Fort Tryon Renaissance Fair

Seth was unaware of the panic behind him. He turned when Evelyn groaned.

Evelyn ran her hands over her face, completely baffled. "Are you - ugh, we need to find him." Ranting at Antonio would only waste precious time.

"He doesn't like us. No wonder he ran!" Ashton remarked.

"He's a puppy lost amidst forty thousand people!" Evelyn exclaimed, and Seth thought for a second she looked like she might cry. She lifted up her long sleeves and breathed heavily into them, hiding her face. Clearly, with Jake's deadly jousting and Nova's disappearance, her nerves were shot.

"Hey, it's okay, it's all good, we'll find the mutt," Seth assured her, not very at home with confronting freaked out females. "Fuck, um...let's split up." He glanced around for Jake, aggravated.

Evelyn instantly began walking off, skirts in one hand. Seth grabbed her arm. "Hold up! We're doing this in an organized fashion. We don't know how long he's been missing, he could be anywhere in here."

"Screw you!" she snapped angrily, pulling free just as Jake reached them.

"Nova's missing!" Seth exclaimed, stopping Evelyn from running off yet again.

Jake instantly came off his performance high, and his drunken one when he heard that Nova was missing, "What the fuck!? How?!" He exclaimed.

"Listen, we don't have time we need to split up and find him." Antonio told Jake so they could find Nova, but mostly to take the attention away from him losing the dog.

First the tights, now this? Today just wasn't his day.

"Shit." Jake cursed he pulled out his phone and found a picture of Nova he had taken recently, he went and sent it to Seth and the twins.

"Alright guys, I sent you a picture of Nova, I think we should split up cause we'll cover more ground that way, ask everyone and anyone. Whoever finds him, meet back at the park entrance. Seth go with the twins, Evelyn come with me." Jake turned and started scanning through the stadium for the small brown head.

He hoped the dog hadn't gotten too far.

Seth headed in the other direction, figuring if they circled the park and met Jake and Evelyn halfway, they'd eb able to catch Nova between them.

"THis is stupid," Seth complained to thw twins, as they set off scanning the area as they walked. "Nova's not going to come runing if ANY of us call him - and he kind of hates you Tony."

"I think he mates me a bit less now," Ashton piped up cheerfully. Seth grimaced. Today was ironically Jake's lucky day, evne if they had lost Nova. If Tony had been considering asking Evelyn out, he could forget it now. The ball wasn't in his court anymore. THe stupid mutt meant way too much to her. And once Jake found out Tony had been the one who'd lost him...

"Nova, you little freak, come out, come out, wherever you are!" Seth hollered, bending and peering under a wagon.

"Not here," Ashton reported, exiting a nearby stall. He looked out of breath. "There's too much going on here. If he won't come when called, we won't find him!"

"Let's keep going," Seth muttered tersely. He sent Connor and Alexis a text (having gotten Alexis' number from Connor): Lost nova. Keep eye out.

***

Evelyn was already having trouble keeping up with Jake's long strides. Her skirt's train kept getting caught under her flats and she lifted her skirt with one hand, the fabric bunched up, and hoisted her bag up wiht the other. She glanced around as she followed Jake, eyes peeled for Nova's tiny frame.

She paused by the centaur she'd seen before. "Hey, um, excuse me, have you seen a brown-and-white beagle puppy? About a foot high?" she asked him hurriedly. He shook his head.

Evelyn asked the peple around him, and they said no too. Discouraged, she trudged after Jake again, calling Nova's name and stumbling occasionally over her billowy skirts.

Antonio really was having a hard time believing his luck today, first the damn tights and now Nova?! Not only did he have to worry about Evelyn killing him Jake would probably resurrect him and kill him again.

"Nova! Nova!" Antonio called, skirting around a few people he looked closer to the ground since Nova was so small, "Shit they couldn't find a dog like Frankie!" Antonio groaned, asking people if they had seen the tiny dog.

***

Jacob had been asking people and a lot of them said they hadn't seen him, and he was getting frustrated. Even if he had passed by them, a lot of people wouldn't have seen him since he's still a puppy so its easy for people just not to see him.


Jake tried thinking like a dog, he tried to wonder where Nova would go, and where he would go if he was a little dog. Truth be told since the place was probably so new to Nova, he was having the time of his life. Sniffing out everything, and barking since he was running loose something he didn't get to do a lot in the dorms.

