Star of the Circus

Chapter 1

Change is one of the scariest things in the world and yet it is also one of those variables of human existence that no one can avoid.

-Aberjhani

The tent was on fire.

It wasn't that alarming, the tent was set on fire nearly once a week when the jugglers lost a pin during practice or the knife throwers on occasion went wide of their targets. No one was as of yet running towards the tent trying to rescue equipment and animals, so the fire couldn't be that big even if she could see the smoke rising from her vantage point on the Ferris wheel.

From the blue streak Fin was swearing from his perch above her, Leora bet the head mechanic saw it too.

"Fifth time dis fuckin' month." The crotchety old man spat, then cursed anew when the action sent his cigarette the roughly eight stories to the ground. Used to his bitching, Leora dug through the tool kit she was holding before tossing a slightly crushed carton of cigarettes to the man. Another round of cursing had her tossing up a lighter.

For how much he hated fire of any kind Fin could, and has, smoked like a chimney for the twelve years Leora had known the man.

"This scrap heap is as good as it's going to get, Fin. We might as well head down make sure the big top will stay standing." She called up after another twenty minutes of Fin trying to fix a broken axle and failing miserably. The Ferris wheel needed to be replaced altogether, but the circus master was a cheap bastard. If it still somewhat ran and wouldn't kill anybody it stayed. Usually covered in brightly colored duct tape.

Leora also just wanted to get down. She didn't mind heights; she spent too much time with the acrobats and on top of machinery as Fin's grease monkey/packhorse for fear to even be considered. But she was on top of the Ferris wheel during the very windy tail end of a European October, covered in grease, and unable to push the shoulder length curly mass of dark hair that had escaped its tie out of her face without getting said hair covered in grease. Since grease was a bitch to wash out of anything getting down was the next best option. Checking on the big top was as good of an excuse as any.

She got a 'hn' in reply. Taking that as a yes Leora scampered down, making use of circus level acrobatic skills that always pissed the old man off to get down faster than he could with the latter.

Growing up with a circus had its perks. Every person was expected to pull their own weight, whether they were the six year old orphan girl picked up from a passing town to the old hands with silver hair and bent backs. Since she had joined at such a young age she had been passed around a lot, and was expected to at least pick up a few tricks or skills of the people she was minded by or ran errands for. She could juggle, breath fire, bullshit fortunetelling, walk the high wire, pickpocket, and other slight of hands with the best of them. Martial arts had been an unexpected bonus.

After the Second World War China had cracked down on the traditional culture. Practicing martial arts had been forbidden. The Cirque de Lumière had managed to pick up to two young hitchhikers when they had quickly passed through Shanghai to get out of the view of the Red Guard. The two martial artists decided to stay with the circus. Nearly fifty years later, they were both delighted to have a young and malleable student even if they weren't quite for gender equality on a proverbial battlefield.

Eager to please, Leora had all but thrown herself into learning everything they had wanted of her. Training as it turned out was hell, pure and simple. She couldn't walk straight for most of her first year with the Cirque de Lumière and she got little to no sleep staying up practicing anything and everything. But it made her new family happy so the bruises, scars, and burns she got were inconsequential.

Dodging a pair of carney workers attempting to haul part of a game stall into place, Leora started jogging towards the big top. She'd take a shower after she knew if everyone was okay.

The tent was still on fire.

Not the 'we're going to need a few swatches of fabric to patch up the hole' fire but the 'oh shit call the fire department I fucked up' kind. And boy did someone fuck up.

A good chunk of the ceiling was missing, fire eating its way through the fabric and along the pulleys used for shows. Angry sparks rained down and were blown into the sides, starting new fires as the wind rushed through any gaps it could. Leora could just see more fire sparking from the electrical work that ran the lights and sound. The wiring had been old and needed maintenance at least once a week since it was never replaced. This was probably the master's fault Leora realized with a sinking feeling of horror.

Goddamn cheap bastard.

People were scrambling, moving around like ants trying to save what they could. Animals were being restrained and drug out as people screamed and barked out orders. Delicate equipment was tossed around like props while people grabbed what they could. One lone clown was futilely trying to put out the fire with his bottle of seltzer. Tossing away her greased soaked work gloves Leora joined in.

The heavier equipment the men were already taking care of so Leora moved to help the acrobats as they shoved costumes and the smaller props into bags and trunks to haul away. She was on one of the last bags when the supports started to give.

Cursing, sack slung over her shoulder, Leora dove out of the way of a falling platform. Sparks flew everywhere, catching the grease on her jacket and forcing her to rip it off or else get burned.

Twirling out of the way of another falling beam Leora cursed again. She was too far away from the main entrance to be able to safely make it across. Even now sparks rained down, catching the remaining equipment that the others had decided were a lost cause alight. Her best bet would be one of the holes that had been burned into the tent. Unfortunately, the closest one on her side of the tent was directly under another merrily burning platform.

Another crash a few feet behind her had her stumbling forward. The potentially deadly platform didn't seem that bad anymore.

Leora had just enough time to register that the flames surrounding the hole were white before the platform gave way and she was forced to dive through. She regretted it almost instantly.

