FreckersFrog

Cirque D'étoiles (1x1, FxM, MxM, FxF)

As soon as Lucien produced the pack, the girl grabbed it and pulled the zipper open. She rifled through everything quickly while he spoke, grabbing the book and opening it to find her picture, but keeping the book hidden within the confines of the bag as she did so. It had been misplaced when it was put back, so she fixed it and returned it to the bottom of the pack, then closed it up. She lowered the bag to the ground next to her, keeping her eyes on Lucien as she did so. That photo was the only thing that they could have found interesting, as nothing else in the bag really belonged to her.

At his question, the girl pouted slightly, annoyed that he had read through her notes. "I prefer them." she said simply and quietly, then glanced over her shoulder to see that the boy had withdrawn behind the seat and was now hiding from her, but should still be listening to their conversation.

His visage was clear in her mind even though he was out of sight now. He had long light colored hair and strange, wide, eyes, pale skin, and slender of build. He was older than her, but she couldn't tell by how much, not from what she had seen. When she looked back at Lucien, her gaze retained its focus, "Is he really your nephew?"

This was the true test of whether or not this man would be willing to share all of the truth with her, and if he was likely to avoid another direct question. His reaction to this would tell her if she really could trust him, though she had a feeling that he would answer the right way. Although he visions were not always totally accurate, the fact that he was here now meant something. It had to, or else what was the point?

Cirque D'étoiles (1x1, FxM, MxM, FxF)

Geralt said nothing as Aurel took his leave, simply watching the young man walk away. He followed him with his gaze until he was halfway across the grounds, then turned and made his way beyond the curtain and into the shower. Cleanliness is next to Godliness after all...he told himself, the parasitic creature within him hissing in disapproval of the saying.

He spent a little extra time under the water, making sure every layer of grime was washed from his skin before he exited. By the time he was done, almost all of the water they had collected was gone, and though Geralt noticed this, he was not going to be the one to say anything.

He hadn't brought a change of clothes with him, so he wrapped the towel about his waist and exited the curtained area, leaving it open for whoever wanted to use the last of their dwindling supply. Though he'd left trousers behind, he hadn't forgotten to bring bathing shoes to keep the grime off of his feet. He needed to stay clean for as long as possible before they reached Mesquite.

He was pleased to see that more troupe members had populated the grounds, just in time for him to walk back to his trailer. He took his time crossing, making sure to look at each person in turn. He lingered especially long on Ivory, smiling as he watched her face fall and her eyes roll. With this vampiress, he was happy for any reaction, even a negative one. When he reached Lucien and Aurel, he paused before passing, making sure the Frenchman got a good, long look. Geralt's body had not changed in more than fifty years, through no effort of his own, it was the same as the day he had turned twenty-five and would remain so until his muscle and skin rotted into nothingness and left only bones behind. Despite this, he was proud of the way he looked, and had received many compliments from partners all throughout his life. If this did not get the blood pumping in Lucien's...veins, then he doubted anything else would.

Cirque D'étoiles (1x1, FxM, MxM, FxF)

The girl hadn't been expecting this kind of honesty from the man, at least not yet, but she was glad for it. He must have sensed that she was no ordinary child, and the fact that he had not asked her yet about her extra eye socket confirmed this to her. Hearing about his ability hadn't surprised her, exactly, she had read about many different things that she supposed her possible. The existence of her own deformity and the powers linked with it were enough to shake any resistance she had to believing that other things from books were real. If she could see the future and the past, look through another's eyes and feel their feelings, hear their thoughts, experience their physical sensations, than who was she to call this man a liar about his ability to heal. In fact, given the scenario, it made more sense than anything else he could have said.

She nodded, keeping eye contact as she asked her next question, "Where are my things?" She was sure that they would have looked through them, its what she would have done. She also knew that refusing to give them back would be suspicious to her and that this Lucien would avoid alarming her any further. She wanted to check to make sure that everything was there and accounted for.

Cirque D'étoiles (1x1, FxM, MxM, FxF)

A smile crept across Geralt's face as he saw Aurel stop dead in his movements for a few seconds. Good, he had at least shaken the lad if nothing else. He only wished he could have seen his face, but the slight tremor in his voice would have to be enough for now.

He made sure to wipe the smile from his features as Aurel exited the tent. The Magician let his eyes linger on the snake that was wrapped around its charmer's arm. The creature was actually quite striking, and Geralt would have thought it lovely if it had not acted so foully toward him upon his and Aurel's first interaction. He wasted no effort in lightening his expression, he was no longer in the mood to play Mr. Nice Guy.

