The Circus is a Family

In her dazed state she was still in lots of pain, but she croaked once or twice and coughed before actually saying something. "Rhys. . .you'll pay for this. . .I swear. . ." Rain still pelted her shoulder and every little thing that touched it sent waves of pain throughout her body. No, contrary to common sense she wasn't blaming poor Fredrick for what happened to her. It had been her co-worker who wandered out here and basically provoked the creature, therefore it was his fault and she was going to have her revenge one way or another.

In a recess at the back of her mind she'd come up with the idea to name the creature Fredrick. Why did she name it? Who knows. She just wanted it to have a name. If only she could move, she'd rip Rhys a new one in a heartbeat. "Fredrick." she croaked. She dared not try to speak again, it hurt too much.

((Time skipping because people said it was a good idea. No power-play intended.))

"Fredrick," He repeated back. He smacked his lips as he said it, clearly and concisely. It wasn't the first time he's heard somebody say that. It was a very easy word to repeat. The rest was still greek to him, but that word caught his attention, like it meant something. He blinked as he heard them say it twice.

Well at least he had working human vocal cords. Maybe he could learn to communicate in the future, too. Huzzah! "Fredree? Fredrick... Fejri-KUH."

Well, with that word out of the way, he went on to follow them. He didn't argue or anything, just kinda awkwardly kept close at their heels, kind of regretting that he was leaving all his webbing behind. He'd be back, he figured. But he should have eaten some of it. It took a LOT of energy and substance to make webs, and eating it was a good way of recycling it so he wouldn't have to eat as much real food for his next batch. Maybe when he came back something else would be in it, or, if nothing else, it would still be in tact.

The rain did a lot to clean him a little bit. Even the bloody mess he just made on his face, and the cut against his human flesh, he used some of the water to rub it away as he walked to clean up.

But otherwise he was pretty obedient along the long stretch of travel. He made sure his first captive didn't fall off his back. As the forest broke into the clearing that made up the circus, he was immediately wary of it. It was huge! All these... people....

scary, scary people.

He shied back, and let out a grunt of dissatisfaction. "Huh." And he made an unhappy-face. But, everybody else was still going in, so after a few side-steps to avoid the forward-travelling, he continued on, feeling terribly small. This was awfully out of his element. And there were less branches. People were all complicated and had weapon-things and did a lot more talking and struggling and worked together (as he had just witnessed), so he was feeling like he could be easily jumped here. Vulnerability was still a new feeling to him. He wasn't fond of it at all.

He had way to many questions about WHERE they are, but he had no way to ask them. And no way to get an answer back. "Nnnnn?" He tried with kind of a concerned whine. He kept his dead deer and flower close to him possessively as they ventured in deeper, towards a tent.

By the time Rhys woke up she was beyond enraged with him. Her voice had also recovered after a fashion, and she could contort her face at least somewhat. The rest of her body was still frozen stiff in paralysis. "Rhys you owe me big time you stupid magpie!" Yes, her voice was still somewhat gravelly and not quite as smooth as it had been, but it was her voice nonetheless. "If Fredrick hadn't paralyzed me I'd beat you senseless!"

After those brief statements her vocal cords started to scream in pain. "Though it's not so much that you wanted us hurt, it's that you went off by yourself and didn't tell anyone. I'm what half your age and I know better than that?!" Suddenly all the anger she felt was making her dizzy, her heart rate was going through the roof. This was just another part of the bite she'd incurred by defending her coworker no doubt. Oh that one-eyed sleaze owed her BIG TIME and she was going to be sure to remind him when she could see straight enough to knock him stupid.

The spider-boy didn't QUITE YET connect the word "Fredrick" with his own identity, but at least, as a word, it stood out, and that was a good start.

Fredrick had half a mind to wander back to the woods while they all sat around chatting loudly at each other. It seemed like a good distraction. His nervousness of being out in the open without cover definitely outweighed his curiosity. He wasn't a particularly curious creature in general to begin with. He had already learned that curiosity led to bad stupid things.

Well, since Rhys was now off his back, he shifted his deer carcass onto his back, which he figured wouldn't tear up his meal as much as dragging it did. He jerked back in a little surprise (since he was clearly jumpy and nervous) when Rhynna moved down to eye-level and started making sounds at him. He gave her a questionable look, but decided to nod in reply to her sounds. Nodding seemed like the thing to do. However, it was clear her words didn't get through to him at all because he didn't look any less nervous by the end of it. By this point, he let somebody else take the lead, and, against his better judgement, just kept following the humans. Maybe if he shared the deer they gave him, that would be the nice thing to do. Meanwhile, though, he decided to keep his sharp little fangs out, in the way of a defensive threat to keep the other humans back.

