Swimming in the train tracks [Wales/open]

They were moving again, she circled her tank with unease, the rattling was making her sick and she was resurfacing for air because her breathing was too erratic. The workers had put to much chlorine in her tank to sanitize it before the move and now her skin itched like crazy. She stared longingly at her belongings her books and nursery rhymes that kept her comfort in the long travels over the train tracks. The ringleader was kind to her sometimes, would set out the books for her, turn it to her favorite poems, make sure they were weighted so they wouldn't move but he was gone now....Eleri's brow furrowed she still didn't want to believe the kindly man was dead, he seemed to be the only shining light in this circus and now that beautiful light was extinguished.

She wanted her cage to be on solid ground again, accepting this seemingly endless torment she stopped swimming and let her body naturally rise to the surface of the tank. Her expression and posture similar to that of a dead fish, hopefully when the workers came to check on her they would have enough common sense to remove her from this tainted artificial water and into a fresh water bath with the bath oils made specially to keep her scales from flaking. She remember a time when the workers were given specific instructions to do so after her tank was cleaned otherwise she wouldn't be fit for the show. But the new management was positively stupid, they didn't take care of anything but pamper the beautifuls. And she was stuck here, swimming in train tracks while she slowly choked on the nauseating fumes of the chlorine.

The rattling likewise, was making someone else sick. But there wasn't much to be done about it for Phyu. All of her brass rattled along with the cars on the rails, and the animals were getting antsy because of it. Which would be blamed on her later on, no doubt. So she deftly made her way away from the side with the few stables (one of which was where she slept) to the side with the people. Sorta. There was that fish girl. What was her name? Oh, that's right.

"Min Ga La Ba, Ellie." (She could never get the pronunciation quite right) She acknowledged, situating herself in the corner. "Does not smell like horse poo poo over here. Much better. You get better stuff."

Kayan wasn't much worth anything except something to look at. It seemed sad when your worth was measured by how long people stared. But such was life, not that she was ready to accept the one she had.

She tried her best to dampen her rattling with her hands, to no avail.

Eleri groaned, she much preferred the penetrating smell of manure over chlorine, it reminded her of that little cottage that she was raised in with the lambs in the yard. She desperately missed those days, laying a hand over her aching head she acknowledged the girl as a form of obligation to her current status as freak (most upper management believed her to be too bloody retard to talk). “Hello dear, how are you this fine trip?” she asked wearily, close to puking in her tank. She felt a little guilt that the girl thought she got better things when that wasn't true.

Sure her tank was nice but that was because it was for the show , people wouldn't pay to see a ugly freak of nature swimming around in a filth of a tank. Nor would they pay for her to do something as disgusting as shed in front of them. “It isn't like that darling.” Eleri to weary to explain much more than that. The sharp jingle of the girl's jewelery added to the frustration of the situation. She had heard stories of course about the girl freaking out when they tried to remove the ringlets so she knew she couldn't ask her to take them off. She also know however that the water muffled certain sounds, solemnly she asked “Do you like water? Swimming?”

((ffff--sorry for interrupting, but mind if I crash?))

((of course I don't XD))

It wasn't nausea that got Sonya, it was being jostled in complete darkness that frightened her. As usual, they had put her somewhere alone, with very little explanation of what was going on or where they were headed. Not that it mattered, really. Where they were headed was where she was headed, no matter what, until she could escape.

There seemed to be very little chance of that, though. They didn't even have to shackle the girl to keep her from leaving; not having any shoes made her afraid to go too far anywhere on her own. Even in the confines of the wooden cars, she was afraid of splinters and nails poking up in the floorboards (and when one was as prone to infection as Chernobylites, it was for good reason)...not to mention the animals.

But being alone terrified her, especially while the cars were in motion. So she had a decision to make: risk it to look for someone or stay afraid?

She thought she could hear the clinking of jewelry and the smell of chlorine (which, despite burning her now highly-sensitive nose, was far preferable to how the cars usually stank), and after some deliberation, decided that it was worth it to see if it was a sign of other people. The trauma of the disaster had left her social skills just as impaired as her vision, but at least the other 'freaks' were usually not mean. The problem was, they could be anywhere from two feet away, to in an adjacent car, and she'd never know.

