lostcarnival | You've got your mother in a whirl ++ OPEN

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You've got your mother in a whirl ++ OPEN

Who: A MYSTERIOUS BEAUTY ~~it Doll~~ and you!
What: There's a new acrobat on the high wire-- where did she come from? Has anybody seen this chick around...??
When: Night 100
Where: Carnival grounds & Performance tent
Warnings: N/A

[BACKSTAGE]

This is nothing she hasn't done before, but there is a certain hum Doll is feeling while waiting to go on. It's a new crowd, a new place, but most of all it's a new show that she's trying to find her place in. If anything, she's going further into the headspace she's created for herself, the place she goes to when she becomes The Princess of the Noah's Ark Circus. She's not sure what she's supposed to be here, not yet, but she'll figure it out.

She sits off to the side with her parasol in hand, just watching the acts go on and off, taking glimpses of the crowd when the curtains part. She doesn't say a thing, just sitting and waiting, absolutely placid.

++

Doll's acts have never been about flash or how many flips she can do in one run, she is poise and control. That's the act: she's her namesake, a living, breathing doll.

Her movements are fluid and precise, graceful and elegant, she isn't springing about or coming to any sudden stops. She does a sweet, cheery floor routine before riding one of the trapezes up to the high wire-- and predictably the entire crowd goes silent as she steps out onto the rope. This is really where she shines, where she's the most comfortable. She walks across the rope like she's taking an afternoon walk, she jumps and lands, moving her center of gravity to keep her balance as the rope sways under the movement. She slides into the splits, her parasol raised straight up. Grace, control, and elegance-- Doll doesn't falter once.

++

[AFTER THE SHOW]

Even after a stellar performance, the success doesn't seem to go to her head at all. Doll leaves the backstage area with her parasol over her shoulder, walking towards the make up and wardrobe tents. She has to get out of costume and get ready to help everyone else, but she's not in any hurry. She's going at a controlled stroll.

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A lot of the performers wear ridiculous outfits for their routines. Normally though that doesn't make them unrecognizable. When you lived with the people you worked with it became easy to see through the makeup and the weird fabrics, but when Lauren spots doll he finds himself at a total loss as to her actual identity. Her outfit is a little ridiculous, but it's way tamer than a lot of the things he's seen people wear since coming here, and it actually covers most of her body, unlike the clothes the Ringmaster's so fond of. She's actually beautiful, and he isn't sure if it's because of how calm she looks, the outfit, the makeup, or something else entirely, but she really does look like a doll.

It's not until after her act that he finally speaks to her, stunned by her performance.

"How did you do that?"

She stops walking and turns -- she may look cold and closed off, but she's not rude. Even when she's in her performance persona when someone talks to her, she answers.

"What do you mean?"

He thought what he meant was obvious. That she has to ask implies it's so easy to her it's not even worth thinking about. He glances away, feeling a bit embarrassed.

"Balancing so high up while being so calm." he clarifies, still amazed that she was able to accomplish such a feat.

"Oh," Doll blinks, not realizing that he wasn't talking about just one specific trick or part, he was talking about the whole thing. But she supposes that makes sense, not everyone is a performer here.

"I've been doing it for a long time. It's like tying my boots now.

"I'm still afraid of falling though. I'm calm because the audience doesn't want to see me afraid."

He looks stunned by her response, if that was even possible. So then it truly was an act, not just a performance. She wasn't just doing tricks, she was acting.

"You can just tell yourself not to look scared?" He's not sure he'd ever be able to do something like that so convincingly.

"Mm," she nods, looks down thoughtfully. "It wasn't always easy though. At the start, it was right hard for me. But then I saw the crowd and my family, and I saw they were as scared as I was. That's no good, I didn't mean for anybody else to feel what I felt.

"Everyone had more fun when I didn't look so scared. It's better for the act if I play my part."

Better for Joker's health too, probably. And Jumbo, who'd waited in the shadows those first few nights, ready to run out and catch her if she fell. He said he'd stopped watching years ago, but Doll didn't quite believe him. She's alright with it, too.

"Being scared is normal, but it spreads real quick if you're not careful."

