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 Posted: Tue Jan 09, 2007 6:55 pm
Lucrezia had managed to perch both herself and the makeup case on the bathroom counter, a feat she was rather proud of. She'd been experimenting with makeup in her free time, but was now putting the finishing touches on her performance face. She'd settled on hot pink lips and a similarly colored stripe over her eyes, and then a thin stripe of orange along her lower eyelids. She completed the last bit of pink and examined it from different angles. Satisfied, she rinsed the brush and dropped it back into the case. She then selected a small tub of glitter and carefully opened it. She dabbed a line along the drying paint on her upper eyelids.
"Perfetto," she said to herself, sweeping her hair back into a high ponytail and arranging the orange feathers she had found around the tie. After checking they were secure, she climbed off the counter and looked at the full effect.
The leotard had worked out wonderfully, even if the sequins had been a pain to sew. The orange diamond on her chest sparkled in the light of the washroom, and Lucrezia was certain it would look even better in the big tent.
Combined with the feathers and face paint, she mused, she looked like some exotic bird. Laughing lightly and grabbing her grip wraps off the counter, she stepped out of the bathroom and then out of the trailer, tying the wraps as she went.
Now, she decided, the only thing left to do was to find Aiden.
And perform, but she'd get to that when it came up.
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Posted: Thu Jan 11, 2007 4:29 pm
Aiden paced outside. He checked his pocket watch, and glanced upwards to look at the trailers. Now, where exactly would he find Lucrezia? Well, he figured that he should first check her trailer.
That would be the smart thing to do.
So, he walked in the direction, running over everything in his head. The schedule for the performances, what he would say, and, probably the most exciting thing out of all of this, introducing the audience to Miss Lucrezia. A bit lost in his thoughts, he got to the trailer faster than he expected to. And, there, was Lucrezia.
"Oh, hey," He said, shocked that he had found her so quickly. Aiden noticed that Lucrezia was already in costume, which was a good thing. Then they could run over everything before the show.
"You look very swanky. Very...," He paused, trying to think of a good adjective, "Shiny. Right, so, you ready?"
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Posted: Thu Jan 11, 2007 7:37 pm
Lucrezia tied a finishing knot on one of the grip wraps and nodded at Aiden. Where had he come from? She hadn't been paying attention. But, it suited to say she had found him, so that was taken care of. "Oui," she affirmed, starting on the other wrap.
"Shiny?" she asked, considering his comment for a moment after answering the question. "You think so? Thank you." She bit her lip, trying to figure out the other word he had used that she'd never head before. "I'm afraid I'm not familiar with 'swanky,' though."
She shrugged it off and gave him a nervous smile. "So, We're going? Nous Allons?"
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Posted: Sat Jan 13, 2007 2:13 pm
"Sure," Aiden replied, as he began to walk off in the direction of the big top. It would be a bit of a long walk, so, he decided that he'd talk to Lucrezia on the way over. Maybe run over the act, too.
"You've never heard 'swanky' before? Gosh. Just take it as a compliment," Aiden smiled, and glanced backwards at her, "So, how do you want to be introduced? Oh, and, just what's going to happen in your act? So that I can know before-hand, okay?"
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Posted: Sat Jan 13, 2007 8:12 pm
Lucrezia blushed and frowned a little. "How I want to be introduced?" she repeated. "I never thought about that," she confessed, flustered, "And I certainly have no idea of what would sound good. But I'm sure we can think of something." Hopefully, she added silently, looking down at her hand and tying off the other grip wrap.
"And my act? I've got a safety net rigged for it, and the trapeze and silks. I'm going to start with the trapeze. Do some basic stuff - flips, swings. It looks fancier than it is. Then fall into the net. It works, trust me. I know it sounds crazy. Then finish with the silks and climb out. I'm going to enter and exit through the catwalk, if it's okay."
