Who: Dayton & Sunny What: Pestering new friends When: [backdated] Just after the Cirque moved Where: the carousel Warnings/Rating: No warnings / Low
Whenever the Cirque moved it took a couple of days for Sunny’s bones to settle down. She always felt buzzing with the magical energy that warped the place from one country to another, finding that it resonated and squirmed around inside her, restless and grumbling because she had no real outlet for it. As such, she was wandering around looking for mischief with her white fox ears poking out the top of her head, one tail swishing around her ankles.
The midway was busy with people setting their stalls up, getting the last touches on that weren’t magically created whenever the place moved. There was so much magical energy that went into it and Sunny was so curious as to how it worked but she’d never been able to get an answer and though she’d not given up trying to find out, there were other things on her mind today.
Like pestering her friends. Old and new.
She saw Dayton near the carousel, which was (understandably) one of his regular haunts and wasted no time in bouncing over. There had been a bit of a rumbling about a confrontation he’d had with Isaac before they moved and she wanted to check he was alright. She needed to check on Isaac too but Dayton was here. In front of her. So, him first.
“Afternoon,” she called as she approached, waving her hand, “you doing okay after the move? I’m all…buzzy.”
Dayton lifted his chin and set warm brown eyes upon the woman as she approached. He was still getting his bearings, taking things a day at a time as best as he could. The spat with Isaac hadn’t been the warm welcome he’d been hoping for but things had seemed lighter when the cirque rolled into its new, temporary, location. There wasn’t a heaviness in the air here. It was fresh, new. And he was determined to step out into the newness of it to understand the land for himself.
“Sunny!” The greeting was happy. Of the few he had met so far, he would’ve lied if he said he wasn’t partial to the fox. Her energy was addicting and it made the magic in his bones ache in the best ways. “I feel a little warmer,” he murmured, setting a large hand upon his own chest, “but otherwise fine. Is feeling ‘buzzy’ a bad thing, or a good one?”
Out of nowhere, it seemed, Dayton held up a lovely blossom and extended it out to her as a gift. The bright petals seemed happy in a way that he could understand without having to speak to it.
“I could whip you up something natural if it doesn’t abate.” You couldn’t perform or function if your head wasn’t in the right place.
“Warmer? Warmer isn’t–in a good or bad way? It’s so hot here that it–” Sunny’s sentence died off the moment a flower appeared in front of her face from his hand. She let out a truly delighted squeal and reached forward to gently take it from his hand. It was gorgeous, bright and delightful and alive. She tucked the stem gently behind her ear so the flower poked out of her hair, ears twitching in a dead-giveaway of how much she liked it.
She twirled on the spot and then framed her face by resting her chin in her palms. “Do I look pretty now?”
The sun had heated the ground and the air. Morocco had been tamer as far as the climate and while Dayton didn’t mind the sunshine as it was critical to help the plants flourish, he didn’t like being sweaty. “In a good way.” He didn’t want Sunny worrying about him, either, which meant he needed to put on his most charming smile and hope that he could keep her distracted. It seemed to be working so far if that squeal of a response to his gift was any indication.
As she twirled so whimsically, he chuckled. “You were pretty before! The flower only serves to accent your natural gifts.” Those little petals seemed to respond to her energy and the item itself shimmered proudly from its perch.
Flowers and plants responded to him. He didn’t need to try to get their attention, but lately his misfortune and otherwise low mood had the plants cautious. He didn’t care much for that but wasn’t sure exactly how to remedy it. With all of his tutelage, sometimes even he didn’t have all of the answers.
“I’m buzzy in a good way too,” Sunny reassured, clearly flattered and extremely pleased by the flower gift and the compliment. She touched the petals gently and then just made sure it was settled, pride-of-place in her hair, resolving not to touch it and keep it in for the whole night. “My–my magic responds to other magic,” she said, not really sure how to explain it. “And there’s always so much of it after we move that it’s in the air. Like right before a lightning storm?”
She tilted her head. “Is flowers your magic? I’ve never met someone with flower magic before.”