He did flash a half smile, more out of pity than anything else as he answered, "I'm sure I'll manage." After this, he paused as he looked down at the snake once more. "Do you know why Lucifer chose the form of a snake to tempt Eve into biting the apple, Aurel?" He let the question hang for a moment before he answered it himself, "Because they are low creatures, closest to Hell. They slither along the ground on their bellies through soil and grime, they devour living creatures whole or else kill them with poison or by crushing the air from their lungs, they are devious and evil creatures, manipulators and liars." He did not take his eyes from the serpent while he spoke, showing it that he was not afraid of its bite, no matter how powerful the venom. "But, there is a reason a priest's mouth will never utter, nor his hand write. Serpents are symbols of power, of fertility, of strength beyond measure, the supernatural, everlasting life. They are cunning, intelligent, and represent danger and unbalance. Lucifer chose the serpent because it is a creature feared by Heaven, feared because God will never fully understand it. This also makes Him sad...to think--to know that He created something but will never truly grasp the meaning of its existence...how empty He must feel..."

As he spoke, his eyes went dull and lifeless, but after a beat they clarified once more. "Ah, I'm doing it again, my apologies for rambling..." he shook his head, chuckling absently, "All of this dust must be getting to me. I'll let you go now, and sorry again for earlier, I'll be sure to announce myself next time."

Cirque D'étoiles (1x1, FxM, MxM, FxF)

Despite her attempt at resistance, the girl was just too tired to keep out the calming presence that seemed to radiate from the man. It encircled him and reached out to her with tendrils of warmth, calling to her like the siren of Greek myth. She had to accept, just this once...maybe everything would be okay.

She let it envelope her and slowly felt her heart rate decrease, the dizziness gently subside, and her breaths slowed to a normal pace. When she opened her eyes once more, she felt calm, relaxed, but still confused. The stran--Lucien was making sense, and somehow she knew that his words were true. If she had seen him in her future, happy, smiling, their arms interlocked...that meant that she was meant to be here, didn't it?

He came into focus again as he vision clarified and the smell of the meat in her hand wafted to her once more. She raised her shaking fingers to her mouth and slowly took a bite of the jerky, ripping it away with her teeth. Her mouth gushed with liquid as she chewed the morsel, and she swore that nothing had ever tasted this good...she closed her eyes as she ate and didn't swallow until the meat was only mush between her teeth. Once she had, she placed the other half in her mouth and ate it a little more quickly, following it with some water before she gulped that down and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand.

Middletown...that wasn't too far from home. She could get there, but not alone, not like this. Maybe this man and his nephew and his friend...maybe they would help her get there. Maybe they wouldn't, but the feeling that she got from Lucien told her that he would have a hard time refusing this request. She would walk there, if she had to, but she wanted to increase her chances as much as she could. She had to get back home, to see Izzy again. To take her with her, run away, just the two of them...before something bad happened to her, too.

Once she had finished eating and had drained the canteen in her hand, she decided it was time to speak. She held the container between her palms, the cool metal felt soothing on her aching skin. The pain was nothing compared to what it had been...but it was still there. How had she healed so quickly, though? Even if she had been unconscious for days, there was no way her condition would have improved this much. Besides, she couldn't have regained any strength, and they couldn't have given her food or water without fear of choking her if she had been asleep for that long. No, it had to have been mere hours, a day at most, so how had she healed so rapidly?

This was the question she had decided on next, something that she needed to know. If these people were...different as well, she wanted to know in what manner they deviated from normal people. "My sunburn..." she said finally as she looked down at her hands and then her shins, "The cuts and scrapes...where did they go?" she looked back at Lucien, her eyes sharp once more.

Cirque D'étoiles (1x1, FxM, MxM, FxF)

Geralt wanted so badly to look up again, to watch Aurel squirm under his gaze...but he couldn't make his intentions that obvious. If Lucien heard even a version of that story, he would have to explain himself, and he absolutely hated explaining himself. With an inward sigh, he shook his head and said, "Oh, of course, of course, how silly of me." He chuckled, sounding embarrassed himself, before stepping back and letting the curtain fall closed between them.

Those scars were not made in lust, Geralt, the boy has suffered. He will suffer more. We will make it so.

The Magician's companion had grown more and more impatient with each passing day, which certainly had not helped the man's mood. He was frustrated enough with himself for having made no progress with the object of his desire, and seeing no change in their relationship was beginning to grate on him. He'd thought for a moment when Lucien had excepted his proposal for the outing that had been promised, they may at least progress to something more sexual, but nothing had come of that night. It had been drinks between friends, as Lucien had made very clear to him. Despite the fact that the magician could feel a return of attraction from the Nephilim, the man was unwilling to act on it. It was as if he had put up a wall between the two of them, and try as he might Geralt could not scale it. He had been quite depressed by this, and responding to threats and angry taunts from the creature that shared his body had drained him of energy for other emotion. It simply didn't seem to grasp that this situation was more delicate than most, that Geralt would have to woo the man before he could make him fall. The creature would not accept this explanation and had been making its presence more and more of an inconvenience to the Magician, which had soured his mood entirely. On top of that, his shows were much less than fulfilling, and he was becoming bored with the same desperate act night after night for mere children. Every chance it got, the creature reminded him that he used to be a famous Magician, that he called the shots and ran the night, and that now he was under the thumb of a 'filthy winged half-breed'. It was all very tiresome, to say the least, and now the only thing keeping him around was the promise of obtaining the ultimate prize, which seemed not to be getting any closer.

