Chapter Text
To Alice, life was a never ending performance. Forever she would dance on a stage made of cracking glass for a crowd that hated her flowing routine- that cringed at the dreary melody of the faint tune that played the same four notes over and over only in her mind. Forever the angel was plagued to smile for the devil, to grin like a fool when she felt her legs wobble and collapse in her only means to an end.
Every time a rose was thrown upon the wooden platform of which she performed, all she could see was the nasty, hooked thorns stabbing her palms till she bled. Like broken ornaments did the soon hateful flowers litter her feet with wilty petals that felt like an aging promise under her caloused fingertips. Like acid did they burn her skin.
Now, however, she walked along the edge of an empty ring set in the middle of a huge canvas tent, a singular light illuminating its expanse. Even so it was quite dim, barely making a dent in the dark in order not to wake those who slept backstage. She’d feel simply awful to disturb Monty or the twin trapezists, this late in the night... Especially when she couldn't even emote the sympathy she’d be riddled with.
This wasn’t the first time, not by and figment of the imagination, that Alice had practiced this late past dusk. Late into every night she danced, this night proving no difference, and not until early each morning did she finally sleep for a few fleeting hours before her act. No matter the temperature or what the quality of the air was wherever they went, she danced and practiced and didn't mind how it made her feel, less than minded actually. This nightly routine left dark rings under her sunken, hazel eyes and her bones aching with every maneuver she pulled, but oh how she was addicted to the exhaustion that came with her little rest.
It was almost like food for her soul, food that made her ready for every day, food that sustained her every step, food that only starved her further...
Pulling her hoop from a hook on a beam holding up the tent, she tossed it out so it swung haphazardly over the ring and into the light. It spun round and round, it’s cheap, fading, lead paint shimmering silvery gold. For a moment, half a moment, she just watched it. The spinning was mesmerizing- her eyes following its circular motion until it slowly, ever so slowly, eventually stopped.
She reached out, feeling the cold, familiar metal under her palm as she gripped it tight and hoisted herself up into it. Fitting the hoop between her shoulder blades, she lay swinging, her foot kicking against the ground in thudding rhythm as the hoop took her into a slow spin.
One, two, seven, three- E, G, A, D, round and round the Angel did go, red turns to black, emotions all faux.
Red and white and red and white became a blur as she adjusted her pose into one producing a faster spiral with little effort, the action causing her head to dizzy and ache. Before long, she could barely handle it and held her hand out to tip the balance and slow herself down gradually. Once she was well enough stopped, she hopped down and crouched there for a moment to regain her equilibrium. The world was spinning, spinning, spinning like her life had ever since she’d taken up the odd hobby that had eventually become her reason to live.
When Alice first started out at the circus, little more than a few months of learning on her belt and still unsteady when moving along the silks at the time, she fell out of her hoop and got immensely sick several times during her practices. Though, over time, she got better, picking up various other odd skills along the way, and was finally able to do what she had always longed to do- perform.
Since even before her aunt sold her to the scientist that broke her mind and gave her to this dump, she knew it was her calling. This place, this circus, was like hell wrapped in a red and white bow- but she wouldn't give it up for the world. It was the only place she really could call home, where she fit in the world, despite how most everyone else may view it. She was a freak, an aloof fool, and as such belonged in such a place as the Kindersave Circus- the only place in the world where oddity was to be gawked at and praised as well as cursed and spit at.
It was a zoo, a menagerie, and her only refuge.
Standing after a moment, Alice latched the hoop back onto its hook and sighed into the silence, breathing in the cold darkness of the night deep within her.
Alice feared the darkness, no, she feared what lurked beneath its sinister vail.
The dark is where coyotes and scientists that want to poke your skin with needles reside. Before the grief that led her to her current state, that which had come to make her crave such heavy exhaustion just to feel human again, she had actually been a near normal person. She was a right proper little thing- speaking only when spoken to and only seen when requested by those elder to her. But that was all before her parents disappeared off the face of the earth and her next legal guardian sold her off to some wannabe that thought he was a scientist capable of curing the world of all its troubles. Or, more so, capable of curing the wealthy of the world’s troubles.