“Mmm…like an electricity field.” It made enough sense to him. Magic had a way of doing that, making connections in the background and ensuring that the user was in tune with the changes. “As long as you’re safe and happy, that is truly all I care about.” Not that there was much to do about it from his end. Sunny seemed to be proficient at looking out for herself and he didn’t want to dampen that for her. Friends held each other up, became the bright spots in the darkness. It made sense that an event like moving would trigger that type of a response. He had felt something but he couldn’t exactly place what that was. He didn’t yet have the experience.
“It is! I have earth magic,” Dayton explained. “With a specialty in alchemy and floramancy.” His magic had deep roots and the earth wasn’t always kind but it did have a lot of patience. “My mother loved flowers. She had a devotion to plants and nurturing new things. Her greenhouse was known far and wide.”
“You get used to it,” Sunny said, “the way it feels when the cirque moves. I mean…used to it in that it feels less weird as time goes on. I’ve been here for nearly sixty years, I think? Maybe? But the only reason I still get buzzy is because I’m a spirit, you know?” She shrugged her shoulders, magic was weird and humans were weird and everything was a lot more simple when she was just her little fox spirit self. Most people, if she didn’t tell them, assumed she was a shifter and for the most part that worked for her just fine, except when she needed to explain why she could taste the magic in the air after the shift of the cirque.
Her eyes did light up though at the new word she’d just learned. “Floramancy,” she said, sounding it out slowly, “Flowers. They’d have loved you in the sixties.” That had been a wild time to be anywhere, honestly, especially in America. “Earth magic is neat, did you have to study hard to be good at it?”
Sixty years was quite a long stretch of time. Dayton wasn’t sure he would live that long - he was reckless enough back home as it was, and set loose upon the earth to wander into set him up for more danger. But whatever his outcome, he would always be prepared to surrender himself to the bounty of the earth. It was where he belonged. “It makes sense.” He could understand some aspect of it. He wasn’t a spirit and wouldn’t presume to know deeply what that was like, but there were all types of spirits in the world around them at all moments. Nor did Dayton balk at her admission. He accepted it for gospel because he didn’t feel as if she would fib to him or trick him, though that mindset was what got him where he was presently. What a situation that was.
“Every single day,” he replied. “There were special lessons and everything.” Often his father would lose his patience with his only blood son, but his mother would swoop in and take over. It was her caring spirit that planted the seeds for blossom and harvest. “I miss the trees back home.” He did. Walking through them, speaking with them. Listening to their woes, their secrets, the stories of the ages that they had been through.
Sunny nodded, unable to stop the curiosity that tingled along her spine at the idea of magic lessons. She supposed it was likely that most magic users did need to learn their powers, since innateness only got one so far. She tilted her head, “What kind of special lessons?”
She wondered if trees felt different to someone who had earth powers, it was on the tip of her tongue to ask if they’d been his friends but she didn’t want to insult him when he was so new to the cirque. She hadn’t even had the chance to draw him! There had been so many new people recently and she was excited to get to know them all, once they’d shown they weren’t a danger, of course.
“Did you have a lot of trees at home? In the greenhouse or were they outside in the woods? Forest? There was a forest where I used to live too, but I didn’t know the trees very well.”
“Lessons in harbouring and controlling magic,” Dayton replied. “Learning control, utilisation, incantations and tinctures.” There were times as a boy he had worked and struggled with particular chapters with no food or sleep until he’d mastered the concepts. But it had been in his best interests. He was stronger for that now. Those brutal lessons as a boy had transformed him into the witch he was today.
“A good many. I spent a lot of time in the forest as a child, and as I grew. It was like a second home.” The forest bent to him and he did the same for it. “I miss those walks. My friends there.” It was in that same grove of trees that he’d come upon his familiar. There were so many memories left behind and he was sure that it was the same for his brother. “Tell me about your forest?”
Sunny hummed in thought, ears twitching a little atop her head as she lifted her fingers, holding her hand up so her palm was flat. She took a breath, thinking about the lush, thick forests that she called home for years, though she’d been at the cirque for longer than she’d ever lived there, by now. It took her no effort at all to change the air around them, conjuring an illusion of the dense forest trails, sunlight dappling through the trees.
“I used to hunt there,” she said, “and sometimes there were intruders, so I hunted them too. During the winter it snowed, but in the summer there were these gorgeous purple flowers that grew everywhere…I don’t know what they were called, ‘cause I didn’t…I only ever killed the people that came into my forest. But they were pretty.”
