Loralai Lovage Merriweather
And for the nth time, Loralai found herself wide awake at some unholy hour after midnight with the mindset of a leisurely Sunday afternoon and regretting it not at all. Oh she tried to keep a normal schedule, she really did, but how was she supposed to do that when half of the population around her was already practically nocturnal? That was without accounting for the fact that the nightlife of Manta Carlos was in itself enough to turn anybody into a night owl. She had seen with her own eyes the transformation of many of her colleagues from cheery larks to hulking zombies. Content hulking zombies, it was important to note. The occurrence was sometimes slow but always unfailing.
So with results like that, who was she to argue? Loralai even had a valid excuse of "Sorry, that's just how my powers work!" Late night shift from six in the evening to two in the morning, great! She had no idea who came up with a messed up schedule like that but it was her messed up schedule now so she counted it as a massive victory.
Except, the shows at the Midnight Circus started at one and ended at four. She had been meaning to go but in her bid to maybe have a normal sleep cycle, she had only ever hung around for the first hour or so before reluctantly calling it a night. Now that she had abandoned her normalcy plan, she began to calculate. Rushing out of the office already took maybe twenty to fifty minutes depending on how much last minute work popped up, how malfunctioning was the only copy machine, how many people were spamming the printer to make giant mosaics of numbers they had called that night, et cetera. The reward for a job well done was more work. Somebody had told her that once and even though she had said something like how that was okay. Well. Maybe she was just a little bit annoyed. Just a thimble full and draining out. An hour and a half was fine, she supposed. Less. It was okay. At least she was getting paid.
In any case, she was very late that night, just in time to see everybody else leaving the show. That was disappointing but she didn't dwell on it. Even if Loralai didn't always present law as her primary field, she was still a lawyer and that was a pretty good way of making money. Taking calls at three in the morning was just part of the deal.
But still, she was there so there was no reason why shouldn't have a look around. Inside of the tent that the shows had been performed in, some of the audience was still lingering to talk with the performers and but for the most part, it looked like most everybody was about ready to call it a night. It was pretty late. Despite that, Loralai had fun walking around the seating area, picking through the stuff people had left behind. She didn't mean to actually take any of it in case somebody came back, but it gave her a good idea of what was around and what interested people.
Maybe we should find some thing like this to sell people, she thought idly, putting back an abandoned stuffed animal before mentally slapping herself. Work was work, break was break. Except when otherwise noted.
Which apparently was the cue for her phone to vibrate. Another new message, from the same person. Without really thinking much about it, she began to tap out a reply and promptly walked into a. Flying hat. For some manner of speech.
What really happened was this. Loralai started typing as she walked. She lifted her hand a bit to get a better look at the screen. The hat was flying in her direction. Her hand went up in time to perfectly catch it as it was passing by, right in the space where a head was supposed to be. She blinked. The hat was a hat. Something flew by her. She looked in the other direction, where the things had come from and bounced the hat a few times on her phone to see if it would start up again. Nothing.
She began walking in that direction, calling to the person she saw there. "Excuse me, is this your hat? I kind of accidentally caught it and now it won't work anymore."