As far as apologies went, Rhys had done all he could by her standards. There was no real way for him to make it up to her considering the circumstances. "If it weren't for you I'd be dead. I at least owe you my thanks. Now, can I get down?" For once that day it hadn't occurred to her that her legs couldn't move on their own. She didn't like being that high off the ground either, it was starting to freak her out since she'd no clue how she got up there.

It was only when she tried to move that she remembered why she was up there in the first place and she started to panic a little when she couldn't move. "Please? Someone get me down?" Hysteria was starting to set in and shock wasn't going to be of any help either. Things were getting very complicated indeed.

Everybody was still making loud noises at each other. Less loud than before, at least, though.

He still wasn't really sure how to shake this feeling of badness - Guilt - or whatever it was. People mostly seemed to be displeased with the fellow he had caught in his web and had been about to eat. He made a slightly sad face, and, as much as he could, he moved over to Rhys, keeping his hands up and his palms open and outwards to not scare the fleshy prey. With as much gentleness as he could muster, he reached over Rhys with a sad expression, and patted his head. All of this was done in the way of an apology, kind of. He wanted to alleviate the bad feeling he had, and he thought that this might help, if the human didn't feel as afraid.

Fortunately for Silence, with the mild dosage of poison that he had given her, enough walking could help sweat it all out and it might all be gone by the time she woke up tomorrow. But, even he didn't know what ill effects she might have. Still, she was walking, and normally when he bit something, it had stopped walking forever. So he figured that she'd probably live if nothing else. He wasn't too concerned about it.

But, once he was done patting Rhy's head (three pats were sufficient, he decided), he decided to fall into step behind Rhynna. As scary as the big dragon was, he decided he liked her the best because she had been the one to give him deer meat.

"Here's the short list: I can't feel my left arm at all, my legs feel like gelatin, my head is spinning and something tells me my shoulder is bleeding and throbbing in pain." There wasn't really any anger in her voice, she sounded more like she was delirious and after her reply she half choked out a laugh and made her best attempt at a smile.

For the life of her she couldn't figure out why everything was in doubles and why they were spinning. "I think I'm seeing double as well, but that I think will go away in a little while once I get moving again." Seeing double usually ended in more trouble than it was worth to start with, but her brain was still muddled and half her sentences came out backward rather than forward like they were supposed to. The one thing that felt alien now was the fact she wanted to eat. Of all the times for her stomach to growl it had to be NOW?!

Now that he had "said" his part, he took the time to really observe where he was while the humans (and that dragon) used their mouths to share secrets he couldn't understand. It was terribly frustrating, more than anything. He could hear tension, and he still felt guilty and vulnerable, but it seemed like everything was okay, so what were they talking about? He focused on the surrounding circus grounds while he tried to pick up on the meaning of their words, but to no avail.

For that matter, why did he decide to follow them? He couldn't remember. It had just been a passing thought, and now he was feeling more inclined to go back into the shelter. Because they had food, yes, apparently, but he was pretty sure that there might be conflict with them in the near future if he kept sticking around... or, at least if they didn't keep providing him with food.

Well, if that happened, he supposed he could just leave then. It wasn't like they had any way of assuring him that they WOULD keep giving him food. Besides that, why would they, after he tried to eat them? But nobody was telling him to leave yet, even now that he wasn't carrying anybody. Nobody was yelling at him. He had done his part by taking him back, right?

Or did they want him here so they could just keep the forest a safer place?

He stopped following them for a bit, and, with his arms kind of wrapped around himself, he looked back towards the woods, debating.

On the one hand, here and now was a terrible time for him to be fending for himself apparently, since he hadn't really caught any food in the last couple of days. In retrospect, probably because the humans HAD been so close. Maybe, if he went back, he could find a farther place to hunt.

But what if that wasn't the problem at all? What if the animals were just scarce, and his lack of grace, speed, and natural resources just made him a lousy hunter, and things were just avoiding his web out of luck?

On the other hand, this place had no assurances either. There were too many human-types and not enough trees.

Maybe, if he had something more...

Well, he was a little human, right? He didn't know what his face looked like, but he had the hands and torso of a human-person... maybe he could get one of their weapons and be a better hunter! So he wouldn't have to be stationary and depend on luck. He didn't know how well that would work, but if nothing else, he'd feel safer. Then again, having more weapons was an easy way to make anybody feel safer anywhere.

With this decided, he turned back to "his" humans and started intruding in Zhenya's space. He knew SHE had the sharp shinies. He could take one of hers. He wasn't necessarily trying to "steal" it since he didn't really understand ownership (unless it came to things that were distinctly his), he just wanted to take hers and make it his. He needed it more. She should understand that. So without any subtlety, he went for the knife that Zhenya had stuck back into her belt.

