I'll never forget the night that we took a wrong right and lost ourselves at the Carnival...

[traveling_folk]

[[Again, I'm a bit behind on threads, but it's That Time, so if your character wants a black ticket and hasn't yet received one, feel free to post them in, and I'll go back and do the lead-up as best I can. That said, characters that show up are in real danger here -- they will very likely be injured. They may die. If you want your characters

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[girlorgun]

Before leaving for the midnight show, April made sure to strap a few small knives to her person. She and Sark split up a block or so away from the entrance, so he could sneak in, and she walked up to the entrance, presented her ticket, and entered, tense and ready for an attack.

Except... as she walks through the carnival, breathing the strangely sweet air, she finds herself feeling... almost happy. Calm, at the very least, and relaxed. She vaguely wants to find somewhere to sit down and just... well, sit, and feel this way, but something in the back of her head won't let her. So she's been wandering a little aimlessly, not looking for Julian. The dancers on the stage glitter and twirl, and eventually she stands there entranced by their movements.

At least if she's standing still, it'll be easy for Sark to find her.

[sarkraticmethod]

If there was a way to secure a shotgun without it being very obvious that you're packing one, Sark would have one on his person, but as there isn't, he's made do with a couple of semiautomatics and his own collection of knives. April told him there was something wrong with his head (and more than that, probably) after they left here earlier today, and that on top of the fortunes has left him more than willing to take out some high-class vengeance on them should they prove to be a threat. He doesn't even miss being able to go invisible when it comes time to sneak in- it's more than easy, with his training, to get onto the grounds and mix with the crowds like he was always meant to be there

[girlorgun]

April turns, twists her head to look up at him, somewhat vacantly, and blinks slowly. Her eyes are dilated, and she's trying very hard to focus on him. The problem is she's picking up the lazy, easy feelings from the other carnival-goers around her, and it's looping a bit. Harder to control things when she's this... floaty.

"Trying," she says. "It's..." she searches for a word, and then shakes her head. "The air is sweet." Her instinct is to breathe deeply, but she doesn't. She focuses as best she can, trying to draw herself back in from where she was starting to float out. "This will be difficult," she says. "Eyes open. Danger's here."

[traveling_folk]

The stage belongs to Max now, and the dancers have made their way down into the crowd... And one of them moves with light steps towards Sark and April. "Not having fun?" she asks. "We've got rules against that kind of thing here..." She arches an eyebrow and looks Sark over.

"Come on! Midnight show! Live a little!" And as she dances past, she brushes against him ever so suggestively...

She might be checking his reactions. If he hasn't been sucked in... Well. Someone's going to have to warn Maxie and the Carnival Mama. They have their ways of dealing with these things.

[sarkraticmethod]

The appropriate reaction is to pretend that you're having fun, so no one's the wiser. Sark knows this, Sark's done this a hundred times before.

Sark's also just a little bit pissed off at the world right now, especially with the way April's reacting to everything. If there's a way to piss him off severely, that's one of the big ones.

He tenses when she brushes past him, which gives away more than he really wants to give away, but he's still not entirely sure what sort of people these maniacs are. It never occurs to him that he may be in over his head until after he's nearly drowning.

He squeezes April's hand a little more, trying to give her something physical to help ground her, for all that he doubts it'll do any good when it's her mind that's floating, and then swallows. "As a matter of fact, this is my 'having fun' face," he replies, voice scathing.

Yeah, probably not a good idea to taunt them. Sark's just waiting for them to give him a reason to start shooting.

[girlorgun]

April is smarter than you, Sark. It's also possible she's angrier than you, but in her many years, she's learned to have cold anger. Cold rage. It burns longer, and it lets her set it aside until she can put it to use.

Not always, but sometimes, when she lets the Kali part of herself have just a little bit of influence.

She smiles vacantly at the dancing girl and wraps her arms around Sark's arm. Her mind is clearing up, slowly, and her eyes are sharper, watching. "He just takes time to loosen up," she says. "I'm sure he'll have fun soon!" But as much as she's good, the opium smoke makes staying sharp harder, and her lazy smile is sharply at odds with the calculating look in her eyes.

The dancer might have something to take to Max after all.

[traveling_folk]

The dancer eyes them both, still smiling, nothing at all out of place... But she knows. For some reason, these two aren't falling for the act... And that's wrong. If they weren't able to be influenced, they shouldn't be here.

So she laughs, reaching out to lay a gentle finger on the tip of Sark's nose. "Don't be too long," she says, grinning. "You'll miss all the fun!" And before he can respond, she twirls away, putting a few innocent bystanders between her and Sark, reaching out to a nearby torch. They're arrayed here and there, little performance torches waiting in buckets of sand for one of the fire-dancers to pick them up. "I'm Ruby, by the way!" she calls, peeking around a slightly inebriated woman. "And here! A little something to warm you up!"