He understands what she's saying, but something about it feels off. Lauren's had to hide his own fear at times, for his younger brother's sake. Now thought, that Susan was older it wasn't as necessary. It seems strange that Doll would feel the need to protect her family from that fear. He imagines most of the people in her family are older than her, only because she looks to be around his own age. The crowd too, wasn't fear part of the routine, wasn't it the potential for danger that made her performance even more thrilling?

"Do you even enjoy it?" It's a presumptive question to be sure, but for that brief moment his curiosity gets the better of him.

Edited 2017-05-24 21:54 (UTC)

Doll actually tilts her shoulders away from the boy a few inches, surprised and initially not sure how to respond. Nobody's... really asked her before if she likes being an acrobat or walking a tightrope. She just did it because it kept her with her family.

She looks at the ground, thinking. If she didn't have to do this anymore, would she still want to?

"...I don't know what else I'd do," she says honestly.

It's not a yes, but it's not a no either. He can tell by her reaction his question has thrown her. He was too blunt, too direct, and he didn't even know this girl. It wasn't his place to ask such questions. Still, she didn't say yes.

"...I know this place isn't the best, but I don't think anyone would mind if you wanted to try something different."

He's being presumptive again, and this time he knows it. He doesn't look at her while he talks, but rather towards the ground. Maybe she did like it and she would roll her eyes, get angry, or maybe even laugh. That was fine. But if she didn't, if she wanted to see what else she could do, well at least now she knew that too. Of course, she probably already knew and he was really just making a complete and total fool of himself.

Doll frowns and looks at the ground too, as though they were looking at something together. But there's nothing special there. Hm.

"Like what?" It's a genuine question, not an accusation or demand. "My family became circus performers a long time ago, since we left the East End gutter. I meant it when I said I don't know what else I'd do."

She doesn't think this boy has any malicious intent, or that he doesn't know what he's talking about. Even if he's talking about her life, her previous livelihood, and questioning what does and doesn't make her happy, he's just asking questions. No harm in that.

He feels bad questioning her on something that's been part of her life for so long, and just embarrassed in general. He always gets this way when talking to others though. Worse, after saying something like that he doesn't have any idea of what to suggest. He shrugs, looking nervous.

"... There's nothing else you've ever been interested in?"

Tamaki is pretty excited to watch another acrobat perform, especially someone who's going to do the tightrope. Tamaki has been doing his silks performance over in one of the side tents, but he comes over immediately after to watch, still wearing his performance outfit (which is mostly some loose pants and nothing else).

And he's really glad he did - Doll's performance is nothing short of incredible, and he almost wishes he was filming it or something. Tamaki isn't normally one to think too hard on performances beyond whether he personally found them "good" or "bad," but even if he doesn't know the words to talk about it, he thinks this one is something almost poetic.

After she comes out of the tent, he runs to catch up to her.

"Amazing, Doe-chan!"

The sound of Tamaki running towards her breaks Doll out of her almost-trance, and she turns and smiles once she realizes it's him.

"Tamaki!" She bounces the rest of the distance between them, meeting him halfway. Covered in flowers and flounces, even her walk looks more feminine. "I thought we were performing at the same time!"

She definitely seems more girly than normal. It suits her, in a way. Not that Tamaki thinks there's anything un-suiting about her normally.

"I just finished so I ran over." Literally. He glances down at his performance outfit before looking back up. "I saw you up on the tightrope though!"

"Y'did? Was it exciting? Was it fun?" She's still a little nervous about how well she fits in with the carnival, if her act was thrilling enough or just boring because she's still pretty much human-shaped.

"I can't believe I missed your act though!" Doll whines, pouting. "Next time I'll run over to see you! I wanna see your act! Do you always wear those pants? They're swell!"

"It was like, whoa! And, aaah!" Tamaki moves his hands back and forth as he says it, like that adequately conveys what he's trying to say. "Like, really pretty."

It's clear he means the praise - Tamaki couldn't lie if he wanted to. The truth reads too easily on his face.

"But I usually do." He looks down at the pants he's wearing again, wondering if they're really "swell." Normally he doesn't pay too much attention, but maybe he should thank Carly again for them later. "Come see it next time. I hope you like it."