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Posted: Mon Jan 15, 2007 2:21 pm
"Yeah, catwalk's fine," Aiden said, as he walked briskly, toward to big top. He was fairly certain that Lucrezia was nervous (and if she wasn't, Aiden was a bit nervous himself), and he paused for a second.
"Well, we'd better think of a way to introduce you. To get the crowd going, you know? Any ideas?"
Her act sounded solid, and he was excited to see it. As long as everything went well, that is. And if they didn't, well...
He'd rather not think of that.
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Posted: Mon Jan 15, 2007 2:31 pm
Lucrezia followed him, trying to keep pace as she straightened her ponytail and plucked feather fuzz out of her hair.
"The act I was in in Rome, we were called 'the flying Falcos,'" she said thoughtfully, catching up to him, "But there's only one of me and I'm not doing flying trapeze, so it's a little misleading."
She sighed, apparently remembering her former act fondly, and looked up at the big tent in front of them. "The skyward bound? Pun intended?"
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Posted: Wed Jan 17, 2007 1:24 pm
Aiden stopped walking. They were very close to the back enterance of the big top. He chuckled, and looked back at Lucrezia.
"That'll work," He said, with a smile on his face, "So, are you ready? Need anything at all?" Aiden opened the curtain of the big top just barely, and glanced in at the audience.
"There's a crowd tonight. Think you can handle it?" Without really giving her a chance to answer, he pointed back to a direction in the tent, "See over there? That's where you'll want to go. You can find your way to the catwalk from there."
Aiden took a deep breath.
"Good luck. And break a leg. Though, please, don't really," He said, as we walked inwards to the tent, and began his welcoming speech.
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Posted: Wed Jan 17, 2007 2:18 pm
((OOC: Hey look! Reused RP!))
Lucrezia laughed quietly and headed in the direction indicated, finding the ladder with ease. She scaled it quickly, trying not to look down, and pulled herself up onto the catwalk to wait for her turn. To her, it felt like it was too soon to be back up on the catwalk above the rings. During most shows in most worlds, she would come up here once at the start of the run to set up the equipment, and once at the end to take it down. She didn’t actually get to use the trapezes and ribbons she rigged.
All that was about to change, of course. Tonight was to be her debut performance with the Cirque du Coeur Torve. And she was nervous beyond belief. As she readjusted the grip-wraps on her hands another time, just to be sure they were dry and coated where she needed them, Lucrezia peered down over the side of the narrow strip of metal she was standing on and watched the previous act, something involving clowns and a very small car, clear off. Then the Ringmaster took the stage again and…
Lucrezia didn’t listen to what he had to say, knowing it would only contribute to her impending nervous breakdown. She took a deep breath, made a short prayer to Apollo (hopefully he could still hear her, wherever this world was,) and climbed into position on the narrow bar of the trapeze. Gripping the support cable, she struggled not to look down as the Ringmaster finished his little spiel. But then she was forced to when the lights came back up, stinging her eyes briefly. She glanced down as the trapeze began to lower and the arena momentarily spun, the crowd becoming a blur of faces of every color and shape imaginable. She felt nauseous and instinctively held on to the cable tighter.
But then the trapeze locked into its final height she spotted the safety net some fifteen feet down, and the world sharpened again. She was Lucrezia Falco, she reminded herself. She could do this. The music, slowed from its usual carnival jaunt into some sort of weird strings number, seemed to doubt that notion.
The audience seemed fixated on her, waiting for her next move. That was a hang, she remembered, and dropped into it, the initial feeling of sickening free-fall giving way when she caught herself again.
How did it go after that? She wondered, knowing she looked awfully stupid hanging from a three-inch-thick bar of grip-coated metal twenty feet above the floor.
You wouldn’t look stupid if you at least acted like you knew what you were doing, stated a bitter voice in the back of her mind. Monsieur Paolo had said that, hadn’t he?
Legs up, she remembered, over the bar. Then it was flips. She pushed herself through three spins around the trapeze, coming to a halt upside-down in a handstand, legs braced around the cables. She dropped back to the hanging position and forced her legs over it again.