Standing up shakily, she stumbled forward with the rocking vehicle, groping around in front of her. She thought she could hear people talking, and hastened to--

Bumping right into the side of the water-filled tank, she nearly fell over backwards in surprise. Naturally, the first thing that came to her mind was the glass walls they put her behind during her own respective 'show', which put her into a light panic. How could she be behind the wall if they were moving? Were they just keeping her there forever, now? Were those voices she heard the voices of spectators, gawking at her?

Frantically, she patted the smooth surface with her hands, trying to get her bearings while looking close to tears.

((HERE, HAVE HELLEN--/shot))

"Horses kick while I sleep," She said so nonchalantly. It really didn't matter; it was as disruptive as snoring. After all, she did have built in armor.

She sniffed the air. She wasn't used to chemicals either, nor did she know any of their names. But she had seen this incident happen before. "They put bad stuff in tank again?" it was still miles better than manure. She wasn used to smelling it from all these new animals.

Water? Was this woman seeing what this girl looked like? She had weights all over her. "Can't swim, only drown fast." She gave an apologetic half-smile. "Plus, they rust," She dug into the coils with a hand to itch her scarred neck-- her bracelets collided with brass. "Is swimming fun?" It was terribly boring for her here-- she had little to talk to or about, and she didn't know much English even if she could.

About to say so, Phyu stopped as that blind girl stumbledonto the scene. She never knew what to say to her, she had seen injuries like hers but usually they had to be amputated. And her eyes did alarm Phyu just a bit. So she kept silent, observing, the only sound coming from the brass on her.

Well there goes that, she thought it to be a good idea (but she thought everyone knew how to swim as well as her). Adressing the girl she lazed at the top of tank “Well it depends what type of water you're swimming in really but yes it is fun but I suppose running is fun too.”

Suddenly there was a loud vibration rippling through her tank.
Eleri was alert, panic had set in when she felt her tank being tapped, it was one of her biggest pet peeves. For the people who didn't know what it was like to live in a tank, they didn't know of the wonderful joys of their world being nudged by a demented five year old with sticky grotty fingers. She surged spirally downwards in the water to face the tap happy assailant. Instead she was faced with a chilling site, a blind girl with tears swelling in her eyes. She put her hands parallels to the little girls and observed her desperate and frightened. It reminded her of herself when she first arrived to this place, deciding to break the girl of her spell, she used her excellent control of her pseudo- fin to splash up a few drops of water on her face. Using her talents she spoke to the girl through the air bubbles that came out of her mouth, it unnerved some people, that when she talked under water there was a 10 second delay for the sound to get to the surface but she doubted this girl would mind.
“Stopping fingering my tank girle, you sending me into a tizzy over here.”

Water flecked her face, and she was suddenly more confused than ever. She connected the earlier smell of chlorine with the presence of water, but couldn't put two-and-two together to understand what it meant.

That is, until she was spoken to. A wave of relief washed over her when she realized she was not where she thought she was.

Quickly pulling her hands away (but consequently feeling ungrounded without having something to balance herself against), she responded shyly, "I'm sorry... I thought..." She didn't bother saying what she thought; it was too embarrassing to admit that she couldn't tell the difference between a moving car and a live show anymore.

But...a tank, she said? It crossed her mind to ask why there was a human inside of a tank, but she refrained. Besides that there were inhumanities everywhere here, it seemed wrong to outright inquire into the other's reasons for being in a freak show. But unfortunately, because no one told her anything, it was entirely up to her own imagination as to what the other acts were.

"I heard jingling sounds...was that you?" She directed towards the tank-girl as she patted the air to the side of her, looking for a wall nearby she could lean on, and ended up with her hand against something ribbed and metalic-feeling. Her face contorted in confusion as she tried to figure out what it was; it felt like a pole with thick wires wrapped around it...

She had run away from too much for it to really be fun. Ye she couldn't even run away from this place.

Or the people in it. Suddenly the blind girl was groping her neck, not that she could feel it, she just didn't like it when people wanted to touch it. It was the only thing she owned. It was hers and only hers.

She swatted her hand away lightly, a little agitated. "My neck, not touch." She warned. It would only confuse the girl more, after all, one didn't see, let alone feel, metal necks over one foot long.

