Abby Brown (walking_chaos) wrote in darkcarnivale, @ 2011-06-20 20:14:00 |
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Entry tags: | arkady von wulf, red, riley poe |
Who Red, Riley, and Arkady
What: A stranger among strangers
Where: The Midway
When: Mid-evening
Status: Complete
After the more family-friendly shows and exhibitions had given way to sunset and the more adult-oriented themes of the carnival. The group parties and field trips had left; the older teenagers and adventurous young people flocked to the gates, but one just didn't seem to fit. A toothpick of a girl caught somewhere between a child and a woman wandered alone beneath the strings of lights that so held her fascinated attention. Wearing a simple white cotton dress and ballet flats, the thick mane of near blood-red hair that swallowed her shoulders and twitched at her waist was the predominant feature on her entire being. That, and the oddly other-worldly look in her pale eyes. They trailed the lights to their decorative convergence above the midway. She stood directly beneath the web of yellow bulbs, looking straight up, with her freckled hands pressed excitedly to her face. People walked by her, around her, some not aware of her presence--others, chuckling or staring.
Riley was walking, roaming; the first freak show was in an hour, so he had thought about getting some dinner or something to pass the time. He'd run a game booth for most of the day, letting the high schoolers play their games and win their prizes because he was too apathetic to cheat kids out of their stuffed animals. The girl caught his eye, though; she was pretty, that scarlet hair, the dazzled eyes. He moved closer, up behind her and folded his arms over his chest, a faint smile on his lips. "Those are some pretty terrific lights, right?"
His voice seemed to break her out of her reverie, but only slightly, and definitely only for a short time. The girl turned to look at him, this source of her distraction. Her stare was shallow in many ways, and avoided the man's eyes as if they'd strike her for any contact... but his narrow nose and sharp chin had her attention. Until she spotted the frayed bits of his jeans.
The moment that came into her vision, invisible fingertips grabbed hold of the most prominent string, and pulled the length of it... pulling and pulling until it broke free from the rest of the denim, and floated obediently into the girl's waiting fingertips. Her eyes never left it the entire time, even as she coiled it around her fingers, fixating on how the white string bit into her skin. Done with him, and onto her next project, the girl started to walk away aimlessly.
The girl had just... grabbed his distressed jeans and plucked a string from them like some kind of little magpie or something, without even so much as a word. Or, you know, moving her hand, and wasn't that the interesting part? And so Riley arched his brow, then fell into step behind her, unsure of what exactly they were dealing with here. "Hey. Are you here by yourself?" he tried, circling until he was in front of her again, trying to make her look at him.
The new obstruction in her path wasn't so distressing, it seemed. The girl simply stopped walking, but she didn't take her eyes away from the way she coiled the string around her fingertips. That is, until he tried to force her into eye-contact. The bob and weave of a head in front of her finally caught her attention; peridot eyes snapped up to his face, but it was clear by the simple look of them that his words weren't making it very deep. She could hear him, but if she understood him was up for speculation.
What was clear, though, was that she didn't like being forced into the confrontation. The second their eyes met, a crackle of atmosphere disturbed the air between them, and a phantom force, like the shove of a thick-muscled Teamster, knocked the man out of her space.
Riley felt the pressue against his skin, hard pressure like Gar or Grant's hands, and he stumbled back a step, then a second one, caught off guard. "Hey! I don't know what you're doing, but knock it off!" the puck countered in irritation, straightening himself up. "I'm not going to hurt you. I work here."
But the girl didn't acknowledge his irritation, confusion, or even his words. Once he was out of her field of vision, she honed in on the string tight and bridged between her fingers. She started to walk again, this time a little off center from his direction. Her lips moved as a sing-songy series of noises lilted in girlish tones, parroting the exact tempo and staccato that he'd just spoken.
She was broken, that was it. Broken like that werewolf who was so damned cute but needed shoes without laces half the time. When it clicked in Riley's mind, he shook his head a tiny bit, then jogged after her. "Look, kid, I'm not a babysitter. Who are you here with? Parents?" he tried.
