we'll sit for days and talk about things

[Danielle Herriot]

"Jesus christ, Alk. We've been in boring towns before, but this probably tops it. I haven't seen one interesting person all day. At least before there were at least two weirods a day to mock. The girl sighed, looking over at the long-nosed animal sitting beside her, her expression one of complete and utter chagrin. The animal looked back, it's expression more bored than annoyed. "Yeah, yeah. I know there's plenty of freaks in the circus to make fun of, but come on. You can only make so many jokes about the bearded ladies, y'know?"

Sighing and flopping back against the hay bale she was leaning against, Dani crossed her legs and looked up at the sky. They had been in this town for a while, and so far Danielle had yet to find any appeal to the place. The again, Dani never found any real appeal to any of the towns they visited. Come to think of it, it was pretty hard to impress the girl. She wasn't fond of most the new acts, finding them to be boring repeats of each other.

Stretching, Dani pulled Alkyone, one of her main "co-stars" in her act onto her lap, hugging the coatimundi. "At least we're unique and amazing, right, Alk?" she asked the creature, scratching behind her ear. Alkyone chirruped happily at the scratching, and Dani grinned. As much as she sometimes hated it, this was the life for her.

[Orion Keller]

Danielle was not the only one dissatisfied with their current location. There were not nearly enough good-looking strangers to seduce around here. Suffice to say, Orion was not having a good day, or a good week in fact. The mid-twenties magician strode about the encampment with his usual purposeful stride, his typical ‘I rule this place’ aura in place. Translucent blue eyes glared out from under platinum-white untamed curls and God help any idiot stupid enough to get in his way.

He twirled a coin between his fingers absently, his dexterity obvious for all to see. Despite his determined walk, he had no destination in mind. He wore grey white-pinstripe trousers with a loose white shirt, opened as if he was just relaxing from a show. In truth, Orion always looked smart, show day or not. He rounded a trailer and spotted the stack of bales and cages where some of the smaller creatures were held. Sat cross-legged on one of the bales with an ant-eater was a strawberry-blond.

Ah, much better.

Orion made a beeline for the girl, catching the tail-end of her ramblings. “Unique and amazing, hmm? I thought I was the only one of those around here.” He gave her a wink and fished a deck of cards from his pocket and idly began to shuffle them with an ease that was uncanny for someone apparently not paying attention.

“You’ve been here a while.” His voice was a neutral American accent, hard to decipher where exactly he had been brought up. He did a stilted little bow, lips curling in a sideways smile. “Orion, at your service.” He splayed the cards in a neat fan, turning the symbols to her. “Pick a card, miss…?”

[Danielle Herriot]

The coati turned her head to stare at the approaching stranger, long prehensile tail curling itself around Dani's leg. Following her gaze, Danielle raised an eyebrow. It was a look of amused curiosity, and the expression deepened as Orion came closer. The platinum blond hair and bright blue eyes gave him the look of one of the freaks that Dani usually mocked for shits and giggles. Of course, the rest of him was pretty fine for a performer in a traveling circus. Still, as has been previously stated, Dani was not easily impressed.

"Glad to know I'm not the only egotistical person around here. Nice to meet another person who's stuck-up enough to think themselves unique and amazing," she replied to his comment, her grin making it obvious she was kidding. Pretending to ignore it, Dani watched Orion shuffle out of the corner of her eye, mentally sighing at the fact that this was yet another magician.

"Yep, I have. You're not so new yourself." Danielle chuckled at his bow, resting her chin on top of Alkyone's head for a moment. "I'm Danielle, or Dani for short." Lifting her head again as he fanned out the cards, she reached out and pulled one from the fan, turning the face of the card to herself and peering at it. An ace of hearts.

[Orion Keller]

Orion’s returned smile was unimpressed. He knew for a fact he was wonderful, she didn’t have to be sarcastic about it. “Nice to meet you, Dani for short.” He retrieved the card, careful not to reveal it to himself and put it back in the pack. After another round of shuffling, he splayed the fan again, faces toward her and picked out the Ace of Hearts. He turned it to his view, huffed and turned it back to her with a raised brow. “Ace of Heart, hmm? Trying to tell me something?” He snorted and returned the card to the deck, proceeding to shuffle them in strange and elaborate ways.

