The Circus is a Family

Fredrick examined the bars a bit more - he grabbed them and tried to shake them to see how much give they had. Not much, it turned out. He frowned deeply, and looked at the other critters inside of them again. He frowned deeply, and then looked at Rhynna and glared, giving her a very understandable "If you think I'm getting into one of these, you're dead wrong" kind of look. He backed away from the bars and pulled his hand away, then crossed his arms with reasonable stubbornness.

But he got distracted as he heard something new. He stopped focusing on Rhynna and cupped a hand over an ear, to listen to this new sound. It sounded like stars, twinkling. How interesting. He looked at Rhynna questioningly to see if she heard them.

The source of the sound made itself known as Lusorio flew in in a hurry.

At first Fredrick was very put off by how forward the jester was. Here was a brightly-clad human that made a very strange noise, and it was touching him! What did it want from him? He jumped a bit warily as the Jester slapped a hand on Fredrick's shoulder. However, the jester's smile and excitement proved to be infectious, even to him. A smile crept over his face and he relaxed. Still, how peculiar the sound was! He examined the jester for the source of the sound. It seemed to be everywhere!

He grabbed one of the little bells from the Jester's tunic and shook it, pulling his ear close - but since his fingers were grasping it on it's surface, it didn't jingle the way it should have, instead giving out a soft, soundless "tk" when he shook it. This was no good.

He pouted and dropped the bell, letting it go back to hanging on the jester. Then, a different idea! Fredrick placed both HIS hands on Lusario's shoulders, and then, without warning, began to shake him vigorously, letting loose a cascade of little bells as he did. Fredrick let out a gleeful yelp and beamed at Rhynna, like a three-year-old proud of his discovery. He shook Lusorio again for good measure, laughing mirthfully.

“I’m good standing, poppet. Sitting hurts my side anyway,” Rhys replied, “and there’s nothing to talk about. I made a mistake going out in the woods so soon, and I don’t plan to again for a good long time, if ever. I’m fine. Here, pick a card?” He slid the cards into a perfect fan with a practised flick of his wrist and offered them, changing the subject effectively. He didn't have time to say another word, however, because he was interrupted by the tinkling of Lusorio’s bells, and almost immediately after found the jester’s arm around his shoulder. The force of the energetic jester knocked his cards out of his hands, and he gave a curse, ducking out from under Lusorio to retrieve them and stuff the deck in his pocket again.

“Well that’s not for lack of trying.” he grinned, appreciating the joke. Lusorio’s sheer energy made Rhys feel old and tired, but he did appreciate the jokes. The jester was gone, off to the door to the animal tent within seconds, leaving a Rhys and Silence on their own again, with the slight echoing the bells had left behind.

“Well, that was odd.” Rhys commented, taking a swig from his flask as he stood up. He wasn’t sure what to make of the jester still, even though he’d known the man since the very start of the Circus.

--

Inside Lusorio’s sleeve was a salamander, by the name Feuerzauber (but he just went by ‘Eddie’). Eddie had been asleep, but the sudden shaking woke him. He gave a yawn, and poked his head out of the colourful, bell-covered item of clothing to see what was going on. He looked up at Fredrick, then around at Lusorio with a lizardy grin and a flick of his bright orange tongue. “New pet? Very nice!” he commented, before running up the jester’s arm and onto the spider-boy’s hand. “Ti ceyya, illai avarai erittu.” He said quietly, before the orange markings down his back erupted tiny spikes of flame, bathing his dark skin in fire. The words meant ‘make fire, don’t burn him’, and the fire seemed to have graciously accepted. The idea was to distract the creature and make him stop shaking Lusorio, so he cocked his head on one side and looked at the spider-boy. “Lookie, pretty fire!” he grinned, before looking at Fredrick carefully, inspecting him.

“’Ay, Lusorio, he’s pretty interesting. I’d bet the crowd would pay anything to see him dance!” He muttered another word and the fire went out, leaving Eddie free to watch without the flickering light distracting him. It also tickled, quite a lot, which was less fun than it sounded after a while.

((Peer: if you dun want him on Fredrick's hand, let me know and I'll change :3))

Silence too tried to avoid Lusorio's hug but had to suffer through it without screaming. When he said he didn't want to sit and he didn't want to talk either, she pouted and did her best to stand. "I swear if I had been in any other situation when I joined as a kid, I wouldn't have stuck around nearly so long as I have. That man is just insane, it's all I remember about him from that day." It seemed that the little salamander Lusorio kept was a newer addition to the group, but Eddie was a bundle of fun from what she'd seen of him. "Least you can hear the crazy bat coming most days." she remarked as she heard Fredrick laughing in the tent. At least one of the group was doing well, somewhat.

"Did you actually just call me 'poppet'?" she asked with a funny looking half-smile. "Don't think that one's ever come up before. Then I guess you're the strangest magpie I've ever seen so it fits." She straightened up after getting past a wave of dizziness and held her head. "You'll still owe me you know that right? Yes I forgive you, but you'll still owe me for all of this." The trouble was she wasn't sure how he could make up for it, perhaps she'd just ask him to get her something for her next birthday.

“I call everybody ‘poppet’, poppet. Don’t worry about it.” Rhys grinned. He was surprised that he hadn’t actually used it on Silence before – he’d been there since the dawn of time, or at least it felt like that, and Silence wasn’t so very new to the circus. Maybe he’d just never spoken to her much, he wasn’t sure. “And I’m sorry; I was… being myself I guess. You’d think I’d be over all that business with the woods, but no. Let me know when you want to cash in that favour I owe you.” he smiled thoughtfully. He wasn’t himself that day really – even Lusorio hadn’t cheered him up much. Good thing there were plenty of things to do.