As all of these thoughts and feelings hit him as he stood outside of a makeshift shower in only a towel, the fake expression he had been holding dropped. Though he did not open the curtain, his eyes slid in its direction so he could see if Aurel's shadow would make any reaction to what he said next.

"Forgive my bluntness, Aurel, but as you don't seem to be the adventurous type, I assume those scars were made in a...non-consensual manner?" He watched the figure of Aurel behind the curtain closely, waiting to see if his words struck the nerve he was aiming for.

Cirque D'étoiles (1x1, FxM, MxM, FxF)

The girl's mouth was set into a hard line as she listened to the stranger explain. She gripped the piece of jerky he had given her between her fingers and tried to force herself to focus on the task at hand as the scent of it wafted to her nostrils. Her mouth filled with saliva as she imagined biting into it, of eating a handful of these small pieces of dried meat, and her stomach growled loudly again.

The man's honesty and straightforwardness was a little surprising to her, but her face did not change from the look of focus that had settled on it. If she told herself, if she pretended that this was all research, that the information was her ultimate goal, she could keep herself from being distracted by hunger or exhaustion. She had to stay on task, though she felt dizzy and tired beyond measure, she had to remain focused.

"We?" she asked this immediately as the last word, the man's name, left his lips. It had sounded familiar to her, as if she had heard or felt it before, but she couldn't be sure. This was not something she could remember right now, not with so much going on right in front of her.

The use of 'we' meant that there was more than one person here. She had to know if they were alone or if others were listening or watching. She leaned over slightly to look over the man's shoulder, but saw no one in the back of the trailer unless they were hiding inside one of the closets or under the bed in the storage area beneath. She turned to look over her shoulder and realized that she must be inside of a vehicle as he noticed the two seats and windshield. A pair of eyes drew hers away from the glass and the sunset beyond it and she noticed that someone was sitting in the passenger seat, peeking around the side of it to watch her and the man...Lucien converse.

"Who's that!?" she said in surprise, her voice cracking as she attempted to raise it. She looked back at Lucien, alarmed as her eyes went wide and her chest began to heave. "What is this place, a bus? Where are you taking me!?" Despite her rising fear, the weakness and dehydration was beginning to make her head spin from being so worked up. She felt a wave of calm pass over her, but fought against it. Who knew what kind of abilities this man could have. He'd seen her forehead, her eye...he knew that she was...different.

But she knew that she had seen him before, his face looking down at her, but he had been shorter then. Or, had she just been taller? She remembered feeling calm in the vision, and knew she was smiling, she was happy. It had been a long time since she could remember being happy. But in her vision of her own future she was content, she may have even been more than that, and Lucien was there...and others too. A girl with stark white hair, a huge redheaded man with kind eyes, a girl in a wheelchair whose smile split her face from ear-to-ear...all of those people had been with her in the vision. Were they here too?

She felt herself growing even more dizzy and closed her eyes as the eyeball in her forehead rolled back and forth violently. A headache was growing in her temples, threatening to get worse. She couldn't afford to loose consciousness now...

Cirque D'étoiles (1x1, FxM, MxM, FxF)

Geralt had been as close to overjoyed as he could have been by their stop to refill the troupe's "shower". Days on the road had left him dusty and sour with sweat, and he absolutely detested being unclean. It was one of the reasons that he had never gone on his own road show in the past. He supposed he had been spoiled by decades of first class train cabins and town cars, but just because a situation asked that he lower himself didn't mean he wasn't going to agree to it. It had been hard for him to even leave his trailer feeling this way and he had even resorted the sleeping in the nude, which wasn't necessarily out of the ordinary for him, but it had made for a talking point that he had been dying to bring up in front of Lucien.

Once their train had stopped, he gave the carnies plenty of time to set up and refill the shower before he decided it was his turn. If he didn't show his face, he wouldn't be expected to help. Once he was ready, he put the book he had been reading away, got undressed and made his way over to the shower wrapped only in a towel. He looked about out of the corner of his eyes as he walked over, but saw no troupe members in sight. How droll, he had managed to walk over without anyone taking a glance...oh well, he would have to be sure someone saw him on the way back.

