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Posted: Tue Jun 12, 2007 6:36 pm
Nodding, Jo got a good hold on Speck's halter and tugged him along in the right direction. He limped along behind Grete, gait rolling unnaturally as he carted the little pony off toward the woman's trailer where, upon arrival, they waited patiently enough. At some point while Grete was inside, Jo eased himself down to sit on the lower step up to the door, one leg stretched out with the heel of his shoe grinding into the dirt.
He looked up sharply when she came out again and eased as quickly as he could manage up off the step. He half used his hold on Speck's halter as leverage for the movement, something the pony seemed accustomed to. "Find 'em?" he asked, the question answered a half beat later. Jo followed her pointed finger with a cut of eyes, glancing in the indicated direction.
"It's a start," he said with a shrug and clucked at Specks, moving off in that direction with the clear expectation that she'd be catching up in a few strides or so.
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Posted: Tue Jun 12, 2007 9:47 pm
Catching up with Jo wasn't too terribly hard for Grete. Being a fast walker, she had no difficulty taking the lead again. Shaking her head, she smiled regretfully. Why hadn't she already learned where that stupid trailer was? Actually...wait a second. What if Aiden sent her on this little mission because he knew that she would have no idea where the hell the 'animal supplies trailer' was? It just sounded like something he would do. Grete sighed angrily, and began searching through the keys, looking for any sort of label as to which one would open the elusive trailer.
"Damn him," she muttered under her breath, shaking her head once more, "God, I hate him. Stupid Aiden..."
Then realizing how insane she must've seen, just mumbling angrily to herself, Grete raised an eyebrow and tried her best to explain.
"The ringmaster and I have never got along. Ever. Honestly, I'm surprised he didn't fire me a long time ago." Her voice trailing off, Grete proudly held up one of the keys. If she had read it correctly, (which she dearly hoped she had, whoever wrote the labels on these keys had small, messy handwriting) she had found the correct key.
"Tah dah! It looks like that trailer does need a key, anyhow. And, it looks like we're here," Grete stated, as she stopped walking suddenly. She recognized the supplies trailer, but as for the other ones around it. Hmm.
"Well. Alright, that's the regular supplies trailer," she pointed it out from the group of four, "But now it's just a guessing game." Putting her hands on her hips, she glanced up at Jo.
"Which one looks like it might be the right one to you? If you're wrong, the worst thing that'll happen is the key won't fit the lock." She hoped. You never knew with Cirque.
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Posted: Tue Jun 12, 2007 10:42 pm
Now probably wasn't the time to admit that he hadn't really had much contact with the ringmaster at all. Sure, a cursory 'oh okay, you're hired I guess let's see how you do, don't get eaten by a tiger' thing, but certainly no time to garner much of an opinion on the man.
So Jo kept his trap shut, nodding and making vaguely agreeable sounds at the proper moments as Grete rambled on, keeping a good hold on Specks' halter to keep the pony from tugging him off in another direction. By the time they reached the trailers, Specks was tossing his head and tugging a little absently at the hold Jo had on him, ears flipping around at a mile a minute. His tail swished at a few flies and kept swirling around absently even when they were gone. Jo eyeballed the pony wearily and then glanced past Grete to the supply trailers, let his gaze run over them like water off a duck's back for a few seconds.
"Start from the left, I guess," he said at length, leading Specks over to the closest post (it held up a poster that read in bold red letters 'LUCREZIA the SKYWARD BOUND!', pictured beneath a slapdash painting that featured a wisp of a girl in a bright leotard gripping what Jo assumed was supposed to be some kind of trapeze swing's handle), and tying him to it sounding before he limped back to the leftmost trailer and waited for Grete to bring the ring of keys.
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Posted: Tue Jun 12, 2007 10:56 pm
Shrugging, Grete supposed that starting at one point and working their way down was probably the best idea. It was better than Grete's idea of just picking random ones, as well. Walking up the steps to the trailer, Grete delicately placed the key in the lock, and turned.
