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Stretch. Shift. Jesus H., he was stiffer than a tent post.

Jo lurched up to a sitting position, took a moment to remember where in God's green earth he was - except, right, maybe not there at all? - More importantly though, stuffed in a way-too-small roustie caravan, feeling like death warmed over, breathing fire and rot from too much cheap booze and not enough time brushing the pearly whites. Rustling around in the half light, he found the brace. He threw it under his arm and, swaying, shambled up onto his foot and half-hopped, half-staggered to the door.

"Miraculous," Jo growled under his breath the second he sagged on the aching old wheel well of the trailer, having managed to slide down the stair and work his way along, prosthetic leg still hiked under his arm like old groceries. Squinting into the morning sun he leaned against the caravan. Breathed deep. The hell had he gotten himself into?

In the full light it was easier to fit the brace, the wooden leg--a labyrinth of leather straps, metal casings and screw. Eyelets he knew like the back of his hand, laces cinched tight and turned double, triple, four times over. Finished, Jo sagged back and looked over the carnival, what he could see of it anyway, as it wound up for the day.

The strangest thing - not the weird animals, not the whole warp of time and space - no, sometimes the strangest thing was the good cheer cast over the whole place. Maybe not entire, but some days it sure seemed that way--a radiant glow of good spirits, of 'Hey how are ya's,' cheer talk and good temperaments. Like drinking lemonade after walking a long way, a warm bath after running headlong through swirling dust clouds with a shirt over your face just to keep your breath. It took Jo a second, a long second, to remember to lift his hand back in a returning wave. It was gruff and mechanical when it happened, climbing up with a start and coming back down on his good knee with a clap of palm of cloth. Surprised; more surprised when she pinwheeled, came loping back.

Jo felt filthy, dirt-streaked and wind blown and gritty on every edge in a way that was probably mostly in his head, but definitely with some basis in reality. Working all day as a roustie wasn't exactly clean work, spending free time with animals wasn't going to help matters. He ran a hand quickly over his jaw, rough and unshaven. Grimaced.

"Mornin'," he called back, an eastern drizzle of a voice.

Jo looked her over - couldn't help it, automatic, knee jerk, learned-to-appreciate kind of way, and she was pretty and young which could always earn at least a cursory glance from any male with eyes in his head. Straightening, leveling his weight out of both feet, Jo made a move to tip his hat until he realized he didn't have it on. Cussed inwardly.

"Yes ma'am, new enough. Name's Jo Hinton." Old east mixed in with a heap of Californian syntax and a good old dash of habitual brevity for good measure.

Jo hesitated, unsure, the awkward pause spooling out until he gathered the line back up. "You're not, I take it? New."

"Three," Jo answered automatically. Truth be told, that was more like periods of time than anything. Sometimes it got awfully hard to tell when Earth ended, when some place downright strange began - until you stumbled across someone with blue skin or glowing eyes or what hey. Mostly it seemed like shifts in time - so far anyway.

Weather. He glanced up at the broad expanse of sky, soft puffy swathes of cloud rolling out like steam from a rail engine. He glanced sideways at Lucrezia.

"This at all like where you're from?"

Rome. Jo could close his eyes and all he saw were mentions of archaeology, tourism, great white statues an art collector he once knew had claimed to see first hand, having traveled more miles by boat than Jo wanted to count. Ships made him sick these days. Rome. He could scarcely imagine anyone living there -- living, not just passing through or using it as a relay point of a two-way trip -- in 1930, much less so far in the past.

He was going to be the first to admit he didn't have much of an imagination though.

"I was born in New York, up in the Catskills. --Those are mountains. But all over, sort of. Spent more time in California than anywhere else." He paused, lingered, then broke it down in more general terms. Just in case. "Earth, America, 1900's."

"So you have experience," Jo remarked brightly enough, offering her a faint lopsided grin. "That must have made some of this..." --he faltered for the right word, shrugged. "Easier?" Not that that cirque was a particularly traumatic or harrowing lifestyle to entertain, but definitely. Well. 'Different' was probably putting it lightly.

He settled back against the trailer, hitched himself up to where he could put weight on the edge of the wheel well instead of the prosthetic leg. "I trained race horses." Sort of.

"Well, horse training," he amended. Racing was a long time gone. "Brought one of 'em with me. You've probably seen him. About yea high at the back," -- Jo leveled his hand out at waist height -- "adorably inbred looking thing, making a nuisance of himself in any way possible."

Jo reserved a moment to give himself an exasperated palm-to-face. Damn pony. "That's Specks alright. He's an escape artist - gets himself into a world of trouble when he knows your back's turned." Which reminded him. He'd been acclimating to the morning for far too long already and that 'damn pony' was going to start getting ungodly antsy if he didn't get his breakfast soon.

Giving the laces on his brace an absent once-over tug, Jo rolled forward on the balls of his feet--wooden or otherwise--and shot a glance over Lucrezia's shoulder toward the tents which housed cirque's assundry animals.

"I really should make sure he hasn't let himself out and broken into the feed. He's pretty convinced he's on the brink of starvation." And God forbid anyone let his meals come a few minutes late. The sky might fall! The world could end! Lives depended on a timely breakfast!

He shot her a glance, maybe a little surprised. Or maybe just looking. Beat. "Alright," he said with a lighthearted shrug. "If you want to. I can give you the grand tour." Or what he knew of it, which was really just wandering by the various animals rattling off names: 'Tiger, elephant, don't know what that is, dog, horse, yadda yadda yadda, et al.'

Without further ado he snagged his hat out of his back pocket, stuffed it on his head and set off in a stiff rolling limp. He cut a path from the roustie trailer toward the tents in question, going through the heart of the midway and drifting just close enough to the mess tent for his stomach to start complaining for a little breakfast. 'Later.'

"So aerials, huh? Guess you're not too scared of heights," he said after a while-- felt like he should say something at least instead of just dragging her along. He ducked through the opening of one of the larger tents and lumbered on down the aisle until he reached a homely box stall, the red paint on the door and walls chipping and faded. Immediately the small pony inside stuffed his nose over the door: a somewhat difficult task given his size. The result was a visible pair of large watery brown eyes and a pink muzzle, but not much else.

Specks flicked his ears forward, the gray tips roving around. After a moment he wiggled around and gave the wall a calculated kick.

"Alright, alright. Jesus H."