The Ruins of Lo'Kan.

Alden stares at the man face devoid of emotion. Was this guy serious? The ringleader wanted to talk about his problems, inside the mouth of a lion? The ringleader also wanted him to believe he wasn't delusion.

"If you aren't some delusion, than you are as crazy as I thought I was. My name isn't Alden. Alden was a fairy tale I made up for myself. Alden was a desperate attempt to convince myself, I could be something besides a monster. My name is Wrath. I am the monster that killed this town."

Was every single person in this circus here to try and make him feel better? Do good deeds for repentance, live in a fairy tale, forget the past. Be something new, something better. It all certainly had appeal, he wasn't sure if he could listen to it. All he knew is that he was done with this. He takes his head out of the lions mouth.

"Thank you for your words, and your show. I suppose you want me to watch the other acts?"

He doesn't wait for a response, he gets the feeling he knows what it's going to be. He heads back into the stands, retaking his seat next to the fairy. He frowns, brow furrowing in through. There's a conflict brewing in his head. The part of him that refuses to give up, warring with the side that knows he deserves to die. Part of him longs to be alone again, part of him is happy to see people. None of this shows on his face thoug. He had divorced himself from his emotions, it was like being on the dosage all over again.

The sound of a leopard yowling echoes through the stadium to introduce Cynder, who stands upon a large (fireproof) ring, barren but for a few hoops hanging from the cieling, coated with an invisible flammable substance. As Cynder stands there, circling the ring and blowing kisses to the nonexistent crowd, suddenly the edges of the ring explode into flame. Cynder jumps back from the flames, feigning surprise as she slyly fires a blast of flame from her fingertips to explode in the air behind her, quickly forming itself into a long, serpentine dragon.

"Look out!" yells a child's voice from the crowd, and Cynder spins about, gasping convincingly at the huge beast. It dives down at her and she ducks as it flies right over her head, barely missing her ears. It does this many times, its fiery jaws snapping every time it passes her. She's clearly in distress as she's assaulted by this fiery serpent. If there were a crowd, they'd likely be gasping at her every dodge.

After one final sweep, the serpent rears up, and Cynder has a sudden bout of bravery, rolling up nonexistent sleeves and puffing up her chest. Suddenly, a lasso of fire springs from her hands, and she swings it about in a circle, before throwing it about the serpent's "neck". The beast roars silently, though a roar sound effect plays from right behind the ring, projected to make it sound as if the fire serpent is truly letting out a terrifying draconic roar.

Cynder gives a mighty pull and heaves the beast around, passing it up and down and all around, through the hoops hanging from the cieling, which alight with flame as her fiery lasso passes over the inflammable fluid that coats each one. She passes the beast through the rings with practiced precision, before pulling it down to the ground, where it slams into the ring and slumps down. She places her foot upon the "conquered" beast and gives a deep bow. The lights redirect off of her and the serpent disappears, the hoops quickly extinguished.

Cynder goes backstage as the ringleader announces whatever the next act is, rubbing some burn poultice on her heavily singed paws before going up to sit in the stands beside Alden and the sad fae.
"So..." she says, a little bit awkwardly, "come here often?"
It's meant to be a joke, and she indicates this with a little, awkward laugh followed by a clearing of the throat. And to think she seemed so confident on stage.

"Uh, well, I meant the circus," she says, laughing lightly. Then, she gets a little excited grin, exposing a sharp fang.
"How did you like my performance? I thought I did really good this time...kind of a shame you were the only one around to see it, but hey...you know, the ring leader never did tell me why we came to a deserted mountain village to perform. Seems like kind of a bad move for business, seeing as you're the only one here," she says. She seems to be much less awkward when she speaks about her job, getting even a bit excited. It's clear she loves what she does.

Cynder clearly doesn't quite understand as she blinks blankly at him, but she shrugs and gives a smile anyway.
"That's okay," she says with a shrug, "at least you understand that it isn't easy, which is...something."
She smiles and nods, though it's fairly obvious she was hoping for something more than that.

The next three acts are standard circus fare. Dancing bears, pie-tossing clowns, and twisting contortionists. The bears are  good dancers, although their waltz is a little stiff. The pie-tossing clowns are fairly standard, with bright makeup and red noses. At the end of their act, the clowns  slip on banana peels. When they hit the ground, there's a bang and a puff of smoke. Of course, there's no clowns to be seen when the smoke clears. The contortionists twist and bend as though they don't have any bones., squeezing through tiny spaces and tying themselves into knots. At the end of their act, the light  shines back on the ringleader.

"AND NOW, OUR NEWEST MEMBER! FOUND IN THE  FAR-OFF DESERTS OF SAKLAND, WE HAVE...LUCY TWO-SWORDS!"

The lights drop down to reveal Jill, near the edge of the ring.

    Four torches, one in each upper corner of the newly darkened stage, lit spontaneously as the spotlight vanished. A circle of red light from an unseen origin then begged attention to the center of the stage. A moment of silence followed the ringmaster's announcement, making way for the soft notes of exotic, disjointed vocals that seemed to emanate from every direction outside of the mostly empty stands.



    A girl with her dark hair tied in pigtails, wearing deep purple silks and dark makeup, made her entry slowly. She wore a two-pieced jewel-encrusted outfit consisting of harem pants and a sleeveless top, and had two scimitars in either hand that glimmered in the torch's light. As though pondering her act, for the first few seconds she seemed patient and even on the verge of dawdling as both weapons in her hands lit spontaneously with flame. A slow twist here, some twirls there; Jill didn't seem afraid to test her equipment before the act, and this itself drew the crowd as the spotlight again vanished, leaving a sole visual focus on the twirls of her swords as they made faster and more complicated patterns.
    Yet as the strange music gathered pace, Jill launched into a display of what could only be described as a total mastery of her chosen art. The scimitars spun faster and faster, thrown into the air and caught flawlessly, her acrobatics on display as performed the most daring flips with ease throughout it all.
    Part way through the performance, she rose both swords, and the fire in each of the four torches dislodged from their origins, floating through the air by unseen magics to join her blades. The flames changed to a purple color, and with a sharp swipe to either end of her body, her swords had yanked themselves from the effect, leaving a floating, fiery miasma as she abandoned her weapons on the side of the stage.
    Now utilizing her whip, she lashed at the floating violet fire sphere, and it crawled itself back down the whip. It was with this massive string of now technicolor flame that she threw her body weight into and whirled around with incredible speed in calculated patterns; it seemed as though the fire in this method was brought near enough to the audience for some thrill, as all had best hope she retained control of the whip that now moved in faster and faster twirls.
    A return to her sword acrobatics and the creation and control of entire serpents of flame would be witnessed, as well as fire of all different colors of the spectrum. The show continued to escalate, until it ended suddenly with the echos of the music's last notes and three embellished bows from Jill, one to the left, center, and middle audience.

The lights go back down and focus once more on the ringleader.

"EXCELLENT! AND NOW FOR OUR FINAL ACT...CHRISTIE CHROMA, THE LADY OF THE RAINBOW!"

He cracks his whip, and the lions roar.  The lights shine down onto Indreni.