"Well, what do you know?" she turned to beam at Jo as she began to turn the doorknob, "It usually takes me forever to get into these things. Either I can't find the key, or-"
As soon as Grete opened the door wide, three white doves flew out of the trailer. This caused Grete to shriek loudly, and stumble backwards, bumping into Jo. She turned around slowly to look at him, one hand covering her mouth and her eyes wide.
"I-I didn't expect there to actually be a-animals in here," she stammered, clearly (and, not to mention, oddly) shaken by the whole ordeal, "That can't be good for them. I...I really don't like birds."
Quickly brushing her hands on her dress (just in case, somehow, bird feathers got on her hands) Grete turned back around, and took a few small steps towards the trailer. Just in case there should be more birds inside. As she gingerly moved towards the trailer, an idea popped inside her head. What if those birds had just been planted there? No. Just no, she reasoned with herself. Now she was just being paranoid and crazy.
"So, right. I guess now we get to pick through the clutter," Grete sighed. Then, she took a few brave steps inside, and began to rummage around in a few of the large boxes.
"Sorry, I'm sure I'm not making the best first impression," she commented, as she leaned over one of the boxes, trying to find anything that had a simple label on it, regardless of whether or not it was what she was looking for.
Laughing, she added, "I'm really not some boring, crazy, bird-hating woman, I swear. By the way, do you have any clue as to what this container of pony-chow will look like?"
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Posted: Tue Jun 12, 2007 11:10 pm
"Home run," Jo declared absently, easing up behind her as she turned the key in the lock and slid open the doo--
"Sonuvvabitch," He ducked slightly as the birds look off overhead, nearly earning a nose full of Grete's auburn hair in the process as she jumped back into him. He caught her soundly by the elbows from behind, half to make sure she didn't go ricocheting back into something sharp and pointy like the trailer's door latch, and half to make sure she didn't knock him flat on the ground. His legs didn't make the best foundation when it came to balance, so a whole heap of startled woman bashing into him full-on probably wouldn't have ended well. He released her quickly, snatching his hands back to himself the moment Grete seemed unlikely to go bouncing dangerously off one way or another. "S'alright, spooked me too," he reasoned as he rocked his weight deftly to one side and followed her into the dim light of the trailer's interior.
He started to dig through the contents immediately, shifting through bags of feed and boxes of who knew what, taking up handfuls of grain and seed for inspection before letting it drop back into their burlap or canvas sacks. "Grain, should be labeled pretty clear in some sort of bag. The ones at home where in brown sacks, but--" Well, things at home seemed to be totally different here, at least on some occasions. "I think I see some hay at the back there, so there's that anyway. And you're not boring." Maybe a little crazy and bird-hating though.
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Posted: Tue Jun 12, 2007 11:29 pm
"Grain. Right," Grete repeated to herself, clapping her hands together. Sliding a few boxes aside, Grete kneeled down as she attempted to open one large box. Something was keeping it stuck, and try as she might with her thumbnail, she just couldn't open it. Oh, well. Standing up and walking towards the back of the trailer, Grete searched through more of the supplies.
"Oh, hell. I hope those birds don't come out of my paycheck," Grete sighed, hands on hips as she frowned at the heap of jumbled items, "I need the money. I'm nearly out of booze. And food, come to think of it." Now that she had a roommate, food was something that she actually had to remember to stock up on. She would feel terribly guilty if she didn't, anyway.
"Do you need the hay? I might could grab that for you," Grete glanced over her shoulder at Jo. She was closer to the hay than he was, so she figured she might as well make herself useful. Smiling to herself, she hunted through more things, unable to find anything labeled 'grain'. Or anything that looked at though it were grain, either.
"Well, I appreciate that you don't think I'm boring," Grete remarked, then added with a grin "I don't think you're boring, either. Oh, is that-" She then cut herself off as she picked up an empty bag labeled 'grain'. Damn.
