Gods & Monsters

Part 4 - This Wicked Waltz

To masses of screaming children and applauding parents of whatever town or city the circus travelled found itself in, River performed his act.

He lifted weights no other man could bear, carriages laden with the clowns, elephants that squealed and flocks of mermaids singing as they perched on a bar across his shoulders. The crowd oohed and ahhed, clapped and cheered.

The riders would ride across the tent on their horses. The acrobats soared through the air. Gods like Athena and Odin used the last remnants of their magic to awe the crowd.

Later, for the last act, the Beast would come. As she walked to the centre of the ring, her head held high, her eyes alight with flames. The crowd would gasp for the latest god, the latest immortal ripped from history in honour of the Goddess and their fickle entertainment.

Villeneuve marched by her side, greeting the crowd, embellished in velvet and jewels. His golden whip thrashed at her feet as he commanded her, her hisses slicing through the gasps of the crowd.

And then the music would start. Slow, like the heavy rise of a funeral march.

The swine twirled, the dogs hobbled on hind legs, birds flew to the pulse of the music, they swayed and whirled, hypnotised by whatever power the Beast held over them.

The audience gasped and yelled in twisted horror, but couldn't rip their eyes away from this wicked waltz. At the heart of the ring, danced the Beast. Over and over, she spun against the fierce beat of the music, hot defiance burning in her eyes.

After, River would guide her back to the tent, and she would be silent. The fire and fury that fuelled her sharp tongue the rest of her hours spent. Defiance could only burn for so long, the embers cooled by the cruelty of laughter and vicious tongues. River knew this was why the Goddess chose this, chose the circus, chose entertainment for the masses as her chosen prison. The gods' punishment was not enslavement, it was degradation.

River would sit in the tent by her side. Sometimes he would tell her stories, tales of his youth from high in snow-capped mountains before his family sold him. Of other gods who had passed through the circus, of their lives and the stories they told to warm the chilly air of winter nights. Tales of men who flew too close to the sun, of a labyrinth with a beast in its heart, of gods of thunder and silence and light. Of Odin's failed battle with the Goddess, how he swung his sword one final time but the blow lacked the power needed to destroy the magic that bound them all, hidden in the eternal serpent marked on her wrist.

Sometimes he would ask her questions, and sometimes she would answer. He learnt little, just scraps, wisps of a life. He learnt of her love for her father. The fierce radiance of his love turned even her most decayed flowers to golden blooms. The games she would play for him.

One night, after a show with a crowd who jeered and mocked so loudly, both the Beast and River left the tent feeling hollow. After a few silent moments, River went to stand but he felt the sharp prick of claws pressing into his skin. The Beast had covered his hand with her paw. He turned to look, but the black sail of her wing hid her face.

She said nothing, but the gesture was clear. River sat back down, the Beast drawing her paw back slowly and once again River began talking, a story of his childhood he'd told her a dozen times.

But for the first time, he knew she was listening.

🎪

It was early morning. River felt a familiar lightness now. His time with Beast was warming the chill that had been turning the marrow of his bones to ice.

When he walked into the tent, he found Odin was there, standing before the Beast. She looked bored, her tail lashing around her, threatening the old god off his feet.

"River, make this fool leave."

River chuckled, unusually for Odin he did not look amused.

"I think the lady would like you to leave." River said, amusement sparkling in his eyes. Odin didn't move, even as River began to release her animals from their cages. Under their maker's command, they circled the old god, though he didn't flinch at the sight of them.

"I will consider it, god of war. I promise no more."

Odin chuckled and, after nodding a greeting to River, left the tent. River watched the Beast carefully, her eyes lost in thought. Her animals began to make themselves comfortable at her feet.

"Odin is full of schemes, I worry, that you would be drawn into such a thing."

"What would you do for freedom, Strongman?"

River sighed, fondly stroking the fur of a cat as it rubbed itself against his ankles.

"Where's there's no hope of victory? I do nothing and make the best of the hand I've been dealt."

He felt the Beast's eyes on him, even as he avoided her gaze. If River had ever felt something like hope, it had long since left him. He had not fought hard to keep it.

"You won't fight?"

"No, I won't fight."

"Even for her? The woman in your dreams? What would you do for her?"

"Anything." He whispered, lost too deeply in his thoughts to notice the shift in Beast. "I don't know what Odin told you, but I would like you to stay out of dreams."

The Beast said nothing, just simply sank to the ground. Misery couldn't be avoided in a place you couldn't escape, but he did all he could to aid those in the circus who felt it heavily. Seeing the Beast brought low by it bothered him more than it ever had before, for reasons he couldn't allow himself to understand.

🎪

So the rose thief stole once more, and in the early hours of an autumn morning, he left his spoils at her feet. When she woke, she saw not only the familiar collection of cages, of the fabric of the tent swaying in the breeze but she found roses of burnished gold, like their petals had been kissed by sunlight, blooms that reminded her so much of her father. She wept quietly, her animals breathing gently in their nearby. Moved as always by the Strongman's kindness, that night she slept amongst the sweet scent of her childhood, dreams of her father, of the sunlight that shone out of his every feature, of their time together.

And as those dreams faded, and the dawn birthed a new day, she thought of the Strongman, she thought of River.