OOC: SigDigs and I agreed to write up an ending to this thread to start fresher now that we're back! So this covers both of us.Nikolai heard the signal, and just as the gnome raised his flaming palms-- The arrow flew straight and true, lodging into the gnome's hat, and knocking it square off of it's head. For a moment, Violet thought that perhaps Nikolai wasn't as good a shot as he made himself out to be, but perhaps he was just a better read of character than he made himself out to be. The gnome crouched down swiftly, arms going up over his head. Looking about, and spotting barrels near the tent entrance, the gnome then dove towards the barrels, throwing fire in the general direction of the arrow's source. In the darkness though, and full of surprise, the gnome didn't have a chance. The fire fizzled into sparks mid-air, leaving Violet the perfect opportunity.
With a thick
thwonk the steel bucket ended it's travel through the air by connecting with the gnome's head. Not quite enough to knock the gnome out, he turned his attentions back to Violet in her disguise as Daisy. His hands came to light once more, and Violet frowned. She focused on the bucket, which covertly turned back into a quill, and then with a touch of telekinesis brought it nearer to her. She began to bend down, and he
tsked again.
"Don't move," He warned in his weasel-y little gnome voice.
"Hey hey, my man, my gnome, chill for just one second, I just dropped my quill--" She gestured to it, and the gnome kept his eyes locked on her. With a shrug, she reached down, snagged the quill... And then transmuted it swiftly into a wooden panel which she used to smack the surprised, disoriented little gnome. The flames in the gnome's hands sparked for a moment, and then died as the gnome lost his balance and tumbled - unconscious - to the ground.
"And that's that!" Violet smirked, dusting off Daisy's pale and befreckled hands before ducking into the tent. Day.
Saved.
And it was. Inside, the younglings they had heard about were plain as day. Two of them, boys, chained by both back legs to the post at the centre of the tent. As Violet entered, the two of them looked up, backing away a step or two. They were scared, bruised, and Violet could spot whip marks on their backs, her stomach turning at the sight. In her head, circuses were sort of a fun thing, and even though the centaurs were
taken she could have still believed that it was somewhat of a misunderstanding. The idea that they were mistreated-- no, abused? The cruelty was unfathomable to her until this moment.
She would try to keep the jabber to a minimum, she didn't need them anymore scared:
"Shh, shh, shh, don't be afraid. I'm a friend of Nikolai's. I'm here to help." She couldn't help but be a little disappointed that their eyes didn't light up. Why didn't their eyes light up? This was the 'heroic rescue' part of the story. They ought to have been excited, full of new hope, raring to run! Instead, their eyes just flitted over to the barrels being stored in the tent. If Violet hadn't been so caught up in the action she so rarely saw, she might have interpreted it correctly, or seen the hand signals the younglings were attempting to use. But she was caught up. So she didn't interpret, or see... And she definitely didn't notice the whip until it cracked, wrapped around her calf, and took her feet out from under her.
Violet lay on the ground still for a moment, a small groan the only sound she could muster as her head rocked with flashing lights and her chest fought to gather the breath that had been knocked clean out of her. When her vision and breath finally came back to her and she tried to move, she found that her legs were being held together by rough hands, and ropes were being looped around them in tight knots.
"Hey there big fella, we haven't agreed on a safeword--" She managed before he pulled the rope tightly, and narrowed his eyes threateningly enough to make her shut up. She was chatty, not stupid.
The man who had caught her by surprise was the ringmaster, clear from the way he held a resemblance to poor young Tabs, only bulkier, meaner, greasier, and with an ugly twisting mustache. He wasn't wearing the garb he'd been wearing on stage, the stuff that would make him look a bit like a cartoon comedian. Instead, he wore a blood stained tunic, rough leather braces, and a bullwhip on his belt. The braided leather of the whip was well worn to the point of smoothness, and there were unmistakable red stains that made her stomach do cartwheels. This was not the kind of man you messed with, and 'messing with' was certainly among the things Violet was doing.
"You damn radicals, tryin' to steal my property. I bought those colts fair and square! Stupid Mots, and their stupid black cloaks, said I'd have no trouble, oh I'll show 'em trouble they show their faces here again..." The man muttered as he pulled the last knot to a pained groan from Violet. The ropes were far too tight, and she could already feel the circulation leaving her lower extremities. She could shift them smaller, but she didn't want him to know she could do that. Then he might do something worse, something she couldn't shift out of.
"There was a time we could do whatever we wanted to to dirty animals and no one would bat an eye--" He continued his rantings as he reached for Violet's hands. She pulled herself away haphazardly - but she was still disoriented and his large hands easily encircled her Daisy-sized wrists and squeezed them painfully. She tried to subtly make them a little chubbier, hoping to make an escape easier when the time came.
"Now there's all this talk (he pulled the ropes tight) of 'oppression' (he pulled again), 'animal rights' (and again) - ha! What about human rights?" He leaned in for Violet to enjoy his halitosis more completely, and her face pulled into grimace.
