Keep on Swimmin'

Moments later, he relocated closer to the tank as he did every night and began his usual chatter. “I really don’t like that guy. Nobody really does. He’s a dick. ..of course, I can’t say that to his face. I tried once a few years back and ended up with a black eye. Not a fun guy.” He went on, talking about nothing in particular; told a couple stories of a few events in the circus’ past, laughed, and then drew into a silence for a while.

If there was one thing he enjoyed about his new 'home', it was that he'd been given lots of jewelery.

It was unfortunate, however, that his least favorite fellow circus member had decided to show up while he was still there. There had been several times where Adelanto had had the fortune of having his tank moved out before he arrived to pick up the money, but today was, sadly, not one of those days. If regular human males made his skin crawl, this one made the merman want to tear his skin off. He was disgusting, and the redhead loathed him with his entire being. The beast had made such crude and disgusting gestures at him that he didn't even need to have any prior knowledge about human biology to catch on to what was being sent his way and it made him want to gag. If his actions had been that gross, he could only imagine what those words he spoke meant. He just knew that they were obviously sexual and degrading in nature from the tone of his voice.

Adelanto had, on numerous occasions, viciously attacked him with the most venomous words he could think of in his language, but that only seemed to egg the oaf on and make the situation worse. If he could, the merman would have most definitely drowned him in the painful way he could think of. In retrospect, the redhead was honestly disappointed that he hadn't thought to seduce him and bring him up close enough to the tank so that he could pull him in and beat him against his boulder. He entertained the thought of doing so the next time he had to see the creature, but decided it probably would not be the best of ideas, even if no one liked the guy.

Thankfully enough, the creature no longer made such sickening passes at him since he'd gotten an earful from the head honcho. He remembered that he'd worn a smile for the rest of the night that day, and the memory was one that he was still very fond of... and as the man looked his way, he sneered and called him a shit eating bottom-feeder, though he probably couldn't hear him through the glass. Not clearly, at least, but it wouldn't have mattered either way since he wouldn't have understood. The merman almost wished he could, but he was gone now. Out of sight, and out of mind.

Once he'd left, Finny made his way on over and Adelanto brushed his hair aside to smile and nod in greeting to the pale boy. He still spoke rather quickly, despite the redhead's reminders for him to slow down, but he managed to get the gist of most of what was being said. Swimming over to get closer to the tank glass, he crossed his arms and 'sat' in front of Finny, nodding in agreement to the boy's words.

"Yes, not liking. Ra'c y vilgehk puddus vaatan.-- ugly stink," Adelanto agreed before putting his hand on the glass consolingly at the news of Finny's previous injury, "Dryd cilgc. No fun."

As the topic closed, he listened intently to Finny talk, nodding and reacting accordingly to the stories he was told. He had to admit, begrudgingly at least, that this place was very interesting. He was surprised, however, when the boy tapered off into a short silence. His brows drew up in concern.

Finny was one of the sideshow attractions – he was the albino kid. Nowhere near a main attraction, but kids enjoyed him nonetheless. His place was towards the beginning of the tent, his stand covered in exotic looking rugs and pillows. The boy himself usually sat atop the pillows and attracted peoples’ attention with stories rather than what he was advertised as. He knew being super pale with near-white hair wasn’t that exciting. Besides, kids loved to hear his stories. In fact, he tended to become somewhat of a babysitter if parents ever wanted to wander somewhere else – to grab some drinks or go look at another attraction that the kids weren’t interested in. It was easy for Finny to keep any passing kid’s attention, and they often sat around his stand and watched with eyes wide with wonder. His tales ranged from exciting adventures to heartbreaking romances, and each one was imaginative and entertaining.

Lately, though, the kids have been more entertained by the merperson further in the tent. After all, why listen to stories about a mermaid when you can walk fifteen feet and see one? It didn’t bother Finny, though – he, too, was excited by the presence of the merperson. Even though it’d been about a month since Adelanto arrived, Finny was still a bit awestruck by him. It was a living, breathing, actual merman, after all! That was something he’d only told stories about before, and didn’t even realize existed. Since Adelanto’s arrival, Finny would try and talk with him calmly (though his excitement always showed through in his bright smile and shining eyes), asking about his home and what it was like, and what sort of sights there are to see under the ocean, and so on and so forth.

The hum of the crowd hushed as a loud trumpet sounded outside. The voice of the Ringmaster, Herr Dietfried, could be heard bellowing over the crowd, announcing that the main show was about to start. A few people inside the Freak Show’s tent pulled aside the curtain entrance to peer out and to start heading towards the main tent. It could be seen as people exited the Freak Show; the tent was significantly larger, and just outside of the entrance standing above the crowd, precariously balanced on several stacked items, was Herr Dietfried, waving his cane around in the air as he drew the crowd into the tent. He was brightly dressed in a flamboyant outfit of red, gold, purple, and white, his face painted white and red. His dark blue, near-black hair cupped his face in that odd little bob of his, making his white face stand out even more.

