12-06-2015, 09:25 AM
The fairgrounds around them were alive with movement and color, the various entertainers and traders bobbing about like gulls upon the waves of a buoyant, lively ocean. Voices from both near and far bled together into a stream of babbling nonsense that was only intelligible if one stopped a moment to listen closely. Life bloomed everywhere, in the subtle touching of shoulders and in quick flashes of teeth behind a faint smile.
Wide green expanses of grass, patchy around the edges and interspersed between dusty pathways and carnival booths, were littered with red and white checkerboard cloths laid out for midday picnicking and bits and bobs of crinkled trash. In rare areas, however, hopeful and buttery yellow dandelions poked up from the earth, only to be swiftly trampled upon by roving feet. Small children, barely reaching up to Jade’s kneecaps, darted under vegetable carts and dodged around the legs of strolling people, playing with glassy marbles and lost coat buttons in the dirt.
Smoking meat and sliced fruits dribbled savory juices over their wooden cutting boards, the honey warm scent pouring over the crowds and thatched rooftops. When the sunlight cast over a roof tile just right, a syrupy amber-yellow glow would sift languidly out, much like the pungent rind of a citrusy fruit glimpsed through bottle glass.
When the young Witch of Space turned her eyes skyward, if only to give her racing thoughts some respite from all the hustle and bustle of the fairgoers spilling around her, she was greeted by a delightfully pleasant blue sky, cotton white clouds widened over it with the same silky smooth consistency as fine bed linens. An apparent cloud of rusty dust mingled with humid air rose around the edges of buildings and wavering flagstaffs, the noble colors of the Kingdom flapping regally on the breeze.
Jade sways towards several different booths while walking alongside Valerie, for once not distracted by the Dataverse and all its silly lines of text, images, and equally worrying and enigmatic acquaintances. Excruciating temptation strikes up a twitch in her fingers and a curious gleam in her eyes as she peers excitedly inside of glass cases and beneath dewy barrel lids.
She stays her hands and feet and remains mostly on course, luckily, although they seem to have developed a mind of their own all of a sudden, itching to pick up random objects and to shake every available hand. Her face is lit up with a delighted grin, the fuzzy white dog ears atop her dark hood swiveling this way and that so as not to miss anything, and she honestly feels better than she has in years. The only thing that could brighten her spirits beyond their current solar excellence would be if she had a certain grumpy troll kid admiring the festivities alongside her.
This thought prompts Jade to cast a final look back at the Colosseum before they arrive at their destination, her hair pluming out in a dizzying whoosh of curls and sequined stars. The structure where the tournaments are being held, where her friends are, cuts an imposing shape against the swirling mass of tossed juggling pins, smiling faces, and celebratory laughter. It has a beautiful, sure precision about it, soaring arches and curving steps coiled securely around the combatants and jeering onlookers within.
Her heart does a funny little floomp thing, and Jade swallows thickly. She really hopes that Gamzee and Bandit and even Adam are still alive and well.
When she looks again at Valerie, she sees that he too is gazing somewhat mournfully back at the so-called theatre of violence. There’s something fundamentally wrong about this expression on his normally carefree and peaceful features, lips downturned and eyes sad, and so she does her best to bring his attention back to the wonderful things taking place around them by skirting the edges of his vision with simple, nonsensical hand gestures. Bec lopes silently at her side, movements as mechanical and slightly odd in their efficient dexterity as always.
As it turns out, the game Valerie needs her to help him with is right up her alley! They approach a splendidly eye-catching booth, and Jade stands dazedly by as the green and fresh-as-springtime mage converses with a red-faced man with fleshy lips and a booming, loud voice.
That is, until she lays eyes on the tiny little guns sitting upon the table! They aren’t exactly perfect by way of design, but there is some crinkling gold leaf etching around the edges that really catch her eye and which aren’t half bad. She’s fairly confused by just why someone would keep a fake-y fake gun lying around like that, because real guns offer far better accuracy when shooting at something, but she supposes that some people just aren’t ready for that kind of responsibility. You have to be prepared to evaluate whether or not some other living creature’s life is worth more than your own just by having one holstered at your hip, after all. Still, she is pretty befuddled by the scrappy little things.
The large rounded lenses of her glasses slipping precipitously down her nose before she flicks them back up with a little snuffle— all this itchy hay for horse hooves to find must really be getting to her, she reasons,— Jade leans forwards on the rail of the booth and scoops one up into her hands. A small, jerky catch stops her from pulling it any closer, as a small and terribly frayed strand of rope is tied fast around it. Smart.
She bats the barrel around between her thumbs, lips puckered and a single eyebrow quirked. “What are these baby guns for?”
