Circus Grounds

[XCandy and LunacyX]

In this area you will find spectacular instruments, incredible works of art, and the most amazing show your eyes have ever beheld. Watch as an outsider behind the shimmer and the lights or work behind the scenes and in the spotlight as a performer.
Included is the main tent, the surrounding area, the old rides left over from the days that the land supported a carnival, and the rocky hillside nearby that has been hollowed out to form a system of caves and made a resting place for the performers during the daylight hours.  

[.David Talbot.]

At the sound of his name William turned his head and let the curtain slip from his fingers as the performers filed into the thick haze onstage. "Evie," he greeted her with a kiss on ehr cheek, "My, where have you been Miss Mayfair? It's been so long since you graced us with your presence." The intimacy wasproved all the more by the way William stared at her, the tender stroke of his fingers along of lock of hair on her cheek. "And what, pray tell, did you come for? You seem unusually driven this evening." A new man, Antha? The pleasant smile still existed but the frown was in his eyes. Tell me when are you going to come to me?

 

[XCandy and LunacyX]

Your time will come, William. "Is it such a wild idea that I might come merely to have the pleasure of your company, mon bel architecte?" Giving one of her most dazzling smiles, she took him by the arm and drew him away from the flash of colored lights seeping through the curtains, towards the lounge area in a smaller adjoining tent with a low canopy ceiling and scattered chairs and divans. "Honestly, is it too much to ask for a little sweetness out of you, dearest? I've had a rather rough week, you know."
She paused briefly, glancing over her shoulder at Vikteren, making certain he was following, before sitting herself down on a mildly tired couch, all perfect elegance as Julien had taught her. "So, how's the new performance coming along? Nicholas has promised me a spectacular show. He told me I should be flattered."

 

[.David Talbot.]

"And you well should, mademoiselle. Posters come out next week for 'Belle Beauté de Sommeil', a production you inspired." His trademark devilishly suave grin spread to his face as he recalled as best he could the taste of her blood, the feel of her soul, the beating of her heart. Nicholas had been moved to pure inspiration by it and William had never questioned why. "So may I ask who your companion is?" he asked with a turn of his head and eyes to the vampire she had entered with, his self control perfect.

 

[Vikteren]

.David Talbot.

"And you well should, mademoiselle. Posters come out next week for 'Belle Beauté de Sommeil', a production you inspired." His trademark devilishly suave grin spread to his face as he recalled as best he could the taste of her blood, the feel of her soul, the beating of her heart. Nicholas had been moved to pure inspiration by it and William had never questioned why. "So may I ask who your companion is?" he asked with a turn of his head and eyes to the vampire she had entered with, his self control perfect.

Vikteren glanced over his shoulder, sensing the comment directed towards him; his attention had been on the colorful spectacle outside. He seemed very much out of place in the fairgrounds; there was something unshakably old-fashioned about his manner, his carriage, and even the brief expressions that occasionally found their way upon his face, that held itself curiously apart from the lively entertainment. He let the flap fall into place, and came to stand at the sofa behind Antha, his hands lightly resting on it's back. "If it pleases you, you may." he replied. "My name is Vikteren."
He did not give his full name for a reason. Although it was enough of a rarity that even the first of his names might arouse suspicion, there was no reason to tempt fate. Vampires had very long memories, after all.  

[XCandy and LunacyX]

"Then flattered I am, sir, that both Nicholas de Lioncourt and William Baltmore would see me as befitting inspiration." William's gaze being diverted, her smile eased into something more familiar, more direct towards Vikteren. Ease up. She didn't see what about them he would find so distasteful, what would make him so nervous. True, the costumes were a little shocking to someone who had never seen the show, but the performers were all quite kind. "Where's Allen? He told me he would have no part in Julius Caesar. Did he not come at all tonight?"

 

[Vikteren]

He cast a doubtful look in her direction, one that was not intended to carry the message it conveyed quite so clearly. And perhaps no human would have noticed it, save for one who had spent such a long time in Vikteren's company already.
Nevertheless, on her request, he tried to relax. His fingers stopped digging pliable valleys into the fabric of the couch.
Perhaps it would be good for him to be among his own kind.
And the last time he had told himself that, he'd nearly had his heart ripped from his chest, in the most literal meaning of the phrase.
Without realizing it, his shoulders had formed a angular, neat rectangle. A very tense one.  

