Circus of Silence

Rewards

~*~

You're grateful when someone else sees fit to intervene.

It's a young man, immaculately dressed if not a season out of style. You know immediately he isn't what he seems.

He bares his teeth and the attacker scurries away.

~*~

Round about the cauldron go,

In the poison entrails throw....

          Whisper wished she had claws. She wished she had claws and teeth and an appetite so fierce she could rip into her captors or tear up the Carousel. It was too bad she didn't have the courage. Too bad she'd been making charts and weighing the pros and cons of destroying the thing for almost fifty years now, and had never taken the chance. She had dreams like that sometimes, dreams of viciousness and cruelty instead of grace and dance.

She had dreams of the Forever Song stopping as gears and springs bursted from their proper places and peppered the patrons present. She had dreams about laughing. She didn't remember what hers sounded like anymore... and she wasn't going to risk it.

She'd figured out long ago that it was the Forever Song that kept them like this. Kept them young and beautiful if they were meant to be beautiful. Whisper had been thirteen... or was it fourteen? For over half a century now. Her brother, on the other hand, had been made a cub that day so long ago. His body had continued to grow. She knew very well that tigers weren't supposed to live such long lives... and worried that if the Forever Song stopped, she'd be left hoping the Witch's magic also revives.

Round about the Carousel go, thought Whisper, just as an unwelcome hand dropped down on her shoulder. Hating the Silencing, Shula removed his hand and went for his pipes at the quickest opportunity. It was like holding a knife to her neck, the butt of a rifle to her heart. Whisper bit her thumb. 

Shula recoiled, struck dumb. "Do you bite your thumb at us, sir?" Since Shula who was Abraham had no Balthazar to back him, Whisper assumed 'us' meant the snakes.

Whisper bit her thumb again. No sir, I do not bite my thumb at you, sir, but I do bite my thumb, sir.

Shula scowled, not bothering to ask her if she quarrelled. Though really... it wasn't like she could do much. Whisper had no sword, no Gregory to come to her aid. Shula had magic flutes and the Witch's favour. Together, they'd burned Whisper's memories and all its labour.

  Quarrel, sir! No sir. 

The Snake Charmer whistled her to a pale, wooden bench overlooking the Carousel. He made her sit down and then pulled out a packet of yellow papers. He handed her the top one.

A drawing. One of a beautiful woman in fine silk and jewels, her dress draping off her like she'd been scared from her bed in only her sheets. It looked to be from a school textbook, if Whisper remembered those correctly. Shula sighed, a small smile playing across his lips. She could have sworn his goatee and moustache curled at the tips. "She was my wife," he said, "though she married twice after me to end her and our children's strife. We had seven, you know."

She frowned, not understanding what he was getting at. She kept her wet thumb on her lap.

"She killed the first one, this says. He was awful to her and our children. Broke my eldest son's arm for the smallest infraction. She slit his throat with a dagger in the bed they slept in together." He flipped to the next paper. A document with a small illustration of a couple lounging on a throne. "The second was the sultan. I'm very happy for her... but sad, too."

She blinked and he took it as a request to continue.

"I wonder if she would have left me, if I hadn't been taken, for him. We were very, very poor and could barely feed ourselves. I'm not sure if it was greed or necessity that made me go with the Witch... but she promised my family's fortunes would change... she's only just proved to me that they did... two thousand years later."

Two thousand years. Two thousand years! Whisper had known he was the oldest- that he came from a time that the other carnies could scarcely imagine. She hadn't known he was ancient. That being the Witch's favourite was a topic of much repent. 

Shula whistled a bird off the bench and rested his neck on his folded arms. "She gave these to me, Whisper. For what I did last night. For fixing the Granddaughter."

Rosalind. Whisper hated to think about what he would have had to have done to Rosalind. She'd resisted- she was sure of that. It only made things worse. Whisper bit her thumb at him again, and Shula scowled. She'd never forgive him. Never. Not even with the story about his family. He'd betrayed them. He'd practically handed Whisper's Voice book to the Witch and watched it burn to the wick. He was withholding Whisper's ability to write. Because of him and his sweet voice, she was truly mute.

"And if you would just accept that this is how things are going to be, Whisper, the rewards would be acute!" Her frown deepened. "You'd remember Stripes' real name by now. Or maybe she'd change him back for you during off-hours. You're making this hard for yourself- it's like you're letting someone trample your flowers."

Once more, Whisper bit her thumb. He told her to quit it with a low, rumbling hum. Having no choice, she obeyed. She obeyed and listened to the Forever Song and waited for breakfast as she watched Rosalind Maybrush wander witlessly. The carnies were talking- gossiping, as they always did. They said that she couldn't remember if she was Rosalind or Rosaline- why with them it was wrong to dine. She kept frowning at the tiger's tent, like her memory of it had a dent.

"I should go to her," Shula sighed, but as he rose, the Circus cried. Someone foreign had stepped inside. Someone wrong. Someone new.

It seemed the Circus would feast today, too.

~*~

When he offers a hand, you fall back into the sand.

He's after the popcorn.

You know, in your heart, that he wants your popcorn.

He wants it so badly he's going to attack.

You snarl back.

~*~