i. by the pricking of my thumb There had been the scorched and faded remnants of circus posters in the old, burned-out train car. That alone is enough to set Yelena's teeth on edge when she first spies one of the posters, and she is not at all inclined to join in on spreading the advertisments more widely, even if her wallet is lighter than she'd prefer. She can get money if she needs to, and quickly.
But the fliers spread like wildfire, as though people are competing to paper every wall, lamp post, and mailbox in Gloucester with the things, and that makes it worth watching the people distributing them while she's in town. There's a strange energy to the entire affair, something unsettling, and she's not at all convinced that it's just excitement.
And that's before one of the two young teens squabbling over the last ten square feet of wall on the building next to the coffee shop patio she's been sitting at lunges at the other, knocking him into the wall before they both tumble to the ground.
"What," she says flatly. A couple of other patrons glance over. Someone pulls out a cellphone. She sighs, and stands.
(She hates being the adult. Want to help?)
ii. send in the clowns (a) While Yelena is serious about investigating the circus, she's savvy enough to know that the best way to gather intelligence and get a look at what might be lurking beneath the surface is to blend in. Performers are a community of their own, and likely to close ranks if accosted, and lurking without engaging is likely to be suspicious.
And so anyone paired with her is likely to find an amiable partner, one happy to share fresh donuts or cotton candy - though she'll balk at the stand selling hot dogs, a startled expression flitting across her face, and mutter a warning, "maybe not here" - or stop to visit one of the sideshows - the better to gauge the layout of the tents - or play one of the games. She's unusually good at the shooting gallery, but less so at the ring toss.
Is anyone ever good at the ring toss?
She's particularly interested in the Floor is Lava game, and pauses to watch a few runs of it. The last is punctuated by a girl of maybe eight losing her balance and shrieking when she hits the ground, her sobs continuing even after the first aid officer has checked her over and assured her worried mother that she's fine, it must just be the surprise, she's totally unhurt.
"That doesn't sound like fine," she says quietly. There's something a little too intent in her expression.
iii. send in the clowns (b) Of course, the circus proper isn't the only place to find information. Once she learns that the crew are staying on the train in the railyard, that becomes an obvious target - even more so when her initial recon reveals more in the way of security than she would have expected.
Tonight, while the circus is in full swing and the area is likely to be vacant of anyone except for the guards on patrol, she's come armed with the tools of her trade, dressed in greys and blues that blend almost seamlessly into the shadows without making her stand out like a blot of living ink if she's caught without cover. She's got the rhythm of the patrol down, and is certain of her windows for action. She also has company - maybe someone she's recruited as an accomplice, maybe someone else she's encountered on the ground only moments ago.
Regardless, it's time. "Remember, if you see someone heading into the car, start singing. Loudly. Then head away. We'll meet at the diner," she says. Or maybe, "You take that end, I'll take this end. Rendezvous in an hour." Which one depends on just how stealthy she's judged this particular accomplice to be, and either way, she's assigned herself the riskier task.
(That doesn't mean she's not entirely comfortable leaving her partner to fend for themself and using the distraction to get away if they're caught. She's reasonably certain the clowns won't eat anyone.)
iv. clowns on the network (post-iii)
UN: jelica
The performers' fondness for fire seems to extend outside their shows.
[Attached are two pictures of the interiors of train cars. Nearly every flat surface in view is holding candles. So many candles. Bad horror movie mediums might find the candles excessive.
There are posters on the walls, and the pictures are labelled - 'Penny' beneath one, 'Fenix' beneath the other.]
I don't think these are needed for light.
v. lost and found (minor BW spoilers. cw: hallucinations, disorientation, potential violence.) The one attraction Yelena has been avoiding is the Fun House. Getting intentionally lost in a mirror maze is not her idea of, well, fun. In the end, it's a frantic mother certain her child must have been separated from her inside that maze that lures her in. She remembers the excursion in Dogtown, and her suspicions about just who that particular bit of bone-chilling strangeness was intended to target.
The maze seems to stretch on for too long. Even accounting for getting turned around and doubling back, it feels far larger than the space it occupies. And far emptier - she saw others enter before her, is certain others entered after her, but save for the occasional laugh or shriek distorted by the space and the mirrors, she feels alone. And then she hits the maze's centre, and the sight of her own reflection - just her, not distorted by misshapen glass - is oddly disorienting. She suppresses a shudder, and hurries down the mirrored corridor beyond it, accompanied by images of herself repeating into infinity.
A flash of movement catches her eye as she exits, copper hair swinging in a loose braid, a familiar curve of cheek and jaw in profile, and the air freezes in her lungs. Her sister is dead. Her sister will be dead, in a little less than two years time - this jaunt sideways into this world of magic and monsters has left her unstuck in time again, shunted backward a portion of the years she'd been flung forward.
She almost calls out, and bites down hard on the inside of her lip to keep the cry locked behind her teeth. She's found no sign of Natasha at ADI; if she is here, she's gone to ground for some reason, and Yelena isn't about to spoil that. And so she follows in her sister's wake, hurrying through the crowds with less care than she might normally take. The familiar figure dips in and out of view, always just too far ahead for her to easily keep up. Leading her, she realizes. Or leading someone - she catches a flash now of a darker head, broad shoulders, a face she's only ever seen in photographs. She puts on speed, path spiralling away from the centre of the circus, away from the crowds, towards the outskirts. She can't quite catch up, but he is gaining, dropping in and out of view, always only in her peripheral vision.
She thinks she hears someone call her name, but dismisses it as unimportant.
(Did someone call out to her? Or perhaps someone has simply seen her racing between the tents, expression one of fierce determination and just-leashed frustration, following nothing. Either way, it may be time for the direct approach, though given that expression, she may not take kindly to interference.)