The smaller tent quickly emptied as the guests hurried to catch a seat for the main attraction. Finny waved goodbyes to a few of the children that bounded out, and they eagerly waved back before disappearing into the crowd. He was sitting at the edge of his little stage, his legs dangling off the edge and peering out the tent flaps. He was wearing his usual show outfit – which wasn’t much, since he was supposed to show off his skin – a simple pair of silken pants with a red sash around the waist. His feet and torso were left bare. Swept across his forehead and into his face were messy bangs, his hair thick and in a constant state of bed-head. His face was round and young – he was about seventeen, but could probably pass as a younger kid – and his eyes wide and pink-red. They squinted at the light from outside. He had a little trouble with his vision. Nothing too serious, just some light sensitivity and near sightedness (one of the reasons the lights inside the tent were on the dimmer side).

It hadn't been as bad as he thought it could be, but it wasn't like it was entirely ideal either. No one wanted to be cooped up in a small tank like this for ever, after all. At least, he didn't. The merman had no idea how the other circus attractions could live like this for so long. All things considered, some of them had been here for years, possibly even decades! How could they deal with this for so long? Being treated like objects... That was the whole reason he left home! Mostly, anyways. Though the situations were different, his feelings of extreme ire were about the same.

Instead of too little attention, he was getting too much. He wouldn't have minded so much if he didn't have to deal with how the adults-- the male ones particularly, would leer at him so. The females tended to regard him with an off combination of disgust, jealousy, and awe. It made his skin crawl. Having to pretend he was female only added to his annoyance-- he would curse them in the ancient tongue of the mer, watching with vague amusement as the fools took it for some kind of compliment or some kind of friendly or sultry banter on his part. The only thing that made it even moderately okay to live like this, aside from being able to mock these terrible creatures without them realizing, was the children. Now that was attention he didn't mind having. Though he did not speak to them, and could barely understand the fast chatter, he understood as much that they were awe stricken by his beauty. He didn't quite understand their fascination with him, since he wasn't even that good looking all things considered.

He imagined it had to do with the fact that they had probably never seen any kind of merfolk before, though.

Regardless, he didn't mind performing little stunts for them, and blowing them kisses, shaping bubbles, and other friendly gestures. Watching their faces of delight brought a genuine smile to his face.

But that was always short lived, because where the children were, there would always be adults somewhere nearby. There was also the fact that children had the uncanny ability to be just as awful as the bigger versions of themselves. They were the most common perpetrators of glass-tapping, which drove him up the wall and out the door. Being stuck in a tank was one thing, but the vibrations caused by the tapping just made it so much more incredibly uncomfortable. It made everything wobble  and just threw off his senses in general. He would have to bring it up with the circus leader or whatever as soon as possible-- and be as damnably vocal about it as he could because he was having none of this bull shit. The merman already had enough on his plate to deal with, he didn't need this annoyance added on top.

Either way, it appeared that this was where he was going to stay for a very long time, and he supposed that he was just going to have to get used to all this, much as he'd imagined the other members of the troupe had to.

It took Adelanto a moment to note that the crowd in the tent appeared to be thinning, which mean that they were probably going to the other, bigger tent. He waved farewell with fake disappointment and inwardly heaved a relieved sigh as the crowd essentially vanished. After a majority of them had gone, he pushed himself from his boulder-perch and swam the short distance to the tank glass. His hands rested on the glass, as he craned his neck to watch as they disappeared through the flap. He sneered, tilting his chin up and huffing a 'good riddance' before swimming back to his boulder, settling instead on the sandy bottom of the tank so he could 'sit' back and lean against it.

 Now that they were all gone, he started removing the gaudy clothing they'd given him to give him breasts. Taking off his 'costume' was always such an annoying task, especially when it came to the accessories in his hair. They were always such a pain to take off, with the damn stuff floating around everywhere. Why couldn't they have just given him the stupid pearl circlet and left it at that? Why did that have to make him have to clip shit in there. He pursed his lips in annoyance, trying to pull a sea-star clip out of his hair without taking a couple fiery strands along with it.

Why did he have to have such long hair? Why hadn't he just sheared it all off? He couldn't do that anymore, lest he wanted to get dumped out and left to die, he assumed.

As he wrestled with one of the few remaining clips, he heard a muffled voice and golden eyes glanced to the source. It was the oddly pale fellow, more toward the front of the tent. He sounded so cheerful and carefree all the time. His eyebrows furrowed and he frowned. How did the human do it? How could he be so cheerful all the damn time? To be honest, he'd probably share the sentiments of the other troupe members, had the boy not been the only being here who treated him as an actual person, as opposed to an object.

Finny is what he was called. The merman deemed him an acceptable human being, although an odd one, considering their similar situations and different demeanors. He spoke with Adelanto often. At first, the redhead had ignored him, too busy sulking to care. If he remembered correctly, he'd even snapped at Finny a few times, but it didn't seem to deter him much. As time wore on, he slowly began to pay more and more attention to the boy-- even attempting to converse with him now and again when he felt he could. It was actually pretty nice, although he was constantly embarrassed with his inability to properly communicate with the human.