"Nova!" Jake cupped his hands over his mouth calling for the dog, he groaned running his hands through his hair and he looked back to see Evelyn coming up behind him, "Hey do you remember where you took him before we went jousting? Maybe he went to one of the places you were at?"

Seth had paused in his search for Nova - because he saw a manual roller-coaster of sorts. People were shoving the carts along tracks instead of them being electric-powered.

"Sweet," he exclaimed, forgetting Nova completely as he bounded over.

"Yeah, I'm sure Nova's in one of them," Ashton said sarcastically to his brother. "Honestly, didn't Jake just find him on the streets? There's probably ten more of them running around New York. Can't they find another beagle?"

***

Evelyn stopped and caught her breath, panting as she clutched a stich in her side. "Um..." Her mind went blank in her panic. "I don't remember...the cupcake vendor? But he keeps moving around. Uh..." She pressed her hands to her face in frustration, feeling her eyes start to sting. "The stage Alexis climbed on? THe harp player? He liked that." She lowered her hands frantically. "Oh, I don't know!"

Antonio was distracted by the manual roller coaster for a moment and shook his head, "Um I'm sure there is but they're probably really attached to the one they're both trying to find."


****

"Evelyn calm down, if you keep panicking we're just gonna make it harder to find him. Just relax for a moment and ..." He took a deep breath, the cupcake vendor would have been a good place to sure but he didn't think Nova had that much of an attention span to follow the guy around the park.

He really hoped that Nova hadn't gone towards the stage, it was just as crowded as the ring had been and it would have been impossible to find him in that.

"Aww come here puppy!" He heard a tiny voice chirp.

Jacob's eyes darted to where he heard the tiny voice, and saw a group of children all dressed up in costumes, and a little girl was holding Nova in her hands while he licked her cheek.

Shit! Poor kid wasn't probably going to give up Nova that easily, Jake turned and ran over there with Evelyn trying to keep up behind him. Jake slowed his pace down when approaching the young girl, she looked like she was four or five years old and she was petting Nova as he yipped happily in her arms.

Jacob sighed and as he approached the girl he got down on one knee and crouched down in front of her, he smiled kindly at her, and she looked up at him with big hazel eyes, damn he hated doing this, "Hey princess, I see you found my dog. I'm gonna need him back, because he's very important to me."

The little girl held onto Nova who squirmed in her arms, and sniffed Jake's scent and barked at him, she looked down at Nova and back up at Jake widening her eyes, "Why?"

Jacob did not like it when kids did this to him! "Because you see, he's gonna help me fight the dragons, and save the princess."

"Are you a prince?" The little girl asked, excitement filled her small voice, "But he's a little dog, he won't be able to fight dragons." She told Jake and Nova barked as if he was agreeing with the girl.

Jake couldn't help smiling, god she was really cute, "Yeah, I am, but you see. Nova, my dog he's gonna get bigger and stronger, and he's gonna be able to fight dragons, plus you see that girl over there?" Jake placed his hand on the girls shoulder and pointed to Evelyn who was near them. The girl nodded her head.

"She's the princess, and that is her dog too. I need to bring it back to her because if I don't she'll be really sad and you don't wanna make the princess cry do you?" Jake kind of felt low for saying that to a small girl, but looking at Evelyn she did kind of look like she was ready to cry when they couldn't find him, the girl looked at Evelyn and shook her head.

"No, she's pretty I don't wanna make her cry." The girl squeaked.

"So will you please give him back to me little princess?" Jacob asked her sweetly, and the girl smiled up at him and handed Nova over to him, Jake smiled in relief and, he stood up, "Thank you very much."

"Your welcome prince, bye princess!" The little girl waved at Evelyn and turned to run off with the other kids, Jake sighed in relief and brought Nova towards Evelyn.

Jake held Nova out to Evelyn and grinned, "Your royal pet your highness."

Seth's extremely short attention span finally returned to Nova. He leaped out of the cart he was in, heading to the twins. "Damn, okay, um, right." He missed what they'd been talking about. "Man, this is fricking impossible! We're never gonna find him unless we get lucky."

"We could always say we tried," Ashton suggested, as Seth texted Jake to tell him they had no luck so far.

***

Evelyn was watching this wide-eyed. She couldn't really hear what Jake had said to the little kid, but he'd pointed toward Evelyn. She was mildly confused by his "royal pet" comment.

