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 Posted: Sun Feb 17, 2008 4:20 pm
[Whee! One day this MAY IN FACT get written!]
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Posted: Sun Feb 17, 2008 4:23 pm
(Reserved for Grete and Jo RP)
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Posted: Sun Feb 17, 2008 4:37 pm
(Reserved for Aemilia and Jo RP)
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Posted: Sun Feb 17, 2008 4:40 pm
|| INTRODUCTIONS ||Jo and Lucrezia - Word Count: 1,802; Fame Earned: 18.02
World: Pirates of the Caribbean, Type B, Port RoyalPukio 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. Silverah Lucrezia was certain that she had nearly forgotten what warm weather felt like during the Cirque's long sojourns during the past year. But now they were in a tropical world, all palm trees, beaches and sailing ships, and she was overjoyed. From what she could tell, this world was the closest to her own that they'd gotten. She hadn't yet ascertained the date, but felt quite certain they were within two-hundred years of her Rome. The closest yet!
She was enjoying a jog around the fairground in the early-ish hours of the morning. If she waited much longer, the day would heat up and the carnival would fill with customers and then any attempt at cross-training would be hopeless.
There was a man leaning up against a trailer ahead of her. Lucrezia couldn't make out any features in the morning sunlight, but she figured it was Charlot and waved as she ran past. She was a good five yards gone when she realized it hadn't been Charlot, but someone totally unfamiliar, and backed up to investigate who she figured had to be a new employee.
"Bonjour!" she said in greeting as she tried to catch her breath. She hadn't realized how long she'd been running until she'd stopped, but wasn't that how it always went? Pukio 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. Silverah No, definitely not Charlot, though Lucrezia. This man was older than her friend, and of decidedly different build and appearance. And the accent wasn't like any she recognized. At the very least she hoped it would be more comprehensible than Iosef's.
He looked decidedly confused, she thought. And maybe a little off balance. Hung over, perhaps? Some of the older performers back home got like that on occasion - the ones here did, too.
"I'm Lucrezia," she stated. "Are you new here?"
It wasn't an impolite question... just a question. She was honestly just curious. Pukio 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." Silverah If Lucrezia noticed anything about his initial reaction, she wasn't showing any outward response. Or maybe she was just oblivious.
"No, I'm not new," she clarified, shaking her head. She tried to think of how long she had been with the Cirque. Had it really been so long? "I've been with the show for about a year."
"How many worlds have you been to with us?" she asked. "We're fortunate with the weather this time." Pukio "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?" Silverah "It's a bit like it," said Lucrezia as she stared at some palm trees a ways off. She'd managed to get used to "modern" conventions like indoor plumbing and electricity, and learned a bit about how history went after her time, but worlds like this one - clearly pre-industrial revolution worlds - always made her a little homesick. "Je pense... I think we're within two hundred years of my home, but off the coast of the New World."
Or, as some histories called it, The Americas. But Lucrezia couldn't be bothered to drop the colloquialism. Their location was the big difference - in her world this was all still mosquito-drenched swampland inhabited by naked savages.
"The weather's a little bit similar to Rome," she added, shrugging.
Except this was winter and it reminded her of her summer.
"Where are you from?" Pukio 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." Silverah Lucrezia had heard enough to know what America was. She'd even been there once or twice during the jumps. So she wasn't totally lost.
Following suit, she replied, "Earth, Italy, 1518 our time, but it might be a bit different by anyone else's counts. The government I knew in my world doesn't exist in most versions."
"It was nice, though. I worked at a stationary cirque there. What did you do before joining this troupe?" she asked. It was always nice to get a feel for people when meeting them, rather than risk being nosy or ignorant later. Pukio "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." Silverah Lucrezia thought for a moment. Come to think of it, she had seen a horse like that...
"I think I ran into him a few days ago," she said, "He was eating someone's laundry."
Thankfully, though, it hadn't been her laundry. Someone had probably been very surprised to find their undershirts full of holes, though. She remembered particularly because it was one of the oddest looking horses she'd ever seen. At the very least, it hadn't looked a thing like any equine she'd encountered back home, and the dumpy little creature looked out of place at a circus. Pukio 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! Silverah "Well, laundry is not known for being particularly filling," replied Lucrezia, finding it quite funny.
