Cordelia
04-28-09, 03:02 PM
Hey there. I've laid out my character below. I went off on a roll with the history, so it's a bit long. I moved it to the end to keep it out of the way. Thanks!
Name: Cordelia Vesh
Age: 23
Race: Human
Hair Color: Black
Eye Color: Light Blue
Height: 5’ 6”
Weight: 135 lbs
Occupation: Jill-Of-All-Trades
Personality: Cordelia considers herself an outsider, but her loyalty to those she cares about is astounding. While she’s often emotionally distant, perhaps even stoic, her stony exterior is little more than a suit of psychological armor. Still, she’s not likely to open up to just anyone over a pint of ale, and her trust doesn’t come easily. Once earned, though, it’s worth its weight in sweat and tears.
Appearance: Cordelia is of average height and perhaps a bit more lithe than skinny or slender. Her hair black, wavy, and comes down to her shoulders on the rare occasion that it isn’t tied up by a leather string. Her skin is naturally pale, but she spends enough time outside to get the beginnings of a tan every summer. Her eyes are light blue, the color of a morning sky. Her typical outfit is chosen for maneuverability: black boots, black leggings, black shirt, all fitted tight to her body. She wears a jacket, long and deep purple, in addition to some light armor.
Skills:
Charismatic: Growing up in a circus, under the ever-watchful eye of a professional soothsayer, taught Cordelia a thing or two about how to sell herself and her ideas. She can fast-talk pretty well, and knows how to spot and exploit weaknesses in her opponent’s arguments.
Agile: Cordelia spent as much free time as she could with the acrobats and, though she never learned enough to become one of them, she picked up a few basic skills. Her balance is above average, and she knows how to use her body to jump, swing, and climb her way out of sticky situations.
Clever: She’s good with problems, especially the solving of them. The more work Cordelia did around the tents, the more she realized that most problems were variations on similar themes. Gradually, she learned to generalize her knowledge and rework previous solutions to fit new problems.
Whip: Cordelia’s only real weapon, her whip was a birthday gift from Mad Monty, the tiger tamer. He tutored her privately on how to use it safely, though she’s never had to lash out against another sentient being. Her skill level is above average.
Repair: The various odd jobs Cordelia’s done for the troupe often consist of reattaching Part A to Part B or of making sure Part C doesn’t malfunction and blow them all to bits. As such, she’s picked up a fair bit of knowledge about how to keep mechanical doodads in solid working order.
First Aid: Of course, said knowledge has come with a price. Through her practical studies in how to keep a circus running, Cordelia’s run into a considerable number of minor setbacks. She’s learned, then, how to clean and bandage a minor wound and purge small amounts of toxins from her system.
Equipment:
Clothing: detailed above
Carapace: iron with purple leather covering
Bracers: purple leather
Thigh Plates: purple leather
Whip: high-quality black leather
First Aid Supplies: bandages, antibacterial salve, general antidote potion, general painkiller potion
Hunting Knife: sharp enough to cut meat, but too small to really fight with
History:
Prologue:
Cordelia Vesh was five-years-old the night that her mother fell.
It was late summer, and the air under the Big Top was thick and musky with what she would later come to recognize as the fragrance of agriculture – a pungent concoction of animal dung, unwashed farmhands, and rotting vegetation. At the time, though, all she knew was that the air stuck to the insides of her cheeks when she inhaled, and she’d taken to swishing her tongue around in her mouth to peel it all off and swallow it into her lungs.
So, sitting cross-legged on a wooden crate backstage, Cordelia took a deep breath, swirled her tongue, and gulped. She then peered carefully through her curtain hole, a strategic tear in the strawberry fabric. She wasn’t supposed to be seen – it was a rule – but she liked to watch the audiences. Sometimes, they were even more interesting than the show. Tonight, though, they weren’t particularly fascinating: mostly young people, girls with shiny hair and boys with thick arms. They were loud, but not rude, and Cordelia liked them well enough. They were nothing compared to the city crowds, though, with their glittering jewelry and fancy jackets.
