TVSGSOE! (Chapter Three)
Title: The Victoria Sisters' Greatest Show On Earth! (Chapter Three)
Characters: Mirrorverse cast.
Rating: T.
Warnings: Mirrorverse-AU. We are not saints, more like sailors sometimes. Circus folk tend to be interesting, too.
Spoilers: None.
Summary: In an Alternate Universe to Our Mirrorverse, we are all part of a circus.
Notes: None for the moment.
Disclaimer: I do not own Mirrorverse. I do not own the Ringling Bros.
Chapter One | Chapter Two
They’re in Nebraska. Maybe. He can never really tell sometimes. In any case, it’s a pretty okay place. They’re not far from Omaha, but it’s far enough that people are eager for something to entertain them.
The sky is blue and spotted with white clouds, and he has to squint to see what’s going on. Trystan is in the lion’s pen, playing - of all things - fetch with the cats. Sam is nearby, watching and laughing along with one of the performers, Arielle. They mostly call her Ari, and she’s in her street clothes.
A little farther away, he can see some of the men struggling to unload and set up the tents. There’s usually about twenty men doing that job; today, it’s only fifteen.
He looks back to Sam, and gestures to the laboring men. She looks before nodding at him to go help. Emilie has already eaten, he’s already gotten her water, and she’s now lazing in the sun, so there’s no harm in leaving his usual work to help out.
He wanders over, watching them struggle with the weight. “Need some help?”
A few of them turn and let go of the load, distracted. The ones still holding on shriek a little and sink down beneath the burden. He tries - not very hard - to not smile at the image. It’s too comical to not laugh, but he manages to hold it in.
The men - led by Peter Pettigrew - sigh in relief at the sight of him. They all know he’s strong. They have to know, because they’ve all seen him carry the fifty-five gallon drums of water to the elephant pen by himself. He knows he doesn’t look like a strong man, but they know better now.
He’s been with them for a little over six months, and the only reason he even got the job in the first place is because he can do the job of two, maybe even three men. Carrying water isn’t easy, when it comes to elephants, and if they hired him, they could save some money. So he was on.
His first real day, he was sent to get the water the advance man ordered in Raleigh, North Carolina. A company of men had brought all their supplies in a caravan of trucks, and it wasn’t a far walk from the trucks to where Emilie was. He swung himself up onto the back of the truck and started moving the barrels to line them up on the ground. Most of the other men were watching him move his load easily, and they were more than a little skeptical. Still, he moved them to the side easily, without any help, in less than two minutes. All fifteen of them, lined up by the outer fence, the metal gleaming in the sunlight.
He jumped off the truck effortlessly, brushing his hands off on his pants. Peter came over from another truck, filled with peanuts and popcorn. “Need some help?” He was looking at all fifteen drums, probably wondering how one man was going to carry them all by himself.
“Nah, thanks though. I have it.” He picked up one of the drums smoothly and started moving to Emilie’s pen. They watched him walk away, and everyone was surprised. Peter turned around and started shouting at them to keep moving, they’re not getting paid to stand around.
When they see him now, they’re all thankful that he’s there to help.
Peter smiles at him as he walks closer, and shakes his hand. “We’ve had a few men run off in the night, so we’re short some hands. We’d be much obliged if you could give us a hand.”
“I’ll do you even better - two hands.” The men chuckle, and he smiles.
“Thank you. It’s a big help.” James Potter is standing there as well. He’s another roustabout, traveling with his young wife, Lily, who is on the trapeze team with Caitlin and Ashe.
He shakes James’s hand, and moves to the end of the rolled up tent. The rest of the men adjust, knowing that he could very well carry this on his own if he wanted to. Peter directs him where to go, and they begin to set up. What is normally a half-hour job takes twenty, for the big tent. The rest are smaller, easier to put up, and they’re done relatively quickly.
James and Peter invite him for dinner. Normally, he doesn’t eat with the rest of them. But these men genuinely like him, and if they were going to do anything he couldn’t handle - and he can handle quite a bit - he figures Greta would’ve told him about it.