And, with a wicked grin, she pulls the fire into her hands -- not the torch: the fire. And then she dances, weaving the flame into patterns around her, letting it flow through the air, filling in the empty spaces in her dance... She's gathering a small crowd, and there are still a

[marvelousmax]

As soon as the sparks come down, however, more than one head turns to stare directly at them in a way that's anything but friendly.

One of those heads belongs to Max himself. Another belongs to Sabrina.

Max drops from the stage, vanishing into the crowd, and Sabrina follows.

Anyone watching him may see him make a very slight signaling motion...

[traveling_folk]

...And the World's Strongest Man starts moving towards them both. He's big and imposing, and looks perfectly at ease with the concept of laying some hurt on both of them.

Besides, if either of them tries to pull a weapon, he can always go behemoth on them.

But what he does first is ask, in a very, very polite tone, "Excuse me, sir? Ma'am? Could I see your tickets?"

[sarkraticmethod]

The answering spark to Ruby's little gesture is just a glower that would be a lot more intimidating on anyone but Sark, but he's hoping it gets a point across... Although given her response, he doubts it. He doesn't take his eyes off of her for the duration of her dance and when the fireworks come, realization hits him.

"We've been made," he whispers, just as much to himself as to April, as he watches the fireworks rain down.

When he looks back down, he notes the man coming towards them and realizes that truer words have not been spoken. Big and intimidating or not, he could place money on the fact that he's certain that the bastard wouldn't be able to do anything before he gets his gun out, but he may have fucked things up enough already.

I assume shooting him would be a bad idea? he thinks in April's general direction, hoping she's not so loopy that she can't hear him

[girlorgun]

:: bad. :: she responds instantly. :: is.species(demon[subspecies:behemoth]) ::

"I've got our tickets," April says. "Put 'em in my pocket." She digs out hers, and then makes a valiant attempt to playact a cry of dismay and a show of searching her pockets and the ground. "Where'd the other one go? It was right here, I had it!"

She's trying to project a bit of trust, or indifference, or something on the strongman, but it's clumsy, and living around Glaysas and psychics... well, he'll probably notice. Not to mention it's probably bleeding over on to Sark, a bit.

[traveling_folk]

Oh, isn't that cute. Lee -- the aforementioned World's Strongest Man -- is not amused. His voice is still as mild as ever, though.

"I'm really sorry, sir, but if you don't have a ticket, I'm going to have to ask you to leave. I'm afraid Mr. Maxwell doesn't remember inviting you... And Mr. Maxwell approves all invitations personally." He sounds pretty apologetic about the whole thing, in the way the best professional muscle does. He doesn't need to threaten anyone -- everything about him does that well enough already. He's just very sorry for all the trouble. "So, if you'll step right this way, sir?"

[girlorgun]

"But he couldn't have!" April blurts out, for no apparent reason. "Mine came out of a fortune teller machine. He couldn't have made it give me one!"

This is... unacceptable. Because... it is.

Her cognitive processes are clearly deteriorated. "Please let him stay! He's my brother, I don't want him to leave."

[sarkraticmethod]

Well, April's argument is better than anything he could have come up with, despite the opium, and at least he can riff on that. Thankfully, he's used to opium from all those dealings with Sokolov back in his own world, so at least the fumes don't impede his ability to act any.

"You must understand, sir, my sister is very ill, and she needs me here with her, in case something happens," he says, trying to look as sweet and innocent and endearing. He doubts it's going to work, but if they don't perceive him as a threat, then maybe they can get out of this. Maybe if he had actually thought of this before they got made, they wouldn't be in this situation. "You wouldn't want to ruin her fun by separating us, now would you?"

This would be the moment where making adorable faces at the nice, scary man would be a really awesome idea, April.

[traveling_folk]

Lee looks down at Sark, his stance not shifting an inch. "I do apologize for the inconvenience, sir. Unfortunately, we've got a really strict policy about these things. Now, if you wanna talk to Mr. Maxwell about it, I can take you to him, no problem. But I can't just let you stay. It wouldn't be fair to everyone else who couldn't bring their friends, would it?"

Lee's being nice, being reasonable... and watching Sark very closely for even the slightest movement that would indicate he's going for a weapon.

Someone starting things off early would ruin the fun for everyone else. Might make things messy. Lee only likes messy things when they fall into Max's plans.

[sarkraticmethod]

Sark looks at April and then looks back at Lee, biting the inside of his lip. Well, he's sure as hell not leaving her here and even if he did feel like leaving April on her own, he doesn't trust that a firm escorting off the premesis is in his future, no matter how pleasant this man seems.

"Well," he says, standing up a little straighter. "By all means, if you'd kindly escort us to Mr. Maxwell, I'm certain I can make a good case for myself."

And getting to speak with the leader of this little operation was something he was most looking forward to anyway. It might yield a few answers.