Still, she didn't care as long as they got Nova back. Evelyn hefted him into her arms and almost squashed the puppy as she hugged him to her chest. "Hey, little guy, are you okay?" she cooed at him and Nova yipped as if in response, licking her nose. Evelyn cracked a relieved smile and kissed his head. "What happened over there?" she asked Jake, curiously as she juggled Nova's shifting weight.

"Yeah, yeah! Say that." Antonio agreed with Seth, thinking it was better than saying they got distracted.


***

Jake grinned, "Um the girl thought I was a prince, and I told her I need Nova to help me fight dragons, plus Nova, was your dog, Princess Evelyn." Jake smirked nudged Evelyn.

"Anyway, I told her it would make you cry if you didn't get the puppy back and she gave him back to me. She was real cute." Jake smiled remembering the girl.

Jacob felt his phone vibrate and he read the message from Seth saying they had no luck and he texted him back.

Hey we found him! Meet u by the entrance in ten

Seth exhaled in relief. "They found him." He heaved a sigh. "I dunno if we're staying. I don't wanna leave yet! We haven't done anything!"

He texted Jake back. Not levin yet. ;D U go ahed. I think u had enuf excitment 2nite.

Seth tucked his phone back into his pocket and said, "I'mma go find Connor, see if he's feeling up to something." Ashton glanced at his brother as Seth stalked off to where he'd last seen Connor.

"Wanna go face Jake?" Ashton asked, grinning at Antonio.

***

Evelyn frowned up at Jake. "You told her I would cry?!" she demanded, feeling her face redden. "Jackass." Nova squirmed and she stopped to clip on his leash and put him down. She texted Alexis to let her know she'd found Nova (she'd forgotten to let her know they'd lost him).

Connor was sitting on a make-shift bench, watching the skit "Washing Wenchs", not really sure what the hell was going on around him he was so drunk.

***

Alexis was at the archery range, hitting her targets rather well due to going to camp from 9 to 15, and won most of the competitions there that they'd hold around the end of summer. She flashed a smile at the cute guy with the pretty light blue eyes and was dressed as a hunter that faintly reminded her of that Murtagh character in Eragon.

He had been talking about how he learned archery from his father and complimenting her on her aim- and her outfit. She let that one slide. She glanced around briefly for Rosemary and then spotted her over at the "Crows Nest" a spinning ride with ropes connected tightly around a pole. Two men around spin it around, making the ropes spin around the pole tightly and then would spin everyone seated inside the round "crows nest" rather quickly.

Seth found Connor fairly quickly. Several medieval maidens were eying him and giggling coquettishly across the clearing he was seated in. Seth approached him, amused. Connor was looking rather unfocused.

Seth smirked widely. "Hey, Con," he said, looking around and spotting the washing-wenches game nearby.

Time to wake him up!

Seth reached down, grabbed Connor's arms and hefted him to his feet. Normally, being lean and shorter than Connor, Seth might have had a problem - if he'd sat around all his life. He stood Connor up. "Yo, I got an idea. Wanna hear it?"

"Huh?" Connor blinked and looked at Seth, blinking hard now before grinning wide. "Yoooo, Seth."

"Ummmm, maybe?" Antonio grinned widely at his brother.

***

"Hey I got Nova back, and she told me that you were pretty." Jake told Evelyn, trying to convince her that he wasn't that much of a jerk.

"Hey look that's the prince!" Jake heard the small voices he looked down and saw the little girl again with a couple of her friends.

"Hey girls." Jake greeted them.

The small girls friends smiled, "He's handsome." The giggled and the little girl who had found Nova went up to Evelyn and tugged on her skirt lightly.

"Are you happy the prince, brought back your pupppy, princess?" She asked her.

"You're shitfaced," Seth remarked, all the while leading Connor with a hand on his shoulder toward the Washing Wenches booth. Some attendant girl near the front chirped, "Would you like to play?"

Seth smirked. "Nah, just watching."

He stood back and observed a pair of boys in their mid-teens aim at the "wench" seated atop a platform over her bucket of water. "Burn the witch!" Seth whooped, and the wench glared at him.

While the first boy was taking careful aim, Seth shoved Connor around to where the "wench" sat. He led Connor up the makeshift steps to the platform.

"Hey!" the attendant girl yelped. "Get down from there!"

"Sorry, wench," Seth said, shoving the girl on the platform off it. She shrieked and fell into the tub below. The boys booed.

Before the attendant could attack him, Seth shoved the almost-comatose Connor onto the platform. "DUNK HIM!" he hollered at the first boy.

