Circus Grounds

[.David Talbot.]

He returned her grin and took her delicate hand in his own to place a kiss upon it. It was standard procedure for Nicholas and Antha knew it. "Until we meet again, ma chere," he said in parting.
He went to his feet and brushed his lips against hers, also standard. What wasn't standard was the part where he turned his eyes to Vikteren, watching him, and pressed his lips harder against Antha's, a hand cupping the back of her neck to keep her there for a few moments. He let his tongue trace her bottom lip before he drew away.
He had been threatened and in reply he made a challenge.
Only then did he look down at Antha. He touched her chin with a crooked finger to force her gaze up to meet his. "Au revoir, ma belle princesse."

 

[Vikteren]

.David Talbot.

He returned her grin and took her delicate hand in his own to place a kiss upon it. It was standard procedure for Nicholas and Antha knew it. "Until we meet again, ma chere," he said in parting.
He went to his feet and brushed his lips against hers, also standard. What wasn't standard was the part where he turned his eyes to Vikteren, watching him, and pressed his lips harder against Antha's, a hand cupping the back of her neck to keep her there for a few moments. He let his tongue trace her bottom lip before he drew away.
He had been threatened and in reply he made a challenge.
Only then did he look down at Antha. He touched her chin with a crooked finger to force her gaze up to meet his. "Au revoir, ma belle princesse."

For a few moments, he didn't move; he watched Nicholas lazily, like a cat in the warm summer sun contemplating whether a mice was worth the trouble of catching merely for the pleasure of devouring it.
It was childish. And he knew responding to the jibe would only give it power.
And then, quite clearly, he realized he did not give a damn.
He moved fast, too fast for a human eye to perceive, and one second he was a little ways away from Antha and the next he had Nicholas' spine digging into the back of a pole, and his hand was around his throat, nails scraping skin almost fierce enough to draw blood.
"Don't," he said testily, "push your luck."

 

[XCandy and LunacyX]

Instinct drove Antha to Vikteren's side, laying a calm hand on his arm. She did not try to pull them apart, of course; she meant only to divert his attention. But her eyes were focused on Nicholas, a look in them that promised he had pulled much more ridiculous stunts than this before.
For a moment she thought to say that they should go home, or that he should let Nicholas go. Instead she stood silently, her eyes flickering between the two, one hand clasped around the Mayfair emerald and the other still laid carefully on Vikteren's arm. She would rather hope he might learn a lesson from this---no matter how slight---than have it happen again. Because knowing Nicholas, he could only get bolder.

 

[.David Talbot.]

If he could he would have laughed. But even being choked his eyes showed it. It's nothing new. He let out a gurgle of laughter. I've slept with her more than once. I couldn't even keep track.
He put all of his strength into his fingers for one second to pry himself free, scrambling away through the curtains into the darkness. His laughter echoed in the stillness for a long time.

 

[Vikteren]

.David Talbot.

If he could he would have laughed. But even being choked his eyes showed it. It's nothing new. He let out a gurgle of laughter. I've slept with her more than once. I couldn't even keep track.
He put all of his strength into his fingers for one second to pry himself free, scrambling away through the curtains into the darkness. His laughter echoed in the stillness for a long time.

He turned to Antha.
His eyes were frightening. Green flames in them, luminescent in the dark.
They were not human.
With visible effort, he pulled the beast back into himself, buried it in a shallow grave beneath a thin veneer of humanity.
It took a few minutes. His smile, when he showed it again, was thin as a blade and a little weary.
"Has he really?" he asked, looking after where Nicholas had disappeared to. There wasn't much interest in his tone; just tiredness. But he wanted to know whether it was only a taunt.
The vampire linked his fingers with Antha's, on his arm, and his grip was gentle. Like forcing that bestial rage under the surface had sapped him.

 

[XCandy and LunacyX]

Antha's eyes trailed after Nicholas, wondering in the back of her mind if he had been taking lessons from Singe. "Only three times," she said in a whisper so low, so soft, only Vikteren could hear it. Few humans in his place would have known she was speaking but for the movement of her lips. "He fails to take into account the fact that he has very poor math skills when he starts boasting."
All that was left to do was sigh and turn, her hand withdrawing from Vikteren, and make her way back to the car. She was quiet sliding back behind the wheel, turning Chopin down to a mere hum of instrumentals. She rested her forehead on the steering wheel, closing her eyes while she waited for Vikteren.

