The day grew long for Cyan since she had both Phillip and her own chores to do. Her chores were semi-easy because all she had to do was wash five muddy horses and distribute the clean laundry to the members. Phillip's chores required more manual labor on her part and she already spent the morning giving the horses a bath and chopping wood. Satin Sally had took everyone out to the forest to practice their tricks while Cyan and LeFou stayed behind at the camp. LeFou was curious about what they did in the forest. However, he still hadn't gained the older member's trust yet.
"Why aren't you going to practice with them? Don't you have an act in the circus?" LeFou asked Cyan. He was sitting on a nearby barrel while she rinsed off one of the acrobats' horses.
"I have an act, but not the kind I need to practice with the others." Cyan dried off the horse's skin with a towel before letting it roam into a small pen with its friends. "That's the last of them. Nice and clean until they run into another patch of mud."
"Twenty-two horses. How can you keep up with that many?" LeFou watched as the white and black horse trotted to its friends and grazed on some hay.
"It's pretty easy when you grow up in a circus. I mean we have a lot of performers here and the horses play a key role in our acts. They help us move around the audience so everyone can see us and they help us move from town to town. We used to have thirty horses until five perished in a fire, two got sick and had to be put down, and then three died unexpectedly."
"I'm...sorry that happened. You seem to really like the animals." LeFou smiled a bit and rested his chin on his left hand. The man was so used to seeing animals being hunted and mounted on the tavern wall. The creatures here are more exotic to the eyes of the villagers because they never seen them before.
"Well," Cyan began and turned her head toward the peacock pen. "except for them."
"Hm? The peacocks?"
"They are pure evil." Cyan spoke in a serious tone. She narrowed her eyes at the flock of preening birds while her short friend laughed at her expression.
"These are one of the most beautiful birds I've seen. Besides they're just fixing their feathers. Why do you think they're evil?"
"Don't let them fool you, LeFou! They can turn on you like a dog taking a ham bone from his master's hand. They are birds froth from the bowels of hell! They maybe beautiful but they are vicious creatures that can possibly muck your day a foul! Do you have any idea what they do with those big, black eyes of theirs?!" Cyan rants. She got into LeFou's face when she described the peacocks and it almost gave the poor man cold sweat. He began to wonder if he should be afraid for his safety against the peacocks. Or if they really were as bad as Cyan was telling him because all he could see the birds do is preening each other.
"W-What do th-they do?" She could feel LeFou shake uncertainly as fear built up inside of him. She leaned in close to his left ear.
"They mercilessly judge you behind your back." Cyan whispered low.
"That's it?!" LeFou shouted and Cyan fell to the ground laughing. "Cyan, you are really cruel! You had me scared like these things can pluck my eyes out or something! That's not even frightening!"
"Hehehe. I'm sorry LeFou, but you are 'stomping' mad about this." She let out a loud laugh and rolled around in the grass. The man had a flat look on his face at her joke. It wasn't the first time this young lady has joked about his predicament, but he knew it was a joke. He will laugh about this later on. "But with all silliness aside, I really don't like the peacocks. They've never liked me to begin with."
"Why not? I thought you said you grew up with the circus animals."
"I don't know." Cyan simply stated as she got up and brushed the grass off her clothes. "I haven't figured out why they hate me. It's quite the conundrum."
"A what? What does that mean?" LeFou had a decent education, but he still couldn't spell or understand big words.
"Just a difficult problem, my friend. A very difficult problem."
"Don't you have to go in and sweep up the feathers?"
'Ugh, I forgot about that!' Cyan facepalmed when she realized he was right. The peacocks could tolerate Phillip when he swept up the feathers they plucked off because most of the peahens had a crush on him. The male peacocks loved it when he took the time to fix their large, green tail feathers so they can look their best for both the crowd and the peahens. They didn't mind much of anyone in the circus troop, but they had a vendetta against Cyan. They didn't seem to like her ever since she was seven due to the fact she plucked a feather off one of them. Ever since that fateful day, the pristine birds are very wary if Cyan came near their general area.
'I was only seven years old when I pulled a feather! It was one feather! I didn't pluck them of all of their feathers!' Cyan shouted in her head as she got a broom propped by the giraffes' wagon. The tall mammals couldn't scratch their underbellies very well if they get itchy. So someone would get the broom to relieve them of their unpleasant sensation. The broom bristles have worn down from being used as a scratching stick which made it perfect to sweep up the delicate feathers off the ground. Although Cyan didn't like the peacocks, she wanted to collect the feathers on the ground. She has been working on a peacock tail feather fan for Satin Sally, brown peahen feather earrings for Bella, and a blue peacock feather clip for Grandpa Apple's jacket as Christmas presents. Christmas was only three or four months away; however, it was a lot of work to make these objects. Cyan wanted to look through the feathers to find a pristine one before she can use it for her craft. This was enough to force herself to go through with this chore.
