Welcome to Gaia! ::

Flynn nodded. She shuffled her feet awkwardly, looking at anything but the girl. She felt like a 15 year old boy talking to the girl he liked. It made her feels stupid. She took a step closer to the girl, and out of the moonlight. It hid them both and made Flynn feel a little bit better.

"I'm Flynn...you kinda already know that I'm a juggler." She held out her hand to her.

"Yeah I kinda noticed." Flynn looked around, checking to see if they were being watched. She sat down in the gravel and invited Fury to do the same.

"Can you talk when you're an animal? Or do the mechanics of animal form stay the same?" Flynn tried to avoid the question that was really on her mind. She still would not look the girl in the eyes. It unnerved her to see such cold intelligence in one human being.

Flynn held up her injured wrist.

"It can be entertaining." She smiled at the girl, happy to be talking to someone other than her instructor. Flynn cast her eyes about the area once more, checking for people. She was still greatly nervous.

"Juggling is just...I can't really explain it. There's something magical about watching your hands move and transfer that energy from them to an object that by no rights should move that way." Flynn smiled again, thinking, her mind returning to flashing knives and the familiar weight of her leather sandbags.

Flynn watched the way Fury stared at the mouse, feral and primal. Instead of being scared, she was oddly fascinated. It surprised her.

"No. There's only me. So I have to work extra hard to make up for that. Enero pushes me...well I need to do better anyway but sometimes I really wish that I could avoid learning a lesson by way of pain."

Flynn frowned as she spoke, her mind wandering to Fury and the mouse.

"Do you eat them?" She asked vaguely.

Fury nodded absently when Flynn mentioned she was the only juggler. She knew what it was like to be alone, but perhaps Flynn did not feel that way with Enero at her side. The thought of that name made Fury want to snarl, but she did not in fear of scaring her.

Her ears tried to twitch when Flynn asked if she ate the mice. She shook her head, rustling her dark hair and continued to draw in the dirt.

"Mice are only fun to play with. I am human as well, and I do enjoy normal food. In my animal forms i restrain from becoming so much like them. If you loose your self control and humanity, it is not alway guaranteed that you will return to your human form." She said calmly and then glanced up at Flynn through her hair, which cast over her eyes in a thin veil.

Fury almost flinched backwards when Flynn pushed her hair back. She didn't expect something like that, because no one in their right mind would ever touch her. She was named Fury for a reason. If she had been Alice, she might have burst into tears, but Fury only stared dumbly at Flynn.

Her ears twitched, there were others on this night who were walking around, but they were safe, for now. Her red eyes stared into Flynn's watching, waiting, and wondering most of all of this person that was before her and perhaps might become the very first friend that she ever had, both in this place and in her life as Alice.

Ruthie made her way across the large circus grounds; she knew precisely where she was going. Up until a couple of days ago or so, she had been unsuccessful in finding a decent meal. It was nothing for her to sneak into the animal stalls and snitch some horse fodder or meat scraps from the pails. It was on her way back from such an excursion that she became turned around and couldn't find her tent, but somehow she did find the edge, the dark and unforgettable edge.

At the edge, the circus ended and a blackness began. Small shrubs and shortened gnarled trees served as a barrier and she could not see past this bizarre forest to the empty or unknown on the other side. In fact, while Ruthie was curious, she was pretty sure she didn't want to see the other side....the trees were fine with her. It was a shrub she came to fetch. It consisted of a stocky stem (that curved and choked other near by plants) and a massive fluff of thin brown leaves. The leaves were edible; she had found patched where they had been ripped away or bitten clear off the stem. They were thick, fuzzy, and hard to swallow, but otherwise weren't half bad. They had a spicy taste to them that tasted the way an incense stick smells and they were very filling. Ruthie often wondered how they would be in soup and reprimanded herself for not trying harder to find a pot that she could cook it in. She was going to reach for a handful of the curling plant when something different caught her eye. Just past the line of shrubs at the base of one of the closer trees there grew a bush with black leaves and spiked stems where dark purple fruits laid cradled. The fruits looked a little like plums but the skin was perfectly smooth and monotone in color. Its only flaw was the single bug hole in each piece of fruit where a sappy crimson liquid seeped out little by little.

