The Shan Club: Clover moon

chapter 10: The cirque-le of life

It was the first morning of the second day of the first time in ShanLand. I woke up, again because of someone bursting through the door.  

"Oh hi Skyler." I said to the intruder. Then I noticed that it was Anya, not Skyler.  

"Oh hi Anya." I corrected myself, then went back to sleep. 

" Clover-r-r!!!" Anya squealed and ripped the covers off, starting another get-out-of-bed-battle. Lucky me. 

"You've got 20 minutes to get up, eat your hair, brush your breakfast and wash your teeth" my good friend babbled getting things a tad muddled.  

"20 minutes before what?" I grumbled sleepily stumbling out of bed.  

"Before we start our work"  

"Work?"  

"At the cirque, of course"  

Then it hit me, and I smiled. Ever since I started reading the books, my dream was to be part of the cirque. I knew we wouldn't be performing, having no freakish abilities, but we would still be part of the living and breathing cirque. I ushered Anya out so I could get dressed.  

"Ok! Ok! I'm leaving!" Anya said as I shoved her out in my eagerness to start looking round properly. "But you might not want to forget about those two" She gestured to the sleeping Christina and Crepsley. 

"Oh, yeah. forgot about those two." 

I hid behind a couch to change, roused Christina, then I let myself spill out into the golden morning sunshine. After taking a breath of fresh and very foriegn air, I walked over to Anya and Skyler, who were a few tents away. my bare feet were wet with dew as the skipped over the grass.  

Christina emerged a few minutes afterwards and spotted us. 

"What are we doing first?" she asked us. 

"Well, Evra and Darren should be turning up soonish to show us around." Sky informed us. 

We hung around a bit until Darren Evra and Blaize showed up. 

"Hi! Are you ladies ready to look around the marvoulous cirque?" Evra grinned in mock professionalism.  

"YES!!!" We screamed a little over exited. 

"Whoa! Calm down!" Darren said laughing.  

"Ok then. How about we start with the wolf man." Evra said.  

We gulped.

"And here he is! The magnificent and terrifying wolf man!" Evra sweeped a hand round the cage. The wolf Man was curled up in the corner of the cage. He growled angrily. His grey-brown fur was matted and shaggy, streaked with things I didn't want to think about. His claws were long and yellow, and he STANK! He smelt of.... I dunno. This was a different universe, how was I meant to know? 

"Hm. That's scary." Christina said and we all nodded.  

"Ok then! Who wants to feed him?" Evra asked expecting no one to put up thier hand. We all put our hand.  

"Oh! Um, ok." Evra said, taken aback. "Err, Skyler! You have ago."  

'Um hey.' I thought. 'Main character here! All the stuff is meant to happen to me.' Nevertheless, Skyler was guided cautiously to the cage by Evra, both blushing and giggling.

The rest of the day went by in a daze. We gazed at all the performers and their wonderful abilities. we saw Truska, Han hands and all the other lively bunch, they told us a few exclusive bits that regular people would never find out, but then again, we weren't exactly regular!

Then we had lunch with all the other cirque-ers. They were friendly and welcoming. the stories they told of their background were amazing! Some made us laugh, some almost made us cry, but the one thing we learnt that's as here, everyone is part of it, because at the cirque every one is brilliant in their own way.

After lunch we started our chores. Most of them were just regular things, like moving equipment, cleaning things and generally helping out. We cleaned Evra's snake, which was awesome! I really like snakes.

I decided to make the most of being at the cirque, because I had a feeling that all the fun and games we were having wouldn't last for ever. If this was like any other of my adventures, something was going to happen, pretty soon...

The thing happened in the evening. I was moving a box of unclassified content, and the others were doing something with a tent somewhere else. I was struggling a bit with the heavy box, and I stumbled just as my favourite vampire appeared round the corner.  

"Careful!" Larten said as he caught me from getting crushed by the box. 

"Thanks!" I replied breathlessly as I made the most of being held in the arms of the vampire.  

"You can start using your legs now." He said, and I put my weight on my legs. He withdrew his arms from around me. I had to say something, ask him, about anything. We weren't going to be alone any time soon, what with aLl my bonkers friends everywhere.  

"Umm," I stammered. "How- um, do you, err, have any, um... Feelings, for anyone."  

Larten seemed surprised at my question, then answered my question: "not really no. Why do you ask?"  

"Um, no reason! I just thought you and Chrissie looked pretty hot together, err, I mean-"  

"Christina?" Larten said confused. "Oh. You would be talking about the party. I was drunk then, sometimes people aren't themselves at that time. Christina is a lovely girl, a bit loud but beautiful in her way, but I have no particular feelings for her, or anyone else, for that matter."  

I breathed in quickly. This means that Larten was still free! 

Something took me over, some sort of weird, grimly determined feeling from my gut. 

I sat down on a conveniently placed bench and patted a space next to me. Larten sat down suspiciously. 

"So" I said brightly. "What do you like in a women?  

Mr. Crepsley frowned. "Um"  

"I mean, you have to have some sort of prefications"  

"I don't think that's a word." 

"Words don't matter wether they're made up or not."  

"I think they do." Crepsley was getting flustered.  

"But really, you must have some qualities to look for." This was weird.  

"Um, I don't think that-" I leaned in closer with a slightly demonic smile on my face. 

"Larten...?" I said as leaned inched away along the bench. "I have a favour to ask."

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Hey guys!

Sorry that took like, ten years to do but I and writers block and it kept on deleting itself.

I didn't mean to go phsyco at the end, but it sort of went that way and I had to let it flow.

I won't take too long with the next chappy, promise!!

Astapasta