But she just kept walking, repeating the wordless version of Riley's statement in her girlish tones. Three steps into her journey, the scent of cotton candy pulled her attention from the string at her fingers. She dropped it, forgotten at her side, and followed the ribbon of sweetness through the air, until what looked like a thought struck her. The red girl turned on her pretty shoes, and headed straight back for Riley. Without looking at his face, she grabbed his hand (like a toddler would, curling her fingers around his thumb) and started to pull him toward the candy truck.
Riley felt her fingers wrap around his wrist and he followed behind her, amiably enough. The girl was confusing, and she looked completely lost and a bit addled. But she seemed to want candy, and that cause he could get behind. "Which color?" he asked her, gesturing to the wall of flavored spun sugar.
Red lifted Riley's hand in order to take it in both of hers, and actually looked at him as she pressed his palm on the window overlooking the candy machine, currently being used to make the distinct flavor 'purple'.
"That one?" he guessed and when she squeezed his hand, he signalled for the vendor to give him two of those. He slid a bill across the table toward the person, then took the two cones of cotton candy and handed her one. Arkady was walking by just then, all legs and dreads, and Riley flagged him down excitedly. "Yo, bossman! C'mere."
The girl accepted the candy with all the focused attention of a bomb specialist pouring over a pair of hot wires. She picked at it with her fingers, stuffing coiled bits of cotton into her mouth while meandering to the side of the candy truck--once again, completely oblivious to the man who'd given it to her. She lowered to the ground, sitting cross-legged, without a care in the world.
Arkady walked over to them, curious enough; Riley was always calling him over to check something out or, at best, listening to the punchline of a filthy joke.
And there, Red sat, picking at the cotton candy cone, fully immersed in her own world.
Riley briefed Arkady on the girl's weird behavior, but Arkady said nothing until Riley said "And then she pushed me. Without touching me. And she won't say anything." Then Arkady looked over at her with renewed interest, then approached slowly. His vibes were soothing, the same pheromones he used to calm humans before he bit them.
Only when those subtle waves of calm encroached on her natural field of concentration did the girl look up. The tall figure in front of her was regarded with the same shallow sort of gaze that Riley had first been given. Except Riley didn't have those fascinating strings attached to his face.
The girl's eyes locked on the vampire's beard; the paper cone in her hand was dropped to the side, complete with it's bits of purple fuzz. Once again, invisible fingers could be felt, combing through the twists of dark facial hair until she found the red thread that tied one of his dreadlocks at the end. The same unseen fingers tugged on it faintly, then again with more umph when it didn't immediately come free.
Arkady didn't yelp or any such thing at having his hair tugged, but the sensation was unsettling to say the least. The girl was psychic to some degree, telekinesis perhaps. He took a step toward her, tilted his head slightly. "She's mentally disabled," he told Riley calmly. "Her mind... I can't read it the way I can most mortals. There aren't even clear emotional waves."
A very vague look of concentration replaced the girl's otherwise serene-but-blank expression as she tried to figure out why she wasn't getting what she wanted. Her lips parted, a small noise, more like that of three year old's sound of frustration chirped from her lips, and she reached for the red string attached to the braid, sliding it from the braid where her thought-force had failed. When she had her prize, the girl sat back down and went about untying the knot.
Somewhere deep in her mind, a nursery rhyme floated on the broken waves of chaos that was the girl's mind. It was slow and in a deep alto, obviously not the girl's voice. The voice was like that of an old woman, singing in Russian.
Arkady peered at her face closely for a moment, then tilted his head. "Where did she come from?" he asked, lifting his gaze to Riley. The puck shrugged. "She was staring at light bulbs when I found her. I thought maybe she was drugged, but... she's not, is she?" he asked, almost worried. "No," Arkady said faintly. "She isn't drugged. She's very... special. But I don't know what to do with her, to be honest with you."