maskormenacelogs | Oh Mr. Clown, Oh Mr. Clown

[ Fillmore was lost.

Alright, maybe he wasn't. But he sure felt like he was, weaving in between people and tents and performances like... well, like someone who was desperately trying to find his way. But that didn't mean he even had a set goal in mind - he had no idea where he was going or where he was even meant to be and the fact of the matter was he still hadn't wrapped his head around this Supehero business. Was he even supposed to be anywhere at all or could he just watch. Observe. Try and make sense of what he hadn't made any sense of yet.

These powers that everyone around him seemed to have, to share, to possess along with him; Fillmore was just a little lost. Confused. He knew he had one, he even knew what it was but that didn't matter so much when it still baffled him. Maybe he was supposed to just accept it and he could to a certain extent but it was so strange. (Stranger even that they knew his name - Madder Red, Madder Red, Madder Red - but that just made him feel even worse.) Even if he could accept it, he wouldn't be performing - there was nothing to perform - but it was just something he couldn't do. Wasn't supposed to be able to do. And now he could. Now he could be a superhero because he could talk to cats... unlikely.

Lost in thought, Fillmore stopped paying attention to his every footstep and finally came into a collision course with, well, you. Oops. ]

Oh- i'm sorry! I wasn't trying to run into you, my apologies.

Edited 2014-08-17 21:07 (UTC)

[ Life, Fraser had learned early, had a way of getting stranger before it ever started to look more normal, and that was true of this situation as much - if not more, because when had he ever expected to be in a world where it was perpetually 1954 with superpowers and hoverboards - as it would be true of any other.

So in the spirit of making things stranger before they began to improve, here Madder is colliding with the flank of a very soft nine foot long polar bear, that was about as out of place in a Florida carnival as oh, everything else. Diefenbaker was not present - Fraser had sent him to find help (or at least that's what he thought he did, he'd never tried communicating with a deaf wolf while stuck in the body of a polar bear before) - which was perhaps a godsend, because honestly what were you supposed to do? This was weird enough without making a nativity scene out of it.

He turned his big black button eyes on Madder and blinked at him, opening and closing his mouth and making the briefest chuffing sound as he tried to explain that yes, it was perfectly okay. Which was dumb because he had huge teeth, and try as he might he couldn't make any of the necessary vowel noises. Or anything that sounded human, actually. ]

[ His apology seemed strange when he realized, much to his surprise, that he'd bumped into a polar bear.

A polar bear. He'd expected people and now here was an animal that he knew for a fact was considered a beast. It harkened back to other thing, things that Fillmore didn't want to dwell on (beasts could change, could be changed) but were there nonetheless. But that didn't mean he couldn't help his interest and his fear alike, stringing him along until he took a step back. Especially after the big teeth - those warranted a step back. ]

I've never met a polar bear before. I'm not so sure this should continue to be the first time.

[ But after a moment he glances up and thinks, gaze narrowing. ] Unless you're a trained bear. From the circus. [ Had he seen any other trained animals? ]

[ Ah yes, big teeth. He was pretty scary, he'd figured that out straight away. Except apparently if you were under the age of five and therefore had no boundaries, because then when you saw a huge possibly maneating polar bear you ran up to it and hugged it round the neck. Obviously.

Fraser sniffed apologetically as Fillmore stepped back, and rolled back, sitting down rather heavily on his enormous rump with his paws stuck out in front of him. Awkward as it might be, it was remarkably comfortable, and at least it looked friendlier. It looked less like he was going to lunge out with those sharp teeth and take out a stranger's throat, at least. Trained bear, right. He could act like a trained bear.

Even if he'd never seen one?

What did trained bears do? Skip? Dance on balls? Ride elephants? He didn't have any of those things. But he could...okay, he could sign. He curled his right paw into a closed fist, brought it up over the center of his chest, and moved it in a small circle: I'm sorry.

And hopefully it wouldn't be mistaken for 'I'm hungry'. ]

[ This was all very interesting.