Yelena Belova | MCU | OTA
There had been the scorched and faded remnants of circus posters in the old, burned-out train car. That alone is enough to set Yelena's teeth on edge when she first spies one of the posters, and she is not at all inclined to join in on spreading the advertisments more widely, even if her wallet is lighter than she'd prefer. She can get money if she needs to, and quickly.
But the fliers spread like wildfire, as though people are competing to paper every wall, lamp post, and mailbox in Gloucester with the things, and that makes it worth watching the people distributing them while she's in town. There's a strange energy to the entire affair, something unsettling, and she's not at all convinced that it's just excitement.
And that's before one of the two young teens squabbling over the last ten square feet of wall on the building next to the coffee shop patio she's been sitting at lunges at the other, knocking him into the wall before they both tumble to the ground.
"What," she says flatly. A couple of other patrons glance over. Someone pulls out a cellphone. She sighs, and stands.
(She hates being the adult. Want to help?)
ii. send in the clowns (a)
While Yelena is serious about investigating the circus, she's savvy enough to know that the best way to gather intelligence and get a look at what might be lurking beneath the surface is to blend in. Performers are a community of their own, and likely to close ranks if accosted, and lurking without engaging is likely to be suspicious.
And so anyone paired with her is likely to find an amiable partner, one happy to share fresh donuts or cotton candy - though she'll balk at the stand selling hot dogs, a startled expression flitting across her face, and mutter a warning, "maybe not here" - or stop to visit one of the sideshows - the better to gauge the layout of the tents - or play one of the games. She's unusually good at the shooting gallery, but less so at the ring toss.
Is anyone ever good at the ring toss?
She's particularly interested in the Floor is Lava game, and pauses to watch a few runs of it. The last is punctuated by a girl of maybe eight losing her balance and shrieking when she hits the ground, her sobs continuing even after the first aid officer has checked her over and assured her worried mother that she's fine, it must just be the surprise, she's totally unhurt.
"That doesn't sound like fine," she says quietly. There's something a little too intent in her expression.
iii. send in the clowns (b)
Of course, the circus proper isn't the only place to find information. Once she learns that the crew are staying on the train in the railyard, that becomes an obvious target - even more so when her initial recon reveals more in the way of security than she would have expected.
Tonight, while the circus is in full swing and the area is likely to be vacant of anyone except for the guards on patrol, she's come armed with the tools of her trade, dressed in greys and blues that blend almost seamlessly into the shadows without making her stand out like a blot of living ink if she's caught without cover. She's got the rhythm of the patrol down, and is certain of her windows for action. She also has company - maybe someone she's recruited as an accomplice, maybe someone else she's encountered on the ground only moments ago.
Regardless, it's time. "Remember, if you see someone heading into the car, start singing. Loudly. Then head away. We'll meet at the diner," she says. Or maybe, "You take that end, I'll take this end. Rendezvous in an hour." Which one depends on just how stealthy she's judged this particular accomplice to be, and either way, she's assigned herself the riskier task.
(That doesn't mean she's not entirely comfortable leaving her partner to fend for themself and using the distraction to get away if they're caught. She's reasonably certain the clowns won't eat anyone.)
iv. clowns on the network (post-iii)
UN: jelica
The performers' fondness for fire seems to extend outside their shows.
[Attached are two pictures of the interiors of train cars. Nearly every flat surface in view is holding candles. So many candles. Bad horror movie mediums might find the candles excessive.
There are posters on the walls, and the pictures are labelled - 'Penny' beneath one, 'Fenix' beneath the other.]
I don't think these are needed for light.
v. lost and found (minor BW spoilers. cw: hallucinations, disorientation, potential violence.)
The one attraction Yelena has been avoiding is the Fun House. Getting intentionally lost in a mirror maze is not her idea of, well, fun. In the end, it's a frantic mother certain her child must have been separated from her inside that maze that lures her in. She remembers the excursion in Dogtown, and her suspicions about just who that particular bit of bone-chilling strangeness was intended to target.
The maze seems to stretch on for too long. Even accounting for getting turned around and doubling back, it feels far larger than the space it occupies. And far emptier - she saw others enter before her, is certain others entered after her, but save for the occasional laugh or shriek distorted by the space and the mirrors, she feels alone. And then she hits the maze's centre, and the sight of her own reflection - just her, not distorted by misshapen glass - is oddly disorienting. She suppresses a shudder, and hurries down the mirrored corridor beyond it, accompanied by images of herself repeating into infinity.
A flash of movement catches her eye as she exits, copper hair swinging in a loose braid, a familiar curve of cheek and jaw in profile, and the air freezes in her lungs. Her sister is dead. Her sister will be dead, in a little less than two years time - this jaunt sideways into this world of magic and monsters has left her unstuck in time again, shunted backward a portion of the years she'd been flung forward.
She almost calls out, and bites down hard on the inside of her lip to keep the cry locked behind her teeth. She's found no sign of Natasha at ADI; if she is here, she's gone to ground for some reason, and Yelena isn't about to spoil that. And so she follows in her sister's wake, hurrying through the crowds with less care than she might normally take. The familiar figure dips in and out of view, always just too far ahead for her to easily keep up. Leading her, she realizes. Or leading someone - she catches a flash now of a darker head, broad shoulders, a face she's only ever seen in photographs. She puts on speed, path spiralling away from the centre of the circus, away from the crowds, towards the outskirts. She can't quite catch up, but he is gaining, dropping in and out of view, always only in her peripheral vision.
She thinks she hears someone call her name, but dismisses it as unimportant.
(Did someone call out to her? Or perhaps someone has simply seen her racing between the tents, expression one of fierce determination and just-leashed frustration, following nothing. Either way, it may be time for the direct approach, though given that expression, she may not take kindly to interference.)