The girl looked alright, not the best, but when all you had was circus-freaks, you took the chaff with the grain. At least she had the right number of digits and no facial hair. “Your anteater is looking at me strangely. It doesn’t bite does it?” He eyed the weird-looking creature with a look of distain. The people around here had a strange idea about companionship. He hoped she wasn’t one of those girls with a fetish, he avoided those.

[Danielle Herriot]

Dani smirked at the result of the trick. Magic tricks failed to impress her anymore, considering she had been around them for almost a year now. "Good trick," she commented. It was an overdone one, anyway, and to be honest, Dani found it pretty boring. A small party trick, if anything.

Alkyone glowered at Ori, her animal senses telling her in huge red letters that this guy was not nice and that her human should probably punch him in the nose. Dani looked down at the irritated coati and snickered. "If you keep calling her an anteater she might. For the record, Alkyone is a coatimundi," she replied, rolling her eyes. She was used to people calling Alk all sorts of odd things, considering her species was still pretty unknown in the majority of the United States.

[Orion Keller]

Orion grumbled and slipped the pack back into a pocket. Some people just didn’t appreciate talent when they saw it. That anteater was definitely giving him a funny look, and with his natural displeasure with animals, the thing wasn’t earning itself any points with him. He was tempted to feed it to the tiger, but that meant going near the much larger and more dangerous animal.

“Coati-what? You’re making that up, it’s just some fat-ass racoon. This place is full of freaks pretending they’re something they’re not. Your anteater is no exception.” He gestured with a hand at a crow and a fox in nearby containers. “I suppose that’s a black phoenix and that’s a red panda?” He smirked, fitting his hands in his pockets. “It’s all smoke and mirrors, kid, you ain’t fooling anyone.”

Orion leaned back on his heels, sighing deeply. He really should learn to think before he spoke. There was no chance of him getting laid now, right? Never mind, he was rarely short on women that weren’t interested in what he had to say.

[Danielle Herriot]

Dani's eyes sparked at his comment, the irritation mirrored in the coati's. "If you want, I can go get a damn encyclopedia and show you the entry for coatimundi. And as for Cooper and Rie, they are a crow and fox. I'm not going to bullshit you on that one," she said, helping Alkyone climb onto her shoulder and standing up. She was short compared to Ori, but with this girl an insult to her animals was an insult to be taken very seriously.

"I may be a girl, and it may be against society's standards, but make another jackass comment like that about my animals and I will not hesitate to punch you in the nose. Alkyone won't hesitate to give you some nasty scratches across that "perfect" face of yours, either," the animal tamer said. Cooper, the crow, had fluttered to perch on top of the trailer, staring down at Ori, while Rie the fox had come and ninjaed her way onto a bale of hay a few feet away.

Dani and her animals had become close in the last year, and their bond went beyond that of a master and animal, as was being shown. It was almost uncanny how they could reach each others' body language and respond accordingly. At this current moment, Danielle's body language clearly said "I am pissed off and about to stab you in the face. Run."

[Orion Keller]

Orion had actually never learnt to read, so she could show him the pictures of the coati-thing in the encyclopaedia and he would still maintain that the ratty thing was a fat racoon. He took a step back but was otherwise not outwardly intimidated by the little lady and her creature. “You won’t be threatening me like that again. I’m more important that you around here. Speak to me like that again, and the Ringmaster will be having a word with you.” He replied, haughty and derogative.

He looked down his nose at the assortment of animals and snorted. “Fine, I’ll leave you to your zoo. I thought a freak like you could do with a friend, but if you don’t want my help, you can talk to your animals. But here’s a hint; they don’t really talk back.” Smirking, he turned primly on his heel and left her to smoulder. Orion was not the most adept at making friends, but he seemed to find satisfaction in the brief encounters.