Fillmore watched with a certain degree of interest that could only be described as vastly curious - a look that trained itself on the bear and refused to look anywhere else. He still wasn't about to go lunging forward to look for a hug, but the polar bear didn't seem openly vicious either. Maybe it had something to do with the carnival and maybe it didn't - maybe it was just reeling him in with the full intention of eating him later - but all Fillmore could do was watch and hope to find out more as the seconds ticked by.

The polar bear plopped itself down and that unto itself was nearly smile worthy, but was that- was the polar bear trying to do something with its paws? Did polar bears do something with their paws on a regular basis? Maybe it's stomach was just upset, maybe it was... maybe it was.. maybe. There was something vastly important going on here and Fillmore didn't want to think the words without being taken for a fool.

Fillmore was getting more confused by the moment but he had an inkling something very specific was going on. Something more than was riding along the surface, something regarding powers and possibilities and things Fillmore had yet to understand. And even though Fillmore couldn't read sign language he was intrigued enough that he cocked his head to the side and pondered with a quiet 'hmmm.' ]

I might not know what you're saying but you're certainly trying to say something. Which means you know how to speak and I think you're holding back.

[ Good, yes. They were communicating. And at least ~~Canadian~~ American Sign Language was a lot easier to do with a bear's limited flexion than it would have been if he'd been trying to use semaphore. When Fillmore started to work out that he was trying to talk, he nodded eagerly, bear nods with his long black tipped snout. Except no, no--he wasn't holding back! He couldn't talk, he was a bear!

And so he opened his mouth and made a bleating sort of hopeless noise, as though to say: look, I came to talk English to you and all I managed was this stupid noise.

This was proving to be harder than he thought. If only he could work out how to change back he could maybe try having a normal conversation. And apologize for being a bear. Clearly the collision was his fault; it was the only thing that made sense. If he hadn't been so distracted by one white paw in front of another then--

His ears flicked upward, there was a noise, approaching feet, and he had to fight down the bear's instinct to defend itself as WHUMF two twin girls, probably no older than three, their hair in blonde ponytails, came flying out of nowhere and plastered themselves to his sides. He put his curled paw fist in the other open paw and gestured up and down, looking earnestly at Fillmore with big wide bear eyes.

Help. ]

[ Oh. Oh this was just starting to turn into one big problem.

First it was what looked like nodding and then it was the awful sort of noise it made and then it was the two girls that came out of nowhere to seemingly try and tackle the giant bear to the ground. It all occurred so quickly that Fillmore didn't know which thing he should address first, leaving him with a single finger pointed up as if he was just about to point out an incredibly significant fact. One that left him as soon as the gleeful children had amassed their skills of harassment.

And the bear just looked so sad. ]

Girls, girls- [ Trying to corral them somehow, as if he had any kind of skill when it came to children apart from scaring the shit out of them, Fillmore waved his hans in little shooing motions, hoping to get the point across. ] Girls, I think it's best if you leave the polar bear alone. It hasn't had lunch recently and the adverse affects of that might be taking effect- it's probably hungry enough to eat the both of you.

[ Between Fillmore scaring them and Fraser trying to look as hungry as a bear could look, they managed between them to make the girls think twice, and they ran back to their parents and baby brother on tiny little legs, squealing all over again. Fraser let out a big bear sigh of relief, and absently touched his paw to the bottom of his snout and gestured 'Thank you'.

He slumped a little again. This was all very complicated. How did you even communicate when you were a giant carnivore? He hadn't appreciated until now just how useful being able to talk was.

But then the same was true of his sight. Amazing how when you lost that - for however briefly - it tended to change a whole lot about the way you looked at life. No pun intended.

In fact it reminded him of an Inuit story, which he began to try to tell, making yipping, yawing, grumbly bear noises and adding the occasional absent gesture. He got to the part where the narwhal surfaced suddenly and took out the fisherman's eye before he realized what he was doing. ]

[ Well. Now this was certainly interesting. Which was a mild mannered way of putting it - Fillmore had no better way to explain what it was he was seeing and yet it was happening before his very eyes. A bear simply laying it out on the line with all sorts of noises, as if trying its very hardest to talk and only managing to fail miserably. Fillmore rested a hand on his chin, thinking visibly as he watched and tried to absorb an entire language unfolding before his very eyes.