They go into town with a big group of people - Norrington, Nicole, Ari, Sam, Sirius, Elaine, Sheridan, Melissa, Adi, Erik, Caitlin, and a few others - and soon part ways. The show starts tomorrow, so they have some time to kill, getting ready for their acts and preparing to work all day. It’s truly grueling some days, but it’s worth it.
He’s surprised to find that Sirius is quite friendly with James and Peter - they’d all sort of joined together, not long before Sheridan joined them. The four of them are all from Georgia, though the boys are from Savannah, while Sheridan is from Atlanta.
He was from a small town about a seven hour walk from Raleigh - Durham, North Carolina. He’d gone into town that day, to find a job. He knew his parents didn’t mind him and his… condition, but he felt badly about staying on with them. They were too generous, and it felt wrong. So he’d woken up early in the morning and walked into town, hitched a ride where he could, and tried to find a place to work.
Most of the people around were heading towards the circus, and he’d simply followed, wondering where they were going. He’d stood in awe to see the lights and the colors and the entertaining people. He sat through Sheridan’s performance with her horses, and was amazed by Trystan’s daring with his lions.
Ari was simply dazzling when she performed with Emilie, and he liked that act the best.
After Emilie and Ari disappeared, everyone left the big tent, and he’d gotten lost in the mayhem. After wandering around a bit, he was outside the animal enclosure. Most everyone was elsewhere; watching clowns on stilts and Margot, the Bearded Lady was putting on an act with Cornelia, the Tattooed Woman. He was able to catch his breath, and he relaxed. Then he heard an argument.
He turned around and saw Sam practically in tears. She was angry, and Trystan was next to her, shouting expletives at a small group of men walking away. They brushed him off, and one of them made an obscene gesture. Sam slumped against Trystan, and he held her.
She saw him first, through her tears. She wiped her sleeve against her face. Trystan’s brow furrowed as he released her. She waved him off, muttering about feeding the cats, because someone has to now.
“Hello. Can I help you?” She asked. She didn’t seem to be the least bit embarrassed by what had just happened - indeed, apart from the tracks of her tears on her face, she looked like nothing had even happened at all.
He blinked. “Uhm… are you alright?” He asked. He’s polite, always polite. He was raised to respect women, no matter how horrible they might be. In his naiveté, he’d assumed all men had been taught the same - apparently not.
She smiled at him and a tired laugh escaped from her mouth. “I’m fine. Just a little upset.”
He nodded, because it was easy to tell, to him.
Without warning, she launched into an explanation.
“Those five men, they were part of our team. They carried the water and food to Emilie, and helped feed the other animals. Emilie’s my elephant. I’m the elephant trainer, and I love her. They’d been out drinking earlier, before the show, instead of getting her food. So she’d had to perform without even eating yet. I just asked him to go and fetch her food and water, and they started to get angry - something about being too tired. I sort of went on a tirade, explaining that they were hired to do their job, not drink, so hadn’t they better do it? They got angry, said something about not getting paid enough, and started to leave. I told them to stay, to do their job. It’s irresponsible to just leave like that, no warning whatsoever. You saw the rest.” She leaned against the low fencing separating them.
He furrowed his brow. “Drinking? But… it’s-”
“Illegal?” She cut him off. “They can still get it pretty easy. Just have to know the right people. In any case, they just up and quit, without even finishing their job. So now I have to ask James and Peter to send some men to get her provisions.” She sighed, and then looked at him, her head tilting a little to the left. “You need a job?”
He blinked at her, a little perturbed. “Um… yes. How did you know?”
“Most men your age are at work. I figure you either need a job, or you’re pretty wealthy. Only, wealthy men don’t come to the circus much, and if they do, they usually wear shoes.”
He looked down to his bare feet. They weren’t bloody, not anymore. Years of walking around without shoes on had hardened the soles of his feet, so even the long walk to town wasn’t all that bad.
He looked back up at her and smiled. “I guess so.” He shifted on his feet a little, digging his hands into the pockets of his father’s pants. His borrowed shirt rode up a little, dust from the breeze settled into the fabric.