Alice was not wealthy, but she got to experience that which was meant to make even the saddest of toffs smile like kids again. Though not as an eager consumer, as a lab rat. From the dark came a cruel man and his wild dogs to tear her up and diminish her to nothing, only to force her to smile by pumping her bloodstream full of nauseating happiness. The dark made her happy, the scientist and those rabid things he used to rip and tear her skin made her happy- everything made her happy.
But not by her own choice.
Now she hated the dark, hated it as much as she could, anyway, considering her brain was constantly so high on the artificial happiness mass-produced within system that any other emotion felt like a blessing- even if she couldn’t express it easily. The access emotion leaked from her eyes and caused her chest to buzz and tighten around her lungs until she couldn't breath without letting out ghasping sobs, all of which was accompanied by a big, quivering grin.
That inky void was like the softest fur coat tainted with shards of glass in the sleeves...
Once she was stable again, she stretched her wiry form and extended her thin limbs as if they were wings. Her entire body was sore from sleep deprivation, but oh how alive the aching felt- a fierce rival to the ever present joy befalling her like a curse. She finally hoisted herself upwards above the hoop, up up up the scratchy rope until the ground below was a dizzying fall below her bare feet.
Her little show tune played over and over in her head, letting her arms and legs work in tangent to maneuver and swing on the rope until she could almost touch the shortest high wire platform a few feet away.
One, two, seven, three- E, G, A, D, round and round the Angel did go, red turns to black, emotions all faux.
Exhausting her little energy, she finally just hung there, scanning the floor and letting her arms tire further until she felt as if she couldn’t hold on any longer. She relished in the pain, letting it bring tears to her stinging eyes before finally descending back down. Down down down-
crack.
She yelped as her foot caught the edge of her hoop and her hand slipped, tumbling the couple feet down with a solid slam against the floor. She was dazed and hurting all over, more than the typical ache of an unfed exercise, as she lay there for an indiscernible length of time. After a decisive stretch and twist of her ankle, she figured that the nightly ritual of practice was over for the time being as she dragged herself over to the power box and flipped the middle light off. Her crawl as she was bathed in darkness once more, sucking in a breath before trudging on back to her candle-lit refuge within those thin, aluminum walls, guiding herself by memory and the soft shine of the moon alone.
She whimpered softly into the night, near dragging her left leg behind her as she headed towards the collection of trailers- one such trailer that of her very own through some contract or another with the circus who owned her. While she was happy as a box of birds, every single step she took was hellish, worse than even her usually pain-killing, joy-addled brain could trying the really did try her best to keep her eyes on the white of the thinning paint under the subtle light a waxing crescent overhead, the cloaking darkness still managing to wheedle into her subconscious and causing her to move a bit faster than her protesting foot likely should.
She didn’t look directly into the dark, not once, as she had dragged herself along. She couldn't bear to when all it would have done is make her even more anxious. Thus, not once, did she see the pair of yellow-green eyes following her from within that void, her every step a soft crinkle in the dead grass...
As soon as she bumped into the front step, she clumsily slipped inside with a relieved sob- and just as quickly was there a candle lit and set on the floor, the redheaded woman settling into a makeshift bed of old blankets and torn pillows for quick shuteye. Hopefully she’d be healed by her next performance in a few hours, though she resolved that maybe she could pull from her savings for some food from the city since the circus wouldn't provide such privileges if she couldn't preform. It was a rule she’d been subject to several times over the years, one particularly bad instance causing the circus to take her trailer away completely until she had done a month’s work of shows. Alice had had to sleep in the equipment trailer for that couple of months...
She didn't worry about that for this particular sprain or bruise though, she’d be only a bit worse for wear within the next couple days or so, at least able to participate in some of the smaller shows and acts until she could get up in her silks or hoop again. She did always find that juggling was quite the crow-pleaser.
Now, however, she pushed the candle far back from her flammable sleeping arrangement and settled for sleep- sleep that came quickly and easily to her due to how ragged she’d run her body through the day, though her entire life really.
She slept light as a stray cat, little flickers of her candle enough to disturb her slumber, only to be jolted fully awake just a few hours later with a heavy banging against her trailers door.