Now I look stupid and I’m upside down, she thought momentarily. The music was still out of beat. Was she off? Was the music off? She had to be off. The musicians weren’t twenty feet off the ground counting on their muscles for dear life.
She began to swing the trapeze, climbing in arcs, pulling herself to the top side of the bar, turning flips, ceasing thinking and beginning to rely solely on muscle memory. This was how it was supposed to be. This was how she had been taught.
As the trapeze started back down into another swing, she let go of the bar. There was an audible gasp from the audience – did they really think she had fallen? – Lucrezia shifted in the air, focusing on the safety net below her, angling her body. It got closer, closer, closer still…
And then there was impact. The feeling of a thousand webbed fibers bounding back against her momentum. She rolled out of the net and sprang to her feet, already hearing the beginnings of a round of applause.
Was the music still off-beat? Why yes, she believed it was. And where was the ribbon? That was out of synch, too.
Lucrezia looked up, searching the rafters. Where on earth was her ribbon? That fall hadn’t been the end of the act. She was wasting time. If the ribbon didn’t get let down, she’d have to end it here on the ground, which wasn’t nearly as good.
A few more valuable seconds passed while Lucrezia kept her gaze trained skyward. The audience had apparently caught on that there was something going on, because they quieted down.
Finally, in a tumble of orange fabric, the ribbon descended from the ceiling. Lucrezia stepped towards it and performed the first rudimentary wraps around her hands quickly before anchoring her feet into it. She had to be careful now – the ribbon wasn’t over the net. Testing her grip, she began to climb, pausing every so often to spin, tumble, or twirl. Each move was greeted with an “ooh!” or an “ah!” from the crowd as she appeared to come dangerously close to falling.
The audience didn’t know how right it was. She could feel her hands slipping, the wrappings becoming slick with sweat. She scurried up the last ten feet or so and climbed panting onto the catwalk. Below her, there was thunderous applause, but Lucrezia felt like she’d blown it. She’d been out of synch with the music the whole time. She’d paused too much. It had been terrible.
She shakily climbed down from the riggings and did her best not to collapse backstage. Eight minutes. It had only been eight minutes? It had felt like eternity.
She hoped she hadn't blown it too badly.
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Posted: Fri Jan 19, 2007 3:52 pm
Aiden quickly ran out of the spotlight after introducing the next act. He had to find Lucrezia. Backstage, he found her, and greeted her with a warm smile.
"So, how'd it go?" He frowned at his wording, and quickly added, "I mean, I was watching, but how did it go for you?"
He didn't say anything about the music. He figured that it could be worked out fairly easily. And, if it wasn't, then, he would say something. Either to the musicians, or Lucrezia.
"Was it exciting? The crowd seemed to like you. Quite a bit, actually. So, that's good to hear, right?"
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Posted: Fri Jan 19, 2007 4:12 pm
"Pretty good," she replied, looking up at him. She decided to not mention the music as well. "And they did? That's great." She paused, trying to decide the best way to answer all the questions and what order to tackle them in.
"It was exciting," she continued. "A little nerve-wracking - I haven't been in front of that big a crowd in a long time. I liked it, though." She smiled enthusiastically. "I think it went pretty well. It looked okay?"
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Posted: Mon Jan 22, 2007 7:26 pm
Aiden smiled at her, and leaned against a small wardrobe set up in the backstage area.
"It looked very nice. I have a feeling that it'll get even better with time, you know," He glanced down, and pulled a small brass pocket watch from a pants pocket. He frowned slightly at the time, and shrugged, getting up.
"Well, I suppose I've got to go and talk some more," He said, with a half-smile and a chuckle, "You take care, alright?"
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Posted: Tue Jan 23, 2007 3:26 am
"Right," Lucrezia nodded, watching him leave.
When she was sure he was gone, she indulged herself in the very unladylike act of jumping for joy.
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