"Look, I know you don't like me and the feeling is mutual. But, I promised Phillip I would do his chores and I am in need the feathers you plucked off yourselves." Cyan explained to the judgmental, exotic birds. She made her way toward their pen and it didn't surprise her when the flock squinted their eyes at her. It did make LeFou freeze in his seat when he realizes Cyan wasn't kidding about them not liking her. "LeFou, avenge my death if I don't come out of here!"
LeFou could only watch in slight horror when she entered the pen. The flock began their assault on the girl as soon as she closed the gate. The females squawked loudly at Cyan while the males unfurled their large tail feathers to try and block her from both the chicks and themselves. She tried to sweep the ground for the feathers until one of the male peacocks pecked at her back and she screams from the blow. The beaks were sharp enough to make her feel pain, leave a bruise, and maybe a few scratches. It did make Cyan agitated about being surrounded by the flock. At this point, she was rushing to sweep up the feathers before the others started to peck at her feet and legs. One of the larger females got a hold of Cyan's hair in her beak and tugged it hard. Cyan tripped when another peacock ran under her feet. 'What will it take for them to understand I'm not trying to hurt them!?' She looked down at herself to see her outfit was getting filthy.
Of course, the one day she wore another favorite outfit was when the peacocks want to wage war on Cyan. Cyan instead now wore a dress with white ruffled material down the front yet had blue sides. The white ruffled short sleeves were the same material as the front of the dress, yet the collar was gray, and seemed to be a bit more firm than flexible. The brown ribbon around her chest sat right below the red string zig-zagging across the white material of her chest. Cyan also wore dark purple stockings and wore her favorite black boots. She didn't like the white fabric on the dress because white shows stains and it was painfully hard to clean. Satin Sally had hung her favorite light blue dress with the other circus' laundry so Cyan had to wear this one until she can be reunited with her other dress.
'This day can't possibly get any worse.' Cyan thought to herself after she saw her dress had dirt and bird droppings on the front and her stockings was torn on her knees and upper thighs. She looked over when she heard a small peeping noise in front of her. A small, brown peacock chick was looking straight at her from the makeshift nest in the ground. Cyan noticed it had three feathers on its head and realized it was the chick she hatched yesterday. The ball of feathers quickly made its way toward her even though the chick trips in front of her face. She couldn't help but giggle at the chick's downfall. Cyan thought it was just adorable.
"Aw, aren't you a cute little ball off fluff." Cyan cooed at the chick and stroked its beak. The chick made a soft peep as if it was enjoying the attention it was receiving. Her finger was warm to the tiny bird and it didn't want her to stop.
Unfortunately, Cyan's attention quickly changed toward the seven other chicks in the nest. Their eyes narrowed at her before they lunged an attack on her arms and hands. The chicks did little damage to her because they were still babies and they weren't very strong like the adult peacocks. Their pecking felt more like an itchy feeling until they started pecking at small cuts and bruises the adults left on her skin. 'Not even a day old and they already mimic their parents.' Cyan thought to herself and scoots an angry chick away from her head. She was ready to get out of the pen and be done with it. Cyan was able to get a good look at the ground and saw there wasn't a lot of feathers. She reaches for a few off the left side of her before she felt someone grab her lower legs and yanked her out of the pen. Whoever was pulling her had firm hands and it felt weird feeling someone else's hands on her person. She felt vulnerable if someone grabbed her by her waist and her legs. However, it doesn't mean she was not grateful for being pulled out. Pain shot through her body when her stomach rubbed against some sharp rocks. She was finally away from the peacocks! Cyan slammed the door closed before her chin hit the soft grass.
"Phew..that was too close for comfort. But, I got some feathers and I doubt those evil birds will need another cleaning for a few days." The young lady sighed in relief and practically sprawled her arms on the grass as an attempt to hug the lush vegetation. "Thanks for getting me out of there, LeFou. If you hadn't gotten me, I would be at the bottom of the 'pecking' order."
"One, please no more jokes. It's painful." LeFou said as he got off from his seat. "And two, I'm way over here. I didn't have time to run over yet."
"What? If you're over there," Cyan began to look up to where LeFou stood. "then who just-."
Ladies and Gentlemen, I present to you...a CLIFFHANGER. Do not worry I will post the next chapter soon!
So now we know why Cyan doesn't like the peacocks. Sometimes people don't understand that animals can also hold a grudge if they had something hurtful happen to them. The prettiest animals can sometimes be the most dangerous.
Special thanks to my beta readers Lucariofreak55 and RabbitonSteroids!
I only own Cyan and the circus.
Beauty and the Beast belongs to Disney.
Please no mean comments or flames! Once again, if anyone finds any spelling errors or grammer errors, please PM me and I will fix it!
The dress Cyan is wearing now is based off of Miku Hatsune's Regret dress. I try and stick with clothes that would both fit the era the movie is based in and fit Cyan's position in the circus. Back then, women didn't wear short dresses because they thought exposing their legs was indecent.