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Post by angelofmusic1992 on Jun 17, 2016 13:30:08 GMT -5
Saorise shook her head. "No," she said. What if those hunters were there again? If they saw Carl flying overhead, they might freak out and try to shoot him. It didn't occur to her that Carl was flying too high up for anyone on the ground to see. Her paranoia and fear was clouding up any rationale left in her mind.
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Post by zuyuri on Jun 18, 2016 16:37:57 GMT -5
Of course Saiorse would say no. Carl had been expecting it, but not as soon as she had said it. "We won't be there for long," he promised. "Just one fly around and then we're leaving. And like I said, we'll be above, not going in."
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Post by angelofmusic1992 on Jun 21, 2016 20:17:50 GMT -5
"No, no." Saorise's voice was shaking by this point. They couldn't go anywhere near the forest. Carl could get hurt. She couldn't lose her family, not again. Not like last time. "You'll get hurt."
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Post by zuyuri on Jun 21, 2016 23:13:01 GMT -5
The little quiver in Saorise's voice stayed Carl's wings. He arched around, the very brush of the trees nearly touching. The closest place to land safely was a rooftop, which, unofrtunately, was peaked, but it would have to do. He dug his talons in, carefully scooping her off of his back. With a scaly eyebrow raised, he asked, "You're afraid I'll get hurt? Saoirse, this isn't like you to be so afraid of nature."
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Post by angelofmusic1992 on Jun 25, 2016 21:53:46 GMT -5
Saorise shook her head again, her panic finally making her blurt out what was on her mind instead of making her clam up. "No, no! The hunters might be there and you'll get shot and I'll never see you again just like my family!" she cried tearfully. She then gave a gasp, realizing what she had just said. The cat was out of the bag now, in a matter of speaking.
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Post by zuyuri on Jun 27, 2016 21:18:34 GMT -5
Hunters. That was what Saorise was afraid of. With that one hit, everything fell into place. She had witnessed something no child should ever have to witness at the age she was, which was the murder of an innocent creature. And she hadn't seen it once; it was how she had lost her family. But with age, Carl had learned hunting wasn't just a sport. Some people did it because they needed to survive. Carl looked at her frightened eyes, her hands over her mouth as if she was trying to put the words uttered back in, and knelt to her level.
"Saoirise, hunting is a frightening thing to watch..." What else could he say? It would be insulting to say anything about her family. She was too young to understand life versus death. He looked up...there it was. "You know...your family may not be with you physically, but they're always here." He poked her chest near her heart gently. "Ellie is in mine, as are you."
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Post by angelofmusic1992 on Jun 30, 2016 9:51:06 GMT -5
Now that her secret was out, Saorise's silence was finally broken, in a way. The words came tumbling out, and she couldn't stop them. "But they're still gone!" she cried, tears forming in her eyes. "All of us...my family...some fishermen thought we were normal seals. They started throwing harpoons at us. They wanted our skins, to sell. We got scared. I got away, but..." She started full on bawling at that point. Hunters, fishermen, they were different, but in Saorise's mind, they were the same. To her, those fishermen practically were hunters. They had seen a bunch of seals, thought their hides would fetch up a good price, and started harpooning them without a second thought. Everyone had gotten killed. Her father, her mother, the whole selkie herd. The whole event had stunned Saorise into silence, and it was only now that she was finally able to truly break it.
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Post by zuyuri on Jul 1, 2016 0:10:48 GMT -5
Saoirise had never spoken so much in such a short period of time. It was like someone had opened a jar of pickles, and everything inside came tumbling outside of it, and it could never be put back in without making a mess. But with her words also came answers. It explained why Saorise was a selective mute, why she was afraid of the forest, and, the most important mystery, what had happened to her family. Carl's frown deepened with the tragedy of her story. "...but it still scares you to see something like it," he finished. "No one should ever have to watch that at your age." At her age, the scariest thing he watched was the Hindenburg disaster being played on a television set, which had claimed hundred of lives.
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Post by angelofmusic1992 on Jul 2, 2016 10:37:03 GMT -5
Carl's voice was soothing, quiet. It was the only thing keeping Saorise from feeling like she was drowning. "I don't want...you guys...getting hurt...or worse..." she sobbed. That was her greatest fear. If any of her loved ones went into the forest and ended up like her family, she would never forgive herself.
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Post by zuyuri on Jul 2, 2016 20:13:47 GMT -5
Carl just listened to the tiny little sobs Saorise was emitting. And here he was without an handkerchief or a wad of tissues to help her dry her eyes. It was something he never had experienced, even with children in the cirque who dubbed him 'Grandpa'. The only child he ever showed any open sign of affection for was Saoirise. There were a lot of stories of bad situations in the cirque where people had gotten hurt, and there was always a miracle; Tulio being saved from death with the sorrow of his friends, Belle's healing by her godmother, Cinderella coming to the cirque after the defeat of the Seven Sins. "You haven't been here for a while," Carl started carefully, "but we have been in many situations like the hunter. We were frightened, too, and didn't want anything to happen to our loved ones, but did we avoid it altogether?"
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Post by angelofmusic1992 on Jul 3, 2016 11:12:26 GMT -5
Saorise wiped her eyes as Carl started talking again. She was starting to see that he had a point. She had heard some stories about some bad guys the circus had faced in the past. They had always fought them back, and they always won. "No..." Hiding wasn't the best option, she knew that. But it was the easiest. It was so much simpler to just run away from the problem than face it.
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Post by zuyuri on Jul 4, 2016 12:09:23 GMT -5
Carl gave a reassuring smile to her. "Exactly. Because we knew that those bad people wanted to hurt people we loved, and if we ran and hid, we were only letting them win. Aye, hiding out is easier, but it also gives you time to think about other things. Weren't they pretty streams in the forest? You can't let those bad hunters keep you away from that, can you?"
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Post by angelofmusic1992 on Jul 8, 2016 13:11:29 GMT -5
Saorise nodded. She remembered the pretty streams in the forest, and the flowers, and the trees. Was she really going to stay away from those the rest of her life, just because the hunters were there? "You guys...won't get hurt out there, will you?" she asked. Maybe the hunters wouldn't hurt her friends, if they realized what they were. Now that she thought about it, she wasn't sure if they'd shoot something like a gargoyle or a fairy. Heck, they'd probably just turn tail and run.
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Post by zuyuri on Jul 8, 2016 21:30:19 GMT -5
That was a fifty fifty chance. But the good news was Saoirise was seeming to calm down from her hunter scare. There was no guarantee how they would react to the creatures, but he knew one thing the cirque was good at; defense. Carl nodded, ruffling her hair. "Of course we won't get hurt. It takes a lot to get all us hurt."
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Post by angelofmusic1992 on Jul 11, 2016 13:10:07 GMT -5
That was enough to assure Saiorse a bit. She knew she'd probably still be worried about people going into the forest as long as they were in Salem, but she wasn't about to stop them. She had to remember that this was the circus she was thinking about. These people had fought off way worse things than human hunters. She snuggled against Carl's side, finally feeling calm. "I love you," she said softly.
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