"Wanna know who's really oppressed? Simple folk like me. We used to be able to make a livin' you know! And now the political correctness guard won't let us live our lives!" He spat into Violet's face as he yelled, the yellowed saliva clinging to her cheeks. But it was alright, because it was at that moment she realized that everything was going to be fine. It was all going to be great because right there, right behind him-- was Nikolai.
"Stop talking," Nikolai managed through teeth gritted with rage, his bow was pulled taut and an arrow was aimed at the base of the ringmaster's skull. Anja screeched in the distance, and Nikolai extended his arms just far enough that the point of the arrow grazed the man's heavily greased head. Violet could feel the catching realization of the ringmaster's breath as he leaned his potato sack gut on her for support.
"What, you gonna kill me?" The ringmaster questioned, his eyes widening as he attempted to see Nikolai peripherally. When he couldn't manage it, he took a deep breath through his nose and frowned at whatever scent he had managed to smell through his stench,
"Shoulda guessed it was another animal. Ain't got no humanity to kill a man from behind.""Humanity?" Nikolai's eyes met with the frightened younglings before him before lowering back down to his mark,
"If being human means that I kidnap and starve children for entertainment, I'd rather be an animal."With that, Nikolai loosed his bow into the man's skull with a thwing, a crack, and a squish. The ringmaster's eyes twitched, his jaw dropped (revealing the arrow surrounded by gushing blood at the back of his mouth), his tongue lolled, and he collapsed down onto Violet, who began laughing as Anja screeched in the distance.
"Well said Nikolai! What a line that was-- mind if I quote you? 'I'd rather be an animal', just wow, just--" She reached an arm up as Nikolai rushed past her, but he had more important things on his mind. She craned her neck back to watch him reunite with the two younglings, who clutched to him and whinnied pitifully into his ear as his strong arms enveloped and comforted them. Her heart stopped a bit then, squeezing painfully in her chest. She wasn't one to be 'moved' often. But this was moving. And she would have probably stayed moved for a while if it weren't for Anja's urgent screeching.
"Ruining the moment, bird-brain!" Violet muttered as she tried to get up. The ringmaster was heavy, though, and while she wasn't a wimp by any means, she wasn't a lifter, and she was also bound and all that jazz. With a sigh, she pushed, and then with a groan she pushed, and then with a click of her tongue she shifted herself into a slighter frame. Her arms and legs became anorexic thin, and she slipped out of the binds with little trouble. Once she was free, she shifted herself into
herself finally to get some bulk back as she puuuushed--
And that's when she saw him. The stupid little gnome managing to get up. The annoying gnome rubbing his head. The ugly gnome seeing the inside of the tent. and lighting his hands back up. And for Violet, it was as if everything was in slow motion. The fire was aimed clear for Nikolai, who was trying to break the iron of the chains and didn't see it, and the younglings who were too traumatized to do anything but cling to their saviour helplessly. There was just Violet and the gnome. And Violet was underneath a two hundred and forty pound sack of mashed potatoes.
But adrenaline is a crazy thing.
Violet kicked out with all of her strength, knocking the sack of potatoes off of her and into the nearby barrels. One of the top ones shifted, and then fell, landing with a bouncing crash onto the stomach of the dead ringmaster before rolling off, amber contents spilling into the dirt and straw. Violet didn't have time to see it, or to think about it, she only had time to jump, and so jump she did. The flames from the spell struck her in the chest and left shoulder, smoldering through her clothes and melting fabric to skin. She screamed out because
holy damn did that hurt, and fell to the floor in a heap, adrenaline spent as the gnome prepared another fireball. Thankfully, Nikolai was a fast shot, and Violet had bought just enough seconds. Just as the gnome was tossing the flaming orb, the arrow struck him between the eyes, and the fire went off course, striking the ground near the Ringmaster's body.
"N-nice shot, bi-ped!" Violet managed as she tried to right herself. Her injury was burning as if it were still on fire, and the rest of her was getting hot, too. It was as if the burn was enveloping her whole body, almost like she was under blankets near a cozy fireplace and... That wasn't her burn. That was the actual fire in the actual tent. Nikolai was grunting as he tried to break the iron with his hoofs, any panic he was feeling not showing on his face as much as it showed in his frantic pace. The liquid on the ground had been oil, and the fire had been fire, and when the fire and oil met--
"Shit shit shit shit shit!" Violet rolled towards the younglings, dirt and straw clinging to her stinging, open wound, and managed to get her hand onto the chains hanging taut off of the centre pole. She tried to transmute it to something, anything--
Straw, wood, water, come on! -- but her powers felt tapped out, and each attempt felt like a punch to the gut.
"Violet!" Nikolai started trying to break the beam itself, doing anything to give the younglings a chance. He assumed she would have had this solved quickly. She wasn't solving it quickly.
Feeling his stare, she shouted back in an attempt to calm him for just a moment,
"I'm trying! I'm trying!" But the only thing on her mind was fire, and the only thing in her body was fire, and it was hard to think
water when everything around you was all like
'hey look I'm fire and you're fire and everything's on fire and oh hey, have you ever stopped to think about FIRE?' She had to give in. It was the only way.