"This one's completely empty. We know what they look like now, though," she placed the empty sack back where she had found it, and hunted through more of the containers, "Anyway, my first meetings with new people haven't been going quite as planned lately. I mean, there have been a couple good ones. But, I got in a little fight with one of the new girls. And I accidentally spilled an entire jug of Cirque's punch on another one. We're on good terms, now, though. I mentor her, actually," Grete sounded proud at this last sentence. It gave her a responsibility that sounded respectable and important, despite the fact that she had been tricked into mentoring Maxim. That detail Grete decided to leave out.
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Posted: Tue Jun 12, 2007 11:53 pm
"It's probably heavy," he forewarned her, eying the bales of hay sideways and briefly. "I can get them. You keep looking for that grain." Dusting off his hands unconsciously, Jo picked his way around the contents of the trailer until he reached the bales of hay stacked against the back wall of the trailer. He took a few seconds to dig up the twine out off the loose hay on top, taking care to carry on the conversation as he did so, including a brief "Thanks, I think," in return.
"What do you do? For being a mentor, I mean. Does she do the same sort of things as you?" He asked as he hauled one of the bales from the top of the stack, the twine cutting into his palms as he lugged it down the length of the trailer and tossed it out the open doorway. He could practically feel the interest radiating off Specks where he'd tied the pony. Shrugging, he ducked back inside the trailer and headed for a second bale, at which point it occurred to him that he didn't actually have any clue what Grete did - beyond shrieking at birds and drinking a whole lot of liquor, apparently.
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Posted: Wed Jun 13, 2007 12:12 am
"Nope. Our acts aren't similar at all. She works with fireworks and the like," Grete poked through more boxes and bags while she talked, and opened one unlabeled bag, only to find birdseed in it. It appeared as though the doves had some food to eat while they were stuck in here. Grete supposed that was a good thing, even though she didn't care for then,
"And I'm a medium. But, since I'm her mentor, I just help her in any way that I can. Whether that means helping her out during the act, or getting things for her," shrugging, Grete paused as she lifted one box out of the way, in order to get to another section of the trailer, "Just whatever I can do to help her acts run more smoothly. Especially since her act is a sort of behind-the-scenes affair. But, mentors can do anything really, from what I understand. Depending on the act, they can help out with it," she slid in between a few boxes, as she moved toward a large heap of items, "Or they could just stand there and look pretty."
Taking a break from the search, Grete watched Jo move the bales of hay. She would've offered to help, but seeing as he told her that they would be heavy...Well, she wasn't really one for lifting and moving heavy objects. Returning to her search, she sat on top of one of the boxes, while she pulled things out of another, hoping that she would find a bag of grain in it. It was an awful big box.
"So, basically, I can do any of those options. Looking pretty, getting things or helping out with an act, I mean. As long as the 'helping with an act' choice isn't something crazy. Like, oh, gosh, I don't know. Anything that could cause me harm, I suppose," Picking up an item that Grete had no clue as to what it was, she frowned as threw it aside, "I'm not one that enjoys getting injured."
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Posted: Wed Jun 13, 2007 7:32 am
The hell was a medium? Dragging a second hay bale off the stack, Jo shot Grete what he hoped was a subtle once-over in the dim lighting, as if looking her over again might somehow inform him of what exactly a 'medium' was. Maybe she was of average height (though she seemed a little shorter than that to him - but he was kinda all wet when it came to guessing averages and ages and that sort of thing anyways, so), but that's about the only thing he could guess that might be medium about her. Shrugging inwardly, he staggered to the door of the trailer and chucked the second bale out into the dirt and grass with the first.
"Don't imagine that too many people do enjoy it - getting hurt. Imagine you're real ducky at everything else though." He grinned a little at her, quick and sudden, before descending onto a stack of boxes and canvas bags that hadn't been checked out yet, shuffling through and picking various bags open to check out the contents when they looked promising.