Watching the odd spider-boy puzzling over the salamander and a bell, Rhys hauled himself upright (as he had been leaning precariously against a tent pole) and walked over. Fredrick’s legs still disgusted him a bit, but every moment it got easier to just look from the waist up, so he made his way almost to Lusorio’s side. “When yer finished with the new arrival, do we ‘ave anything that needs seeing to in the main tent?” he asked, taking another mouthful of whiskey and holding out a finger to tease the salamander. He felt better when everything was in order, and he was never sure if Lusorio was keeping track or not. Plus he’d really rather not face everyone that had seen his most recent embarrassment.
--

“Hey! You know I was only kidding.” Eddie smirked, spitting a miniature fireball at the tips of Lusorio’s fingers playfully as he was placed between two little bells on Lusorio’s shoulder. He bit one of the bells to keep himself busy. It clanked whenever his teeth hit the metal, which he hoped would irritate at least one person. He didn’t mean to be so pesky… except he did. He couldn’t stand being bored, and did literally anything to avoid it.

When Rhys poked a finger at him, he grinned and stuck out his bright orange, forked tongue. He would have hissed, but he knew that would end in him drooling on Lusorio’s shirt and making no sound at all. That was such a shame. He let the markings down his back flare up a little and stuck one warm, slightly sticky foot on the magician’s finger, clinging on. Maybe he’d find somewhere else to explore for a while, util the circus calmed down and needed picking back up.

The last thing this girl wanted to worry over was work, and frankly she'd only gone in to say that she was not to be disturbed for the rest of the day. Ah well, at least she could stand at that point. "Rhys, we all know Lusorio can't resist spending money, but isn't there something you two were supposed to get the last time we were near here? I seem to recall it being rather important." Sadly the only useful thing she didn't keep on her person was a file cabinet, and some would argue rather crassly (and put their lives at risk to boot) that it could be done. "I suppose it's in the file cabinet somewhere if you care to look." she remarked evenly with a hint of annoyance. She'd known those two for some time and if she wasn't careful Lusorio would go get some crazy creature from who-knew-where for a rather large amount of money, or Rhys would get a good portion of low quality alcohol somewhere.

The latter didn't happen all too often (if at all come to think of it) when he was given money out of the business account, anything he earned was spent at his own whim and therefore none of her business. With a disgruntled sigh she rubbed her forehead and set her hands on her hips. "Poison or not we're going to the city today. First things first is to find our new spider-boy a place to stay. Lusorio can you handle that while I go find this blasted paperwork?" 'If I can still bloody stand when I get there.' she thought sourly.

Rhys went with Silence and Zhenya to look for the papers – he liked to know where things were anyway. “We need some spare canvas fer repairs, but I think Zhenya’s got the idea – we need whatever ‘other’ stiff we can get our ‘ands on.” He grinned, ready to head to the main tent. Of course, before they could, Lusorio’s hearing picked up the word ‘Shopping’ and he was there. “Just supplies – we ‘aven’t got enough to get anything fancy today. Find us a customer and you can buy whatever you want.” Rhys had the budget planned out in his head fairly well. He always had been the level-headed one, even if most people saw him as the drunkard of the circus.

“Wha’s the next city on our route?” he asked after a moment. He had forgotten where they were along the route, and without a map to ha it was easier to ask. “We can’t stay ‘ere too long – no income in the woods.” Of course, everyone knew that the real reason for his haste was the fact that he wasn’t comfortable outside of the main cities. The embarrassment with Fredrick in the woods was also a key factor.

--

Eddie heard ‘shopping’ very quickly, and stuck his head out to listen. He shared Lusorio’s eagerness to find something new and exciting - anything that might make a noise to scare people was good for him. He resisted the urge to pester the spider-boy again, because he was sure that Lusorio wouldn’t thank him for burning the new pet. Instead, he ducked into Lusorio’s bag, fumbling around in the murky depths for something of interest. There was everything in there! He could probably have spent a lifetime there and not been through it all, but a lizard’s lifetime wasn't such a dramatic length of time as he would have liked. “Shopping sounds good.” He finally said aloud when they were moving again, sticking his head out of the top of the bag and flashing his orange tongue again.

(OMG I'm so sorry it took thislong- I had no idea it was my turn )

"I'll see where we are, but wherever's closest I think will suffice. Then again. . ." If they needed "other stuff" then their best bets were Jiluria and Kaionar. Jiluria was the easier to deal with, but it was going to be difficult finding a place closer than than with a good black market. "We might have to wait to bulk up our "inventory", but I can definitely point us in the right direction for general supplies, canvas and such. If anything I think we can go to Caspan for most of our supplies then go south to Jiluria for everything else." Her head was still swimming, and now things were looking blurry. "On second thought, perhaps Kaionar would be closer, sure it's the worse of the two to visit, but more variety." After clearing her head she looked at her fellow performers. "Rhys you're firm when it comes to the budget and I know I can trust you with our finances. Purchase decisions ultimately go to you for approval."

"Well happy day! Let's get moving." Despite the grogginess still muddling her brain and the fogginess of her surroundings, she was still likely to be needed for a shopping trip. Wonderful. The tone of her voice was less than enthusiastic, but with the recent events still weighing heavy on them all it wasn't too terribly surprising that Rhys was the only one cheering up. So it was back to Caspan apparently. . .Possible performance and extra income aside, this would be a hectic trip. What with adding to the acts and a new spider-human to keep in line, life was going to stay on edge for a while longer. Ah well, off on another adventure with mayhem and circus tricks!

[OOC: Thread officially closed! Woot!]