It's a lovely afternoon for a walk, and Kseniya seems to have decided to do a little more exploring. A recent scavenger hunt got her out to see places she didn't even know were a thing, and evidently, she is now taking that even further. It's why she's ventured from the city to the town, parked an RV style van Sid would find familiar, gotten out and walked. And her fashion choices for this little stroll are black combat boots with laces holding little plastic cherries on them, black shorts over torn fishnet stockings, a black and candy-apple red striped t-shirt. And the streaks in her otherwise black hair? Also candy apple red. All of which is pretty standard Kseniya fashion choices.
So. In short. Same old Kseniya, in her captivating prettiness and absurdly short stature. No changes. No mantle. Not dead. Not in Arcadia.
The ever familiar sound of skateboard wheels grinding on the edge of pavement, scraping, followed by silence and then a clatter of wheels hitting the pavement rolling again before repeating. Wood and wheels grinding on pavement, not for speed, but to touch as many things as possible. An almost audible tap dance of athletic percussion. A familiarity of people and their tools. And then? A car alarm and a very familiar voice yelling at the sky to nothing in particular, "Seriously?! Who puts a car alarm on in the middle of bum fruiting Vermont?! Seeeeeriouly?!" Fruiting?! The problem with Sid was he did and didn't look like himself. From the corner of one's eye, sure, but anything trying to focus on him lost the picture. Too many details shifting to appeal to an ideal rather than the actual substance of him. That voice though sounded pretty distinct still.
Familiar.. except that that voice should be actually, outright swearing. At first, when it's just the sound of the wheels, Kseniya smiles. Sure, the sound always makes her think of Sid. But it's a common enough sound. So, she keeps walking, until the car alarm makes her jump, and.. that voice. It's a voice that makes her whip around, staring. In shock, initially, and then confusion. Is it Sid? Is it not Sid? He's nice to look at either way, but.. Kseniya just stands, rooted to the spot, probably standing out like a sore thumb in this little Vermont town, staring at the... satyr?
Sid was a Satyr by virtue of really toned calves, but what 20-something year old dude didn't have that. The short horns at the front of his hairline seemed to be a staple to go by. The style choice seemed about right. Maybe. That he was mediating an argument between the sky and the car and pleading with the car to just stop? Yeah also normalized behaviour for him. "Seriously, who wants your Buick? Because it's so precious you have to staple it to the concrete so it doesn't get stolen?" He didn't see her at first but he was considering if there was a way to turn it off. More yelling, not at the building with the most sincere and generous offer. "If you don't want to turn it off I can put a rock in your windshield so you don't feel disappointed. I'm only thinking of you ya know. And you're feelings cause our hearing is shot now. Don't... worry about us." And someone from a nearby residence bwoop-bwooped the car remotely to turn it off. Without thinking he sighed and dropped a hand onto the hood. It went off again. "Awww what the Flamingo!" Someone appeared at the window and he smiled and waved to them as they gave an annoyed look. They turned the car off and made a 'shoo' motion for him to get away from it. He took his board and did so. When he turned though? That... that brought him up to a stop staring right at Kseniya.
Kseniya is just standing there, when he turns from the noisy Buick and faces directly towards her. Standing there, quite frozen to the ground. Her expression is perhaps amusing to behold. Shock warring with confusion, with hope kind of sidling in around the edges. So. She keeps on staring. Because he looks like Sid. And.. he doesn't look like Sid. But he sure as hell -sounds- like Sid. Except, of course, for that 'flamingo', anyway. Bright blue eyes sweep over him, from head to foot, and back up, resting on his forehead. "S.. Sid?" Same voice. Same generic American accent.. it was her parents who immigrated from the Ukraine, not her or her siblings. But she doesn't sound quite sure.
You know, there was precious little in the world that could get Sid to shut up or take something seriously. This seemed to do both. At his name being called out by the woman who, among others, was grieved as dead for the last half year since his return? He stood stunned, quiet, and the skateboard in his fingers slipped so that the back of the board bounced off the concrete by his foot. "Kseniya?" Oh yeah. He knew her. KNEW knew her. One hand gripped his mouth as his chest seemed to grip the air in his lungs. Yeah. He was here. He was so very vaguely not at all the same and yet, was.