Phyulooked to Eleri for some kind of support. How was she supposed to approach this?

She wasn't an expert on the blind in fact she knew very little except one basic principle, that they had to guided to safety. And assuming the blind girl was looking for some solid ground to stand on she replied to Phyu's silent plead. “I think you need to take her be the hand and put it on the wall Phyu.” The car rocked some more and her bolted down tank swirled slightly. She felt positively sick in her, deciding to cut her loses she pulled her torso over the tank's ledge and flipped her tail over putting her feet first before she dropped to the floor. Propping herself on her hands she situated herself against the tank, and wriggled her useless toes. You could tell now that skin around her scales had become a blotchy red like they were trying to consume her body. “Now then why don't you tell us your name girl?”

Squeaking lightly in surprise when a second voice came seemingly out of nowhere, and her hand was brushed off, she automatically drew back, biting her lip worryingly.

A neck...that was someone's neck she was touching... What could this person possibly look like? The accent suggested someone very foreign--certainly not from Europe, at any rate. Sofia had never had contact with people from exotic lands, and didn't really know how to behave around them. ...Not that she would have put much effort into being anything but nervous and afraid, anyways.

She heard the splashing sounds of someone moving around the inside of the tank, and a dull thud close by, which she could only take to mean that the girl inside had gotten out.

Shifting slightly towards the source of the sound, so that her ear was aimed more towards it (it was different now; she didn't turn to face people when she talked to them, she turned so that she could hear them better), she introduced herself, "Sofia Rostislavivna... Who are you?" She meant the question for both of them, but didn't specify. She was admittedly afraid to directly address the metal-neck girl.

After she swatted the girl's hand away, she wiped her own hand on her ratty clothes. She wasn't sure what had scarred the girl like that, but she wasn't keen to fond out herself.

And her blindness wasn't assuring she wasn't diseased, either. She asked them their names, and Phyu wished she would have just stayed quiet. After deliberating for a moment, she answered. "Phyu Hla, or," She added with a bitter tone, "Giraffe girl of the orient." She never even liked bein called that in her home, ye they saw fit to name her that here.

She felt obliged to crawl back in to her tank and swim in her own little world to ignore the two, but for that she required assistance and the chorline was still burning her eyes long after she left the squared shaped tube. Sonya was nauseatingly skittish and Phyu was positively uncharmed with Sonya. She swiped a glance at both of Phyu rubbing her hand on her clothes and promptly turned her head. Eleri ringed out some of the water in her hair, everything was drying out pretty fast which concerned her how she would fair the rest of the trip.
“My name is Eleri, Eleri Rees........the siren.” She disliked her stage name more than one might think. It gave her a complex to be called something so beautiful and deadly, she was neither deadly or beautiful. Just a hideous freak whose scaly feet couldn't even walk in a straight line.

Neither of their names told much to Sonya, except what they were called by. 'Giraffe girl' didn't make much sense to her, but she guessed that the metal neck had something to do with it. And she'd already suspected that she was from somewhere exotic, so 'of the Orient' came as little surprise. 'Siren' didn't mean a lot to her, either, seeing as the only notion she connected to the term was that it had something to do with women who sang. And obviously, she couldn't see either of them, so the picture she formed in her mind wasn't particularly interesting. An Asian girl with metal jewelry and a European girl soaked with water.

But really, she'd rather imagine her fellow freaks as just looking like normal people.

Staggering when the car jolted again, she shuffled around the tank to find a wall to lean against and sat down with her back to it, knees drawn up. "Do you know where we're going? Or when we'll get there?" She hoped it wouldn't be a long trip...but at the same time, she dreaded reaching their destination. Because as soon as they did, the circus would open once again.

More questions? Phyu was a nice girl, but could get snappy and impatient when someone said something stupid. Especially when cooped up in one place for a few days. "We know just what you do." she quipped. "So why ask even?"

Granted, the girl was blind, and looked hurt, but who would want to see that? She had no inkling of what a Chernobyl would even be, if she was told.

Another jolt of the train sent her into the air an inch or two, the coils raising and then falling into the scars and sores around her collarbone. She flinched, but otherwise did nothing. It was beginning to dig into her neck again from all the impact, and she knew the managers wouldnt bandage it up if she asked.