Somehow, that does in fact adequately convey what Tamaki means-- Doll seems to know exactly what he's trying to say, and she blushes and spins in a little circle she's so happy. "Ahh y'got no idea how happy I am t'hear that! I don't got wings or horns or nothin', made me wonder how interestin' my act was really gonna be!" But Tamaki seemed to really like it-- Doll's not too good at telling when people are lying to her, but she still thinks he wouldn't say anything he didn't mean. She twirls her parasol in an excited little fidget and smiles up at him. "Thanks Tamaki."

Sometimes Doll thinks it would be better for her to wear pants-- having so many flowers around her legs to 'protect her innocence' (as Dagger put it) on the high wire wasn't too comfortable sometimes. She could barely sit, for one thing. His look pretty comfortable, ideal for moving... maybe she'd have a talk with wardrobe later.

"I'm sure I will, if watchin' ya practice is anythin' t'go by! Bet it'll be doubly excitin' with the music 'n the lights 'n all!" And seeing how strong he was without a shirt in the way.

...oh dear. That wasn't too proper.

Doll swallows and laughs again, nervous as though Tamaki could somehow hear her thoughts, and weakly punches him in the shoulder very friendly-like. "We should do somethin' together sometime! Bet you could lift me up, right?"

That was kind of a weird change at the end there; Tamaki blinks at her sudden attitude, but doesn't really understand why. He doesn't think he did anything to make her nervous...

It's kinda cute, though.

"I probably could," he says after he gets over his confusion. She's pretty small, after all, and he's pretty strong - it would be easy, actually. "We could do a cool routine. Do you dance?"

Besides acrobatics, he would love to do a dance routine. He's never really danced with a girl before, besides a brief scene in one music video, but he's sure it can't be that hard to come up with something.

"I can dance, yeah!" Doll says, enthusiastic and apparently over her earlier strange moment. Or maybe eager to act like everything was normal. "I learned some ballet b'fore I went up on th'wire, but every so often, after all the folks had gone home after the show, we'd play some music and dance. The circus I used t'be with-- Joker and Snake's, too."

They were nice times. Everybody happy, having fun, not worrying about anything but how long she could spin before she got so dizzy she threw up. ~~That only happened once.~~ She wouldn't mind going back to that, or at least remembering those lovely, close times around the fires.

"It's prob'ly a little different than what you do, but I'm a quick learn! What kinda dancing d'you do?"

"Choreographed stuff... mm, but I like to do freestyle dance, too."

He'd once taught Joker about it, before Doll came here. It sounds fun, though, to dance with everyone for no reason other than to be together. His group had done that once, had turned a sad time into a happy one by singing and dancing together. He understands that feeling well.

"I don't know ballet. Doesn't it hurt your toes?"

"Freestyle..." Doll tries to figure out what that means, what kind of dance it is, but she's coming up blank. Maybe it was like all the wild arm-waving they did around the fire at the circus?

"Oh yeah, it sure does," Doll says with a solemn nod. "But I never got that far. No reason ta, given as soon as I could, I was up on th'wire! But I remember most'a it!

"Would be right fantastic to be en pointe on a wire though... Dunno that Joker'd let me," she says with a laugh.

It would definitely be pretty cool to see that. Tamaki wonders if Joker would really stop her; there are plenty of safeguards here, in case she falls. Then again, if it were his little sister, he'd probably be nervous anyway.

But the simple fact is that Doll isn't his little sister, so he can't help but say, "Why don't you try anyway?"

Joker doesn't have to know...

"Hey!"

Ash crashed into the scene to catch up with her like a meteor of energy, still riding the adrenaline of putting magic into her music to weld the performance together into brilliance. Not that she had an ego, of course!

"You looked sharp as hell out there!"

Woah-- this person moves very fast and is extremely exuberant. Doll is still coming down from her performance mode, so she keeps her distance and gives the excitable musician some space to bounce in.

"Thank you. The music was very nice, too."

That was an excellent description of Ash, who generally tended to take more after the "tear around the house at all hours of the night" half of feline activity, rather than the "lie around and do nothing ever" part.

She waved a hand to dismiss the compliment. "It can't not be nice, that's no big." Which wasn't modesty, but simple fact. Nothing she'd done took practice or even effort, so compliments to it were about as pointless as compliments to her height. "Now your balance, that's what's amazing."

At least there's a whole camp to tear around at all hours of the night...? Woods even! Felines like woods, right?

Doll blinks at the dismissal of the compliment, surprised for a moment. Well, she feels similar, she supposes, about her cartwheels. They're really nothing, at this point. Maybe the music is the same...?