"Do you mind if I go with you?" she asked, a bit curious about the horse now. She'd never had much reason to investigate the veritable zoo that travelled with the Cirque, though from time to time she had to get cat food from them. (Although Paolo was, for the most part, capable of catching enough mice to exist on.) Now seemed as good a time as any to check it out.
"I work in aerials and tent rigging, so I don't see the animals much," she explained, "But I'd like very much to see them." Pukio 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." Silverah "Nope!" replied Lucrezia, though it was something of a lie. She was afraid of heights sometimes when she got absentminded. But that was another story. She watched with some fascination as she was lead through the menagerie. She'd seen these animals in the ring dozens of times, but for some reason had never seen them up close.
It was definitely the same horse. A cute but bad tempered animal of distinctive shape and coloring... Without a doubt the same as the one that had been munching on clothes.
"He seems pretty smart," she said, laughing. The horse reminded her a bit of a grouchy, old -but very short- man. Pukio "He seems pretty pleased with himself, is what he seems," Jo muttered as he tromped over to where Speck's feed was kept under lock and key. Well, latch anyway. Jo let himself into the empty box stall next door where he measured out grain and dumped it into the waiting bucket. Tucking a few leaves of hay under his arm, straw pieces sticking to his shirt and trailing after him, he limped back and chucked the hay directly over the wall. Leaning over the door, he emptied the bucket into the sturdier one hanging on a stiff piece of rope just inside.
Specks immediately fell to, apparently wracked with hunger pangs and the like. He also promptly forgot all about his visitors. Silverah "Look at him go!" laughed Lucrezia, watching the little horse eat with surprising speed. Such a funny little animal, and so dramatic, too! She looked around the menagerie, continuing to acclimate herself with the area she barely visited, and leaned back against a railing.
Behind her, a llama snorted and nudged her with its head. She stepped away from the pen, a bit startled, but then realized it wasn't anything dangerous and cracked up again. She normally wasn't so silly, but animals just made her happy for some reason. Pukio Jo shot her a sidelong glance, smiling slightly. Strange, what made some folks happy. "You didn't grow up around animals, then?" he hazarded a guess as he leaned over the box stall's wall and fished out Specks' water bucket. Limping passed Lucrezia to the end of the aisle, he ducked under the tent flap and emptied the bucket out across the dirt back lot and then ducked back in and made a bee line for the tap. Having refilled the bucket, Jo hooked it back in place and dusted off his hands in a self-conscious fashion, rubbing the palms on the knees of his pants.
He squint at Lucrezia thoughtfully. "So Lucrezia, have you got any family at home?" Silverah "I sort-of didn't," answered Lucrezia, watching him limp. Hmm, she wondered about that. "There were always some around, but I never had any pets." She turned back to the llama and regarded it thoughtfully. It was a funny looking creature.
She turned to look at him again when he asked his question, and then shook her head. "None that counts, anyway," she said. Pukio Nodding, Jo let his gaze wander awkwardly along the aisle of the tent, conscious of the way the conversation lulled and began to peter out miserably. His mother had always said he was a dull boy to speak to. He grimaced a little.
"I grew up on a horse farm - always had 'em. My ma raised a whole slew of them." Dad thought he did. But isn't that how it always went? The thought made Jo grin a little; there always seemed to be a sharp-as-a-tack woman lurking behind most men.
Clearing his throat, Jo straightened up. "I really should be getting to work," he offered rather lamely, at a loss for anything else to say. Silverah Lucrezia could understand the sentiment. She had things to attend to, as well. Tent rigging, safety checks, practice... All sorts of exciting circus chores. She nodded and smiled briefly. "I should, too," she said as way of excusing herself. "It was nice to meet you and..." she peered around him at the still-eating pony. "And your horse."
Now I know who to blame next time my laundry has holes in it. Pukio "Nice to meet you too," Jo rumbled, ducking his head slightly in what might have been construed as the equivalent of tipping his hat. "I'll see you around. Good luck with that aerial stuff." It would be a shame for a pretty slip of a girl like that to have an accident that high off the ground. He offered Lucrezia a slight smile and waved her off before turning his attention back to Spot.
"You," Jo muttered as he pulled his cap out of his back pocket, fixed it on his head. "Gahdamn trouble." He snorted and pushed away from the box stall and headed in the opposite direction.
Work to be done.
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