Finvarra's Circus

6. Try and Say Goodbye (Part Two)

"We're not laughing at you," Jin clarified over the table through his own amusement. He added curiously, "Have you ever seen Kia?"

Leanna paused. "Kia?"

"The lion," Ellie explained, slapping Jin's arm in feigned reprimand. "You have no need to fear him. He's a darling, sweet as a babe. Doesn't have much of an appetite, the poor thing."

"Why yes, I have seen Kia," Leanna said archly. "And how you can call him a darling baffles me. He is as big as he is scary! I hardly consider sweet the appropriate word. Terrifying, perhaps? He'd have no problem eating little me, appetite or not. I dare say he'll probably be hungry when he's done licking my bones!"

Kioyo and Jin exploded in laughter, and a sinking feeling settled in Leanna's stomach. Had she been fooled somehow? The little voice in her head whispered this, but well, Leanna was finding the voice in her head quite tiring.

Ellie sighed apologetically, a bashful pink washing over her face. "As fearsome as he may seem, Kia only fancies berries, grass, and perhaps a bit of ale on his down days. After learning Jin and I were leaving, he drank himself to sleep. So had Finvarra tossed you in his cage, the most Kia would have done was cuddle—if he even realized you were there. Like I said, he's a darling, absolutely harmless."

Anger scalded Leanna. She had been fooled! Her small hands gathered into quavering fists as the little voice in her head hackled to no end. She trembled feeling silly, embarrassed, exploited...exposed! "I was right! He is a beast of a man and I shouldn't trust him at all!"

Instead of sympathy, the group grew into a louder fit of laughter.

Leanna huffed. "How you've survived working under someone so cold and heartless simply evades me!"

Like a dying breeze, all laughter withered into a black, awkward silence. Everyone looked to the ground as if suddenly it were the greatest of fascinations.

Ellie slid from the tabletop and sat beside Leanna. "My brother may seem a little... rough and..."

"Arrogant," said Jin.

"Pompous," chimed Kioyo, with a grin.

"As if the lot of you are any better!" Ellie narrowed her eyes playfully at the laughing men. She turned back to Leanna and placed a hand above hers. "He may appear to be all of these things, and heartless as you say, but he isn't. This circus has been a haven for many that were shunned from their worlds. Had Finvarra not offered them shelter and work, who knows what would have become of them. Whatever you have heard of him , please don't pay it any mind, even if Finvarra himself claims it to be so. Remember, here of all places, not all things are as they appear, and I've never seen that apply to someone more than it does to my brother."

Leanna bit the inside of her lip. "Does this have something to do with Machina?" she asked awkwardly, unsure if she was pronouncing the name right. "I didn't mean to pry, but when I was waiting outside of Finvarra's tent, I couldn't help but overhear..."

"It has everything to do with her," Ellie revealed, pained. She shivered and her porcelain arms covered in goose bumps. Jin reached for Ellie's hands and gripped it reassuringly. Still, Ellie's pale pallor flushed over red, and her eyes gleamed with unshed tears. "Machina is a toxic error my brother drags through life, a never ending punishment that shadows his every step. Finvarra was blinded. She was beautiful, and he was a fool... But it is her evil that knows no bounds. She is the heartless one. That is why I must beg of you, Leanna, abandon all you have heard. Lives have been lost, and it pains me that those girls were victims in a vendetta they never should have been a part of. And while Finvarra's carelessness and conceit share in that blame, he is not the monster."