“I’m up, Delly.” Her mother came up behind her and planted a firm kiss into her dark hair. “Wish me?”
Cordelia grinned. “Luck, luck, luck.”
Then she pressed her eye back to the hole and watched, transfixed, as her mother cartwheeled into the center ring. Alice Vesh was an acrobat – one of the best, according to troupe, and though Cordelia had never seen another circus perform, she couldn’t imagine anyone being better than her mother.
Alice did a back flip, a split, and a few aerial twirls before making her way over to the tall ladder at the edge of the tent. Cordelia wasn’t allowed near the ladder (she wasn’t allowed near a lot of things) but she knew that it stretched up to the very top of the tent. She watched her mother climb and climb and climb. When Alice reached the little platform at the very top and bowed low, the audience hushed.
She took a small step out onto the high wire, and paused. She balanced there for a moment, completely still, completely focused. Then she launched herself forward and into a complex series of twirls and flips, leaps and handstands. The crowd, of course, went absolutely wild.
In fact, they were so mad with applause that they didn’t catch the hitch in the act. They didn’t see, as Cordelia did, Alice misstep, land with her heel instead of her toe and hesitate, stumble.
All at once, the entire tent went silent. Cordelia sucked in a deep breath and forgot to swish her tongue around. Alice hovered for a moment, reached out, and began to fall.
Strong, thin arms grabbed Cordelia and pulled her away from the curtain. One of the acrobats, she couldn’t tell who, picked her up and carried her out of the tent. She could hear voices screaming and shouting, and people running all over the place. Carnage, the show tiger, roared and rattled her cage. She’d always been jumpy.
“There, there, it’ll be alright.” Someone patted Cordelia’s back and kissed her temple, but it wasn’t her mother so she didn’t care.
No one actually came to tell her that her mother had died. She didn’t know if it had happened on impact or if Alice had lived long enough to feel her pain. She didn’t know if she’d said anything, if she’d said “Goodbye” or “Tell Cordelia I love her” or even, really, “Ouch.”
All she knew was that two days later, they buried Alice Vesh in the shade of an old tree, packed up their wagons, and moved on to the next town. Cordelia, who had always slept with her mother and the other female acrobats, moved in with Miss Magnifique, the fortuneteller. She slept on the couch in the wagon, but she had her favorite blanket and a few toys. None of which, of course, made the change any easier.
She started having nightmares of falling women and screaming farm girls, but the worst dreams were those in which her mother was still alive. Miss M told her that, eventually, the sadness wouldn’t feel so sad and that she’d stop having the dreams every single night. It would take time, though. Cordelia had nodded, but she wasn’t sure that she believed it.
Still, Miss M was kind and gentle, and she smelled like must and candle wax. She read Cordelia stories, made her cookies, and let her hide beneath the table while she told fortunes to giggly teenagers. Sometimes, if Cordelia had been especially good, Miss M even let her pretend to be a visitor from the spirit world, rapping on the floor with her knuckles and making spooky sounds.
By the time she was eight, though, Cordelia was too big to fit under the table and, in her own estimation, too important to spend all day listening to silly stories about a made-up future. Miss M let her wander around during the day, as long as she promised to stay out of trouble and check in at the wagon from time to time. And so, Cordelia began to roam. At first, she spent time mostly with the acrobats. They were the people she knew best, after all, and sometimes they showed her fun tricks, like how to hang upside-down from the trapeze.
They worked a lot, though. In fact, everyone did, aside from Cordelia and, possibly, Clara the One-Ton Wonder. And, though she was a very nice woman, Clara wasn’t the type of person Cordelia wanted to become.
So, in this unintentional and rather roundabout way, Cordelia began her training. She did odd jobs around the tents – mucking out the tiger cages and polishing The Mighty Thor’s barbells – until, gradually, these odd jobs became her jobs. By the age of eighteen, she was the troupe’s go-to girl, their very own Jill-of-All-Trades.
Which was, perhaps, the very fact that saved her from immediate unemployment and homelessness following the Ringmaster’s sudden departure one April.