 

[Vikteren]

+Rotting Lunacy+

Antha's eyes trailed after Nicholas, wondering in the back of her mind if he had been taking lessons from Singe. "Only three times," she said in a whisper so low, so soft, only Vikteren could hear it. Few humans in his place would have known she was speaking but for the movement of her lips. "He fails to take into account the fact that he has very poor math skills when he starts boasting."
All that was left to do was sigh and turn, her hand withdrawing from Vikteren, and make her way back to the car. She was quiet sliding back behind the wheel, turning Chopin down to a mere hum of instrumentals. She rested her forehead on the steering wheel, closing her eyes while she waited for Vikteren.

He opened the door, but did not get in quite yet.
He was looking at her, his gaze on her face until she returned it, and he said quietly, his gaze--not empty, but filled with something undefinable.
Soemthing like trust.
"Alright."
Oddly enough, he was fine with it.
Because it had been her choice. It had not been stolen from her.
He climbed in, leaned over, and kissed her cheek gently, lifting the wave of red curls away from her face.
"It's been a long night," he said quietly. "Let's go home."

 

[XCandy and LunacyX]

"Home," she agreed in a soft rush of breath, turning her head to let her gaze fall upon him. Her arms were draped around the steering wheel, almost hugging it, and she seemed mildly reluctant to withdraw them and start the car.
It was the first time in her life that Antha had driven the speed limit, much less obeyed the law. It took an hour of that unusual obedience to cross town and finally pull up to Satis House.

 

[XCandy and LunacyX]

Nicholas had never liked phones. They were terrifying contraptions, carrying voices over great distances as if the person on the other end of the line was but a foot away. And yet he was delighted by them, captivated. Such was the case with most---if not all---of the technological marvels time had produced since his mortal years.
"What did the brat princess want?" Adeline, reclining on the nearby divan, watched him through slitted eyes. Her voice, light as the flutter of wings, beautiful as a flower in full bloom, so much like Adeline herself, carried more than a hint of amusement. She appreciated a woman who could keep so many creatures at heel, order them about to do her bidding. Needless to say, if she was not so fond of being the most beautiful thing in the area she and Antha Mayfair would have been the greatest of friends.
Shaking his head so that his two-toned hair floated about his pale face, the dozen or two jingling baubles embedded into the various parts of his head quivering. "A cursed witch boy is wandering the streets," he murmured, sighing, "She wishes for a neutral party to watch over him."
"Don't look at me," she said simply, smoothing out her white satin skirts, "I am not made to play guardian angel, no matter how prettily I fit the image."
Nicholas made a small, dismissive gesture of his hand, his fingers fumbling wildly in the air. "Sirius!" he called, through the drapes that closed off his dressing room from the hallway of canvas. "Sirius!"
"I will go," Kasumi offered in the low, deep voice that oddly fit her sharp features. She had slunk in while Nicholas thought, the hem of the furisode that clung low and loose to her shoulders dragging behind her on the floor.
"You are too conspicuous," Nicholas pointed out, before hastily calling for Sirius again.
The boy appeared, dunking under the the drapes, in a haze of smoke. "Follow, watch, protect...anything else Miss Mayfair demands of you that I should keep in mind?" His teeth had clamped down around the mouthpiece of his pipe, from which the scent of opium wafted lazily.
Across the room, Adeline had risen as if on strings, her movements that much more graceful than those of the other vampires. "You think him that much less conspicuous than Kasumi?" she questioned Nicholas, blinking her tranquil blue eyes at him, "If his clothes do not give him away---" She eyed the silk chinese vest that adorned his upper body, the oddly matching black slacks and perfectly absurd feathered shawl twined around his arms. "---his scent surely will. You are a drug den on your own, monsieur."
Sirius, grinning like a pleased Cheshire cat, tipped an imaginary hat to her. "You need not waste your charming words on me, my Lady of the Stage, you have my vote for the belle of the undead ball."
"Speaking of which," Adeline began, rising to her feet and gliding to them, her skirts held in her delicate hands, "What part am I to have in your new work, Nicholas my darling? Surely I am to play Sleeping Beauty, oui?"
"Of course my pet," he assured her, taking her arm like any gentleman and patting her gloved hand, "Pandora will not quite fit the bill, she has too much of the strong and independent woman in her." Listening to this, Sirius snorted his laughter and a serpentine grin spread to Kasumi's pale lips. Adeline alone did not seem to understand the slight in his words, or else was not offended by them. Being the sweet, helpless damsel had been a great charm in her day.  

