Who: Ophidia and Sioux Where: Backstage at the Burlesque tent What: Getting ready for the show, Phi and Sioux talk Rating: TBD Status: In progress.
"Shit," Sioux half-whispered. Her boot was propped up on her dressing room table, her fishnet rolled down to her ankle, and she was examining her hipbone and thigh in the mirror. The ivory skin bore fingerprint-shaped bruises and Sioux sighed, reaching for the liquid foundation again to try and downplay them. Her body ached all the time from the rough, demanding sex she was having each night. People always wondered why she stayed, but it hadn't been like this in the beginning. Gar had shown her something more before he'd become this cold, callous beast he was now.
Judas--in his feminine skin--braided her hair back and glanced sideways at Sioux. The woman often came in with bruises, and she'd never asked before about it...but those looked pretty heavy, and she had some experience with costume makeup.
Plucking up a more yellow-orange concealer, she came over and smiled a little at the woman. Sioux was newer...
"Here...those are darker, your foundation's not going to cancel it out. ...May I...?" Her fingers dipped into the concealer, and she looked up at the woman again.
"I'll be gentle, I promise."
"Fucking Gar, I'm going to start making him wear oven mitts when he rails me," Sioux said quietly, her voice bitter and her laugh almost humorless. She was crass and crude, one of the edgier humans most of the carnival people were familiar with; she had an exotic beauty to her green eyes and freckles and regular pulse, and nothing supernatural whatsoever ran in her veins. She wanted this; she had sought out a lifestyle of darkness simply for something to do.
"I'm sorry, Sioux..." Ophidia's fingers smoothed, gently, over the bruises; just as she'd thought, the more yellow-orange color of the concealer covered the bruises much better than the ivory of the foundation.
"Okay...there. Now if you put the foundation over it, no one will even be able to see it..."
"Thanks," Sioux said with a brief pause, then returned to rubbing her own foundation over the concealed marks. The bruises faded into obscurity on the long white lines of her thighs. "Lifesaver. Arkady gets cranky when he thinks the marks can see them. We're supposed to look flawless up there."
"Of course. I think sometimes he forgets not everyone has injuries that disappear in a matter of moments, or a few mouthfuls of blood." Ophidia glanced down at the concealer, then put it on Sioux's dressing-table.
"You know..." The incubus's voice was quiet. "If you ever...need anything...to talk, or anything, I'm here..."
Sioux hesitated and looked over, Ophidia's eyes meeting Sioux's clear green ones for a moment. "I can't talk about it," she said simply. "Nothing to talk about. It's just who he is, you know? I used to think he loved me, but now who knows. I think he hates me half as often."
"Just saying...if you ever need anything, my trailer's always available." Impulsively, the incubus leaned over to press a kiss to Sioux's forehead, then went back to her own dressing-table. The outfit she wore was ridiculous, she knew it was, but she also knew people loved it when she took off the tied-waist wrap and was left in nothing more than legwarmers and a thong and a bra...
Which could come off too, for the right price.
"Thank you," Sioux said quietly, and slowly she bent her head under that kiss, which was as soft as a feather but somehow felt stronger than a punch. She couldn't remember the last time she'd felt genuine affection like that without reason, and to her dismay her eyes began tearing up. Oh fuck.
Oops... Ophidia made the mistake of glancing back over, and her heart wrenched. She hadn't meant to make the other woman cry...and the show was soon...
"Hey..." Her voice was gentle. "It's okay..."
"No, it's fucking not," Sioux said softly, and her voice cracked. She drew into herself, pulling her legs up against her chest for a moment--- no easy feat in a skimpy studded vinyl bra and a bustle. "He's so different than he was. He used to be nice."
"...Oh, sweetheart." Ophidia set down her makeup and came back over to the other dancer; after a moment of hesitation, she gently wound her arms around Sioux, hugging her carefully. "I'm sorry..."
"I thought he was something else," Sioux said quietly, trying to stifle her sobs, because she knew she'd brought this on herself. She'd chosen this. And she did love him. "He was so charming at first, and I thought he liked me..."
"Shh...oh, honey." Ophidia's fingers ran, gently, through the other dancer's hair, and she pressed another soft kiss to the top of the young woman's head.
"Gar's a...complicated person. I don't know him that well, but I know there's...a lot going on. I'm sorry he's taking it out on you..."
"He fucks anything!" she blurted, and tears were beginning to sparkle on those waterproof-mascaraed lashes like raindrops on black rose petals. "He doesn't even care about me, or anything I have to say... he doesn't know how to do anything but sleep, eat, fight and fuck! Not even in that order!"