“Don’t know where he’s going or why he’s going there so quick,” said Dommer the Dwarf, who was actually half-gnome. “But he ain’t coming back. He’s bringing in someone new to take over. A woman.”
Cordelia cocked an eyebrow. “There aren’t many Ringmistresses.”
“No there ain’t,” Dommer said, diplomatically leaving off the phrase “Thanks be to the Gods.”
Word of the upheaval spread through the troupe faster than a case of food poisoning, and the morning of the Ringmistress’s arrival was one marked by a complete lack of productivity. All the folk, from the acrobats to the stagehands to everyone in between, hung about outside, waiting to catch a glimpse of their new sovereign.
“I hope she’s pretty,” Thor muttered, winking down at Cordelia. She rolled her eyes and swatted him on the arm.
“That must be her,” she said, nodding at a carriage in the distance. It turned off the main road and, kicking up a cloud of dry dirt, headed toward the camp.
The horses came to a stop just outside of the Big Top, and the driver hopped down to open the carriage door. Before he was even out of his seat, though, the door opened itself and Ringmistress Lucia Goren stepped out into the sunlight.
She was fair-haired and pale-skinned, and even from a distance Cordelia could make out the green of her eyes. Everything about her, from the silver buckles on her boots to the strange charm she wore around her neck, was polished to a glow. She paused at the bottom of the steps, one foot already on the ground, and quirked a half-smile. She looked around, taking everyone in. “Good morning,” she said, to no one in particular.
“Would a few of you be so kind as to help me with my things?” She reached back up into the carriage and pulled out a black satchel. A few obedient stagehands hurried forward and began to untie the harnesses holding her trunks to the back of the wagon.
“I’m looking forward to getting to know each of you,” she said. “But first, please allow me to settle in. There’s no show tonight, so I say that we all meet back here at sunset. I’ll be better able to introduce myself properly then. In the meantime, is anyone free to show me to my quarters?”
Several people stepped forward before Cordelia could even consider volunteering, and the Mistress was whisked off toward the edge of camp without another word. The crowd began to disperse. There was, after all, work to be done, and no one wanted to be caught slacking on their new sovereign’s first day.
Of course, very little work was actually accomplished, and Cordelia could tell by the sheer number of minor accidents that she wasn’t the only person having difficulty focusing. Evening rolled around, as it always did, but it seemed to be taking its sweet time.
With the approach of sunset, though, the troupe gathered beneath the Big Top. They huddled around, broken into their usual cliques: acrobats, sideshows, stagehands, tamers, etc.
Just as everyone was beginning to wonder, but before they became restless, the Ringmistress stepped through a flap in the tent. Her outfit - black skirt, black vest, red jacket – suited not only her body, but also the atmosphere. The crowd hushed.
“I’m so glad that all of you could make it,” she said. Making her way to the center ring, she continued, “I see that you all know each other very well, and I hope to earn myself a place in your surrogate family.
“That said, it should be apparent that my arrival here has been a rather hasty one. This leaves us all at a bit of a disadvantage through the coming weeks.” She spun slowly, making eye contact with everyone. “It will take you all time to get to know me, and vice versa.”
Her gaze met Cordelia’s and lingered for a moment. Cordelia felt her mouth go dry and she needed, suddenly, to look anywhere but into the Ringmistress’s eyes. She glanced down, swallowed hard, and studied a scuff on the toe of her left boot. She didn’t know what kind of magic the Mistress was using, but she knew that it was effective. And potent.
Ringmistress Goren continued: “Rest assured that I will do my job, and that I will do it well.” Of this, Cordelia had no doubt. “I expect the same from all of you.
“We have a show tomorrow evening. I’d like to spend the day familiarizing myself with your acts. For the time being, though, I believe a bit of relaxation is in order. You have night off. Enjoy yourselves.”
The troupe broke out into applause, and the Mistress bowed once before turning to speak to a group of vendors.
She sure is something,” Miss M said. She wasn’t smiling, exactly, but Cordelia could read the approval in her eyes. “At least we know she’ll be able to pull in the crowds.”