“Are you strong?” Sam asked.
“Ma’am?” He was a little confused.
“Are you strong, can you lift things?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Not ma’am. Sam will do fine. Now, if you can do me a favor here, I can get you a job with our show. I just need someone to go get Emilie’s food and water from the trucks. I’ll send Trystan with you, and if you can get it here easy enough, without hurting yourself, I’ll hire you.” Sam stared at him evenly, watching his reaction.
“Alright. Sounds good to me.” He shrugged, and watched as she called Trystan over.
The two of them walked to the trucks a little ways from the train. Ten barrels of water, seventy pounds of cabbage, seventy pounds of apples and bananas each, and one hundred and twenty pounds of hay for her sat on three trucks. Three five-pound bags of peanuts sat next to the water.
“Emilie eats a lot. We’re only here until midday tomorrow, so what she doesn’t eat today will undoubtedly be gone tomorrow. She also really, really likes her peanuts.” Trystan explained. He walked up to the peanuts and started pulling them down. “Help me carry these, son, and then we’ll start with the water. She’s probably really thirsty, and with the day she’s had, she deserves a treat.”
He grabbed two bags and laid one on top of the other in his arms. “Here, I can carry a few more. Probably not all five, or else I won’t be able to see.”
Trystan laid two more bags on top, and wrinkled his brow when he didn’t stumble a little at the weight. They walked together to the enclosure and Trystan gave one bag to Sam, telling him where to put the others.
They went back to the truck, and he picked up a barrel easily and started walking away. Trystan jumped off the truck and ran towards him. “What in the hell…?”
“Sorry. I could probably carry a few more, but they’re pretty hard to carry all at once. Where should I put this one?” He walked effortlessly with a barrel, Trystan following, his mouth open in disbelief.
The rest of the food was simple for him. He didn’t want to run, lest he dropped something, but it wasn’t heavy for him. When he put the last of the apples down, Trystan was sitting on the fence, still amazed at how strong he really was. “Son, exactly how much can you lift?”
He shrugged. “I dunno. I never really took the time to find out. I just carried things when my father asked me to.”
“How in the hell do you do it?”
Again, he shrugged. “Just one of those things, I guess.” He knew the truth, but didn’t want to say it. There was a reason - a good one, too - but it may cost him this job, and he already knew how much he wanted to be there.
Within half an hour, he was sitting in Adi and Melissa’s car with Sam, signing a sheet of paper and listening to them talk about his responsibilities in their Australian accents. Afterwards, they explained a bit more.
“We’re from Victoria, Australia. That’s why we’re the Victoria Sisters. We started up about two years ago, but with the state of the country right now, it’s been difficult to really get everything working the way it should.” Melissa said. She leaned back in her chair, a small smile resting on her face.
“Soon, though. Very soon, we’ll be giving Ringling a run for their money.” Adi gesticulated as she spoke. He would enjoy working for the show, he already knew. Everyone he’d met so far was friendly and talkative, which made up for his own reserved nature.
He doesn’t say any of this, though. He sits back in the small restaurant, listening to Sirius and Peter tell jokes, and then James and Lily tell him their story - met at school, she thought he was annoying, he thought she was gorgeous, and then they both joined a show, where the lead lion trainer hit his lion a bit too often, and there was a riot when it bit his arm off in the middle of a show. They married before joining Peter, Sirius, Elaine, Trystan, and Sam with the Victoria Sisters. Trystan took over the lead trainer job, and the lions liked him well enough, since he didn’t lay a hand on them, not once.
He knows this all already, of course, but chooses not to speak. He is amongst friends here, and they don’t mind his silence.
His eyes scan the room, watching Sheridan and Ari laugh with Elaine and Caitlin. Greta is absent, though no one else seems to notice.
He finds out later from Nicole that she had caught a cold around Sioux City, Iowa, but she’ll recover quickly.
Still, he resolves to visit her tomorrow, before the show, just to be sure.
---------
This is one of the longest chapters so far. Wooooo, long chapters.
