Calais Lochley
The sudden lack of sun was enough to pull Calais from his fragmented sleep, and he awoke with a start, nearly knocking himself to the ground— which, admittedly, would have been painful, given that he'd fallen asleep in a Y-shaped crook in a tree branch. His legs, long and spindly, hung over one edge, and his arms hung over the other looking just the same. He scrabbled to find some sort of hold before he slipped. His body was at an odd angle, and it was only a matter of time, now.
For all the effort, though, it really wasn't worth it. What little sleep he had gotten in the past hour hadn't done much to push away the headache throbbing in his temples, and whoever it was who had woken him was in for an earful. Locked in the blind, sleepless rage he knew too well for comfort, Calais' green eyes skimmed his surroundings for the perpetrator. When none was found, all there was left to do was pause and think. He'd felt a sudden burst of cold, heard a slight scrabbling, and then the light was bright in his eyes, again. Hardly pleasant and hardly distinctive. Calais peeled himself off the tree, yawned, and stretched a bit. Perhaps he'd unearth his bed and bury himself in his tent, again, where no noise would find him to wake him up. He needed the sleep. The nightmares had been getting worse, lately, and sooner or later he knew he'd end up sleepwalking again.
And he knew how the last time that had happened had worked out.
He bit the inside of his cheek and stared up at the sky, willing his eyes to wake his mind up. Puffy clouds, the only kind he'd ever seen back on the plains, hung heavy in the sky. They were so nauseatingly bright on his pinpoint pupils.
But there was something else that wasn't nauseatingly bright, and that served to sicken him even more. His stomach twisted with annoyance when he caught the silhouette out of the corner of his eye: a small, girlish figure slumped in the tree above him. So she had been the shadow. Calais had half a mind to go bother the sleeping girl and get on her case about her waking him up, but he decided against it, eventually just tossing at her a handful of pebbles in the hopes of annoying the tiny, catlike creature above. He stalked off in silent fumes through the fairgrounds like a member of the walking dead, passing by a parade of dolls and their blonde, elfin leader somewhere along his stumbled journey. He nodded in greeting and didn't much care when she only shied away. It wasn't as though he cared. Not really.
Calais thrust the canvas flap covering the entrance to his tent aside and crouched inside it, reveling in the shade but calm at heart with the way it let pinpricks of light just through enough to allow him to rest in surety that he was alone in the dark. Not bothering to unearth the cot, he fell asleep on the floor in a pile of colorful cloths. The light bouncing through the glass prisms scattered around his nest cast scintillating colors over his face. It was calm, here.
Well, it was for now. He really hoped nothing needed fixing before the performances. If it did, someone always ran to get him. Someone always had to wake him up. He might as well sleep while he could.
-
Lenka Paris: Lightgiver
The tiny homunculus was in grave need of care, and Lenka was all too quick to jump to her feet in the rush to provide him with it. She'd ignored Spade, absorbed in the woes of the tiny creature as it creaked in pain. Did it understand pain? Perhaps not, but it certainly felt it. She could feel it, even in the basest parts of her mind, and the doll, animated with that tiny fragment of her soul, could feel it all the same. Its cries grew ever more helpless. Already on her feet, she was in her performance tent quickly enough, though her legs were hardly built for running and she'd grown tired after only a few moments. Her hands pinched the gash in the doll's head shut to keep the stuffing from falling out.
There was no way she was going to lose the creature she'd trained for so long fade away here because of a tear.
Lenka re-animated the crumpled performers, who lined up behind her like ducklings, following her brisk steps across the grounds with their own tottering runs. Their footsteps were quiet over the grass, and they hardly made a sound even in passing the man that had so kindly created their joint systems for them. On arriving at Lenka's tent, the three performance dolls waited outside while Lenka herself stepped in, eyes skimming its inside for her sewing supplies. There was cloth and a half-finished dress, a doll, and a costume, none of which were even remotely the two basic materials she sought.
The sack creature had quieted its cries, and in this, Lenka found herself somewhat cheered up. At least it had manners. She'd taught it well. Perhaps, someday, it would be a tiny man of its own, but for now it was just as much mortal, hanging over death, as it was robotic and detached from the soul that had given its life. Now wasn't the time to worry about the distinction between humanity and life.
All she needed was a damn needle and some thread.