“And keep them tethered to their seats.” Cordelia took a deep breath. “I’m going to get some air. It’s a bit loud in here for me now. I’ll see you back at the wagon.” She leaned down, pressing her customary kiss to Miss M’s rouged cheek, before slipping through the tent flap and into the spring evening.
She wasn’t sure exactly where they were camped, but the ground was dry and flat. Everything smelled like dirt. She looked up into the clear sky and inhaled. She’d never learned to read the stars, but she felt certain that something about this night had been written in them. She couldn’t figure out what it was, beyond a vague churning in her gut, but something had been set into motion.
“I never much cared for astrology myself.”
Cordelia started, both because of the voice’s sudden appearance and because of its owner. She felt a jolt of something quick and fiery slip into her bloodstream. Remembering to breathe, she turned.
“But you’re the fortuneteller’s daughter,” the Ringmistress continued.
Cordelia shrugged, then looked back to the sky. It made her less uneasy than meeting the other woman’s eyes. “More-or-less. I’m hardly her protégé, though.”
“No, so I’ve heard.” The Mistress took a step closer, until they were shoulder-to-shoulder and Cordelia could smell the floral tones of her perfume. She wondered what, exactly, the Mistress had heard.
“I understand that you’re the one to call should I run into any problems around the tents.”
Cordelia nodded. “Yes, Ma’am. I know my way around here fairly well, and if I can’t help, I’ll be able to find someone who can.”
“Very good. I’m sure we’ll be seeing quite a bit of each other, then.” The Mistress laid a gloved hand on Cordelia’s shoulder, squeezed once, and began to walk away. After a few steps, she turned. “In the meantime, keep at whatever it is that you’re doing. From what I’ve been told, you keep this place running.” She gave the same half-grin she had earlier, back when she’d first arrived. “I see potential in you, Cordelia Vesh. You might have some extra duties before long.”
Cordelia nodded. “Yes, Ma’am.”
As the Ringmistress walked away, Cordelia glanced up again. The stars were the same as ever, but she had the distinct feeling that they no longer held the secret to her destiny. Her fate, it seemed, was being written elsewhere, and by a hand she was just beginning to recognize.
Name: Cordelia Vesh
Age: 23
Race: Human
Hair Color: Black
Eye Color: Light Blue
Height: 5’ 6”
Weight: 135 lbs
Occupation: Jill-Of-All-Trades
Personality: Cordelia considers herself an outsider, but her loyalty to those she cares about is astounding. While she’s often emotionally distant, perhaps even stoic, her stony exterior is little more than a suit of psychological armor. Still, she’s not likely to open up to just anyone over a pint of ale, and her trust doesn’t come easily. Once earned, though, it’s worth its weight in sweat and tears.
Appearance: Cordelia is of average height and perhaps a bit more lithe than skinny or slender. Her hair black, wavy, and comes down to her shoulders on the rare occasion that it isn’t tied up by a leather string. Her skin is naturally pale, but she spends enough time outside to get the beginnings of a tan every summer. Her eyes are light blue, the color of a morning sky. Her typical outfit is chosen for maneuverability: black boots, black leggings, black shirt, all fitted tight to her body. She wears a jacket, long and deep purple, in addition to some light armor.
Skills:
Charismatic: Growing up in a circus, under the ever-watchful eye of a professional soothsayer, taught Cordelia a thing or two about how to sell herself and her ideas. She can fast-talk pretty well, and knows how to spot and exploit weaknesses in her opponent’s arguments.
Agile: Cordelia spent as much free time as she could with the acrobats and, though she never learned enough to become one of them, she picked up a few basic skills. Her balance is above average, and she knows how to use her body to jump, swing, and climb her way out of sticky situations.
Clever: She’s good with problems, especially the solving of them. The more work Cordelia did around the tents, the more she realized that most problems were variations on similar themes. Gradually, she learned to generalize her knowledge and rework previous solutions to fit new problems.
Whip: Cordelia’s only real weapon, her whip was a birthday gift from Mad Monty, the tiger tamer. He tutored her privately on how to use it safely, though she’s never had to lash out against another sentient being. Her skill level is above average.