[XCandy and LunacyX]

"William." She said his name only to draw his attention, the smile on her face becoming more plastic. "I think I'll take Vikteren to look at the show for a moment, if you don't mind." She stood and took Vikteren's hand assuming that he did not, leading him back out towards the slit in the canvas. When she pulled it open a few inches, standing to the side to allow Vikteren to see if he so wished, the look of pure admiration on her face was clear. "William plans all of this out," she explained softly, watching the figures dancing and flying around the stage amid the shimmer and the lights. "Nicholas comes up with ideas---storylines transformed into dances---and William comes up with the hundreds of character roles, each as intricate as the next. William plans every move and every effect, the way they interact and how the emotions and themes are conveyed through movement. Then Fritz composes the music to work with it." Her eye caught one figure, suited in shining gold from head to toe, swinging opposite a creature of pure black, and she did not hesitate to point him out. "There! That's Nicholas! He was an actor in his mortal life, so he stars in most of the performances."

 

[Vikteren]

+Rotting Lunacy+

"William." She said his name only to draw his attention, the smile on her face becoming more plastic. "I think I'll take Vikteren to look at the show for a moment, if you don't mind." She stood and took Vikteren's hand assuming that he did not, leading him back out towards the slit in the canvas. When she pulled it open a few inches, standing to the side to allow Vikteren to see if he so wished, the look of pure admiration on her face was clear. "William plans all of this out," she explained softly, watching the figures dancing and flying around the stage amid the shimmer and the lights. "Nicholas comes up with ideas---storylines transformed into dances---and William comes up with the hundreds of character roles, each as intricate as the next. William plans every move and every effect, the way they interact and how the emotions and themes are conveyed through movement. Then Fritz composes the music to work with it." Her eye caught one figure, suited in shining gold from head to toe, swinging opposite a creature of pure black, and she did not hesitate to point him out. "There! That's Nicholas! He was an actor in his mortal life, so he stars in most of the performances."

For the briefest of instants, he was captivated by the swirling eddies of light, color, the ebb and flow of the music. "A phantasmagoria," he said softly, close enough so that she could hear him.
But within all that beauty, there was also the inescapable, monstrous truth. Like a black widow at the heart of her glittering web.
He freed his hand from hers, using it to hold the curtain back for an instant more, before allowing it to swing shut and turning to Antha. "It is a work of art." he said, with an excellent mimic of an approving smile; an indirect compliment to William.  

[XCandy and LunacyX]

"William is brilliant," she replied simply, her eyes still locked to the show, following the figures of Nicholas and Klaus and Aidan as they faced off for the spotlight, "He sees the art in structure---he doesn't think like other people." No need to mention that he was nearly perfect, at least as most people were concerned. Instead she just smiled, tearing her eyes from the stage with some hesitance. "Anyways, it's Allen and Klaus that I'm eager to see. They see and hear more things than anyone." She paused, her eyes hazing briefly, and gave a little laugh. "David would sell his soul for them to join the Talamasca. But Klaus is too madly in love with the trapeze, and Allen is far, far too much like you."

 

[Vikteren]

+Rotting Lunacy+

"William is brilliant," she replied simply, her eyes still locked to the show, following the figures of Nicholas and Klaus and Aidan as they faced off for the spotlight, "He sees the art in structure---he doesn't think like other people." No need to mention that he was nearly perfect, at least as most people were concerned. Instead she just smiled, tearing her eyes from the stage with some hesitance. "Anyways, it's Allen and Klaus that I'm eager to see. They see and hear more things than anyone." She paused, her eyes hazing briefly, and gave a little laugh. "David would sell his soul for them to join the Talamasca. But Klaus is too madly in love with the trapeze, and Allen is far, far too much like you."

He gave an impatient toss of his head, shaking the hair back from his face and glancing at her, dismissively, from the corner of his eyes. It was a look that aristocracy had been cultivating for hundreds of years. The look in his cool jade eyes was, for once, immediately interpretable.
"And how is that? Neurotic, painfully old-fashioned, and slightly paranoid? Yes, I'm sure that he'll know the latest gossip from all your city's little factions."
He found that he faintly resented the idea that Antha could identify him with anyone, as though she had known him for years.
And if she was coming to anyone whose personality bore the faintest resemblance to Vikteren's for gossip, she was even more disturbed than he had thought possible.  