Finally Jo had the good fortune of catching hold of and pulling back an old brown tarp, under which was a whole stack of bags similar to what Grete had found earlier only full. "Bingo."
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Posted: Wed Jun 13, 2007 8:02 am
Little did she know, Jo was unfamiliar with the term 'meduim'. He wasn't the first person that didn't understand what a medium was, either. Completely oblivious of the fact that he was confused, Grete just kept on going through boxes. If she had known that he was in the dark about it, she would've explained, but as it was now...
"Beg pardon?" Grete asked, as she stayed perched on top of a box, and pulled out more mystery objects from the box. Frowning at them, she tossed them aside as well. What was that stuff, anyhow? Shrugging, she continued, "Sorry, I'm unfamiliar with the term 'ducky'."
Unaware that she was being complemented, Grete hoped dearly that Jo hadn't just offended her without her knowledge. Judging from his actions, he hadn't, but she didn't want to make any quick judgements. Sadly, Grete was always a little behind on most slang from other worlds, and rarely actually asked what things meant. So, half the time when talking to new people, Grete didn't really follow what was going on. Oh, embarrassment is a horrible thing.
'Bingo' was a word that she knew, however. Smiling, Grete stood up and walked towards Jo, peering down at the sack of feed. The search had taken much less than she had initially expected, and that wasn't a bad thing. Looking up at Jo, she gave him a warm smile, then glanced down at the bag.
"Is that too heavy for me, too? If it is, I've got no idea how we're going to get all this out of here," She paused, and tapped a finger to her bottom lip, "Is there anything else that you might want from in here? I figure that while we're in here, we might as well do and get everything we need to..."
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Posted: Wed Jun 13, 2007 8:17 am
"Uh, ducky. Good?" Chrissakes, sometimes talking to these people was like talking in another language - oh sure, most times he got the gist of what people were saying, but who knew if they got half of what was coming out of his mouth.
Toeing the bags of grain, Jo looked between them and Grete's arms which, he had to admit, kind of looked a little noodle-y to be hauling around bags of grain. "Might be able to drag a couple," he conceded as he braced his legs and hauled one of the bags up out of the swirling dust, hitching it awkwardly over his shoulder.
"I think that's probably it, to be honest. He's got a stall and a water bucket in one of the tents, so I don't think..." Nonetheless, Jo shot a glance over the rest of the trailer on the off chance that something would jump out at him. He shrugged as much as the grain sack on his shoulder would allow and then rolled toward the doorway and dropped the grain out near the hay bales.
"I don't guess there'd be a wheelbarrow or something around to move all this with?" He could carry it if he had to but... well, hauling hay across the the midway one bale at a time really wasn't his idea of entertainment.
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Posted: Wed Jun 13, 2007 8:32 am
Ahh. Ducky was good. So were compliments. Grete simply glowed at getting compliments, and she gave an appreciative nod and a soft, "Oh." She now followed Jo out of the trailer, and stared at the bags of grain for a moment. Nodding, she figured that her carrying them probably wasn't a very good idea, unless Jo really wanted spilled grain everywhere.
"A wheelbarrow?" she asked, glancing back into the trailer, "Honestly, I don't even know if Cirque's got one. I'm sure we do, but I've got no clue where it would be. I work with people, and I've really got no experience with animal acts."
Thinking about where, exactly, one would store a wheelbarrow, Grete fell silent, and opened her mouth to say something, but then shut it again. Wheelbarrows. Hmmm.
"Wait right here," she said slowly, moving towards another trailer, and fiddling with her keys once more. Perhaps there was one in the regular supplies trailer. This time, she opened the trailer door rather slowly, just in case there was another flock of birds inside. To her relief, there wasn't, and instead she was met with many brightly-colored fabrics, outfits and props. Disappearing inside for a moment, she quickly came back with a wheelbarrow. It was on the small side, but it was better than nothing. She quickly emptied it of all the props that had been stored inside, then closed the trailer door behind her. After locking it, she walked back to Jo, dragging the wheelbarrow along with her.