Repair: The various odd jobs Cordelia’s done for the troupe often consist of reattaching Part A to Part B or of making sure Part C doesn’t malfunction and blow them all to bits. As such, she’s picked up a fair bit of knowledge about how to keep mechanical doodads in solid working order.
First Aid: Of course, said knowledge has come with a price. Through her practical studies in how to keep a circus running, Cordelia’s run into a considerable number of minor setbacks. She’s learned, then, how to clean and bandage a minor wound and purge small amounts of toxins from her system.
Equipment:
Clothing: detailed above
Carapace: iron with purple leather covering
Bracers: purple leather
Thigh Plates: purple leather
Whip: high-quality black leather
First Aid Supplies: bandages, antibacterial salve, general antidote potion, general painkiller potion
Hunting Knife: sharp enough to cut meat, but too small to really fight with
History:
Prologue:
Cordelia Vesh was five-years-old the night that her mother fell.
It was late summer, and the air under the Big Top was thick and musky with what she would later come to recognize as the fragrance of agriculture – a pungent concoction of animal dung, unwashed farmhands, and rotting vegetation. At the time, though, all she knew was that the air stuck to the insides of her cheeks when she inhaled, and she’d taken to swishing her tongue around in her mouth to peel it all off and swallow it into her lungs.
So, sitting cross-legged on a wooden crate backstage, Cordelia took a deep breath, swirled her tongue, and gulped. She then peered carefully through her curtain hole, a strategic tear in the strawberry fabric. She wasn’t supposed to be seen – it was a rule – but she liked to watch the audiences. Sometimes, they were even more interesting than the show. Tonight, though, they weren’t particularly fascinating: mostly young people, girls with shiny hair and boys with thick arms. They were loud, but not rude, and Cordelia liked them well enough. They were nothing compared to the city crowds, though, with their glittering jewelry and fancy jackets.
“I’m up, Delly.” Her mother came up behind her and planted a firm kiss into her dark hair. “Wish me?”
Cordelia grinned. “Luck, luck, luck.”
Then she pressed her eye back to the hole and watched, transfixed, as her mother cartwheeled into the center ring. Alice Vesh was an acrobat – one of the best, according to troupe, and though Cordelia had never seen another circus perform, she couldn’t imagine anyone being better than her mother.
Alice did a back flip, a split, and a few aerial twirls before making her way over to the tall ladder at the edge of the tent. Cordelia wasn’t allowed near the ladder (she wasn’t allowed near a lot of things) but she knew that it stretched up to the very top of the tent. She watched her mother climb and climb and climb. When Alice reached the little platform at the very top and bowed low, the audience hushed.
She took a small step out onto the high wire, and paused. She balanced there for a moment, completely still, completely focused. Then she launched herself forward and into a complex series of twirls and flips, leaps and handstands. The crowd, of course, went absolutely wild.
In fact, they were so mad with applause that they didn’t catch the hitch in the act. They didn’t see, as Cordelia did, Alice misstep, land with her heel instead of her toe and hesitate, stumble.
All at once, the entire tent went silent. Cordelia sucked in a deep breath and forgot to swish her tongue around. Alice hovered for a moment, reached out, and began to fall.
Strong, thin arms grabbed Cordelia and pulled her away from the curtain. One of the acrobats, she couldn’t tell who, picked her up and carried her out of the tent. She could hear voices screaming and shouting, and people running all over the place. Carnage, the show tiger, roared and rattled her cage. She’d always been jumpy.
“There, there, it’ll be alright.” Someone patted Cordelia’s back and kissed her temple, but it wasn’t her mother so she didn’t care.
No one actually came to tell her that her mother had died. She didn’t know if it had happened on impact or if Alice had lived long enough to feel her pain. She didn’t know if she’d said anything, if she’d said “Goodbye” or “Tell Cordelia I love her” or even, really, “Ouch.”
