#they legally adopted him before his death ok it’s canon they told me

[star-burrry]

Thinking about Brennan, Booth, and Sweets again.

[rainbowrider1290]

Part 3 of my take on a genshin impact circus AU: Bennett, Fischl, and Razor as a beast-taming trio. Backstory under the cut.

Benny:

Bennett was adopted into a research team of zoologists (what in canon would be the adventurer’s guild). The ones that go out into the world and get their hands dirty in studying animals. He loved interacting with the animals, and though research was interesting, he always spent more time with the animal caretakers and vets than with the researchers so he’s extremely acquainted with their habits, how to feed them, when to keep them in captivity versus the wild, and how to regulate their environment properly when in captivity. He has this knack for interacting with them, even the big ones.

As for how he got into the circus: Well first off he got wind of how poorly these animals are treated in some circuses and got into the circuses for the caretaking purposes. He would hop from circus to circus to take care of the animals and show the performers how to Not Harm Them (like tigers jumping through hoops on fire??? Nuh-uh. Whips, tight collars, and muzzles? We don’t do that here). He certifies himself as a vet after a while of this.

More time passes and he realizes this is a bigger problem than can be solved by himself. He’s been kicked out of a few places and for a while had terrible luck finding work because some of his previous employers didn’t want to spend the extra resources on animal care (lacking funds and lacking planning for it) and spread word of a legal liability of a vet.

Aether and Lumine catch word of this and track him down to a little animal clinic where he works as an intern. They offer him a spot in their circus bc they’ve been wanting to introduce animals into the mix but want to plan correctly (like how many animals they can support properly). Long story short, Bennett gets into the circus and works with Yanfei to actually become a legal liability to the circuses not treating animals correctly, and he himself will take as many of those animals as he can into his corner of the circus and send the rest to his dads (since circus animals tend to be rare breeds and his dads have a branch of research on captive animals). And finally he can take care of his animals and show the world that you don’t have to harm animals for a good show. Mostly big ones like elephants, big cats, and camels.

He’ll do shows more like synchronizing movements between the animals and tricks like they do with marine animals. They do have cages for transport but they’re spacious and they take frequent breaks for physical activity. Benny will only take the animals that have been domesticated their whole lives and will send the ones fit to live in the wild to his dads to set free.

Fischl:

Fischl was born into the circus life and was that kid who would stop people from killing bugs, take them in a glass container, and set them outside. She regularly patches up the birds with broken wings she finds outside.

Def spent more time outside hanging with the birds than with the people in the circus, since birds aren’t technically a circus animal. Oz is an old old vulture (or falcon, I haven’t decided yet. If anyone can pinpoint his species please let me know) that has taken a liking to Fischl and so no matter where her circus goes, she sees Oz there to hang and bring her injured birds.

She once asked if birds could be circus animals and was told that they tried but it didn’t work out. She gets into reading the obscure materials on birds as circus animals and deduces that they just weren’t taking care of them right. She brings up this idea to the circus manager and essentially gets the door slammed in her face. The last time she asks about it, it’s to her parents and is told to find something realistic to do in the circus and forget about the birds.

From then she sees all the other kids her age in the circus training to be in the show in some way or another and hears what they say about her “head in the clouds”. So she starts training with different branches of the circus (gymnastics-based, death-defying stunts, fire, etc.) and she... genuinely considers leaving to pursue another profession.

Then as her circus is about to get on the road, she catches wind of a circus performing in the town they’re just about to leave. One that uses animals, and since her circus never used animals due to lacking funding, she goes for a night out of curiosity and on the off-chance that they use birds. She noticed that this wasn’t anything like she’d heard about or read about circus animals, so she sends them a letter addressed to the person running the animal part of the show asking about birds in the circus.

Benny’s response boils down to “well it’d be a little complicated but what’d you have in mind?” so they start exchanging letters and the next time the two circuses are near each other, she goes on over and brings all her letters after a show and sees how gentle Bennett is with the animals. They get to talking and Benny takes her to meet the animals, telling her about how he does things while she tells him about how she’d go about introducing birds to a circus.

Aether and Lumine hear about this and before she knows it, Fischl’s being told to get her birds ready, she has an audition in a month (spoiler alert: she passes). Her act is made up of all kinds of birds. Very few of them are housed on the circus for very long since she’s never liked the idea of birds in cages. The birds she uses are all the injured ones in the process of rehabilitation brought to her by Oz. She also keeps the ones that won’t fly again or never learned to find food despite her and Oz doing their best to socialize them. Those that don’t perform are excellent at taking care of the newbies and overall helping Fischl out. 

At any given point she’ll be seen with about 3-5 birds of different sizes on her and she’ll always smell a bit like worms and seeds of various kinds. She expands on her first-aid abilities from watching Bennett, and in turn offers knowledge on birds and how to deal with smaller animals with different bone structures, metabolisms, and cardiovascular systems.

Razor:

Razor’s story is a lot simpler. Backstory is essentially the same as in canon, except he doesn’t meet Lisa right away, and spends a little more time with Varka learning to read and write at the most basic level and fight hand-to-hand. Instead of an abyss mage attacking them, it’s a group of hunters. During this fight, a lot of the wolves are gravely injured but he takes one of them and runs into town looking for help.

After a show, Bennett and Fischl are on their way to see Bennett’s dads to take some birds that can’t handle the circus life but also aren’t fit to be free. They happen to be in the town where Bennett trained to be a vet and they stop by the clinic to say hello. Inside they see a boy dressed in rags and covered in dirt cradling an unconscious wolf pup, trying to get the attention of one of the clerks. One of the clerks tries to help him but the communication barrier is not helping them and the boy seems distressed on top of that, pointing and growling with the word “help” thrown in here and there, so Bennett steps in bc he knows some of these people in the clinic.

Bennett comes in and he and Fischl follow him out to where the rest of the pack is. Fischl brings her birds bc they’re her babies in case anyone was wondering. They perform first aid the best they can given the conditions, and manage to save a good chunk of the wolves, but a good chunk of them still die.

The pack splits up into two. On the one hand, the older wolves take whoever’s still alive and resume their activities in the forest. On the other, Razor has this opportunity to go and find out whether he’s a human or a wolf, and the little wolf pup he brought to the clinic goes with him because she’s too injured to go with the others. Same for a few other wolves.

So they go and the only place they have to stay is the circus bc Bennett and Fischl want to monitor the wolves a little more, so they spend the night. Next morning, Razor gives Fischl and Bennett a basket of meat, berries, and seeds to feed their respective animals and they realize Razor has some valuable skills, so he ends up staying upon receiving the OK from Lumine and Aether and telling Lisa and Ningguang for administrative purposes.

Because wolves inherently do not do well with loud noises and circus settings, Razor is very off-put by the idea of performance. Not to mention that he himself probs wouldn’t feel comfortable in the performance setting, so he sticks to the background (even learning the basics of tech) and gets really good at gathering resources from food for the animals to helping Oz bring back injured birds and track other injured animals. He and Oz interact a lot, which helps his friendship with Fischl as he was initially closer to Bennett.

His relationship with Lisa after a while can be summarized as “focus up you little monsters. not you Razor. You’re an angel and we’re thrilled you’re here”