As he approached the shower, he paused when he saw a shadow behind the curtain. Judging by the height and shape, it had to be either Aurel or Lucien. Of course, Geralt hoped for the latter, but would be alright with either outcome. He quieted his footsteps to near-silent and slowed his pace as he heard the water shut off. Perfect. A slow smile curled across his lips at the thought of what he might find behind the curtain, and with the water off, he had the perfect excuse.

He waited a moment, listening to see if he could tell who it was before he slid the curtain back, but the occupant made no sound.Once he was only a few steps away, he made his footfalls a little louder, reached for the curtain and yanked it back quickly, but not violently. Alas, it was not his intended target that he had walked in on, but Aurel.

Damn. The Magician thought. The lad's back was to him, luckily, but he had pulled his long platinum hair over his shoulder and appeared to be ringing it out. Just before he looked back in surprise and embarrassment, Geralt caught a glimpse of the scars that criss-crossed Aurel's back. He was simply covered in them, and Geralt's knowledge of fetishism told him that these were likely left from the sting of a whip.

"Oh!" He shouted, "My apologies, Aurel." He averted his eyes but still held the curtain open as he continued to speak, "I didn't know anyone was in here. I was so excited to be able to bathe I just...excuse me." He was sure that his voice was apologetic, but a glint in his eye remained, along with the trace of that wicked smile on his lips. He simply couldn't help but be pleased by this victory, no matter how small. Seeing others recoil in shame was one of the few pleasures he still enjoyed in life. Since he'd had so few opportunities as of late, he would have to make this moment last as long as he could.

Cirque D'étoiles (1x1, FxM, MxM, FxF)

The girl has scooted up against the wood behind her, pressing her body into it to get as far away from the man as she could. Her eyes followed his every movement, but she did not speak. How was he here...? That vision had been about him and some other people...so had she seen her own future? She'd thought at the time that she'd been seeing someone else's life. What else had she seen about herself? Could she have avoided this...? There were still many things she did not know about her abilities, despite having them since birth. She had no one to help or show her and so was stuck figuring it out on her own. It had been harder than she'd imagined.

Immediately, her mouth began to water as she saw the food and she swallowed the lump in her throat. No matter how scared she was, she could not deny how weak she was, how dehydrated and how injured...

Come to think of it, she wasn't sunburned any more? Her skin didn't feel like it was on fire, and though she was exhausted and in pain, the cuts and bruises on her knees and ankles and hands were gone. How was this possible? How long had she been unconscious...where was she? How far from home?

The answers to these questions could not be willed into existence, and the girl's throat was so dry still. She reached for the water before she could stop herself and took the jerky too. She opened the bottle and drank, a little slower this time so as not to make herself vomit. She sniffed the piece of dried meat and her stomach growled loudly, but she did not take a bite. She was still weary, though the man was calming. There was too much she needed to know before she decided to trust him.

Finally, she opened her cracked lips and a small, dry but mousy voice issued from her, "Where am I?" This was her number one question. Was she farther from her destination, or closer? That would determine what she was going to do.

Cirque D'étoiles (1x1, FxM, MxM, FxF)

The girl saw the man and immediately her eyes widened in fear and confusion. The cloth that she had touched slipped from her forehead and fell to the floor, leaving a wet streak in her hair and exposing her secret. This was not her main concern, however, as the man raised his hands to show her that he meant peace and began speaking. Without a second thought, the girl struggled to slide away from him, but her arms were so weak that they trembled as she pushed herself back until her head touched something hard. Her chest heaved as she stared at the man, fear plain on her face as her eyes darted around the space to see if there were any other threats.

He had black shaggy hair and kind golden eyes. His voice was gentle and soothing, and something glittered above his head. Every time the girl tried to focus on it, it faded away, but once she looked at something else, she could see it floating there just out of the corner of her vision. It looked like a golden ring, made of light...a halo?

But all of this was less concerning than the fact that the man looked familiar. She had seen him before, and not just before on the road. She could feel her third eye rolling violently in its socket but willed it not to open. How much had the man seen...?

Then she saw the water and a drop of it rolling down the side of the canteen. The man's fingers had left an impression in the metal, so she could tell it was cold. Her mouth and throat and eyes and nostrils ached for it, and she could not stop herself from reaching for it while she pushed herself into a sitting position.

The girl reached forward slowly and snatched the water from the man's hands quickly, careful even in her haste not to let their fingers touch. She grasped the canteen in both hands and gulped down the precious liquid, closing her eyes in satisfaction as it touched her tongue and filled her mouth. It was delicious and beautiful and her body immediately felt regenerated by its addition. Before she knew it, the container was empty, though she was determined not to waste a drop and tilted the canteen all the way upside-down over her open mouth to savor every drop of it.