All she knew was that two days later, they buried Alice Vesh in the shade of an old tree, packed up their wagons, and moved on to the next town. Cordelia, who had always slept with her mother and the other female acrobats, moved in with Miss Magnifique, the fortuneteller. She slept on the couch in the wagon, but she had her favorite blanket and a few toys. None of which, of course, made the change any easier.
She started having nightmares of falling women and screaming farm girls, but the worst dreams were those in which her mother was still alive. Miss M told her that, eventually, the sadness wouldn’t feel so sad and that she’d stop having the dreams every single night. It would take time, though. Cordelia had nodded, but she wasn’t sure that she believed it.
Still, Miss M was kind and gentle, and she smelled like must and candle wax. She read Cordelia stories, made her cookies, and let her hide beneath the table while she told fortunes to giggly teenagers. Sometimes, if Cordelia had been especially good, Miss M even let her pretend to be a visitor from the spirit world, rapping on the floor with her knuckles and making spooky sounds.
By the time she was eight, though, Cordelia was too big to fit under the table and, in her own estimation, too important to spend all day listening to silly stories about a made-up future. Miss M let her wander around during the day, as long as she promised to stay out of trouble and check in at the wagon from time to time. And so, Cordelia began to roam. At first, she spent time mostly with the acrobats. They were the people she knew best, after all, and sometimes they showed her fun tricks, like how to hang upside-down from the trapeze.
They worked a lot, though. In fact, everyone did, aside from Cordelia and, possibly, Clara the One-Ton Wonder. And, though she was a very nice woman, Clara wasn’t the type of person Cordelia wanted to become.
So, in this unintentional and rather roundabout way, Cordelia began her training. She did odd jobs around the tents – mucking out the tiger cages and polishing The Mighty Thor’s barbells – until, gradually, these odd jobs became her jobs. By the age of eighteen, she was the troupe’s go-to girl, their very own Jill-of-All-Trades.
Which was, perhaps, the very fact that saved her from immediate unemployment and homelessness following the Ringmaster’s sudden departure one April.
“Don’t know where he’s going or why he’s going there so quick,” said Dommer the Dwarf, who was actually half-gnome. “But he ain’t coming back. He’s bringing in someone new to take over. A woman.”
Cordelia cocked an eyebrow. “There aren’t many Ringmistresses.”
“No there ain’t,” Dommer said, diplomatically leaving off the phrase “Thanks be to the Gods.”
Word of the upheaval spread through the troupe faster than a case of food poisoning, and the morning of the Ringmistress’s arrival was one marked by a complete lack of productivity. All the folk, from the acrobats to the stagehands to everyone in between, hung about outside, waiting to catch a glimpse of their new sovereign.
“I hope she’s pretty,” Thor muttered, winking down at Cordelia. She rolled her eyes and swatted him on the arm.
“That must be her,” she said, nodding at a carriage in the distance. It turned off the main road and, kicking up a cloud of dry dirt, headed toward the camp.
The horses came to a stop just outside of the Big Top, and the driver hopped down to open the carriage door. Before he was even out of his seat, though, the door opened itself and Ringmistress Lucia Goren stepped out into the sunlight.
She was fair-haired and pale-skinned, and even from a distance Cordelia could make out the green of her eyes. Everything about her, from the silver buckles on her boots to the strange charm she wore around her neck, was polished to a glow. She paused at the bottom of the steps, one foot already on the ground, and quirked a half-smile. She looked around, taking everyone in. “Good morning,” she said, to no one in particular.
“Would a few of you be so kind as to help me with my things?” She reached back up into the carriage and pulled out a black satchel. A few obedient stagehands hurried forward and began to untie the harnesses holding her trunks to the back of the wagon.
“I’m looking forward to getting to know each of you,” she said. “But first, please allow me to settle in. There’s no show tonight, so I say that we all meet back here at sunset. I’ll be better able to introduce myself properly then. In the meantime, is anyone free to show me to my quarters?”
Several people stepped forward before Cordelia could even consider volunteering, and the Mistress was whisked off toward the edge of camp without another word. The crowd began to disperse. There was, after all, work to be done, and no one wanted to be caught slacking on their new sovereign’s first day.