The boy acted instinctively, throwing his ball at the panel behind Connor. His aim was true - Connor tumbled down into the large tub with a splash of icy water, submerged up to his neck.

On top of the pretty wench. She shrieked loudly in his ears. "GERROF MY LAP, ASSHOLE!"

Seth climbed down quickly off the steps, cracking up ecstatically. The attendant glared. "Get out of here!" she snapped. "Before i call security!"

Seth was laughing too hard to say anything to her. He snapped a picture of Connor on his phone. "O...okay." He breathed out, gasping over his laughter. "Man, that was good!"

***

Evelyn was momentarily at a loss for words as she stared down at the really very cute little kid. She glanced up at Jake, opened her mouth, remembered she was in juvenile company, looked down at the little girl and her friends and smiled. What the hell else could she do?!

Man, she hated renaissance fairs.

Evelyn decided to play along now and kick Jake's ass later. Nova nudged her skirts and she said, "Yes, yes, I am, thank you for giving him back to me, sweetie. I was looking for him all over this kingdom!"

Evelyn lifted an arm to indicate said kingdom as being the arena and smacked Jake's jaw not entirely by accident. She ignored this, kneeling to talk to the girl. She opened her bag and pulled out the flower the little boy had given her. It looked a little crushed from all the running but was otherwise a fairly pretty tulip. She held it out to the little girl. "Here, as a token of my thanks." Jake's going to die, she added mentally. "A little knight gave it to me as a gift," she continued.

***

Ashton and Antonio had continued strolling along and reached the archery ranges. Ashton paused to watch Alexis shoot/flirt with the guy on duty. "Hey, she's pretty good."

Connor started laughing as he sobered up from the cold and tried to crawl out of the tub. "YOU ASSHOLE!"He said, looking at Seth as he started laughing harder.

****

Alexis pulled back, taking her thumb off the arrow to keep it into the small slot, aiming before letting go and watched it hit the bulls-eye and grinned victoriously.

Seth smirked down at him. The attendant pulled a face. The wench gave Connor a shove angrily.

"Get out!" she said, making shooing motions at Connor in agitation. "SECURITY!"

"Fuck, hold onto your hair, woman!" Seth commented nicely, reaching out to help Connor out. "Let's get out of here, dude."

Once Connor was out and they were walking away, Seth grinned at him. "That was one fine wench you got, guy. Literally."

Connor laughed, gripping at his side. "Dude, she looked like she was gonna ram me over with a horse."He wheezed.

"Oooh thank you!" The little girl squealed holding the small tulip in her hand, giving Evelyn a hug around her waist.

Jacob rubbed his jaw with his hand, and just made a face at Evelyn, call a girl a princess and they act like a toad. Oh well, one of the small girls tugged on his cape and he looked down at her, "Yes?"

"Umm... if she's your princess how come you two aren't kissing." The little girl asked loudly pointing at Evelyn.


****

"Yeah she is, damn." Antonio said watching, and nudged Ashton, "Wanna try?"

Seth strode on, grinning. "Hey, look, it's Tweedledee and Tweedledum-ber!" he said, catching sight of Ashton and Antonio leaning by a railing. Seth walked over to them, stopping beside Antonio. "Whatcha lookin' at?" he asked, sounding remarkably like Bugs Bunny.

He caught sight of the familiar brunette almost instantly. That cleavage was hard to miss.

But for once, Seth didn't pay attention to that. He ogled the bow Alexis was holding. "ARCHERY!" he exclaimed, and then leaped the fence in one bound and strode over to her. "That's a cheap bow," he informed her smugly. He grabbed one like hers from a stand nearby and threw a ten dollar bill at the blue-eyed moron nearby. "It's way too light. My aim's gonna be shit!" He tested the bow's string a little before weighing it on his arm.

Ashton watched with some amusement. "Right, I forgot. Seth used to teach this shit at his gay camp thing," he muttered to Antonio and Connor.

***

Evelyn was thinking this skit had gone on long enough. She felt her cheeks flare bright red at the innocent comment. "Oh, you know what, you make a good point but - my puppy's starving! I should really go feed him." She flashed a weak smile at the girls while alarm bells rang in her head, and then began edging away. "And I bet Seth's looking for you," she added to Jake, not quite looking at him.