Kseniya takes one step forward, then stops, staring at him. Now. See. To Kseniya, "family" has never been a matter of blood. Anyone travelling in that show for long enough automatically became as much family as those with blood ties. To her? Sid was, is, a brother, and like him, she likely thought him dead. Because she still doesn't truly understand what happened to those the privateers carted off. She just stares at him, tears forming in those pretty blue eyes of hers, the confusion giving way in the face of the shock. Yet. Her gaze goes back up to his brow. "You're... not... I mean. You're... here." Then she pretty much launches at him. No one can launch herself at a person like an aerialist.
Sid dropped the board letting the back wheels catch and the front wheels bounce. It started to roll off a short ways until it stopped in the grass. He was young when he lost his father who was a professional race car driver but he learned a valuable lesson from him: your crew is your team and your team is your family. We are who we are because of them making us better. it was an extension of family and of self. He hugged her so tightly he was idly afraid of making her pop but for that aerialists were like all muscles and had no bones. His eyes squint shut and he buried half his face into her shoulder until his eyes watered up. He said nothing. He stood there catching his breath and his words. Finally he said swallowing, "I tried to find the others. Read everyone was gone. Dead. Wait, you're not dead and a zombie gonna eat me or nothin right? I'm gamy" His throat was dry and full of emotion but there was room to eek out some bit of humor because familiar was comfortable, and because bad humor at terrible times was sort of a staple.
-Clearly- hes just spent too long amidst tiny flying Russians. Bad humour in terrible times is a thing. And she -is- all muscle and no bones. He, of all people, has reason to know how strong Kseniya is, particularly for someone only 4'10". It's just not bulky muscle, is all. She clings tight to him now. Like he's going to slip away. For all she knows, he might. She clings, and despite usually being a happy sort, she outright sobs into him. "I th..tho..thought you were dead, I thought the spiders ate you." See. Her memories are.. fuzzy. So, while it was skitterskulks and their hedge beasts and mounts that attacked, stole, and carried off, Kseniya just remembers "enormous spiders". Then. "W.. wait, what.. zombie? I'm not." She pulls back, without letting go, looks up, sniffles, and then... looks up at his brow again. And if he had any doubts? One little hand reaches up and touches a horn. "You're.. one of them?" Well. At least her voice is all hushed and stuff.
Sid stopped joking as the Skitterskulk drider creepy things were brought up. Fingertips dug into her. He was scruffy and the more they stayed there the more acutely he started to become an idyllic trope of himself. He whispered, "I don't... want to remember them" There was something that was stilted. Haunted really. He knew exactly what she meant though at the observation he scoffed "Noooo I'm not one of them. I'm not a hipster, I bathe, and I'm not gross!" because that was his great take-away there.
Kseniya blinks, confused. "No. Not a hipster." She touches the horn again, then taps it. The spiders? Not discussed, past a mention. Girl can never look at a spider again without freaking the hell out, she's liable to carry that phobia for the rest of her life. She peeks around, but still doesn't let go of him, even though this isn't a great place to talk. But. Where can she go? Nowhere. She can't take him 'home', she's still on probation there, no guests allowed. Her voice lowers. "They took me, too, but.. you know.. what I'm like with bindings." That is to say, the damned double-jointed gymnast can get out of any kind of binding. She -could- function as an escape artist, but she doesn't. "But I.. couldn't... get anyone else out, and.. I'm so sorry. I should have. I ran. I shouldn't have."
Sid just hung onto her with his thumb brushing her shoulder over and over. "Philippe, Marco and I tried to fight em but.... we couldn't. We-" God he's been trying to block that out of memory and just cried against the top of her head switching channels, "I'm glad you're okay. I'm glad those melon farmers didn't get you." He chuckled and KNEW she could get out of literally any bind. "I missed you, bendy straw. Did... anyone else?"
Melon farmers? She stares at him, bewildered, for a moment, but the conversation is too serious for asking about that right now. Fresh tears well up, and she shakes her head, and leans in a bit once more, pressing her face into his shoulder. "No," comes her muffled voice. "I found.. the spot. Just.. abandoned trailers and vans. Well.. some of them were burned." That might be her fault. During the attack, she.. well.. fought back in the best way she knew. With fire. It pretty much ensured her snatching, pyrokinetics would make the best Firehearts. "It's been.. been six months, and just.. me. Since I got out of.. of.. -there-, and I thought I was crazy for most of it."