"I'm sorry I'm sorry!" She yelled as she allowed the thought of fire in, and the metal began to heat as she transmuted it's temperature. She heard the younglings cry in pain, heard Nikolai yell at her, but she kept going, focusing on fire, on heat, on everything she couldn't ignore -- and then the metal was hot enough, and she pulled it apart like taffy.
Nikolai and the younglings didn't wait, they ran out as the fire hungrily stretched onto the canvas, and they didn't stop. The crowds were too surprised to see them to try and stop them, their focus too divided by the fire. The arrows they flung, the spells they slung, all missed their marks as the centaurs galloped as fast as possible into the snowy darkness. Eventually, there was no worth in following. Centaurs were fast.
Violet on the other hand, wasn't. And she was still inside. She wasn't a centaur, she couldn't gallop. And she was injured. And there was smoke. And she was tired. But she sure as hell wasn't going to die when she had
this big of a story to tell. So she changed herself again. Her legs and arms shrunk down, her body changed it's size, and she started to look like a gnome. She looked a little like the evil little fire-ant that had caused this mess, but not enough to be convincing. Anyone of sound mind would see she looked a little closer to a Picasso than a gnome, but it would have to do -- she couldn't remember his features, and even if she could, detail was out of the question.
She stumbled out of the tent, Tabs and a couple others running towards her the moment she appeared, but she was lucky. The panic and the fire and the night seemed to be enough to convince them at a distance that she was who she was pretending to be, but she didn't want to give them a chance to determine otherwise so she waved them off and did her best gnome impression:
"He's inside! He's inside!" Tabs seemed to say something like
'dad?' that Violet couldn't quite hear, and so she just nodded. It was the right answer, evidently, as she was abandoned by the would-be saviors as they tried to get inside to get the ringmaster.
She stumbled through the tents, trying to sort out where Nikolai had gone, her disguise wearing off with each turn as her concentration waned. Just as she was certain she had been abandoned, strong arms grabbed her from above, and she suddenly found herself on the rough and burning hot back of a horse. No, not of a horse. Of a
centaur.
"Just hold on," He said, but Violet couldn't hear him over the pounding in her head. She held on out of instinct only as he started to gallop, and groaned and gasped as the rough ride ran pain through her wound. But she would fall asleep. Or rather, pass out. Either way, she wouldn't remember the rest...
Violet couldn't tell how long they had ran, but Nikolai knew. It had been enough hours for the sun to start rising, and Violet was going to start hurting if they didn't find cover. Besides, he and the younglings were coated with a sheen of sweat, and they had found a small winter stream. The younglings ate from Nikolai's pack and twisted in the snow for the refreshing cool of ice and freedom, while Nikolai had pulled Violet off of him and laid her in the snow as well. The cold - both the sudden relief from the burn (which Nikolai had bandaged at some point), and zing of ice that could wake a sleeping dragon - had her eyes shoot open. They closed again quickly, the sun rising over the distant tundra mountains causing her to hiss in distress as her corneas bubbled. Not a moment later, Nikolai threw a blanket over her, offering relief from the sun's damaging rays.
"I need to return to Niseca," Nikolai told her matter-of-factly, his hands catching water in the stream as he crouched. He splashed his face with the chilled run and sighed,
"I need to bring them back.""...No, No, we need to go to Muerte," Violet protested as soon as she had processed the words. She found a small hole in the blanket and peeked through it at her companion before replacing her eye with her mouth:
"The guy, the ringmaster-- the uh... The slaver. The slaver said something about Mots. I know a thing or two about Muerte right now and what he said..."
"The Younglings know what happened. They will know how to guide me. Once they are home, they will speak, and they will tell me everything."
"But I heard him--"
"Then you shall go to Muerte. And I will go to Niseca. We will cover more ground."It was so sudden, the idea of them splitting apart. Nikolai seemed fine with it, but Violet was a woman of attachments and connections. She wasn't so good at goodbyes as she'd like to think. She was quirky, not aloof.
"Centaurs don't have mailing addresses, last I checked," Was her passive protest, and she was pretty Nikolai smiled slightly, but he offered no reply. The decision had been made. He must have been relieved, she realized. Sure, this wasn't all of them, and it wasn't his sister - but if they were alive, she was probably alive. It meant that his hope was still alive. She didn't quite understand how he could be feeling right now, but she was really close - which was a lot of empathy for someone like Violet.
"I'll go to Muerte then. And I'll find whatever I can. Then I'll go back to where I found you."
"Thank you, Violet." She could hear the snow crunching as Nikolai stood, followed by the younglings. He didn't say goodbye (perhaps he didn't like them either), but he was leaving. The moment probably would have been more sentimental if Violet wasn't a blob of blanket on the ground, but she could just edit that part out for the expose.
"No problem, my friend," She smiled, her overwrought tone falling to something a little more genuine. And even as the crunching of hooves in snow got more and more distant, she felt good about herself. Which was downright weird.
Finally, the crunching stopped, and Violet realized something: She didn't know where the
heck in Aissic she even was.
"Oops."[attr="class","classictitle"]TO BE CONTINUED