Ruthie tried to reach for it but it was too far. She took a step closer into the brush...and when nothing bad happened she took another...and then another. She was within inches when a sudden feeling of dread finally hit her. Her head started spinning and her heart was racing. It was felt as though a thousand eyes dissected her layer by layer and she was being pulled back towards the camp while whatever lay beyond that tree and those behind it was trying to tempt her in. The feeling sent chills up and down her spine.

Daring not to take another step she stretched her arm as far as she could, fingers grazing the fruit's skin. When she could stretch no further Ruthie instead grabbed an extension from the bush to shake it hard and finally managed to knock a few down where they rolled within reach. No sooner did she have the fruit she fled back towards familiar ground no more than 5 paces away panting as she did so. Her finger was bleeding just a little from an encounter with a thorn but she was otherwise okay, the feeling of dread had passed and she could breathe easy again.

Ruthie tore the fruit in half. Opaque dark red juices oozed out and she could smell them to be tangy and over-sweetened. Inside the fruit's resident larvae ate greedily at the core and that was reassuring enough for her to try it. She bit down delicately and let the piece sit on her tongue a moment as she tested the flavor. It was warm and sticky and definitely sweet like over ripened cherries mixed with grapes and there was even something else she couldn't put her finger on. Ruthie liked it so much that she ate the whole fruit, grub and all (which wasn't as bad as it sounds; it was something like peanut butter...)
The tumbler was now pleasantly full and warm inside after just one fruit, so she slid the other two in her pocket (where they created quite a bulge) to save for later.

Near where the animals are kept Ruthie found a large metal basin full of water. She washed the red goo from her face and took a good long drink. It wouldn't be long until "morning" and she would soon need make her way to the stalls, but before she did, Ruthie wanted to move the fruit to her tent.
On her way back she heard voices, those of two females speaking softly. She didn't think much of it until she saw who the girls were. She stepped back slowly until she was behind one of the smaller tents. One girl she recognized immediately as the Cirque Du Horreur's only freak, while the other had the marks of a juggler. How was that possible? Merch had drilled this into her head; they were not to socialize with anyone outside of their area of profession! What was she going to do? She wasn't about to correct them, that was for sure! She had never been real assertive and the younger girl did not look like she took crap from anyone, (even her conversational partner seemed on edge.) She also didn't want to be responsible for them being in trouble...But could she really pretend she saw nothing either? What if Merch found out? …or worse….



(Alright, let me know if I stepped out of bounds (no pun intended, lol!) with this post. I'm still picturing the place and sometimes I get carried away ^_^"
Also I don't care if she is found by you guys or not, Ruthie is sorta non-confrontational, she may accidentally blurt this out to Merch though if left unconvinced of whatever reason you guys had for speaking)

Fury felt her ears twitch as the scent of another person rose in the air. She glanced into the darkness where the newcomer was. She was sure that Flynn did not know of her presence. Her eyes glinted darkly and dangerously until her eyes flickered back to Flynn and she smiled a little bit, hoping to soothe the girl. Things were getting dangerous. It was time to go.

"I should go. I was supposed to be practicing my new transformation. I hope you'll be able to see me tonight." she said. "I hope you do well too, what with your arm and all." These words were mechanical, something that Alice would have said long ago to end a dangerous conversation. Fury was of no help in areas like this, where it took careful planning and clever words to get out of a bind.

Nodding a little goodbye, she grabbed a tree branch and hefted herself up onto the steady limb and transformed into her cat form. She sprung from branch to branch gracefully, leaving behind what she knew could have been a dangerous encounter with Flynn. Stealthily from a different tree she watched the new person with mild interest. What would she do now?