Of course, very little work was actually accomplished, and Cordelia could tell by the sheer number of minor accidents that she wasn’t the only person having difficulty focusing. Evening rolled around, as it always did, but it seemed to be taking its sweet time.
With the approach of sunset, though, the troupe gathered beneath the Big Top. They huddled around, broken into their usual cliques: acrobats, sideshows, stagehands, tamers, etc.
Just as everyone was beginning to wonder, but before they became restless, the Ringmistress stepped through a flap in the tent. Her outfit - black skirt, black vest, red jacket – suited not only her body, but also the atmosphere. The crowd hushed.
“I’m so glad that all of you could make it,” she said. Making her way to the center ring, she continued, “I see that you all know each other very well, and I hope to earn myself a place in your surrogate family.
“That said, it should be apparent that my arrival here has been a rather hasty one. This leaves us all at a bit of a disadvantage through the coming weeks.” She spun slowly, making eye contact with everyone. “It will take you all time to get to know me, and vice versa.”
Her gaze met Cordelia’s and lingered for a moment. Cordelia felt her mouth go dry and she needed, suddenly, to look anywhere but into the Ringmistress’s eyes. She glanced down, swallowed hard, and studied a scuff on the toe of her left boot. She didn’t know what kind of magic the Mistress was using, but she knew that it was effective. And potent.
Ringmistress Goren continued: “Rest assured that I will do my job, and that I will do it well.” Of this, Cordelia had no doubt. “I expect the same from all of you.
“We have a show tomorrow evening. I’d like to spend the day familiarizing myself with your acts. For the time being, though, I believe a bit of relaxation is in order. You have night off. Enjoy yourselves.”
The troupe broke out into applause, and the Mistress bowed once before turning to speak to a group of vendors.
She sure is something,” Miss M said. She wasn’t smiling, exactly, but Cordelia could read the approval in her eyes. “At least we know she’ll be able to pull in the crowds.”
“And keep them tethered to their seats.” Cordelia took a deep breath. “I’m going to get some air. It’s a bit loud in here for me now. I’ll see you back at the wagon.” She leaned down, pressing her customary kiss to Miss M’s rouged cheek, before slipping through the tent flap and into the spring evening.
She wasn’t sure exactly where they were camped, but the ground was dry and flat. Everything smelled like dirt. She looked up into the clear sky and inhaled. She’d never learned to read the stars, but she felt certain that something about this night had been written in them. She couldn’t figure out what it was, beyond a vague churning in her gut, but something had been set into motion.
“I never much cared for astrology myself.”
Cordelia started, both because of the voice’s sudden appearance and because of its owner. She felt a jolt of something quick and fiery slip into her bloodstream. Remembering to breathe, she turned.
“But you’re the fortuneteller’s daughter,” the Ringmistress continued.
Cordelia shrugged, then looked back to the sky. It made her less uneasy than meeting the other woman’s eyes. “More-or-less. I’m hardly her protégé, though.”
“No, so I’ve heard.” The Mistress took a step closer, until they were shoulder-to-shoulder and Cordelia could smell the floral tones of her perfume. She wondered what, exactly, the Mistress had heard.
“I understand that you’re the one to call should I run into any problems around the tents.”
Cordelia nodded. “Yes, Ma’am. I know my way around here fairly well, and if I can’t help, I’ll be able to find someone who can.”
“Very good. I’m sure we’ll be seeing quite a bit of each other, then.” The Mistress laid a gloved hand on Cordelia’s shoulder, squeezed once, and began to walk away. After a few steps, she turned. “In the meantime, keep at whatever it is that you’re doing. From what I’ve been told, you keep this place running.” She gave the same half-grin she had earlier, back when she’d first arrived. “I see potential in you, Cordelia Vesh. You might have some extra duties before long.”
Cordelia nodded. “Yes, Ma’am.”
As the Ringmistress walked away, Cordelia glanced up again. The stars were the same as ever, but she had the distinct feeling that they no longer held the secret to her destiny. Her fate, it seemed, was being written elsewhere, and by a hand she was just beginning to recognize.