Fortune
"I see a handsome warrior in your future," the heavily-cloaked coatl all but purred to the ridgeback bending down close to hear her.
"Really?" The larger dragon gasped. "What's he like?"
"Brave, naturally," the coatl said. "Fierce in battle, but with a heart of gold, and a great deal to offer if you can earn his trust."
Clint snickered softly at the description. It wasn't the most subtle fortunetelling he'd seen, but it was clearly working on the amorous ridgeback.
"I knew it!" she was exclaiming. "Oh, thank you so much Madame Starlight!"
The Coatl didn't bother to say goodbye as the ridgeback took to the air, quickly rejoining her friends at a food stall not far off. The gems that she brushed from her stall into a small pouch were clearly much more important.
"Wow. That was... almost like watching my hatchling try to tell fortunes," Clint commented casually, sauntering up to the booth. The coatl glowered up at him. "'Madame Starlight', was it?" he asked innocently. "Perhaps you should get more practice."
"I hardly think I should put effort into it when the girl clearly just wants verification her crush is secretly her soulmate," the coatl said, matter-of-fact but quiet so her voice wouldn't carry. "And Madame Starlight is my professional name, obviously. Not my best show of creativity, perhaps, but it gets the job done." She tilts her head slightly, peering up (and up, and up) at Clint. "But you're not here to tell me I need a better name or a better career."
"I'm not?" Clint asked, mock-innocently.
"Obviously," she said. "You don't need to be a fortune teller to know that." She paused. "You're here for a reason, though. It can't be to ask about love or children or work, you're too confident for any of those. You're not afraid, but you're not cocky enough to be trying to prove me wrong..."
Clint doesn't say anything, just rests next to the booth, listening with a faint smirk.
"Oh, you're smart," she said finally, after looking him up and down for a moment. "Which I'm sure your friends would argue, but in this moment it's true." Clint started a bit, surprised by that surprisingly specific insight - it was always good-natured ribbing, but one of the running jokes of the carnivals was that they were led by an idiot. "You're probably not the best person to test me on the surface, but everything about you belies your surface." He peered into her eyes, which seemed to have glazed over slightly.
"You think?" he asked, trying to keep his tone as neutral as possible.
"Your firebug would've been a better choice," she said, staring subtly into the middle distance now instead of directly at him. "She's got a more critical eye, she'd find any flaw in my reading. Or your sister, who doesn't trust nearly as easily as you do." Okay, that was FAR more specific than Clint had been expecting, and he leans in, interested.
"But here I am," he said.
"Here you are," she agreed. "Because you know when to believe, and they don't. Sometimes even a professional needs to suspend disbelief and let themselves be fooled." A brief smirk flickered across her face. "Assuming the performance is just style and no substance. Which I suppose you're used to having had your barker on so long."
The Hawk's Eye Circus and Travelling Display of Wonders had never been to this area, and most everyone here seemed to be more or less local. There was no way for her to know these things, unless...
"So what's your answer?" he asked. He hadn't asked a question, but...
"Of course," Madame Starlight said, sounding almost offended. "You think I'd pass up a chance to get out of this podunk corner of the world?"
"Fair," Clint said, barking a laugh. "Come on, the caravan's not far."
She didn't do anything quite so obvious as her reading of him on their way back, but she does mention or ask about a lot of things that no one outside of the Circus should know, and by the time they come in sight of the wagons he's convinced that she's the real thing, lying to people to make ends meet, because no one ever actually wants a true fortune. But they could use something like this, it'd be such a benefit to the show and--
"SLOANE!"
Molly came all but galloping out of the campsite in yet another horrifically colored sweater, all but crashing into Madame Starlight's legs to wind around them like a hatchling, just a bit too large to do so comfortably.
"Hey Moo," Madame Starlight - or Sloane, apparently - laughed, nuzzling the other dragon. "It's been ages!"
Clint just stared uncomprehending, as Sloane looked up at him with a mischievous grin spread across her face.
"Should'a sent your sister," she said. "But thanks for the job!"
Then she and Molly burst into laughter and started back to the campsite, leaving Clint and his gobsmacked stupid face to process how hard he just got played. The thought he clung to was that everything else aside, he had been right about one thing:
Sloane was going to be an amazing addition to the circus.