I'm in the process of writing the next one, so expect that up before the week is out.
Characters: Mirrorverse cast.
Rating: T.
Warnings: Mirrorverse-AU. We are not saints, more like sailors sometimes. Circus folk tend to be interesting, too.
Spoilers: None.
Summary: In an Alternate Universe to Our Mirrorverse, we are all part of a circus.
Notes: None for the moment.
Disclaimer: I do not own Mirrorverse. I do not own the Ringling Bros.
Chapter One | Chapter Two
They’re in Nebraska. Maybe. He can never really tell sometimes. In any case, it’s a pretty okay place. They’re not far from Omaha, but it’s far enough that people are eager for something to entertain them.
The sky is blue and spotted with white clouds, and he has to squint to see what’s going on. Trystan is in the lion’s pen, playing - of all things - fetch with the cats. Sam is nearby, watching and laughing along with one of the performers, Arielle. They mostly call her Ari, and she’s in her street clothes.
A little farther away, he can see some of the men struggling to unload and set up the tents. There’s usually about twenty men doing that job; today, it’s only fifteen.
He looks back to Sam, and gestures to the laboring men. She looks before nodding at him to go help. Emilie has already eaten, he’s already gotten her water, and she’s now lazing in the sun, so there’s no harm in leaving his usual work to help out.
He wanders over, watching them struggle with the weight. “Need some help?”
A few of them turn and let go of the load, distracted. The ones still holding on shriek a little and sink down beneath the burden. He tries - not very hard - to not smile at the image. It’s too comical to not laugh, but he manages to hold it in.
The men - led by Peter Pettigrew - sigh in relief at the sight of him. They all know he’s strong. They have to know, because they’ve all seen him carry the fifty-five gallon drums of water to the elephant pen by himself. He knows he doesn’t look like a strong man, but they know better now.
He’s been with them for a little over six months, and the only reason he even got the job in the first place is because he can do the job of two, maybe even three men. Carrying water isn’t easy, when it comes to elephants, and if they hired him, they could save some money. So he was on.
His first real day, he was sent to get the water the advance man ordered in Raleigh, North Carolina. A company of men had brought all their supplies in a caravan of trucks, and it wasn’t a far walk from the trucks to where Emilie was. He swung himself up onto the back of the truck and started moving the barrels to line them up on the ground. Most of the other men were watching him move his load easily, and they were more than a little skeptical. Still, he moved them to the side easily, without any help, in less than two minutes. All fifteen of them, lined up by the outer fence, the metal gleaming in the sunlight.
He jumped off the truck effortlessly, brushing his hands off on his pants. Peter came over from another truck, filled with peanuts and popcorn. “Need some help?” He was looking at all fifteen drums, probably wondering how one man was going to carry them all by himself.
“Nah, thanks though. I have it.” He picked up one of the drums smoothly and started moving to Emilie’s pen. They watched him walk away, and everyone was surprised. Peter turned around and started shouting at them to keep moving, they’re not getting paid to stand around.
When they see him now, they’re all thankful that he’s there to help.
Peter smiles at him as he walks closer, and shakes his hand. “We’ve had a few men run off in the night, so we’re short some hands. We’d be much obliged if you could give us a hand.”
“I’ll do you even better - two hands.” The men chuckle, and he smiles.
“Thank you. It’s a big help.” James Potter is standing there as well. He’s another roustabout, traveling with his young wife, Lily, who is on the trapeze team with Caitlin and Ashe.
He shakes James’s hand, and moves to the end of the rolled up tent. The rest of the men adjust, knowing that he could very well carry this on his own if he wanted to. Peter directs him where to go, and they begin to set up. What is normally a half-hour job takes twenty, for the big tent. The rest are smaller, easier to put up, and they’re done relatively quickly.
James and Peter invite him for dinner. Normally, he doesn’t eat with the rest of them. But these men genuinely like him, and if they were going to do anything he couldn’t handle - and he can handle quite a bit - he figures Greta would’ve told him about it.