"If you actually cared for Archery, you'd get the hell used to it." Alexis said coldly to Seth before frowning when the blue-eyed hottie walked off, back to work. She rolled her eyes. Go figure that when Andreasis showed up, the actually good looking one walked away.

Connor however, started to stray away much like a curious puppy. He had saw boobs in a corset going the opposite way from the range.

Antonio snickered, "Oh boy this is going to get worse before it gets better." He said watching Seth.

***

Jake didn't really know how to answer that question, so he just sort of backed away, "The princess is right, she has to feed her puppy and I have to go defeat an evil troll, so I'm sorry girls no kiss." Jake told them hoping that would end that, he kind of felt weird even though its not like these kids knew their weird history.


The girls all pouted, and one of them yelled, "What if a dragon eats you? You'll never kiss the princess then!" All the other girls chimed in agreeing with their little leader and Jake mentally cursed himself, he really didn't think this would back fire like it did.

Jake bit his lip and cast a nervous glance at Evelyn, and decided to end this, he took her by the arm gently and gave her a small kiss on the cheek, and the girls squeaked and ran off, "Bye!!" They said their farewells, turning to run back to their parents.

Jake let go of Evelyn, and laughed sheepishly, "Ummm... gonna go find that troll Seth, see ya later Evelyn." He grinned then took off, before Evelyn could knock him unconscious.

Seth scoffed at Alexis. "You do not get used to a sucky bow if you're serious about archery," he told her patronizingly. "But seeing as we've no options here..."

He nocked an arrow to the bow from a rack near his feet. It was nothing like his compound bow at home. This was child's play. Seth stopped wasting his focus and dropped his smile and eyed the target, snorted and then backed up an additional ten feet.

He lifted his bow arm, bow's shaft balanced along it, aimed and then stopped, cursing. He turned away from the target and fired at a nearby railing instead. The lightweight arrow drifted slightly upward like he'd thought it would. "Fuck it."

Seth turned back to his original target and this time, lowered his arm slightly so the arrow pointed a little below the bulls-eye. He pulled back the arrow and let it fly.

Without watching its flight, he grabbed another from the rack and nocked it swiftly, and let fly into the next-door bulls-eye. Then another arrow into the one on his original target's other side.

He timed himself. "Ten seconds," he informed the guy in charge, lowering his bow arm. "Do I get a prize for three targets under ten secs?"

Ashton whistled. "That's really bizarre. I've never seen him look so serious...even if it was only for ten seconds."

***

Evelyn glared after Jake and wiped her cheek, feeling her skin burn there. She tugged Nova's leash and began heading the other way to where she thought Alexis and Rose might be.

"Rose?" she called, spotting her near the horses Jake had been messing around with earlier. "Hey, what're you up to?"

Nova barked in greeting at the redhead as Evelyn walked him over.

"No kidding I've never seen him so focused on something that didn't involve getting a girl out of her clothes." Antonio said rather stunned that Seth was able to get all those targets in under ten seconds.

Jacob had spotted the guys near the archery area, and he saw Seth there nailing all the targets and came up to them, "Hey guys what's up?" He asked, watching Seth.

Alexis rolled her eyes and hung up her bow, and went around the fencing for the range before heading out and over to one of the booths, deciding Archery didn't sound like very much fun anymore.

The guy blinked at Seth before watching after Alexis and then looked back at Seth. "Dude- this isn't a game for toys." He said, shaking his head. "Just an archery range for everyone."

***

Rose looked over at Evelyn and smiled some. "Some guy asked if I could watch the horses so I took up the chance."She said, petting the horses white mane as she looked back at her. "She's beautiful, isn't she?"

Seth quickly reverted to his old self. "No toys? No prize?" he exclaimed, sounding wounded. "Dude, that's cheap!"

He turned and strode back to the boys after placing his bow down. He leaped the fence and landed on Jake's other side. "Miserable little shit's probably upset Alexis left," Seth complained bitterly to him. "Where's Connor? Again?"

"He's fine, I think," Ashton said. "Chasing a skirt." He pushed himself off the railing and began heading toward the main area again. "I'm hungry."

Seth paused to flip off the blue-eyed cow before following. "Yeah, I want lunch."

***

"She's a mare?" Evelyn asked. She could never tell horse gender. She reached out carefully and brushed her fingers along the mare's neck. "She's gorgeous!"

Nova sniffed the horse's hooves. "Think we can ride them?" Evelyn asked Rose longingly, gazing at a chestnut horse in a nearby stall with a white patch on its forehead.