Linguistics. Not one of his many strong suits.

Ah, well. The more important thing here was sussing out who this was and why they were stuck as a polar bear. Had someone in the carnival turned them? Or were they merely masquerading because they could. The possibilities were endless and yet they all came to the same conclusion: this polar bear was no bear. It was, in fact, rather human. ]

You'll have to repeat all of that to me that when you're a human. I'm not fluent in polar bear.

[ Fraser put his paw over his nose, frowned down at it - as much as a polar bear could frown - then made a bear noise of apology again. Really all this apologising was getting embarrassing. If he could just change back he could get all this straightened out.

And then that was it--

Suddenly there was just a man sitting in the middle of the path. A man in a red shirt, jeans and a hat; a man looking very perplexed by the whole thing, in fact, because he hadn't really believed that this was a thing that could happen. Changing into animals...that was a trick left to tribal shamans and trickster gods. ]

Well. [ He said. And then glanced up. ] I'm really very sorry about that.

[ Well. That was interesting beyond almost anything interesting he'd ever seen.

.... Alright, so maybe that was an overstatement. Madder'd seen too many things over the course of his life and a polar bear turning back into a man didn't quite make the lis of oddities and perversions he'd witnessed. All at his own hand, really, but nonetheless, they were still interesting- Except they weren't. Not anymore. They were horrible and bad. And oh, he could really use someone to talk to.

His lack of sessions was getting to him.

Trying to focus on the task at hand, on the moment before him, Fillmore's eyes grew wider as he assessed the apologizing man that stood before him. ]

It's perfectly alright, there's nothing to apologize for. [ a beat ] Is that your... power? Or do you normally do that where you come from?

One of them, supposedly.

[ Fraser takes off his hat, puzzling over it because he certainly hadn't been wearing it when he'd been a polar bear. His clothes must have simply ceased to exist. Which is at once strange and not, because what was the point in having expectations about how a bizarre thing might happen? Changing into animals was already a difficult enough trick to perform, temporarily vanishing his hat during the experience was really not that big of a deal. He shakes his head smartly, puts the hat back on his head and smiles back up at Madder. ]

I'm supposed to be able to change into...a variety of native animals. Though I'm trying to avoid thinking too hard on the subject, given that's what I was doing when this whole thing began.

[ He pulled himself back up to his feet warily. Human feet, strangely wobbly, and offered his hand out toward him. ]

Constable Benton Fraser.

[Like Fillmore, Rei is just here to observe. He's still not sure how to use his powers, and he wasn't sure he wanted to get involved in any of the booths, either. So instead, he's just been walking around.

Rei is jostled a bit from the bump, but it's not like this is the first time he's been knocked into today. This is a pretty busy fair! That still doesn't stop this from being a bit of a disastrous run-in, however, as the corndog that he was holding slips from his hand into the dirt.]

Ah-

[He stares at the corndog for a moment, then sighs to himself.] It's fine. I probably shouldn't have been eating that, anyway. So much grease...

[ But Rei's comment only makes Fillmore cringe, staring at the corndog on the ground before looking up to this new stranger and finding himself all too apologetic. ]

No, no- I could get you another one. It's only right, seeing as I was the one that wasn't looking where I was going.

[ Fillmore doesn't quite smile, if anything he frowns a bit at the facts that stand before him but he musters up his urge to be friendly and manages something close to a pleasant expression. He means well, he just... doesn't entirely know how to do it. ]

Really, don't worry about it. [Rei holds up his hands placatingly.] It's not a problem at all.

[He can go without the corndog, especially as the man who ran into him looks pretty uncomfortable about the whole situation. He's still not sure what he was thinking, buying it in the first place, but this particular carnival isn't exactly overflowing in healthier foods.]

Oh Mr. Clown, Oh Mr. Clown

Fillmore Press | Registered | Open

/sobs into hands so sorry

you should be

always ;;

good thing i like you

not sure if believe

well fine

no no fight me

i refuse

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