Day’s breath caught in his throat as the lines of trees assumed the reality where his booth and the Midway had once been. Dark eyes closed. His lungs captured a deep and slow inhale of the forest and he felt himself quivering with an acute wave of emotion. He could’ve cried just then, wept. Lain at Sunny’s feet, the dirt, and worshipped. But he held himself together. It was only an illusion but an evoking one all the same. A soft exhale and those earthy browns reopened to behold the woman.
His smile blossomed, “Death is part of life, nature,” he murmured. While he had never taken a life, his prowess for potency could do such in little to no time. “All go back to the earth in one way or another. You were simply taking care of your natural habitat. There is no fault in protecting the things that you have or keeping sacred the places you lay your head.”
As she spoke of those purple flowers he felt a keen interest bubbling up inside of his stomach. He wanted to see them for himself. To know them and talk with them. “Maybe one day you can show them to me.”
Sunny’s ears twitched again, flattening and then perking right up, tail doing the same, puffing in a manner that showed just how pleased she was at his pragmatic approach to death. Oh yes, he’d fit in just fine here. Provided he didn’t have very public arguments with anyone else in the cirque because that might make things overall pretty awkward. She closed her fingers towards her fist and the illusion melted away as thought it were sand caught in the breeze.
“If we ever go to South Korea,” she said with a nod, “I’ll take you to Jeju island. We can go see my mountain.”
Well, it wasn’t her mountain as much as it was nature’s but she’d been born of the magical energy there, manifested as what she is, so she was as much a part of the mountain as anything else.
“It would be fun if we did go to South Korea, you know. I think we’d have a great time there. It’s pretty different there now compared to what it was when I left, but there’d just been a war so…”
“I would like that very much.” Dayton smiled at Sunny, nodding. “To see your mountain first hand.” He felt honored that she would invite him to such a sacred place. Of course he would respect it. Walking in the prints of the fox who made it her home was the pathway he would take to be enlightened by the spirits there.
The earth didn’t belong to the humans or creatures which occupied its many plains, but he would consider it his all the same. Where you made your home was important.
“Mm, visiting other countries and cultures makes me happy. I love learning about the way others love the earth around them. I have a feeling that you are no different.”
“You’ll get to do a lot of that here,” Sunny said with a nod of her head, “I mean–we travel all over the world. I think that’s partly why everyone feels a little…off after we land in a new place. Teleporting around the world in an instant and all.”
She hummed, lifted her fingers to touch the flower that was tucked into her hair. “This is so pretty, thank you. I’ll take good care of it.”
Dayton nodded. “Who knew I could be a world traveller for a little bit of blood?” He joked, referring to signing the contract with the cirque. It was nice, though. Being able to see the world, even just as a carousel operator. He did miss home, though. “That kind of magic is powerful. Likely why we all feel it. The cirque does what it can to handle the backlash but the residual trickles down to us.” There was always a price for magic, and someone had to pay it.
“I know that you will. If it begins to grow sad or sleepy, come and see me. I can perk it back up in no time.”
Sunny nodded. She didn’t really mind the excess of magic but it made her feel particularly hungry for a few days after because it wasn’t like she could absorb the energy in the air so it just rankled her and made her feel like she needed something to eat. Which she would get as soon as she could convince Ren to go hunting with her.
She gave Dayton a little half-bow of thanks, “A neverending flower sounds like something I’d love to have,” she added, “at least until I can show you the purple ones of my home. Then I can have one of those instead!”
“All that you’d like,” Dayton promised. Those little purple flowers were like prized jewels and he wanted to make sure Sunny got to wear them proudly. He couldn’t wait to see them. “Maybe one day I’ll be able to walk with you through my mothers gardens.” What was left of them now that his ex was in charge of the estate. They were once a coveted sight.
“But until then, enjoy your flower and I will be honored to be called your friend.”
“I’d like that,” Sunny said with a nod of her head, “to see your gardens.”
She beamed again and twirled on the spot, “I’ll be back to pester you later, I’m sure, but for now, I–uh–I’ll let you get on with setting up. I have to go find someo–thing to eat anyway.”
With a final parting grin and a wiggle of her fingers, Sunny turned and headed away, flower still safely nestled in her hair.