just a trinket

who: caleb & porcelina
where: the freakshow
when: evening

There was no such thing as "first night jitters" as far as Porcelina was concerned. She was used to this rigmarole, of being put on display. People paid to wander through her tent and look at "The Underwater Miracle - Porcelina! The most beautiful mermaid the 7 seas has to offer!" - ugh. Porcelina was of course not her given name - that was fairly unpronounceable by human standards - but it was a close approximation and it bothered her to no end that The Ringmaster had it put up in tacky flashing blue and green lights. The thing they made her wear was the thing that offended her the most, however. Mermaids were beautiful, not ugly fleshy things marred by too much sunlight. They did not have to cover their bodies, they were not ashamed of their form - so the fact that she was forced to wear two revolting silver clam shells over her breasts made her feel sick. With that stupid gauzy sheet of material that floated down from the vile adornment to cover her stomach. Ridiculous. Offensive.

The children who came to stare seemed to like it though, gawping through the tank - they had to stand back behind the blue velvet ropes while she swum and bared her teeth and whistled the most vulgar of insults that their stupid human ears couldn't comprehend. "Quite good, ain't she?" remarked their balding father, "Clever how they get the makeup to stay on so good underwater - and those prosthetic teeth well! Worth the three bucks to get in. Anyhow, c'mon kids, let's go see the strongman."

Stupid human prattle. She was alone again as the family left her tent - although she did not doubt there would be more. She was unsure as to who was selling tickets for the attractions tonight - sometimes it was the dead thing. Sometimes it was someone else. She didn't care either way. She just wanted the ordeal to be over.

Caleb had wandered towards the freak show that night because his thoughts were restless, and he'd wanted to go for a walk. So, he had. Nic had his car, so she could finish...doing whatever it was she was doing to it. Fixing something. He didn't ask, he just let her do whatever she wanted to the thing and called it good. The walk to the freak show was a little longer than he'd thought it would be, but he didn't mind so much. The day had been warmer than it had been out in a while, even if after dark it was starting to freeze again. Still, he wandered around, paying his way to get into the stupid show, and then he walked around, wondering what the fuck was really going on.

He half suspected something was amiss, just because he was a paranoid motherfucker when it came down to it. Massively paranoid. So, as he looked around and wondered about what he was seeing, he was more prone to believing it than other people were. He noticed a mixed sort of reaction. Tons of people who thought it was all fake, others who looked gently disturbed, because they'd been watching too much coverage of the lycanthrope trials. Caleb was almost watching them more than the 'exhibits'.

Or, he was. Until his eyes landed on a sign advertizing a mermaid. That stopped him in his tracks. He stared at it for a few long, long moments, mind on Melia, and then he forced himself to move forward, and he paid to get in, and then found himself staring at a tank. His reaction was likely odd, considering. He frowned, something internal making him flinch. He'd seen Melia when she'd changed. Swam with the girl(as ill advised as that was). This girl? She was real. And it rattled him, something that only showed up as a frown, as a little bit of a haunted look in his eyes. Like it pained him.

Porcelina stared at the boy who entered with disdain - she mistook his flinching for revulsion and that riled her more than pointing and staring. How dare they be revolted by her - she was superior to them. She was strong and beautiful - even with the scars, she might be ugly by Merfolk standards but even a mutated mermaid was more beautiful than the prettiest of breathers. She pressed her clawed hands up against the glass of the tank and frowned right back at Caleb, her mouth open slightly as she warbled at him in Mermish her sentiments about exactly how offensive she found his flinching.

Caleb glanced around, and since no one else was in the tent at the moment, he stepped over the ropes, and walked up to the tank. He walked directly up to her, watching her eyes behind the glass. She looked pissed, but then again, that seemed kind of default for her kind. So, he did what he generally did with Melia wen she did that and ignored it. He glanced around, then back at her, then up towards the top of the tank, to see if it was open or not. If there was any part of it that was open.

Porcelina tipped her head with curiosity at the boy - humans were usually so concerned with petty rules that they didn't step over the ropes. He was an odd one. She looked up to where he was looking and then back at him trying to meet his gaze - hell, it didn't matter what his intentions were, if he wanted to try and open the trapdoor up there she wasn't going to complain. It wasn't like she was worried he would attack her - she'd break his neck with one hand. But the trapdoor was locked with a very large padlock, and only Renaud and The Ringmaster had keys.

He met her gaze for a long moment, then he started looking around the tank. He walked along behind it, looking in the darker shadows, the flaps in the tent. He found a ladder after a few minutes, and waited til another group of people had come in, made their commentary, and left. This time it was a group of guys he went to high school with who were musing on how fuckable a mermaid was. Caleb rolled his eyes at that, but said nothing, waiting til they'd cleared out before he brought the ladder over, and set it up behind the thing. Then he climbed up, and looked down through the top, where the cage trap door was. "You trapped?" he asked, considering anything with a padlock like that he would consider as such, but if she was there voluntarily, it could just be there for her protection.