Pain exploded in her back and head as the white flames flicked towards her, radiating out until even the tips of her fingers were screaming. Her vision went white, distracting her from the sensation of going weightless instead of tumbling onto the frost hardened ground outside the tent. The sack slipped from her now numb fingers as the white gave way to black.

The first thing that fully registered when Leora managed to claw her way back to consciousness was that everything ached. Starting at the roots of her hair and on to the tips of her fingers and toes was a throbbing sensation that vaguely reminded her of the drum that had been used during one of the shows; every beat had filled the stands and echoed in her chest, giving her a feeling of emptiness and an overall sense of discomfort. The second thing that registered was the noise, or lack thereof. It was never quiet with the circus, let alone when the big top was in the process of being burned to the ground. She expected bitching at the very least.

Forcing gritty eyes open, she squinted up at something flat and made of concrete maybe six feet away from her face. It took her longer than she'd like to admit before she realized that it was the underside support of a rather old looking bridge which confused the hell out of her. There weren't bridges of any kind near the town they'd set up near. Why was she under one? Where was everyone else?

Attempting to sit up was almost immediately regretted. The world spun in dizzying loops, and her stomach decided to lodge itself somewhere between her lungs and throat before twisting itself in knots. It took nearly ten minutes for Leora to claw her way into a sitting position and even then she had to bury her head in her knees to fight against the urge to be sick as black swam around the edges of her vision.

She hadn't felt this bad since the first time she got a concussion falling off the high wire and bouncing from the net to the floor.

She had to be careful to wedge herself as close to the concrete support as possible once her vision was mostly clear of spots. The bridge was built over a river, and the water had swelled under the torrent of rain she was only now noticing, lapping near the edges of her feet and threatening to spill over onto the almost non-existing ledge that she'd woken up on near the top of the medium sized supports.

She vaguely wondered how the hell she managed to scale the underside of a bridge without realizing before her hand brushed against cloth.

Partially in the river was the sack that she remembered taking with her when she swan-dived through the hole in the tent with all the grace of a green acrobat. It was mostly soaked through, but it was the only thing that was even remotely familiar Leora had seen since she'd woken up. Dragging it as best she could up the few feet where it was snagged on some kind of wooden crate thing half stuck on the support below her into her little dry spot she decided to see exactly what she had to work with until she caught back up with the circus. She had got separated on occasion and had taken several days up to a few weeks to hunt down her family again. It was annoying and tended to happen when equipment or trucks broke down more often than not, getting lost in the confusion of the Big Top burning down wasn't surprising, but it was always better to have something on hand to either use as tools or pawn to make a little food money and train fair. The master would bitch, but that was normal and he'd still end up clucking around the newly returned stragglers for hours like a worried mother hen.

There wasn't much to work with.

A silver and black costume from when the trapeze girls had done the Artemis and the Hunt theme over a month ago, two lengths of grey aerial silks from the same show, an equal amount of rope, a jugglers set of knives and pins, tarot cards, the basic magic kit that the handful of magicians they had on hand insisted be stored everywhere, a large ornamental-looking fan, a flask of torch oil, a flask of whiskey which made her huff a laugh, and a box with several pieces of costumes jewelry and a locket with The Cirque de Lumière's candle and star design etched onto the silver plated front.

The last piece made her smile, even if she cringed a bit guiltily. The locket was a custom piece she'd had made over a year ago for the elderly Icelandic fortune teller that was the closest thing Leora had to a grandmother. The circus hadn't been able to stay in one place for very long and she'd only recently picked it up when they went through the little Romanian town later the next year. She'd asked one of the acrobats to hide it for her because Amma Eva always seemed to know when she was hiding something. She planned to give it to her at Christmas.

Slipping it around her neck, Leora traced the delicate etching on the front before using a thumb nail to pry it open. The smiling and somewhat cranky faces of her rag tag family stared back at her. Master Yaozu, one of her martial arts teachers and the weapons master, a bear of a man she referred to as Afi Viktor once she got over her fear of the hulking Icelandic, looked two seconds away from going at each other's throats if Eva wasn't firmly situated between her husband and the other offending party with a long suffering expression plastered over her heavily lined face. The two old men had hated each other when they were younger, and still barely tolerated each other nearly forty years later.

Huffing out another laugh that didn't make her body ache quite as much as the first time, Leora went to close the locket when her eye caught the mirror on the other side and she froze.

…That was not her face.

Well, it was her face, sort of. Holding the mirror farther away from her she took in the wild mass of curly dark hair, coffee colored eyes, and the lines of a heart-shaped face. It was her face…when she was about a decade younger than her eighteen years.

She blinked at the reflection, it blinked back. She stuck out her tongue and it did the same. Running a hand over her face Leora noted that the reflections hand was equally as small and childish. Somewhat unnerved she fully focused on her own hand to compare the differences between the tiny trick mirror and reality.

The locket slipped through numb fingers when she realized that the hand holding it was small and childish. Holding up both hands Leora took in the child's hands- which were apparently her hands- and followed the length of equally small arms before shooting down to stick like legs and tiny bare feet that were nothing like her eighteen year old frame. She wiggled the toes of a body that couldn't be more than ten.

Leora fainted.

Plot bunnies strike again. Let me know what you think as I'm always open to adding scenes people request. The more reviews there are the more likely I am to keep updating. Ciao~