The crowd began to grow thicker as Tara drew closer to the impromptu carnival.  She looked around fruitlessly for Fourth and Fifth  and though the hounds were nowhere to be seen she wasn’t worried.  The sound of excited barking and the meaty thud of 200lbs of dog meat slamming into a trader’s stand let her know that her hounds were nearby.  She made a mental note to go and pay for any damages later, she may let them run wild but she knew her responsibility to the unwashed masses.  A few silver coins would solve whatever fun the boys got up to.  As usual.<br/><br/>Tara slid down off Baxter, patting him as he stamped his hooves in protest at the crowd that was holding them up.  She bought a skewer of the sweet smelling meat for herself and a few apples for Baxter, working her way through the crowd towards the entertainment.<br/><br/>As a noble, she knew her duty to the poor and threw a few coppers to some of the hungry looking urchins that were littered throughout the crowd.  She also delivered a few slaps to the thieving little runts who tried to lift her coin purse until word passed among them that she wasn’t to be trifled with.  Ungrateful beasts.<br/><br/>Shoving her way through the crowd, ignoring the glares from the unimportant yokels, she arrived at the edge of the circle where a group of acrobats were flipping and posing in a ways that Tara had thought the human body couldn’t bend.  In combination with the light and revealing silks the troupe wore, she could see why the largest crowd was gathered around this group.<br/><br/>Despite herself, Tara couldn’t help being impressed.  She loved Ostbering, but the remote location and harsh countryside wasn’t the most hospitable to travelling circuses, and this display was quite novel to her.  Her eyes danced over the writhing bodies of the acrobats as they stretched and leapt and flung each other with wild abandon.  There was something undeniably attractive about the whole business.<br/><br/>She stared intently at the display as she swallowed the last morsel of meat on her skewer and tossed it idly away, licking her plump lips clean from the oily grease left by the tasty but questionable meat.<div class="messageTextEndMarker"> </div>