Porcelina was used to such commentary from the humans, although it still made her angry. This time though, her attention was not focused on the insulting breathers - she was wondering what the boy was doing at the back of the tent. When he came back with a ladder she did her best to repress the excitement that someone was showing a little initiative that might be able to help her get out and instead swam up to the bars of the trapdoor with an incredibly haughty expression. She clicked her tongue a couple of times at his question - the Mermish way of saying "obviously, you idiot," but then remembered he wouldn't be able to understand that - so she just nodded. She wished she was in her travel tank - which although smaller had the ledge so she could pull herself above water and be understood. But The Ringmaster had vetoed that idea considering how vocal she got.

He nodded, eyeing the lock, then her features again. Then he dug in his pocket, and pulled out one of the bracelets he'd gotten for Melia a long time ago, but he no longer threw out into the water, because she'd disappeared on him. He held it out towards her, letting his fingers dip below the level of the bars--half to see if she'd accept a gift, half to see if she was going to try to take a bite out of him immediately. He just made sure it wasn't his dominant hand.

She looked suspiciously at the boy's hand trailing some dinky bracelet into the water - her water. What was it supposed to be? A present? She was curious, obviously, and as much as she insisted she hated all the trinkets and shiny things The Ringmaster bestowed upon her being offered something by someone new was... well... interesting. She pondered for a moment and then reached up with her clawed hands to snatch the thing - she was fairly brutal about it too, not caring if she scratched him - and examined it with what she hoped was a look of disdain.

She did, faintly, and he pulled his hand back, though not that quickly. She'd scratched him, not bitten him, which to him made a difference. He leaned his arms on the ledge of the tank and kept his eyes on her, wondering what she was going to do with his little offering. Melia had adored all shiny things, so he'd made a habit of just carrying things to give her. Keeping her in presents he liked to think lent him some leeway, or a lot of leeway. He actually considered the girl to be a friend, of sorts. He kind of missed her, really. Plus, one never knew when one was going to have to disappear a corpse, and mermaids were a great way of doing that.

Porcelina for her part hadn't even considered biting him - she still thought of humans as food but it was different, a dull sort of recognition that they were for eating rather than a predatory urge - she was hardly a predator any more. The bracelet had caught her attention, too. She turned it over in her hands and narrowed her eyes, then simply looked back to the boy with an expression that said "what the hell is this meant to be?". Was he going to try and break the lock or not? She didn't understand the way Drys worked.

"It's a present." he told her, since it was hard to miss a good 'wtf' look even if it was on alien looking features. He glanced at the lock again, and pulled at it a little, wondering if it was something that had spellwork on it. "You speak english?" he asked. Melia had. And they'd had some bizarre fucking conversations, but they'd been entertaining, at least. Trying to explain humanity to her was always interesting. So far this chick seemed to want to be all silent, though, so he wondered. Charades he wasn't good at, even when he'd had to try and work out what Melia had wanted to say when she was out of the water. Of course, occasionally she made her feelings clear like when she'd cracked him across the jaw for worrying her. That had been pretty fucking obvious.

Porcelina rolled her eyes and letting the bracelet drop from her grasp and float to the bottom of the tank, she thrust both her hands out of the water and grabbed onto the bars of the trapdoor. There was only a couple of inches of space between the top of the tank and the surface of the water, so she had to hold on to remove her face from the water and be heard. She hooked her arms through the bars and in a smooth motion held her face upwards and out of the water. She probably looked weird, but she had enough upper body strength that it wasn't uncomfortable.

"Speak English well enough," she said in her strange dolphinny-Australian accent, "for the ugliness it is. What d'you want? Climbing like that. You going to try and break in? I'll crack your head open before you get the chance to try anything with the pretty mermaid, boy. Done it before."

Caleb smirked at that. "Lady, I am not interested in a female who doesn't even have compatible parts." he told her. Which was honest. And while he had occasionally found Melia's person-bits attractive, there was that whole fish-parts thing. That really threw a guy off. "What's the story here?" he asked, glancing up and ducking down for a moment as a few more people came inside. He didn't think they'd be able to see well through the tank, but who knew. He wasn't going to make it obvious, either.

Porcelina ignored the newcomers - she was more interested in this boy, and they made a few comments about how well designed her tail was but it was a bit pathetic she wasn't making her need for air less obvious before wandering off.