Things started to get rather hazy and her double vision grew more skewed as she felt she was losing her balance. The world just kept spinning, and there wasn't too much that she could do. Through the blur she saw Fredrick move closer to Zhenya and it seemed her speech was starting to sound slowed down. "Look out. Don't know what he's doing." That was what she'd MEANT to say, instead it came out as "L'out. . .D'know. . .he's doin'." On impulse she tried to move away and nodded in agreement when Rhys spoke.

As she stumbled, she could have sworn she'd just run into Rhynna judging by the fact that she was resting against something soft and almost fuzzy. By that point she was just tired of moving, and she made it known in no uncertain terms by just about falling asleep. "Sorry, Rhynna." she mumbled. Finally it seemed that she'd get some rest, but somehow that didn't look likely to happen since Fredrick was moving and Rhys had started glaring for some reason.

The Initial shock of the kick made him reel. He hadn't been expecting that. a Spike of anger rose in him, and he balled his hand into a fist and made an impulsive swing for Zhenya's face in vengeance for his own. Immediately after the swing, though, whether it hit or not, he calmed down and backed off, realizing a bit late that Zhenya was feeling threatened when she pointed the knife at him. Well, that made sense. He took a second to recover by making a few faces, to stretch his "wounded" face back out, and put his hand to his nose to see if it was bleeding - It wasn't. He frowned a bit, and blinked at the knife. That was what he wanted.

But, she looked like she was holding it awfully tight, so it didn't *really* look like she wanted to give it to him.

He pointed to the knife, then he pointed to himself, and then he pointed his finger back towards the woods.

Hoping that that communicated what he wanted, he maintained a distance from Zhenya, and slowly held his hand out below hers, palm up, politely waiting for her to give the knife to him. Surely, that argument had been convincing enough, right?

Fredrick was taken aback by being screeched at. He blinked in surprise. Why should SHE yell at HIM? She attacked him first! Feeling indignant and defensive (and maybe a little bit competitive), he raised himself higher up on his legs like he was about to attack her again, and let out a blood-curdling shriek at HER.

When Rhynna raised her voice at Zhenya, though, Fredrick stopped his screaming as well with half a jump, because dragons were still terrifying and he certainly didn't want to make the dragon mad. He flopped back down, and feeling like he had proved enough of a point, he skulked and crossed his arms. He glared at Zhenya for a moment, but Rhynna was vying for his attention, so he quickly gave it to her.

Rhynna said something that sounded not angry. Whatever it was, he felt slightly less angry that Zhenya had yelled at him, but he really just didn't get why they weren't letting him go back to the forest when it was obvious they didn't want him here, either. It really, really bothered him, in fact. The only one that didn't seem to really dislike him was the dragon, and that was probably because the dragon wasn't afraid of him. But they could all easily gang up on him.... man, he felt so vulnerable. He was a lot jumpier now.

But, fortunately, he did follow them all the way to the Beastmaster's tent. He kept snapping his head around, like he was expecting to get attacked from behind. He really did look like a scared cat - you know, how they look when they're all hissing and their back is raised... it was difficult to translate that specific characteristic into a half-human, half-spider, but it was still obvious enough anyhow that he was not comfortable and kind of wanted to leave as much as they wanted to kill him.

He blinked at the cages dubiously. There were creatures inside of them.... like.... like webs? Is that what they were? Did they catch creatures too? Or were they like homes? He moved over and touched one of the bars to see if it was sticky. It was not. It was cold. Now he was really confused.

Obviously Silence was staying outside; she could barely stand much less be of any help. She sat close by Rhys and looked up at him, feeling much safer sitting than standing. "Hey, magpie, come sit down?" she asked quietly. She didn't much care for the man, but he was doing that nervous tick of his and that couldn't be good. "Seriously Rhys, come sit down and talk about it, it might just help." The circus was literally a family of misfits, outcasts, and generally abnormal people, trust was very important. Sure as a whole Rhys wasn't the type of person she'd normally hang about with, but after the kind of scare he'd just had, she felt rather bad for him.

Inside there seemed to be very little commotion from what she could hear, but then again she could hardly hear her own voice as she spoke, so her ears were still stuffed with wax so to speak. Her head finally stopped swimming long enough for her to realize where they were, and she had half a mind to wander back to her tent to pass out for the rest of the day. Now sleeping was all she could think of to do, but that wasn't a smart idea while out in the open, and with Rhys a nervous wreck that idea was even worse.