Sid set her fet back down on the pavement. Finally. He stamped on the back of the board and popped it up into his hand like a magic trick. Something he could always do but the knack wasn't lost. He nodded towards the Wayhouse. "This is the place I'm staying it's... well it's safe to talk in." He looked around on the street and nodded her up to the Wayhouse. It was an uneasy transition to make, but so welcome. He sighed "Yeah, mine was... well it was a longer story. I got back and like two days passed. So confusing. And me stranded in the Middle East? Oh that was fun. Whitest white boy with no ID in the middle of the Good Dan desert." There was a smirk as he glanced back to her.
Kseniya glances at the Wayhouse for a long moment. Then back at Sid, uncertainty written all over her face. "Is it.. okay? If I go in there? Uh. I mean. I'm not.. one of you." She ducks her head. "It's been really hard to find out anything. I can't just blurt out 'hey, you've got funky eyes' at people. I still don't know.. well.. much? So I don't understand. It's been terrifying, actually." She pauses, then adds, "Six days. It was six days. I got kind of.. lost." She does blanch, just a bit, at where he came out... but she also takes a hesitant step towards the Wayhouse.
Sid offered a hand out to her and seemed to have a knack for keeping conversation scrubbed at street level. He grinned and said "Like me? Ohhhhh no it's okay. You don't have to be one meter or taller to ride this ride. You're good." He waited to get punched for that but sometimes bad familiar things helped. They were a defense mechanism, but maybe not just for himself. Apparently he didn't have a concern. "It's like a um... halfway house. People gettin back on their feet."
Kseniya both takes his offered hand -and- punches him. It's just not a very hard punch, and it lands on his shoulder. Just the way one might hit.. well.. a brother. But that other little hand is clinging awfully tightly to his larger one. Again, it's like she's afraid he might slip away if she doesn't keep a secure grip upon him. She follows him onto the gravel drive and into the trees.. which is perhaps a -little- creepy, at first. "I could have used one," she mutters. "Hell, maybe I still could, even if I have a place. I even have a place with one of.. ah.. you. But he doesn't know I see him." Her blue eyes skitter about as they pass through the trees, relaxing when the clearing with the house is reached. "Wow," is then said, a little bit deadpan, as she gives the tired looking house a dubious look. "...such splendour. You know. Only one person knows for sure that I see them. ?Though. Maybe the Golden Boy or the dude with the horns that thought scaring me was fun figured it out."
Sid flinched faintly, but there was a grin. It was kinda scary, and confusing, and he was not, ever, letting go of her hand. He blinked and said flatly, "loook I said it was a halfway house. I didn't mean the people were halfway, I meant it was half way to BEING a house." He blinked at it and looked at her and some memories came back to him and said "Hey, remember when our trailers broke down halfway across the border and we were like shit our passports went on without us?" A small smile came to his face looking back to her. It didn't reach his eyes. There were emotions there but they were hard to surface. This was ripping the scar open again, but sometimes that needed to be done to prevent an emotional infection. His hand squeezed her and he chuckled. Quieter he confessed, "I miss them."
"Of course. And I remember who fixed the engine, too." Namely.. her. She's a girl of many talents. But most of the lifelong carnies were. Her little hand squeezed back, the levity dying a quick death at that last bit. She makes a little sound, kind of a hiccup, and bobs her head up and down. "Yeah," she says, the word coming out choked. "...me too, Sid. Every day. Least I can stop missing you." She eyes the house. "So. You guys are organized enough for halfway houses?"
Sid looked at the place he only just moved into a couple days ago arching an eyebrow "Or let you stop missing me enough to go Sidney, what the Harpo Marx did you just agree us to?" Because he didn't know how to say no to a dare then or now. "I think we're disorganized enough to need one. It's... well it's not too different from being on the road. Was hard for me at first but luckily? I look like whatever the hootenanny people are expecting so I was actually able to pass alright overseas. Didn't expect that to be much of a boon but, hey. Small miracles." Yeah he hasn't sworn once. Whether he was doing it consciously or subconsciously? Who knows. "Still like when we travel and we run into other troupes and stuff? They're like hey break bread. Sometimes there's like a professional respect we have for other survivors. Sometimes people are like the Crawlies and they are scary as hell and we hide. To be fair not all ugly things are working of the people that invaded our Golf divining home. Some people just didn't get blessed in the genetics department. But it's, well, it's an adjustment. I met someone I knew form when I just got out is here. And this guy named Lucky and a lady named Miranda. They seem pretty groovy."
|