"Compatible," she spat, "Has nothing to do with it. Filth should know better than to look at their superiors with ugly eyes. Should but rarely do. Anyway - what story? No stories. Just me in a tank - isn't that what you paid to come and stare at, Dry-thing?" She spoke with obvious contempt, not really knowing what he meant, but knowing she wasn't going to give him an inch when it came to showing how curious she was about him. Climbing up and giving her presents. Strange.

"You're different, not superior." he said. "Not that I expect you to buy into that." Because she wouldn't. Mel was the same way, she was just slightly less overt with it after a while because she'd taken a liking to him. "And you still look to me like you've got fish parts, which isn't attractive to me, so you can quit worrying that I'm just here to tap your weird ass." he told her, still sounding amused. "And there's got to be some story. You're in a freak show, locked up. Either you're locked up because they want to protect you from hunters or other far too curious assholes, you're a danger and need to be kept from reaching out and trying to take chunks out of people, or you're not exactly in there on a voluntary basis." he told her, glancing down at his hand where the little scratches she'd given him on the back of his hand by his thumb were gently bleeding. "So...I repeat. What's the story?"

Porcelina's eyes flashed dangerously at his cheek. The impertinence of the humans never died down, did it? Still, she wanted out - and if the boy was a means of doing that then so be it. "Trapped. Contained. Breathers think they own the sea, that they can tame it even if they can't swim it," she scoffed at this - obviously one of the worst Mermish insults was insinuating someone was a bad swimmer, and so it was a comment designed to hurt the boy's feelings, "So here I am. Entertainment, for him and for you. Satisfied? Get beached," she spat, glowering at him. She didn't take kindly to his tone.

It was clear that she missed the mark on hurting Caleb's feelings, but then, she would have had to try pretty damn hard to manage that, and know him a lot better. For the most part, he just listened to her, looking down at her as she spoke. "I didn't really come here for entertainment. I came here because it seemed fucked up, and I wanted to see if it really was, or if someone was just making shit up and trying to make a quick buck with cheesy makeup tricks. You're the real thing, though. And I don't especially like the idea of you being trapped. Had a friend once, was your kind. She would have hated this." he explained.

"My kind do not befriend Breathers," said Porcelina instantly, still glaring, "It would be like befriending a seal. Quaint, but pointless. You are for feeding. We do not want your association, you thrash and you pollute." She gave him a look of pure venom and snorted, the very idea of a Mermaid putting up with the prattle of some human youth was ridiculous, and Porcelina took it to be a lie. After all, the rest of her kind were not like her - not trapped and weak and stupid. They were strong. If a mermaid met this child she'd act with proper standing and either devour or drown him.

"Really." he said. "Well, you go ahead and believe that all you want, but she was a friend of mine. And, considering I'm so pointless and all...see ya." he said, starting to head down the ladder again, willing to put up with eccentricities, but not really shit. And he didn't know if he was going to make good on the threat, he might just find a way to roundaboutly free her if possible, but yeah. it didn't mean he had to stand there and listen to her drivel.

"Wait," said Porcelina without thinking - hating herself for calling him back. Pride and desperation were a terrible combination, "I don't want your trinket. Take it back with you," she said with the petulant air of a child - especially as she did want the trinket, but she couldn't say what she was really thinking which was 'I thought you would help me escape'. Help. From a human. It was disgusting that she even considered it. She waited to see if he would stop climbing down the ladder and come back to talk to her before she dove down to fetch the little glittery braclet from the bottom of the tank, amping up the fury in her expression to try and hide the disappointment.

"It was a gift. It's yours. Do with it what you want." he said, hopping down to the floor. He turned to walk off, but it wasn't as fast as he could have done it. Just in case. He was aware of how they worked...kind of. He'd dealt with enough shit from Melia, a good part of it you just had to ignore, but still. They did have to learn, too. And one lesson was 'don't bite the hand that feeds'. For a species that thought they were so far above humanity, they sure were fucking stupid sometimes.

Porcelina dived back into the water and slammed her tail hard against the tank as she watched him go, furious (although honestly, more at herself than at him). The force of the hit made the ladder topple over with a crash. It was enough noise the whoever was outside charging the entrance fee would come in to see what happened - if the boy was going to storm off and leave her all alone he could do it running. Why should she care. She picked the bracelet up from the bottom of the tank and looked at it miserably, slipping it over her wrist and admiring it's sparkle in the water. Stupid humans. Stupid everyone.

Caleb looked back at the thunk, and he looked like he was going to head back over, but yeah. Then the ticket taker was coming inside, and he had to make a break for it. Which was easier than it sounded, since all he had to do was duck outside and drop into the crowd. He'd probably be back. Tomorrow, maybe. See if she'd cooled down a little bit. Plus, he had more bracelets he could give her. It wasn't like he had anything better to do with them.