmosphere of excitement in the seasonal store was distracted by a woman who seemed to radiate sorrow instead of the carefree spirit bubbling from others. Whether Magnus would speak to or flee from a mortal in distress was about 50-50 odds. He wavered, then he noticed the basket of items she was carrying. Glitter hairspray, glitter gel and it was vials of dust-on glitter that she was wavering over. With a shrug, she added the silver, the gold and the pink glitter dust to her basket with a twitch that might have been a smile. His curiousity was at this point piqued.