Baby guns as in really weak and rudimentary, of course. Jade had much larger guns than this when she was small.
The gamekeeper tosses his head back in a laugh, a loud rumbling sound like the trumpeting of an elephant, and leans a beefy arm over the booth’s edge. “Why, they’re for shooting those cans down with, little lady!” he says, jovially, a wide grin on his lips.
Jade frowns, puzzled, glancing between the gun and the tin cans in the near distance. “What happens when I shoot the cans?”
“You get to take your pick of any one of these marvelous prizes,” he spreads his arms wide, noting how the dog-eared girl’s eyes widen in twinkling wonder. “And I’ll tell you what: Since I’m feeling especially generous today, if you can hit all seven of the cans I have set up at the end of that lane, I’ll give you two of whichever prizes you pick!”
“Ooh!” Jade exclaims, bouncing up and down in excitement. She whirls to face Valerie, hands clasped together in her eagerness, having released the gun in order to do so. “Can I go first? I promise I’ll try and do my best!”
The green mage dips into a funny little bow, stepping aside with a pleasant smile on his lips. “By all means, Miss Jade!”
Giving a little whoop of excitement, Jade turns to face her targets, reaching down to pick up the gun once again. Her hands conform easily to its shape, and Jade wracks her brain for the last time she even fired a gun. She just can’t seem to recall much of anything right now, she’s so elated! Still, she stoops down and places her elbows on the edge of the booth, eyes roving over the phony weapon to make sure everything is shipshape.
There’s a weird weight that shifts against her wrist bones as she turns the makeshift firearm over, almost as if someone has purposefully stuck some heavy substance like lead inside to throw her game off, but Jade is an experienced gun handler! A little offset weight can’t trouble her too much.
She could always ask Bec to help her with her aim a little, but she suspects that he might not be much help while even most of her powers seem to be out of commission. Either the Green Sun doesn’t hold much sway here, or it is just as everyone has been telling her— that her whole existence beforehand was something of a fairytale, a hallucination, or a dream. Whatever the case, she reaches down to apply a few quick scritches behind his ears before continuing, earning herself an encouraging lick across her knuckles in return.
Jade turns the gun slowly until she estimates that it is suitably aligned with her target. There is no adrenaline of strife here, no screaming fire burning through her veins, and certainly no need for hasty movements or half-cocked shots. Valerie’s counting on her. She can afford to take her time.
After taking a deep, steadying breath, Jade’s lips pull into an easy grin, her feet squared off and posture relaxed. Her tongue pokes out a little between her teeth as she concentrates, shifting the funny little firearm this way and that in her hands until the odd weight inside balances just right.
Her right eye slips halfway shut, eyelashes flush against her freckled cheek, and she brings her right cheek nearer to her right shoulder, canting the small gun with the movement. A splash of sunlight glitters along the edge of one of the cans, which is lightly dusted with orange-tinted rust and has a serrated edge to it. A stint of silvery light shafts out, the whole of the sky above like an upside-down mixing bowl of clear air and poufy gases, curving downwards and tapering off along the edges of ridged gables and spires.
Jade fires, a soft click darting through the air like a swallow in flight. Half an instant later, one of the cans on the top row topples over with a severely hollow clang!
“One!” Jade cheers, rolling her wrist to the side until the weight distribution along her palm resettles. Another metallic clatter rings out as she fires once more.
“Two!” She chirrups, eyes glittering.
Clang! “Three!” She shifts her gaze to the bottom row, adjusting her stance and grip accordingly, all the while sizing up her new set of targets. Four dented cans with shiny metal rims sit like ducks upon the shelf, sad and lonely without their three pals sitting overhead.
Jade resolves to put them out of their misery.
Zip! “Four!”
Pip! “Five!”
Clink! “Six!”
The Witch grins toothily, because this is so much fun! She looks over her shoulder to say as much to Val, the greenish sequins of her coat sparkling as her hair brushes over them, but someone else is quick to interject.
“Jade!”
The girl flinches with such haste that the toy gun goes off in her hand as her hands clench instinctively, thankfully still sticking the can right in its middle rather than missing. With a sharp clatter, it joins its brethren upon the ground while the carny blinks, clearly taken aback, at all of his unhappily toppled tin cans.
Jade breathes a shaky sigh of relief, turning to face Karkat with a funny tittering laugh trickling out from her mouth. “Oh, hi Karkat!”
She listens as the troll grits a few steady streams of words out at her, seeming agitated. His jimmies are obviously rustled, but she can’t for the life of her figure out why. When he finally stops rambling so much and asks about Valerie, Jade is quick on the draw.