[Danielle Herriot]

Oh yeah. That was right. She was still one of the bottom-feeder acts around here, even if she thought herself better than that. Damn her ego and her temper. His threat actually made her eyes widen in temporary fear; she knew what would happen if the Ringleader was told, and she also knew it would probably mean her ass getting dumped in whatever town they happened to be in at the moment.

Alkyone hissed quietly, continuing to glare at Ori from Danielle's shoulder. "Hush, Alk," she muttered, and the coati settled slightly, wrapping her long tail around Dani's shoulders. His words stung Dani visibly, and she struggled to compose herself as he walked away. Finally she found her voice and yelled. "I know they don't talk back, but they're nicer than most humans, including you, asshole!"

Sitting (or more like falling) back onto the bale of hay, she pulled Alkyone down from her shoulder and hugged her, biting her lip. She'd been called a freak before, multiple times, and it shouldn't hurt her. It hurt even more when the insulter through in some crap about her animals. "I will not cry, I will not cry, I will not cry," she repeated to herself, mumbling into the fur on Alk's neck.

[Giles Tippet]

Giles lugged the bucket of water towards the next trailer, moving a little more slowly and carefully than normal as it was full to the brim. It wasn’t that he really needed to top up the animal’s water, but when he had a spare moment and somebody needed a hand he wasn’t the type of person to say no. He side stepped as Orion, the magician and didn’t everyone know it, walked past, narrowly avoiding sloshing water onto the man’s shoes. As satisfying as it would be to do so Giles knew it wouldn’t be worth the bother.

He slipped into the trailer and set the bucket down, with a dull thud that sent ripples across the surface of the water, when he saw that somebody else was already there. Her act had something to do with animals, Giles knew that much, so it wasn’t really a surprise that she was here, but he’d never really learnt what it was she did. He wasn’t even sure when she’d first joined, she was just another one of those people that showed up out of the blue one day and once they were there it felt a bit like they always had been.

She looked a little upset, likely Orion’s doing. He wouldn’t be surprised if the magician could make children burst into tears just by looking at them. ”Um,” Giles spoke a little tentatively, he might feel a little better about trying to cheer her up if he could remember her name, he must have heard it before. ”Are you alright?”

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[Danielle Herriot]

Dani looked up as Giles entered the trailer, wiping her nose quickly. She hoped it wasn't obvious that she was upset; someone trying to fake being concerned so they didn't look like just another asshole wasn't really what she needed right now. She tried to figure out where she recognized him from. Dani knew she'd seen this guy around the circus, but couldn't remember if he was an act or something else.

Mentally groaning when he noticed her, she sat up a bit, releasing Alkyone from the tight hug. The coati climbed onto her spot on her mistress's shoulder, looking up at Giles. Dani faked a smile when he asked if she was okay. "Uh, yeah. Fine. Just kinda tired," she lied. It was obvious she was lying, though. Her voice broke towards the end. It was harder to fake happiness than she thought.

[Giles Tippet]

Giles stood just inside the doorway, faintly embarrassed as he watched Dani quickly compose herself. He hadn’t meant to intrude, it was difficult enough to get a private moment at the circus without some hapless practical-stranger barging in. And he felt even worse when her voice cracked while answering him, it was clearly one of those moments where ‘fine’ meant ‘not fine at all’. Giles approached the hay bale cautiously, having learnt the hard way that emotional women were liable to snap at any moment and that almost always ended in something being thrown at the nearest male’s head, and leant against it when he was close enough.

”Ahh,” He nodded sagely, a small commiserating smile on his lips. ”I hear ya, been dog-tired myself before.” Giles didn’t think he’d been tired enough to be close to tears though, which was why he suspected Orion had helped the situation along a little with a big dose of being an insufferable jerk. ”Still,” He glanced at the animal on Dani’s shoulder and realised he couldn’t identify it. ”Yer critter looks might cuddly, that should cheer you up a treat.”

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