[Okimiyage]

"Nicolas!"
The flap of the tent billowed wide, and Bastchilde made her entrance. She had a flair for the dramatic that had only found itself indulged in the circus. Striding into the tent in full magician's assistant costume--a vertically striped blue and teal leotard with the cleavage cut out, white silk gloves up to her elbows, and an expansive peacock-feather 'tail'. Her boots were made out of some mysterious scaly green material which shimmered in the light like nothing natural ought to, but she had yet to adorn her elaborate up-do with the matching rhinestone hair-pins for the full effect. Putting her hands on her hips, where chunks of opal glittered and ropes of faux-pearl beads clacked against one another, Bastchilde said, "There are mice in the trunk for the disappearing-woman trick. It's filthy in there. I am not climbing into that thing tonight." Crossing her arms over her milky-white chest--pushing her cleavage into a deep V, a habit that she carried off-stage with her more often than not, Bastchilde tossed her head and gave the circus master an expectant look.  

[XCandy and LunacyX]

It was William, following on Bastchilde's heels in anticipation of the storm he saw coming, who pinched the bridge of his nose between thumb and forefinger and hissed a sigh through clenched teeth. Nicholas, of course, could not be bothered with these things, he was the creative genius, the artist, not the stage manager, so he looked to William expectantly, since he was the stage manager.
Most of the others kept their thoughts tactfully to themselves, simply watching Bastchilde with carefully blank eyes. It was Kasumi who leered an errant, "Who among us did not live with rats every day of their lives?"
Sirius, always ready to jump into a conflict and make it that much worse, offered, "Naturally. Brought a new plague with them every week, it seemed. I believe I remember one crawling into my baby sister's cradle and killing her when I was young. Terrible business, those things."
"My husband kept this truly dreadful mass of beastly felines around our estates to be rid of them," came Adeline's lilting voice, "They were awful, always sneaking into the manor and shedding over everything. I should think I would have preferred the mice."
"William?" Nicholas cut in, staring pointedly at the boy. The others were too ready to pick a fight with their single mortal member, and Nicholas wished to avoid whatever was coming next.
William himself, who had a million things to do in far too short a time and was far, far less than pleased with the new task being added to his list, simply said, "I shall be sure to let maintenance know when I cross paths with one of them. They shall have it cleaned, and you are going on stage tonight, Miss de Regenciere, or else I shall dock your pay and put Kasumi on in your place for a while. In the meantime, Nicholas, do you have the sketches for the costumes? Wardrobe is screaming for them and I fear they will begin breaking out into riots if we do not give them something."
"Of course," Nicholas said, going to his desk and sorting through the mess of papers, scripts and sketches and letters in all different languages, until he removed from them a small stack of heavy paper, "Here we are. They are very rough drafts, but I trust they will turn out magnificently."
"Of course," William agreed blandly, turning on his heel and stalking back towards the drapes. But he paused abruptly, one hand holding the drapes aside, and glanced over his shoulder with eyes that were a touch more curious than they should have been, just a little too eager. "Was that Antha Mayfair on the phone just now?"
While the rest of the troupe members present snickered darkly to themselves, Nicholas merely nodded and said, "You don't want to know what she wanted." Taking his word on it, William vanished.  

[Okimiyage]

"If only we could all be so misfortunate," Bastchilde shot back at Kasumi, as viciously as her pretty red mouth could make it. She did not care for the witch, whose premonitions were more often than not accurate enough to unsettle her. The knowing look in those dark eyes made Bastchild want to slap her. It had been several months since she had joined the circus, but she still wasn't used to the powers of her fellow performers. It was funny to think that for years, she had always assumed the sideshow magic was trickery, fraud. Le Cirque du Graal Rouge had taught her better. Tossing her hair at William, she turned on him with a dazzling smile and sang out, "My dear Mr. Baltmore, you do know that half the audience--" The male half. "--comes to see me getting sawed in half every other night, not a mountain hag descended from her peaks?" But she'd unlocked her arms from across her chest, which was a sure sign that her fit was over and done with, and Bastchilde would forget the issue in moments. And besides, her attention was taken with something far more interesting now.
"Antha Mayfair?" she repeated, her eyes brightening with interest. What on earth could she want? "My, my, we're moving up in the world."
At that moment, the tent flap was shuffled aside, and a huffing and panting dwarf entered the tent, dragging behind a headdress rife with feathers and opals. Bathschild exclaimed and clapped her hands to the back of her neck, where her platinum-blonde locks were bound in a style as complicated as a geisha's. "Forgot this in your dressin' room, miss." the dwarf grunted, handing up the headdress.
The one good thing that could be said of Bastchilde was that she had a knack for names, and by her second week in the circus she had already memorized the names and roles of not only the cast, but the roadies, wardrobe specialists and maintenance workers. The dwarf who followed her now, Eglantine, was the leader of what one might refer to as the cult of Bastchilde, and had made it his habit to attend to her. God knew someone had to. "What would I do without you, Eglantine?" she murmured, settling into a seat and turning herself to face a mirror.  

