To his upset, sleep was proving difficult. On a normal day, Vaughn was a large man. Still, when he’d moved into his magically appointed caravan after signing with the cirque, all of the furniture provided him had fit just fine. However, the enchantment didn’t seem to cover the temporary expansion he suffered resulting from a cannibalistic binge, and the Wild Hunt had provided him his bloodiest few days to date. As a result, the Georgia expat’s human shape measured in at a little over 8 feet tall when the horn sounded a closing to the festivities. Like Lewis Carroll’s Alice after nibbling on an ‘Eat Me’ cake, everything seemed too small for him now, including his mattress. For a man with sleeping habits best described as sprawling, trying to catch some much needed rest after being awake for three days straight while curled into a ball was not working out for him.
And so he walked. Or rather, he lumbered.
His hands housed in the pockets of pair of heathered sweatpants borrowed from the costume department (they’d probably belonged to André the Giant at one point) Vaughn’s shoulders were hunched against the Russian winter out of habit, not sensitivity. A secondhand NFL tee with chapped lettering stretched over muscles sore from exhaustion and overuse, barely adequate. He was fairly certain he looked like an overstuffed sausage casing shambling through the back alleys of the cirque, which was precisely how he felt. My, how the mighty fall. He glowered. Best not to think about it.
He redirected his attention through the draped entrance to the tent nearest him, in time to see a woman busy in her morning practice. She looked well over 20 feet off of the ground. He slowed, ducking his head to better observe. The precision and athleticism a feat like that required was incredible, the height, however, he found nauseating.
Then she let go of the rope.
Properly rested, he wouldn’t have rushed forward as if there was any hope of catching her before she hit the ground. But tired, all he thought of was the way evergreens looked like spears angled skyward when one plunged hopelessly downward to meet them. As it happened, she wasn’t in distress to begin with. Vaughn stopped halfway between the entrance and the aerial platform, straightening and doing his best to look casual about the trespass.
“Sorry. That’s - uh -“ He gestured to the rope apparatus. Impressive? Insane? Booth. “Right, never mind. Pardon me,” he said, backing out.