They go into town with a big group of people - Norrington, Nicole, Ari, Sam, Sirius, Elaine, Sheridan, Melissa, Adi, Erik, Caitlin, and a few others - and soon part ways. The show starts tomorrow, so they have some time to kill, getting ready for their acts and preparing to work all day. It’s truly grueling some days, but it’s worth it.
He’s surprised to find that Sirius is quite friendly with James and Peter - they’d all sort of joined together, not long before Sheridan joined them. The four of them are all from Georgia, though the boys are from Savannah, while Sheridan is from Atlanta.
He was from a small town about a seven hour walk from Raleigh - Durham, North Carolina. He’d gone into town that day, to find a job. He knew his parents didn’t mind him and his… condition, but he felt badly about staying on with them. They were too generous, and it felt wrong. So he’d woken up early in the morning and walked into town, hitched a ride where he could, and tried to find a place to work.
Most of the people around were heading towards the circus, and he’d simply followed, wondering where they were going. He’d stood in awe to see the lights and the colors and the entertaining people. He sat through Sheridan’s performance with her horses, and was amazed by Trystan’s daring with his lions.
Ari was simply dazzling when she performed with Emilie, and he liked that act the best.
After Emilie and Ari disappeared, everyone left the big tent, and he’d gotten lost in the mayhem. After wandering around a bit, he was outside the animal enclosure. Most everyone was elsewhere; watching clowns on stilts and Margot, the Bearded Lady was putting on an act with Cornelia, the Tattooed Woman. He was able to catch his breath, and he relaxed. Then he heard an argument.
He turned around and saw Sam practically in tears. She was angry, and Trystan was next to her, shouting expletives at a small group of men walking away. They brushed him off, and one of them made an obscene gesture. Sam slumped against Trystan, and he held her.
She saw him first, through her tears. She wiped her sleeve against her face. Trystan’s brow furrowed as he released her. She waved him off, muttering about feeding the cats, because someone has to now.
“Hello. Can I help you?” She asked. She didn’t seem to be the least bit embarrassed by what had just happened - indeed, apart from the tracks of her tears on her face, she looked like nothing had even happened at all.
He blinked. “Uhm… are you alright?” He asked. He’s polite, always polite. He was raised to respect women, no matter how horrible they might be. In his naiveté, he’d assumed all men had been taught the same - apparently not.
She smiled at him and a tired laugh escaped from her mouth. “I’m fine. Just a little upset.”
He nodded, because it was easy to tell, to him.
Without warning, she launched into an explanation.
“Those five men, they were part of our team. They carried the water and food to Emilie, and helped feed the other animals. Emilie’s my elephant. I’m the elephant trainer, and I love her. They’d been out drinking earlier, before the show, instead of getting her food. So she’d had to perform without even eating yet. I just asked him to go and fetch her food and water, and they started to get angry - something about being too tired. I sort of went on a tirade, explaining that they were hired to do their job, not drink, so hadn’t they better do it? They got angry, said something about not getting paid enough, and started to leave. I told them to stay, to do their job. It’s irresponsible to just leave like that, no warning whatsoever. You saw the rest.” She leaned against the low fencing separating them.
He furrowed his brow. “Drinking? But… it’s-”
“Illegal?” She cut him off. “They can still get it pretty easy. Just have to know the right people. In any case, they just up and quit, without even finishing their job. So now I have to ask James and Peter to send some men to get her provisions.” She sighed, and then looked at him, her head tilting a little to the left. “You need a job?”
He blinked at her, a little perturbed. “Um… yes. How did you know?”
“Most men your age are at work. I figure you either need a job, or you’re pretty wealthy. Only, wealthy men don’t come to the circus much, and if they do, they usually wear shoes.”
He looked down to his bare feet. They weren’t bloody, not anymore. Years of walking around without shoes on had hardened the soles of his feet, so even the long walk to town wasn’t all that bad.
He looked back up at her and smiled. “I guess so.” He shifted on his feet a little, digging his hands into the pockets of his father’s pants. His borrowed shirt rode up a little, dust from the breeze settled into the fabric.