“This is Valerie! We’ve just been chatting for a while and he asked me for help in winning a prize for his student, so that’s what I’ve been doing,” she gestures to the booth and then beams at the fellow running it, her face lighting up. “I do get to pick out a prize now, right?”
Wide green expanses of grass, patchy around the edges and interspersed between dusty pathways and carnival booths, were littered with red and white checkerboard cloths laid out for midday picnicking and bits and bobs of crinkled trash. In rare areas, however, hopeful and buttery yellow dandelions poked up from the earth, only to be swiftly trampled upon by roving feet. Small children, barely reaching up to Jade’s kneecaps, darted under vegetable carts and dodged around the legs of strolling people, playing with glassy marbles and lost coat buttons in the dirt.
Smoking meat and sliced fruits dribbled savory juices over their wooden cutting boards, the honey warm scent pouring over the crowds and thatched rooftops. When the sunlight cast over a roof tile just right, a syrupy amber-yellow glow would sift languidly out, much like the pungent rind of a citrusy fruit glimpsed through bottle glass.
When the young Witch of Space turned her eyes skyward, if only to give her racing thoughts some respite from all the hustle and bustle of the fairgoers spilling around her, she was greeted by a delightfully pleasant blue sky, cotton white clouds widened over it with the same silky smooth consistency as fine bed linens. An apparent cloud of rusty dust mingled with humid air rose around the edges of buildings and wavering flagstaffs, the noble colors of the Kingdom flapping regally on the breeze.
Jade sways towards several different booths while walking alongside Valerie, for once not distracted by the Dataverse and all its silly lines of text, images, and equally worrying and enigmatic acquaintances. Excruciating temptation strikes up a twitch in her fingers and a curious gleam in her eyes as she peers excitedly inside of glass cases and beneath dewy barrel lids.
She stays her hands and feet and remains mostly on course, luckily, although they seem to have developed a mind of their own all of a sudden, itching to pick up random objects and to shake every available hand. Her face is lit up with a delighted grin, the fuzzy white dog ears atop her dark hood swiveling this way and that so as not to miss anything, and she honestly feels better than she has in years. The only thing that could brighten her spirits beyond their current solar excellence would be if she had a certain grumpy troll kid admiring the festivities alongside her.
This thought prompts Jade to cast a final look back at the Colosseum before they arrive at their destination, her hair pluming out in a dizzying whoosh of curls and sequined stars. The structure where the tournaments are being held, where her friends are, cuts an imposing shape against the swirling mass of tossed juggling pins, smiling faces, and celebratory laughter. It has a beautiful, sure precision about it, soaring arches and curving steps coiled securely around the combatants and jeering onlookers within.
Her heart does a funny little floomp thing, and Jade swallows thickly. She really hopes that Gamzee and Bandit and even Adam are still alive and well.
When she looks again at Valerie, she sees that he too is gazing somewhat mournfully back at the so-called theatre of violence. There’s something fundamentally wrong about this expression on his normally carefree and peaceful features, lips downturned and eyes sad, and so she does her best to bring his attention back to the wonderful things taking place around them by skirting the edges of his vision with simple, nonsensical hand gestures. Bec lopes silently at her side, movements as mechanical and slightly odd in their efficient dexterity as always.
As it turns out, the game Valerie needs her to help him with is right up her alley! They approach a splendidly eye-catching booth, and Jade stands dazedly by as the green and fresh-as-springtime mage converses with a red-faced man with fleshy lips and a booming, loud voice.
That is, until she lays eyes on the tiny little guns sitting upon the table! They aren’t exactly perfect by way of design, but there is some crinkling gold leaf etching around the edges that really catch her eye and which aren’t half bad. She’s fairly confused by just why someone would keep a fake-y fake gun lying around like that, because real guns offer far better accuracy when shooting at something, but she supposes that some people just aren’t ready for that kind of responsibility. You have to be prepared to evaluate whether or not some other living creature’s life is worth more than your own just by having one holstered at your hip, after all. Still, she is pretty befuddled by the scrappy little things.
The large rounded lenses of her glasses slipping precipitously down her nose before she flicks them back up with a little snuffle— all this itchy hay for horse hooves to find must really be getting to her, she reasons,— Jade leans forwards on the rail of the booth and scoops one up into her hands. A small, jerky catch stops her from pulling it any closer, as a small and terribly frayed strand of rope is tied fast around it. Smart.
She bats the barrel around between her thumbs, lips puckered and a single eyebrow quirked. “What are these baby guns for?”
Baby guns as in really weak and rudimentary, of course. Jade had much larger guns than this when she was small.
The gamekeeper tosses his head back in a laugh, a loud rumbling sound like the trumpeting of an elephant, and leans a beefy arm over the booth’s edge. “Why, they’re for shooting those cans down with, little lady!” he says, jovially, a wide grin on his lips.
