Chapter Text
It wasn't out of the ordinary for the circus to be faced with trespassers. It was only natural that a circus of horrors would attract the kind of attention that was only spoken of in whispers. It was, in most instances, barely worth a footnote in the day's ledger to be informed of an intruder on circus grounds. Teenagers daring each other to sneak into places they didn't belong, or amateur monster hunters seeking the proof they needed to launch their careers. But the goal of the audacious teenager was to go uncaught, and no hunter that Jester had ever heard of wanted to speak with the prey they hunted before making their kill and claiming their trophy.
The trespass occurred only two nights after the circus had set up residence in a sleepy, seaside town. A fool had found Jester in his quarters to inform him of the presence of a stray on the grounds, in the tent used to store their props and costumes. Waiting on him. Wanting an audience with him. Bring your master to me, were the intruder's words, according to the fool. That was certainly worth noting.
Perhaps Jester should have been more alarmed by the development. By the stray's apparent knowledge of what went on in the circus, knowledge they preferred no one to have. Instead, he found his curiosity piqued. They hadn't been here long enough to have taken anyone; it hadn't been long enough for them to perform any shows. Barely enough time had passed to even begin advertising. Bring your master to me. It was presumptive, but Jester was not above rewarding boldness with indulgence. The indulgence was, after all, as much his own as it was the uninvited guest's.
He found the stray tucked up in the shadows of a high corner of the tent, on top of one of the grander wardrobes used by the core cast to store old costume pieces largely taken out of rotation. Jester met the stray's eyes—or rather, the eyes of the mask covering the stray's face. It was a burnt-orange color made darker by the dim light of the tent, and its sharp teeth and protruding tusks resembled an ogre, or one of the lion-dog guardians that he recalled from the circus's travels across East Asia. The ogre-dog had bulging, painted cream eyes with pinpricks of black in place of eye holes. The kind of mask meant for decoration rather than practical use. And yet the stray's face had turned to track him as he entered the space, as if there was nothing impeding her vision of him.
Jester was fairly confident in his assessment of her sex based on the naked anatomy present between her neck and waist. She had the sense of propriety to clothe herself from the waist down, at least. His eye was caught not by her loose, rough spun trousers, however, but the belt holding them up from which several more masks hanged. Jester recognized the smiling face of comedy upon one hip and presumed the mask hidden behind it to be tragedy. On the other hip was an elaborate Venetian mask painted it royal purples and magentas. The blue-gray face behind it seemed entirely plain in comparison to all the others—a plainness which was, in itself, noteworthy, though Jester did not yet have the context necessary to understand what exactly he was noting. Every one of them were of the same solid, decorative quality as the one on her face. All of them gave him the unsettling sense of being watched; a feeling he was used to evoking in others more than experiencing himself.
His second assumption about the intruder was that she was not human. The claws tipping her fingers and toes were made of keratin, not acrylic. The curling horns protruding from her wild mane of celadon green hair looked too solid, too heavy to be that of a costume. The left horn was ringed by a thin line of gold through its middle; the other was not. Her skin was the sallow gray of unglazed stoneware rather than the brown and pink hues of human flesh. Her left shoulder and ankle were both framed by lines of the same gold, but the only gold to be found on the right side of her body bisected her foot, and nearly went unnoticed in Jester's inventory of the intruder's qualities. He could find no clear pattern or meaning to them, except that they caught the dim light of the tent and sparkled dazzlingly from the darkness she perched in.
It would be an unnerving first impression were she facing down some simple-minded human rather than a calculating monster such as Jester. Still, she looked altogether too calm for a creature who found herself in the heart of his home uninvited. But he would indulge her unearned confidence because it was necessary to indulge his own curiosity.
"Jester," the ogre-dog said in a low, rasping voice. "How good of you to join me."
She remained on the balls of her feet as she addressed him, her balance undisturbed by the weight of the masks dangling from her waist. Her arms rested on her knees and her head was cocked as she watched him, like an animal studying its prey. Not a predator hunting its next meal. No, Jester could see that she was a well-fed beast, tamed and fat and lazy. She did not hunt for survival. She was playing with her food.
"Forgive me, madam." Jester clasped his hands behind his back, urgency absent from his posture despite the way her words made him bristle. Despite their recent arrival, their lack of performances, lack of publicity, she knew his name. It was the kind of knowledge one didn't come by on chance, much like the knowledge of the circus's extracurriculars. Just how long had she been following them? "You know who I am, but I'm afraid I do not know you."
"Madam?" She said, the amusement in her voice matching the wide-grinning visage of her mask.
"Perhaps you prefer sir?" he offered.