“Are you strong?” Sam asked.
“Ma’am?” He was a little confused.
“Are you strong, can you lift things?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Not ma’am. Sam will do fine. Now, if you can do me a favor here, I can get you a job with our show. I just need someone to go get Emilie’s food and water from the trucks. I’ll send Trystan with you, and if you can get it here easy enough, without hurting yourself, I’ll hire you.” Sam stared at him evenly, watching his reaction.
“Alright. Sounds good to me.” He shrugged, and watched as she called Trystan over.
The two of them walked to the trucks a little ways from the train. Ten barrels of water, seventy pounds of cabbage, seventy pounds of apples and bananas each, and one hundred and twenty pounds of hay for her sat on three trucks. Three five-pound bags of peanuts sat next to the water.
“Emilie eats a lot. We’re only here until midday tomorrow, so what she doesn’t eat today will undoubtedly be gone tomorrow. She also really, really likes her peanuts.” Trystan explained. He walked up to the peanuts and started pulling them down. “Help me carry these, son, and then we’ll start with the water. She’s probably really thirsty, and with the day she’s had, she deserves a treat.”
He grabbed two bags and laid one on top of the other in his arms. “Here, I can carry a few more. Probably not all five, or else I won’t be able to see.”
Trystan laid two more bags on top, and wrinkled his brow when he didn’t stumble a little at the weight. They walked together to the enclosure and Trystan gave one bag to Sam, telling him where to put the others.
They went back to the truck, and he picked up a barrel easily and started walking away. Trystan jumped off the truck and ran towards him. “What in the hell…?”
“Sorry. I could probably carry a few more, but they’re pretty hard to carry all at once. Where should I put this one?” He walked effortlessly with a barrel, Trystan following, his mouth open in disbelief.
The rest of the food was simple for him. He didn’t want to run, lest he dropped something, but it wasn’t heavy for him. When he put the last of the apples down, Trystan was sitting on the fence, still amazed at how strong he really was. “Son, exactly how much can you lift?”
He shrugged. “I dunno. I never really took the time to find out. I just carried things when my father asked me to.”
“How in the hell do you do it?”
Again, he shrugged. “Just one of those things, I guess.” He knew the truth, but didn’t want to say it. There was a reason - a good one, too - but it may cost him this job, and he already knew how much he wanted to be there.
Within half an hour, he was sitting in Adi and Melissa’s car with Sam, signing a sheet of paper and listening to them talk about his responsibilities in their Australian accents. Afterwards, they explained a bit more.
“We’re from Victoria, Australia. That’s why we’re the Victoria Sisters. We started up about two years ago, but with the state of the country right now, it’s been difficult to really get everything working the way it should.” Melissa said. She leaned back in her chair, a small smile resting on her face.
“Soon, though. Very soon, we’ll be giving Ringling a run for their money.” Adi gesticulated as she spoke. He would enjoy working for the show, he already knew. Everyone he’d met so far was friendly and talkative, which made up for his own reserved nature.
He doesn’t say any of this, though. He sits back in the small restaurant, listening to Sirius and Peter tell jokes, and then James and Lily tell him their story - met at school, she thought he was annoying, he thought she was gorgeous, and then they both joined a show, where the lead lion trainer hit his lion a bit too often, and there was a riot when it bit his arm off in the middle of a show. They married before joining Peter, Sirius, Elaine, Trystan, and Sam with the Victoria Sisters. Trystan took over the lead trainer job, and the lions liked him well enough, since he didn’t lay a hand on them, not once.
He knows this all already, of course, but chooses not to speak. He is amongst friends here, and they don’t mind his silence.
His eyes scan the room, watching Sheridan and Ari laugh with Elaine and Caitlin. Greta is absent, though no one else seems to notice.
He finds out later from Nicole that she had caught a cold around Sioux City, Iowa, but she’ll recover quickly.
Still, he resolves to visit her tomorrow, before the show, just to be sure.
---------
This is one of the longest chapters so far. Wooooo, long chapters.
I'm in the process of writing the next one, so expect that up before the week is out.