[XCandy and LunacyX]

Quietly, Antha stopped moving. She simply stood, eyes on the floor, and when she spoke, her tone suggested hurt. "Allen is unusually perceptive. He hears the voices of others, both spoken and silent, whether he wants to or not. He can't block so much of it out. That's why he always knows the workings of the city."
It was another moment before she could speak, her eyes looking up at him through long lashes. "He acts quite rude on the surface, he flinches every time I call him 'ducky', or any other nickname for that matter, and he is paranoid and sometimes even neurotic. But if you bother enough to look behind the idiocy of it, he's very nice and considerate and he actually cares for the people close to him." She didn't bother saying anything about his little brother, sweet Aidan, who was, in Allen's eyes, a touch too good for the world.
After that, she was gone. The umbra cared enough to make a web of haze too dense for safe passage between them as she turned and headed out of the tent---towards the caves the performers called their homes for the moment.

 

[Vikteren]

A flash of irritation was scrawled across his face momentarily, and he turned and stalked out of the tent in the opposite direction, the way they had come, ignoring William as though he was a rather poorly-made cardboard cut-out rather than another vampire.
Speak to your informant if you so desire, he thought, savagely flinging the words to Antha across the distance.
Under his breath, he swore, and when a young woman attempted to accost him as he prowled the grounds, Antha's presence like a beacon in his mind, radiant as a small sun, he flung her hand off his arm with such force that he heard bone crack in her wrist.
The exhibits were small, most of them; petty carnie games and barkers with lungs of steel, a freak show--nothing of interest.
Until he came to a dingy tent, that smelled of salty breezes. No banners hung from it, no garish flags proclaiming its intent.
But there was nothing to stop him from entering, either.
He stepped inside, into abrupt darkness.  

[XCandy and LunacyX]

She hardly recognized the dressing room when it was clear all around her. She was too wrapped up in her thoughts, too busy contemplating things that held no significance. It took a minute to realize that the soft glare of light was from the bare bulbs circling the mirrors on all side, excluding the one wall cast in darkness behind her. She didn't even feel like reaching into that darkness and observing the new costumes.
Instead she turned on her heel and made her way out of the tent by a small exit that few ever observed, plunging her immediately into a small stretch of forest that she crossed until she reached the great face of the mountain, upon which rested a rickety looking zigzag of makeshift metal stairs. To this deathtrap she gave no mind, running up it with impatience until she reached the mouth of the cave, wondering how long it had taken her. Her mind was, after all, still with Vikteren.
Already tired and worn physically from the trip up, her ill lungs laboring with some effort to obtain adequate air, she found the damp draft and cold darkness a dismay for what seemed the hundredth time. So, rather than feel her way through it, she bothered only to whisper Allen's name, knowing well that he would hear and heed her feeble summons.

 

[Vikteren]

He was half surprised at how dimly lit it was inside the tent. The rest of the fairgrounds had been a deluge of colored lights.
There was a small lamp on a turned-over packing crate. There was an older man behind it.
He had been watching Vikteren when he came in--no, since before he came in, for his dazed, drug-fogged eyes were fastened on his face when he stepped inside. Old eyes, the color of river-stones, creased like paper at the corners. His skin was deathly white, twin spots of color burning high in his cheeks. Vikteren knew immediately what he was, although he had not seen the symptoms in more than a century. Consumption.
The man said, "C'mere," in a voice husky and cracked from smoke, and he held out his hands to the vampire.
Vikteren stepped closer warily, and held out a hand to the man. Although there was no reason for him to exercise caution around the frailer, younger human--for what threat could he pose? Vikteren sensed no power within him--he could not shake the unease which had struck him since the second those river-grey eyes found his.
He held out his hand, and moving faster than Vikteren had ever seen a human do so, he found both his wrists encircled by those long, paper-white fingers in a grip that would have left bruises, had he still been human.
The river-grey eyes lost the film of opium, fixed on him with a lazy, cold stare, and something raw and overwhelming, a power that he had seen no human ever hold, suddenly stared at him out of the man's face.
"Though through stone and under sky you travel, the escape you seek will not be found. The labyrinth will not shelter you, nor the favor of your king protect you. What you have sundered will not be made whole."
It would have sounded foolish, insane, the babble of a madman, and Vikteren would have dismissed it as such, except for the grip that was grinding the bones of his wrists together, and the bored, calculating tone of that voice, and the eyes that watched him like they wanted to see him flinch.
"Let go of me." he said, his mouth dry as cotton--half afraid to blink, to take his eyes off of what lay coiled and poisonous behind that man's face.
Then those river-grey eyes rolled back into his head, and the hands dropped, and Vikteren stared at him for several seconds before he realized that the man wasn't breathing.