"It's small, but it'll help some, right?" Grete asked, eager to please.
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Posted: Wed Jun 13, 2007 9:02 am
Jo nodded, easing shut the door to the trailer they'd been poking through as Grete bustled over to one of the others. The door ground a little on its hinges, needing an oiling or maybe just a new set of wheels to roll on the door track. He closed the latch but left the lock open, just in case on the off chance that he'd closed the door on something that Grete might have wanted.
"Should work like a charm," he said as she hauled the little wheelbarrow over. "Might have to make two trips, but that's better than three. Can you hold it steady?" Shifting, he took a good grip on the twin binding the first hay bale and hauled it out of the sand, dumping it into the rickety old wheelbarrow as carefully as he could manage so the whole thing didn't dump over onto either Grete or something. A little clever maneuvering got the second bale on top of the first, a bag of grain stuffed into the spare space on the side.
"Okay," said Jo, eying the balance of the wheelbarrow warily as if waiting for it to keel one way or another. "Hopefully I don't kill anyone on the way over there, huh?"
From a few yards away, Specks danced on the end of his line and whinnied at them - well, more specifically, at the food Jo had stuffed into the wheelbarrow. He tossed his sledgehammer shaped head and bobbed like a fish at the end of a hook.
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Posted: Wed Jun 13, 2007 10:21 pm
"I have a feeling that killing someone with the wheelbarrow might just get you fired," Grete said dryly with a wink. Hopefully, it wouldn't tip over, but as it was, it looked a little iffy. Maybe Grete just didn't know anything about wheelbarrows, and in reality, they were supposed to look like that. It wouldn't be surprising to her. Holding the wheelbarrow steady, Grete watched as the pile got higher before eventually handing it over to Jo.
"I've got to lock up the trailer, I forgot about that," Grete began to walk towards the trailer door, as she got out the key for, hopefully, the last time. After locking it, she quickly began to walk back towards Jo, but suddenly stopped and watched Specks for a moment. What a funny pony. After starring at him for a moment, she continued to walk towards Jo, and then quickly changed between looking at the wheelbarrow, to looking at him.
"Two trips are better than three. And, I'll even accompany you for both trips," she laughed, before tucking a stray strand of hair behind her ear.
"There anything that I could do for you? I could maybe push the wheelbarrow, if that would make things easier," Shrugging, Grete really had no idea how much easier that would make things, due to the fact that she had never actually pushed a wheelbarrow before. It couldn't be that hard, could it?
"Sorry, I've sort-of rambled today," Grete shrugged with a smile and a laugh she added, "You really can tell me to be quiet if you want. If you want to just start talking and not stop, be my guest."
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Posted: Thu Jun 14, 2007 6:15 pm
Yeah, running people down with the point of a wheelbarrow - probably not one of the better impressions to make on the general populous of the production. Jo shifted a little, altering his grip on the handles as he waited for Grete to return from locking up the trailer.
"I think I can manage, just... keep your hand on the side. Just in case." He glanced at her, grinned. "I'll try not to dump everything over on top of you in the meantime."
He rocked his weight forward, digging his toes into the earth and shoving the wheelbarrow (bit of a flat tire there) forward in the direction of where Specks' stall had been set up. Behind them, the pony twisted a little on his lead and whickered after them until he realized he was expected to wait at which point he settled down, ears pinning a little, and then dropped his nose to the ground to pick at the sparse grass around his feet. Harumph.
Clanging along - there was a bolt or something loose -, Jo kept his eyes ahead to make sure he didn't run over any small children or animals on the way. Or, you know, get tangled up in a piece of rope or something. Nonetheless, he did a fairly good job at keeping up some semblance of conversation; besides, Grete seemed to need little prodding from himself to keep talking.
"You're fine. Don't think I'm liable to go talking all day myself, so it doesn't hurt for you to make up for that."
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