"Neither. That makes me feel old. You can call me Talc." she said, taking his bait and lacking the characteristic hesitance of someone deliberately withholding information as she did, as if she were giving him anything of value. She paused, head cocking in the other direction thoughtfully. "Although if you require a title to address me by, Mistress will do fine."
"Talc," Jester said, ignoring her mocking flirtation. It was nothing he wasn't used to hearing from Harlequin, albeit not usually directed at himself.
Her name, Talc, or Talcum more properly, was a mineral. Used in a variety of human products, as he recalled. Notably, in this case, clay. It suited the earthenware creature before him with her stone skin and celadon hair and the gold that he now recognized as kintsugi, drawing attention to her flaws and faults and weakness. It was a small chip in her facade, one that would allow him a peak beneath the mask into the nature of the ogre-dog roosting on the wardrobe, with enough time and patience. Jester had both in spades.
"You are aware that you are trespassing, are you not?"
"Funny," Talc said with that same irreverent amusement she had used to flirt with him. "I was going to say the same of you."
"Oh? Is that so?" Jester said. The remark was ironic, indicating some knowledge that Jester was not privy to. An uncontrolled variable that he could not account for in his dealings with this intrusion. It irritated him, how much she seemed to know and how slowly she drip-fed her knowledge to him, as if his annoyance delighted her. He disguised it in a light tone of voice, but he suspected, like everything else, she knew nonetheless. That annoyed him, too. "Care to elaborate?"
For a long moment she did not move, an unnaturally still gargoyle perched upon her parapet. Then, she raised a hand up in front of her face, studying her claws in apparent boredom. The conversation barely worth her time. As if she had no reason to fear the monster standing before her despite the fact that she was utterly alone, that he was larger than she was, had longer claws and sharper teeth than she had. He was the spider that stood between her and the only means of escape from the web she was ensnared in. And she was bored.
"This land belongs to my employer," she said, turning her face back to him so the pinprick pupils of her mask met Jester's own sharp gaze. "and they do not suffer trespassers. But," her head tilted again as she considered him. "they are forgiving. So long as you are willing to rectify this misstep."
"And how, pray tell, do I do that?"
Talc laced her fingers together and rested her chin on them. "That depends."
Jester had thought it was his time she was wasting with her frustrating vagueness, but now he began to wonder. Whose time was it she really intended to waste? Would he be the one punished should she return from this meeting empty-handed, or would she? Perhaps this employer she served would send another in place of the ogre-dog. Perhaps they would grace him with their very own presence instead. They were a dangerous unknown. As much as he wanted to learn more of this adversary he'd stumbled upon, he wanted to learn on his own terms, not theirs. "On?"
"On what you are willing to pay."
"I see," Jester said. He was losing patience for Talc's games, and could not keep it from his voice any longer. "And shall I assume this payment is to be made in the customary exchange of currency?"
"Come now, Jester," she said. Jester felt another prickle of annoyance at her condescension. "You already know the answer to that."
"I'm afraid I don't," he said. It brought him no joy to admit that. "Not any more than I know who this employer you speak of is."
"Oh? You mean to tell me you've never heard of the Vex before?" Talc said. "That explains your brazen disrespect of their claim on this city."
The name was unfamiliar to Jester, but she spoke of the entity or entities in such a way that made it seem as if they were no ordinary mobsters. Not with a creature such as Talc in their employ. He imagined they must be something more otherworldly than even he was. A power not to be trifled with. She was simply their messenger. And that was another crack in the facade. She did not fear for her safety here in the circus because there was something worse awaiting her outside of it, should she fail.
"I'd thought you must have brass balls for such a vainglorious display impudence," Talc tittered, hand pressed to the mouth of her mask, as if politely stifling her laughter, in a way that served only to emphasized it. "but here it turns out you were simply too dimwitted to know of your own trespass! Adorable."
Jester felt his own mask slipping, then. His grin was tight, a snarl more than a smile. A dog backed into a corner and poked by something that thought itself untouchable. Something that would soon find itself bitten, if not careful. "Tell me, then. What payment do the Vex require of me?"
"Something precious to you." She was goading him. He knew that. It was perhaps one more thing he was willing to indulge tonight. If she wanted his mark he would give it to her. The demand for clarity remained unspoken, but she seemed to read it in the wane of his smile, for she continued, "Oh, were you expecting something more specific?"
She laughed again, a sharp and fragile sound like glass upon glass.
"I'm afraid that's not for me to decide," she said, her head cocking again with the same predatory glee she had regarded him with when he'd entered the tent. A beast with a full belly, batting her prey from paw to paw until boredom claimed her.