"Oh...oh, Sioux, I'm so sorry." Ophidia's heart broke, for the young woman. At least she'd never entered into any sort of serious relationship! Then she didn't do this to people. They understood where they were, with her...
"It's... it's fine," Sioux said quietly, wiping her eyes with her fingertips. "I'm... he's the only reason I'm here anyway, I needed to get away and I wanted to be here... with... everyone..."
"...Well you are here, with everyone." Ophidia's voice was gentle. "And seriously, my trailer door's always open...if you just want to get away for a bit, or drink, or talk, or watch trashy television on my tiny set." The incubus offered the young woman a tentative smile.
"I might not always be wearing this skin, but I'm always around..."
Sioux didn't actually have a friend at the carnival; she was afraid of pissing off Gar, of not being there at his beck and call. But the way he'd been treating her lately, the ungrateful attitude, the way he thought nothing of ripping a book out of her hands or yanking her off the bed if he wanted her elsewhere, was more than getting on her nerves, and she tried to smile back, nodded at the incubus. "Thanks... it's... it's okay. I really appreciate it, you know?"
"Of course...here..." The incubus snagged a tissue and dabbed gently at the young woman's eyes. "There, now you look just fine...if there's anything I can do, just let me know, okay...?"
She nodded, sniffling a bit and wiping at her face when Ophidia's hand lowered. "I'm sorry.. I didn't mean to get all.. girly..."
The incubus laughed, softly. "Sweetheart, you're a girl. I think you, above anyone else, has a distinctive right to get 'girly'."
"No... I mean, yeah, but I don't," she countered. "I don't cry and all that shit."
"Everyone has a right to, sometimes." The incubus graced Sioux with another gentle smile, and reached out to lightly brush her fingers over the other dancer's cheek. "Trust me. I'm not gonna hold it against you."
Sioux leaned her cheek into that affectionate touch, closed her eyes. Her lashes glittered like jewels on her high cheekbones, the hint of freckles under her makeup. "Thank you," she said softly. "I know you don't have to be all nice and stuff. I'm not high enough on the food chain for special treatment," she laughed dryly.
"Sweetheart, I'm bein' nice to you because I like you." Ophidia's smile grew, a little. "I don't have to have a reason, I just do. And I like having friends. We have to stick together, here...we're all each others' got."
"I came because regular life, the normal world, it's all fucked up," she said, swallowing. "In here it isn't like that. Nothing can touch you in here, there's... there's this whole secret world. And it's so much better."
"Hah, I hear that. This was my pit stop of last resort." The incubus smirked. "I pissed off a gangster by sleeping with his girlfriend, now he wants my head and boy-bits on a platter."
"Well... if you lose your boy bits, you could just stay in this body and keep the awesome rack," she reasoned tentatively, a tiny smile touching her lips.
Ophidia stared at Sioux for a second, then laughed and shook her head. "Not if he takes my head too, sugar. Pretty as this body is, it doesn't look half as good without the crowning glory."
"I can see your point," Sioux said with a little smile and a headshake. "But still... he isn't gonna find you here. And Arkady'd kill him before he ever touched you, right?"
"Exactly. That's why this place is fantastic. I mean, I make money, I'm safe, most of the people here are pretty wonderful...Arkady is very sweet, and protective..." Ophidia shrugged. "It's a good place to be, especially for someone like me. I don't really...see myself anywhere else, to be honest."
Sioux nodded a little, picked at her manicure. "I'm the same way," she said honestly. "I had nothing for me back home. When I met Gar, I thought... it was this wild, exotic world, the stuff fantasy books are written about, you know? Who turns that down?"
"Well I mean...in a lot of ways, it is. Where else could you say you hobknob with incubi, vampires, werewolves, changelings, fae, fire elementals, half-Gorgons...? We've got practically everything, here." Ophidia glanced at the clock, then at the curtain. "Bah, it's almost time..."
"Yeah," she murmured, then turned back to the mirror to pick up her eyeliner pencil and fix where her tears had smudged it. "Time to go charm the other stupid humans."
"Oy. You're not stupid." Ophidia gently tapped Sioux's head, stretching a little. "You're sexy and raunchy and pretty damn funny when you want to be. Don't let Gar and his bullshit make you think less of yourself."
She nodded slightly as she finished her liner, then dropped it back into her makeup case. She turned and stood, hesitating only a heartbeat before she leaned in to press a chaste kiss to the corner of Ophidia's lips. "Thanks," she murmured before moving away in a rustle of silk and leather to find her place before they had to go up.
The incubus actually blushed, a little; she hadn't been expecting that. Checking her own makeup, and hair, she got into her place as well...she wasn't as fond of the burlesque act as the normal one she did, but she had to admit it did make quite good money.