[XCandy and LunacyX]

Kasumi, amused by the insult rather than actually insulted, only brushed the raven hair from her face and let her expression soften, so that the severity of her eyes and mouth and chin balanced out against the other features, and all at once she was an undeniably beautiful creature to even the most critical of eyes. "They come to see the magic," she corrected her, grinning in a way so that it lent a wicked shadow to her expression, "Any pretty girl will do, so long as the magic is astonishing, and such creatures are, as they say, a dime a dozen. You are utterly replaceable, child."
At the mention of the witch girl from Bastchilde, the performers snickered again. "Antha Mayfair and Nicholas have this particular bond," Sirius said, grinning in wicked amusement, "It mostly consists of them worshiping each other and Antha giving him orders and him obeying like a hound, or else passing the tasks on to us." He shot Nicholas a glare then, to which the ringleader smiled airily and shrugged his shoulder.
"You forgot sex," Kasumi corrected him, with that same serpentine grin, "It is a very prominent feature of their relationship."
"That's true of Antha's relationship with most people," he shot back, motioning first to himself and then to Kasumi herself for emphasis, "If you will recall." For a moment, they just smirked at each other while Nicholas pretended not to hear them, going about his business as usual, and Adeline laughed sweetly at the lot of them.
"At any rate," Nicholas interrupted loudly, "She wants the matter taken care of. Sirius, get to it."
The boy watched him for another moment or two, the mouthpiece of his pipe caught between his teeth, and then gave a strange, wholly indecipherable gesture of his hand at Nicholas and gathered his boa more tightly around his arms, turning and silently taking leave of them.
Kasumi, restored to her usual dark and stoic demeanor by his absence, blinked her dark golden eyes at Nicholas and asked simply, "Which part am I to play, then?"
"Why the evil witch," Nicholas exclaimed, somewhere between shock and delight, creeping towards him with his arm across his face, his sleeve masking him, "She comes in dark and severe, possessed of a terrible beauty, and curses the fair new princess, and ensures her curse upon the sweet girl, and then wages war with the valiant prince with her mystical powers for the life of the princess. I think you will play it beautifully."
"You will be the prince, I assume?"
Nicholas, confused as to how such a question even needed asking, blinked at her. "Why yes, of course, who else?"  

[Okimiyage]

Bastchilde, reapplying a coat of her trademark ruby-red lipstick, pretended not to hear Kasumi. It was no point arguing with the slanty-eyed b***h over it; she knew, in her heart of hearts, that she was the one who stole their breath away, the girl whose beauty was like a feat of magic in itself. It was to her that they sent red roses after the show, in armfuls, and it was to her that they addressed their hopeless adoration in artless prose.
Bastchilde yawned pointedly, raising a hand clad in white silk and glittering with rings to her mouth and snapping shut her mirror compact. "Oh~" she sang out. "Boring, boring, boring! Are you putting on another one of your silly little productions, Nicolas?" She hated Nicolas's plays, but only because she'd yet to be in one. Everyone took to such dramatics over who would be in one next, and which part they would get---it was all rather hideously petty. Secretly, she thought she'd make a lovely princess, the most radiant yet. Bastchilde had been quite the little actress all her life, after all.  

[XCandy and LunacyX]

"Yes," he murmured distractedly, taking a stack of papers from his desk and shuffling through them, "You know, just another little bit of nonsense that draws spectators from all over the world to see." It was only then that his crystalline eyes flashed at her and let her see how unhappy he was with her comment, and therefore her.
"And that make us stars the world over," Adeline added with mock-sweetness, lording it over the mortal girl, "Nicholas, was that the sketch of my gown you just sent off? I should like it to be blue satin with gold lace, do you agree?"
"Then mine shall be violet satin," he agreed, turning the papers in his hands so that she could see the sketches of the scenery he had fashioned.
Kasumi, her head popping up over his shoulder to look at the glittering skies and ruined castle, said simply, "You are terrible with your all your satin, you know that? One day your satin is going to slip on the trapeze and we shall have to fake the death of whomsoever falls."
"And then we shall dress that whomsoever up as an unfamiliar character playing their character and none shall know the difference," Nicholas stated, gathering the papers against his chest to rest over his heart, "You know, Bastchilde, you could always play an extra on the stage if you wished. We always have people on the ground, a little animation to the scenery."