"It's all practice," she says with a small shrug. "I fell plenty'a times when I first started... Though it was only about six feet, not sixty, you know?

"The point isn't how many times you fall, it's that you learn to stay up, right?" Ash respected people who gained their ability from hard work and practice, precisely because she hadn't. It was easy to be a music mage -- once she learned to not screw it up. "Besides, I probably couldn't ever do it as nicely as you can, so it's awesome in my book."

Ash might have feline balance, but she was also six feet tall with a much higher center of gravity than Doll.

"...Yes, that's very true," Doll agrees with a small, polite smile. "But I think you hafta fall a couple'a times before you learn to stay up. That part's just the way it goes, I think.

"Do you just do music for the carnival, or something else too?"

"I'm just a perfomer. Kind of a jack-of-all-trades, really, since I can pick up pretty much anything I need to." Like rescues in Hell, for example, but let's forget that ever happened. She never wanted to go back there. "But officially, my role is to perform!"

"Ah, I suppose I'm the same then," Doll muses, twirling her parasol a little in a fidget. "I perform, but I also work in the makeup tent before the show. I've always done my own, so I suppose the Ringmaster thought I'd be good at helping other people too."

Ash made a mild face, having never been fond of makeup. "Well, no wonder I haven't run into you there. Hope you don't mind if I keep not doing so, too!"

"Why would I mind?" Doll tilts her head. "If you don't like it, nobody should force you to wear it. Though..."

She frowns and indicates the marks Ash has on her own face. "What are those?"

"They come with the taily, eary territory," Ash said, flicking one of her ears as she mentioned it. "At least for me they do. Some catgirls don't have markings at all."

During the show, he's stationed backstage, on hand, just in case of any last minute alterations or fixes needed, whether for makeup, hair or wardrobe. He's just the contingency plan in the tent just in case things go wrong - but to his relief, so far, nothing has gone wrong yet even during his relatively short stint in the Carnival.

Being backstage also means that he's able to watch pretty much most of the show from behind the curtain in the backstage area.

He's never really been to a circus often, and he's never really had positive memories of. Well, circus related or associated items. It's mostly childhood trauma that he's still grudgingly getting over, because god fucking damn it does Piemon still give him the occasional nightmare.

Still, watching the show from behind the curtain, especially when Doll does her set, is interesting in and of itself.

***

Later, when the show is over and Doll has made her way towards the makeup and wardrobe tents, there's a flurry of activity as the wardrobe team sorts out costumes and related accessories. When Yamato passes Doll in the corridor, he'll stop, and there is a look of recognition over his features.

"I really liked watching your set," is what Yamato will say, before he realises that he's just blurted that out almost randomly.

It is a little startling, admittedly, because Doll figured that once he'd passed her he wouldn't talk to her. But she turns and looks up at him, looking slightly curious and slightly blank, before smiling a little.

"Thank you." She recognizes him as one of the wardrobe assistants from backstage, and figures he probably wants to get a move on with his work. "Just a moment, I'll get this off for you."

Yamato can see why her namesake is a doll - she definitely looks the part.

"... Ah, sure, thanks." That actually hadn't been his intention at all, actually, he'd merely wanted to compliment her mostly because her segment of the performance had been the one that he was most taken by.

He's just going to awkwardly shift hie weight a little from one foot from the other. He's actually... not really the best at conversations, because he's always been more used to keeping to himself. Although, with how outgoing some of the other residents in the Carnival are, it's little wonder that he's kind of picked up some of their mannerisms along the way.

"Have you been doing this show for a while?"

...Oh! Maybe he'd just wanted to talk and started his sentence a little late. Okay! If he's not in a hurry to get her costume, she's not in a hurry either.

"I've been a tightrope walker for a long time. At a different circus though, in England. The routine I just did was something I used to perform there, I haven't made up anything new just yet."

She tilts her head a little. "Have you been here for a while now? This is my first performance, I'm sorry if that sounds like an odd question."

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You've got your mother in a whirl ++ OPEN

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After! (takes like 80 years to think of a nickname for Tamaki to call her lol)

THAT'S OKAY IT TAKES ME 81 YEARS TO RESPOND

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After

So sorry for the wait! ;A;

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after the show

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