He understood then, what she was implying. What the Vex were after. It did nothing to ease the tension in his neck and shoulders, in his jaw. His teeth ground together. By the minute increase in the tilt of her head, Talc had heard.
"If your offering is insufficient, the Vex will send me again. Though I warn you, Jester," Her voice went serious then, for the first time since she had greeted him. A tone that told Jester to heed her words. Every glimpse beneath the mask he'd obtained thus far indicated that Talc did not often grant others the sincerity she was offering him now. In spite of his peaking irritation with her, he listened. "this, here, is your second chance. If the Vex judge your next offering inadequate, you will not get another."
Jester hated this, hated being on the defensive, but it seemed he had little choice in the matter. He hadn't any idea what he was up against. Hadn't even anticipated this confrontation when the circus had come to this place. Now he found himself ambushed. He couldn't very well attack blindly. He could only play along with the Vex's demands. He could, however, still fish for further information. Whatever he could get. It was strategy, not stalling. Not desperation. "What do the Vex typically accept, then?"
Talc hummed thoughtfully. "Oh, many things. Perhaps there's a loved one whose loss you would not miss too terribly much?"
It was a joke, if the way she cheerfully chirped it was any indication, but it still made a growl rise in Jester's throat. Too close to a wound never fully healed, whether Talc knew it or not.
"No?" she said. "Then consider an item from your youth, or some other such object of nostalgia. Something irreplaceable. Unique. Of sentimental value. Something that stabs at the heart of your very being to consider giving up."
There was very little, outside of the circus itself and his family within it, that stabbed at Jester's core. He liked to believe that nothing did. Still, it was enough guidance to give him an idea. Jester unfolded his hands as he approached the wardrobe and threw open the doors, giving no regard to the ogre-dog woman roosted upon it. She craned her neck to watch him pick through the contents of the wardrobe like a particularly nosey pigeon until he finally pulled from it what he searched for.
The garish blue and red fabrics that had once clashed terribly were dulled by the dust that had settled into the fibers after years of being stored and disused. The craftsmanship of it was shoddy in comparison to the circus's current costuming, frayed at the hems and with uneven hand-stitching. Made from cheap linen with proportions just off enough to be unflattering. Yet for all its flaws, it remained in perfect condition. His first costume. His first attempt at self-expression, once the circus had become their own. His first assertion of personhood. If it was sentimental value that the Vex were looking for, there were few amongst his belongings that possessed more of it.
Jester felt an unwelcome sensation in his chest, like a vice tightening around his heart. He ignored it, as he often ignored such undesirable feelings. It was easier, he had found, to deny them if he never looked directly at them.
An irrational part of him considered how small a piece of the costume he could get away with giving the Vex—maybe just a bell from one of the hat tails would suffice, or perhaps the ribbon used to tie the corset—but no. If they were anywhere near as aware as Talc made them out to be, they would know he had attempted to cheat them. Even if they weren't, Talc still sat perched above him, head cocked as she watched him, the eyes of all her masks on him, cataloguing his every breath and every twitch. She had been kind enough to offer him a warning. He doubted she had much more kindness left in her to spare, if she ever really had any in her to begin with.
Did she have any choice in what she told the Vex? In what she kept a secret? She was as much their fool as the humans kept in the circus's company were his. He wondered if it was even the real Talc he was speaking to now, or a marionette masquerading as her. There was no way for him to know with her eyes obscured as they were. She certainly expressed more personality than his fools did.
"I've made my decision." Jester closed the wardrobe with a soft click, suppressing a sigh as he did. "This will be my offering to the Vex."
He held up the costume, and Talc eagerly reached down to retrieve it. As she did, Jester was suddenly seized by an urge utterly unlike himself. To do something stupid. Something impulsive. Something like grabbing Talc by the wrist so lightning fast that it was enough to catch himself off guard as much as it did her. Jester yanked her from the top of the wardrobe. The weight of her being dislodged rocked it precariously where it stood, the thump, thump, thump of its wobbling legs against the pallet floor and the contents within it tumbling to the bottom of it muffled by the canvas walls.
What Jester anticipated happening next was Talc falling into his chest, losing all sense of composure trapped bodily against him. Squirming in his grip as his claws tore into her flesh. Iron flooding his nostrils as her blood rolled down her arm. His free hand coming up to caress the edge of her mask before tearing it from her face. Using his gift to force answers from her lips.
What happened instead was his hand suddenly squeezing closed around nothing. Talc disappearing right before his eyes into a cloud of colorful dust. Instead of iron, the air was filled with the scent of parched earth and fire.
