I

The lights came down. Silence filled the world as the last of the patrons exited the parking lot, vanishing into the steadily growing night or moving on over to a separate pavilion labeled "LOVELY LADIES BEAUITIFIQUE". The big top stood tall and strong against the sky, flag waving proudly in the wind. The smaller tents were staggered around it, collectively a monument to what was widely regarded as one of the greatest travelling circus acts to grace the area. The stillness increased, a resolute nothingness pressing itself into the canvas until, all at once, the pavilions collapsed with a great whoosh.

A hoard of maintenance workers came swarming out of the tents just as they fell, gathering up the bits and pieces and folding canvas. Moving trucks rolled up from the area the caravans were stationed, hidden by an enormous ferris wheel the city had provided. The foreman, Jay, wandered about barking out orders but doing absolutely nothing himself. He nursed a drink and a cigarette while he was at it, contributing to his growing case of lung cancer and liver disease. Of course he didn't need to see a doctor, doctors are for f****n' p*****s. He just wanted to get to bed that night. Master Marcello would want to be leaving for the next city first thing in the morning, which meant that the faster they got this done the faster they would be able to get to bed, Lord knows he needed that rest.

The orders he shouted fell the hardest on the ears of young Alexis Brytt, a self-proclaimed green girl who had run from a life of misery to join the circus. She had always assumed it to be just like the pictures. In some ways, she was right. It was a bouncy, energetic, playful environment on the outside just as advertised but if one looked more closely they say where the magic faded and it opened to a world of raunchy aggression that Alexis so badly wanted to be a part of. And yet, she was trapped in the maintenance crew, destined to a life of hauling things back and forth into moving trucks and out again. The crew itself, she discovered after she had been hired, did nothing while the show ran its course, merely watched from the sidelines and waited for their moment of usefulness to come.

She heard her name called from over the sounds of the workers and turned, almost robotically, to face her foreman. He shouted something to her that she barely understood over the sounds of the workers and she nodded, putting down the support beam she had been carrying and moving off to gather the door flaps of all the other tents. She performed all tasks with a general indifference, physical labour meant nothing to her. The life she had lived before this was so full of trials that she was indifferent to the soreness of her body after working.

Watching all this from his caravan was the ringmaster, Master Marcello, a tall, tired and brooding man. He sighed gently, loosening his bow tie. It had been a long night, and a tough audience, but it was almost certain that he wouldn't be getting to sleep for quite some time. Not with the noise crew was making. Master Marcello was a man blessed, or cursed depending on how you looked at it, with exceptionally acute hearing. He used this skill to assess audiences, mostly, to make sure everyone was enjoying themselves and to make minor adjustments. The people he hired in his circus were the best, and they could adapt to anything he threw at them at a moments notice, so all last minute changes went on without a hitch. Of course, a man with ears as sensitive as his needed perfect silence to sleep. From what he could tell of the work of the maintenance crew, tonight he would be sleeping incredibly late, and would be up incredibly early to rouse the troops, shoving off to the next city. Such was the life of a circus ringmaster, ever in control, and ever in motion. This was not to be assumed that he did not enjoy himself oh no, he loved what he did and was easily the best person for the job.

He stretched his neck, bones cracked, and glanced over to the small hut that was the Odditorium. His brother, Dr. Fascinator, would be cleaning up in there. The crew had special instructions to not touch it, Fascinator would pack it all up in his own special way, and in his own time. He trusted no one else to touch his curios, they all had their own ways. Fascinator would likely be joining Marcello in his caravan late at night (or early in the morning) with smashing glass and a drunken roar, and Marcello would be getting even less sleep that evening. He checked his watch, it read 10:30. Half an hour more and the Beautifique would begin, for all the old men and cheating husbands to get a bit of a peep show from their lovely ladies. May as well wait that out as well, there was nothing he could do about it.

Dr. Fascinator was in fact in the Odditorium, and he was closing up. In a sense. There were certain rituals he always went through before closing his doors for good, and one of them was trying to penetrate the shell of Necroanna, the star of his show.

He wandered over to the Clockwork Woman and opened a hatch in her leg. From inside he pulled out a bottle of rum, nodded to the Woman, and closed the hatch. The Woman looked away, ashamed of being used as a storage and scared of what he may do if she reacted negatively. He swung a chair around and faced the star of his collection, Necroanna.

Necroanna was a young girl Fascinator and Marcello had found on the side of the road, dressed in what looked like the clothes off of a porcelain doll. She was small and dainty, and looked to be dead, but it was absolutely certain that she was a real person. She did not breath and she did not move, but a faint pulse beat under her skin, just barely visible, which made both of them exceptionally confused. She was dead, that much was certain, but she didn't decompose, and that was incredibly unnatural. At the time, Fascinator had wanted to leave her there, or finish her off at least. She was clearly hardly a human anymore, but Marcello wanted her to go with them and so she did. No one questioned master Marcello, especially not Fascinator. If Fascinator did, well then all respect would be lost and then where would they be without their ringmaster. There was already chaos enough. She became the main attraction in the show, a conundrum and a half. Certainly an oddity worthy of the Odditorium. Her case was placed in the centre of the room at all times, and people would come in and gawk at her, under the assumption she was a mannequin. Fascinator would have to convince them otherwise, leading them to the case and entreating them to have a closer work, look there in her cheeks there is a flush. And if you look closely in her neck there it is, her heart beats quietly but she does not breath. This I can promise you. Then people would ooo and ahh and were sold on everything else in the Odditorium. She was the selling point, the reason anyone stuck around for longer than ten minutes. A perfect anomaly. And he desperately wanted to figure her out, he tried so very hard, staring right through her eyes knowing that any sign of life she had to show would show in her eyes. But she never did.

He straddled the chair and leaned forward on its back, extracting a creaking groan, and rum sloshed in the bottle. What are you playing at? Slosh. Why don't you do anything? Slosh. Slosh. Slosh. His eyes, growing glassier with ever drink, never left hers. A bell rang somewhere in the distance, signalling the start of the Beautifique. Fascinator ignored it, he thought nothing of the Beautifique girls. And they thought nothing of him. Their hatred was a mutual one, Fascinator thought they were all w****s. They were not paid to f**k they were paid to dance. The f*****g they did themselves, and got money for it by their own choice. Case and point, they were w****s. However, to them, he was the most disgusting thing to ever walk this planet. Between his smell, his voice, and his flaccid personality they couldn't stand to be with him. Which was fine by him, let them be, horrid skanks the lot of them. Let them harass Marcello, he was the ladies man.

But he wasn't at this moment. He glanced around at the tear-down crew one final time before turning sharply and shutting the door to his and Fascinators caravan with a harsh click. Alexis watched from a distance, the man fascinated her. She had watched him perform, he was an amazing showman, cat-like in his grace onstage and infinitely charismatic. Where had that all gone? Now that the curtain had gone down and the lights were out he was quiet, reserved, and looked almost small. Of course, he radiated energy, the strange energy that actors have, but he seemed to carry it over. She ignored it. How she wanted to be like him, how she wanted to have that charisma, people would flock to her like moths to a flame, and she would have hundreds of admirers. At least, she assumed he did, there was no way he couldn't. But now, now he was not that man. He was a tired, worn out lanky commoner with an astounding amount of presence. She considered the possibility that she could perhaps be better than him. Was it something she was capable of? Could she be the ringmaster in his stead? Oh how she wanted to.