Mue was really, really trying her hardest not to squeel in glee as she read the poster.

"Balders Circus. 30th Intas. Grand Opening Tour. Never before seen acts. Best show in Anaxas.." She read it over once, twice, three times to make sure she wasn't imagining it.
A circus.. was coming to town. In 4 days time.
A circus!!

With a huge, silly grin plastered on her face, Mue ran back from the gates of Vienda to the nearby plains, where Tonan was busy hunting for lunch. Obstacles seemed to move out of the way for her in her haste as she continued to build up speed. Under a branch, over a log, skirting round a tree, sliding down the hill, through the bush, and almost landing on a deer as her finale.

Crouching low to break the impact, Mue surveyed the clearing she had just ran headlong in to.
"He should be around here somewhere.."
I'll drag him to the circus if I have to!

Somewhere in the back of her mind, the childish side of her was throwing a party whilst happily chanting;
Circus! Circus! Circus! Circus!

Tonan was crouched low, behind a small tree. His clothes for a form of crude camoflage.
He pulled the string back on his bow, closed one eye and stared at the deer. He tensed it further, he could feel the string digging into his fingers. Just as he was about to let go, Mue barrelled out of the clearing nearly running their dinner over.
The sight of a short girl nearly landing on a deer shocked Tonan out of his skin and he proceeded to fire the arrow, which when startled had been thrown slightly sideways and the arrow subsequently hit a nearby tree.

The deer bounded off, probably leaving a trail of nasty brown stuff behind it.
"Gaaagh. That would have fetched a decent amount of food and pelts.." he muttered under his breath. He was tempted to shoot Mue in the foot. He resisted.

"So, what's got you so clocking wound up?" He asked. "I hope it's that you've found some purse, 'cause that deer would have fetched a fair bit of money, food and pelt wise"

Not even a half second passed between Mue spotting a vaguely human shape crouched across the clearing, to an arrow whistling past her head and burying itself into the trunk of a nearby tree. The shock of a fast moving projectile coming uncomfortably close to her head knocked her backwards in surprise, causing her to go from crouching, to landing on her rear.

She looked up at the voice, wincing slightly at the fact that she had landed bottom-first on her sheathed dagger, and found the owner of the voice to be Tonan.

"Tonan!" She cried happily, the excitement of the circus fighting through both the stinging sensation and the pang of guilt at scaring away their lunch.
"Sorry about the deer, but this is way more important!" Her grin returned wide as ever.
"There's a circus coming to Vienda! On the 30th! Can we go?! Please?"

It wasn't really a question, the boy didn't have much of a choice. If he refused, she'd drag him along against his will. If he accepted, then many squeels of excitement would be the result!

The girl stayed on the ground with a stupidly-large grin on her face, her brain not even registering the care to stand, being too swamped with the great news at hand.


Needless to say, Mue loved the circus.

She disturbed me for this..? Gah..
He raised his hand to his face and rubbed his sinuses. "And how much is this circus? A fair bit, I bet."
He saw her sat there, grinning. "Augh, fine, we'll go." He offered a hand "Get up, you're gonna get dirtier"

Her silly grin softened into a genuine smile packed to the brim with thanks.
"You mean we can go together?" She asked whilst taking his hand. Once back on her feet, she dusted herself off before looking to the sky with a dreamy expression.
"Senite took me to the circus once as a young girl. I can still remember all the animals, the acrobats, the delcious food they only sell at times like that." She giggled.
"And the clowns, of course."
She returned her gaze to Tonan, face still holding a warm and happy smile, both at the pleasent memory now buzzing through her head, and at the boys acceptance of actually going to the circus.

"Have you ever been to the circus, Tonan?"

"Well, yeah, why not?" His eye hadn't recovered from the scuffle in Vienda two days ago, and his eye was still black. It looked like he was winking.
"How's your ear? Feeling any better?"


He'd been once before, with his father when they were out once. It was enjoyable, but the acrobat flying right at Tonan mid performance didn't really spur him to go back again.
"Oh, Right. Yeah. Just the once though. Didn't really like it, not my thing."
He said, obviously lying through his teeth. He enjoyed it until he nearly got stood on.


-----



At that, Mues' silly grin returned and she leaped a clean 5 feet at the boy, wrapping her arms around his neck and practically choking him with her thankful embrace.
"Thankyouthankyouthankyou!" She squeeled.
After a short time of crushing all the air out of Tonan, Mue released him and took a few steps back, practically bouncing on the spot in undescribable glee.

She stopped her bouncing and raised her hand up to her ear, wincing slightly as her fingers brushed over the wound. It was shallow, but painful, and might end up scarring.
"It hurts terribly, but it'll heal."
She turned her eyes back to the boy and all excitement seemed to fade as her eyes danced over the black lump surrounding his right eye, she remembered the night 2 days ago with an involuntary shudder.
"Tonan.. I didn't mean to send that man off the edge, I-I didn't mean to kill him. I just did what my gut told me to, I didn't want him to hurt you.." She looked at the floor in shame. She had been a major cause of somebodies demise, and as far as Mue was aware, this was effectively the first person she had ever killed.

The feeling was alien and scary, but also held another feeling deep down, Though she could not name it.

"Waah!" He held back a cough, bringing a tear to his eye. He placed one hand on Mue's head, and wiped his eye with the other.
"Hey, no problem. We need to relax, right? After what happened 2 days ago.."


He crouched a little, and rested his hands on her shoulders. "You did what you had to do, Hell, if you weren't going to do anything, I was going to shoot him!"
He was trying to cheer Mue up, but he was probably failing, hard.
"You did a good thing out there, he was a criminal. Hunting down people for items, you heard Deb on the rooftop, didn't you?"

There was no hesitation. Mue backhanded Tonan's grip from her shoulders, stood up, and planted a loud smack across his face.
Anger was now mixed with her tears, and her voice carried a hurt tone.
"Criminal or not, I killed someone, Tonan. How would you know how that feels?!"

Mue pushed past the boy and walked to the other end of the clearing, resting her shoulder against the side of a tree and biting her thumbnail. Her eyes still held tears, both of anger, and of hurt. She stayed there, trying to force the thought of the man she helped kill out of her mind. His paniced eyes, his voice as he fell.. The sickening crunch as he met his demise.

This was not something she would easily be able to forget.

Tonan held his face for a few seconds, She'd slapped him near his black eye. He grumbled a few select words and walked back over to Mue and put his hand on her shoulder.

"Hey." He braced for another slap
"I know you aided in killing someone, and don't get me wrong, It was bad. But you needed to do it." He bit his lip, trying to think of some comforting words. He couldn't think of any.

"If you hadn't knocked him off the edge, he would have killed you, then me."