"Well, well, well," came Talc's voice from behind him. Jester turned to find her standing there, arms crossed but posture relaxed. Amused. The mask on her face was no longer the ogre-dog, but the laughing visage of comedy. She was shorter than he was by more than a head, but now she was the one blocking Jester's exit rather than he blocking hers. She was not a fly caught in his web. She was the spider.
"Oh my," Jester said, the grin on his face unapologetic. He couldn't afford for it to appear anything else. "It appears my hand slipped. How clumsy of me."
"How clumsy indeed!" Talc exclaimed, pressing her hand to her chest in mock sympathy. "But I suppose since it was just an accident I can find it in my heart to forgive your little... slip."
"And I so thank you for your generosity," Jester said. Her apparent good humor was of little relief when he couldn't be sure of its sincerity, but he would play along as he had played along to all else she had thrown at him.
"I'm often told it's one of my better qualities," Talc said. He very much doubted she received many compliments on any of her qualities.
"Are you now? Not your impertinence?"
Talc held out her hands. "A point of charm, don't you think?" She cocked her head again. "You know, Jester, if you have questions, you need only ask."
"Because you've been so forthright with your answers thus far," Jester said.
"What is it that you want to know?"
Jester paused, taking stock of what he had learned since arriving here this evening. There was an entity or entities called the Vex. They claimed this city as their own. They seemed to have some awareness of what The Freak Circus was, and what they did. If the Vex took issue with their presence, then it stood to reason they were involved in a similar business. Why else would they view the circus's presence as an encroachment?
They demanded repayment for trespass in the form of something sentimental. The sought to inflict a certain kind of pain upon him. Not something impersonal and interchangeable, but something tailored to Jester in particular.
Talc was their liaison. An irreverent little imp that seemed to fear her employer more than she feared him. An unclear arrangement existed between the two. That was his first question.
"What is your relation to the Vex?" Jester asked.
"Ah, I already told you," Talc said. "They are my employer."
"What does that entail?"
Talc held up her hands again in a dismissive shrug. "I am their messenger. Their architect. Their agent. Whatever it is they need me to be. I wear a great many masks—" she shook her hips, and the masks along her belt shook with them in a small cacophony of porcelain clanking on porcelain. "—as you can see."
"Have they no one else in their employ?"
"No one so reliable as me," Talc said, and Jester detected a hint of sincere pride in her her voice when she said it. Fascinating.
"What makes you so reliable?" He asked.
"I live for my work," she said, returning to the light, disingenuous tone of before. Not soon enough that Jester hadn't found another crack within her, another peak into her depths that hadn't been painted over with gold.
"You have nothing else to live for," Jester said.
"That," Talc said, her hands dropping down to her sides. Her posture remained relaxed, but it was the deliberate, practiced relaxation of someone who was not truly at ease. The sort that told him he'd struck a nerve, and she didn't want him to know. "is not a question."
"No," Jester said, a maliciousness to his grin as he spoke. "It isn't."
"Then I believe we're done here," Talc said coldly, her tone utterly at odds with the manic glee of the comedy mask on her face. Jester wanted to laugh. She had spent all that time picking at every vulnerability she sensed within him, but in the end all it took was one nip back at an insecurity she hadn't realized she'd exposed to send her yelping with her tail tucked between her legs. But he still held his offering close, and she could not leave without it.
Now that he had Talc on the defensive, he was tempted to keep her there. A more rational part of himself knew there would be no benefit in doing so. Reluctantly, the part of himself baying for her blood let go of the reins. It would not do him nor the circus any good to make a true enemy of the Vex or their fool before he knew more about the threat they represented to his home and his family.
"So it seems," Jester agreed. "And if I have more questions?"
Talc cocked her head again, curiously rather than predatorily this time. "Are you asking to see me again, Jester?"
"Would you come if I was?"
Talc studied him, and Jester studied her back. He liked the menace of the ogre-dog mask on her more than the plain humor of the comedy mask. The burnt orange contrasted her celadon hair and stone skin better than the shining white porcelain of the comedy mask. Its tusks and teeth and bulging eyes complimented her clawed fingers and curling horns. She was not human any more than he was, and trying to pass for one didn't suit her. She held out her hand to him cautiously. Wordlessly he offered the costume hanger to her. He ignored the pang he felt as he did.
She snatched it from him before he could take a second swipe at her. Jester bared his teeth in amusement when she did.
"I'll be in touch," She said finally.
Jester smiled as he responded, "Run along to your master, Talc."
And a cloud of colorful dust filled the air with the scent of parched earth and fire as she disappeared from the tent, taking Jester's costume with her.