Jade frowns, puzzled, glancing between the gun and the tin cans in the near distance. “What happens when I shoot the cans?”
“You get to take your pick of any one of these marvelous prizes,” he spreads his arms wide, noting how the dog-eared girl’s eyes widen in twinkling wonder. “And I’ll tell you what: Since I’m feeling especially generous today, if you can hit all seven of the cans I have set up at the end of that lane, I’ll give you two of whichever prizes you pick!”
“Ooh!” Jade exclaims, bouncing up and down in excitement. She whirls to face Valerie, hands clasped together in her eagerness, having released the gun in order to do so. “Can I go first? I promise I’ll try and do my best!”
The green mage dips into a funny little bow, stepping aside with a pleasant smile on his lips. “By all means, Miss Jade!”
Giving a little whoop of excitement, Jade turns to face her targets, reaching down to pick up the gun once again. Her hands conform easily to its shape, and Jade wracks her brain for the last time she even fired a gun. She just can’t seem to recall much of anything right now, she’s so elated! Still, she stoops down and places her elbows on the edge of the booth, eyes roving over the phony weapon to make sure everything is shipshape.
There’s a weird weight that shifts against her wrist bones as she turns the makeshift firearm over, almost as if someone has purposefully stuck some heavy substance like lead inside to throw her game off, but Jade is an experienced gun handler! A little offset weight can’t trouble her too much.
She could always ask Bec to help her with her aim a little, but she suspects that he might not be much help while even most of her powers seem to be out of commission. Either the Green Sun doesn’t hold much sway here, or it is just as everyone has been telling her— that her whole existence beforehand was something of a fairytale, a hallucination, or a dream. Whatever the case, she reaches down to apply a few quick scritches behind his ears before continuing, earning herself an encouraging lick across her knuckles in return.
Jade turns the gun slowly until she estimates that it is suitably aligned with her target. There is no adrenaline of strife here, no screaming fire burning through her veins, and certainly no need for hasty movements or half-cocked shots. Valerie’s counting on her. She can afford to take her time.
After taking a deep, steadying breath, Jade’s lips pull into an easy grin, her feet squared off and posture relaxed. Her tongue pokes out a little between her teeth as she concentrates, shifting the funny little firearm this way and that in her hands until the odd weight inside balances just right.
Her right eye slips halfway shut, eyelashes flush against her freckled cheek, and she brings her right cheek nearer to her right shoulder, canting the small gun with the movement. A splash of sunlight glitters along the edge of one of the cans, which is lightly dusted with orange-tinted rust and has a serrated edge to it. A stint of silvery light shafts out, the whole of the sky above like an upside-down mixing bowl of clear air and poufy gases, curving downwards and tapering off along the edges of ridged gables and spires.
Jade fires, a soft click darting through the air like a swallow in flight. Half an instant later, one of the cans on the top row topples over with a severely hollow clang!
“One!” Jade cheers, rolling her wrist to the side until the weight distribution along her palm resettles. Another metallic clatter rings out as she fires once more.
“Two!” She chirrups, eyes glittering.
Clang! “Three!” She shifts her gaze to the bottom row, adjusting her stance and grip accordingly, all the while sizing up her new set of targets. Four dented cans with shiny metal rims sit like ducks upon the shelf, sad and lonely without their three pals sitting overhead.
Jade resolves to put them out of their misery.
Zip! “Four!”
Pip! “Five!”
Clink! “Six!”
The Witch grins toothily, because this is so much fun! She looks over her shoulder to say as much to Val, the greenish sequins of her coat sparkling as her hair brushes over them, but someone else is quick to interject.
“Jade!”
The girl flinches with such haste that the toy gun goes off in her hand as her hands clench instinctively, thankfully still sticking the can right in its middle rather than missing. With a sharp clatter, it joins its brethren upon the ground while the carny blinks, clearly taken aback, at all of his unhappily toppled tin cans.
Jade breathes a shaky sigh of relief, turning to face Karkat with a funny tittering laugh trickling out from her mouth. “Oh, hi Karkat!”
She listens as the troll grits a few steady streams of words out at her, seeming agitated. His jimmies are obviously rustled, but she can’t for the life of her figure out why. When he finally stops rambling so much and asks about Valerie, Jade is quick on the draw.
“This is Valerie! We’ve just been chatting for a while and he asked me for help in winning a prize for his student, so that’s what I’ve been doing,” she gestures to the booth and then beams at the fellow running it, her face lighting up. “I do get to pick out a prize now, right?”
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Gamzee Makara Wrote:S’aight. After all, dogs have a tendency to motherfuckin’ bite.