Alternatively

Cirque Des Dieux

"Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls!"

She ducked under the ropes, kicking up dust as she scurried to build back up speed.

"Step on up to see the mystical!"

Shouts bounced off her back and she couldn't help but smile.

"The strange!"

The crowds enveloped her, bodies easy to slip past and disgruntled protests aimed at her chasers, not herself.

"And the truly awe inspiring!"

"Miss. Dare!" Bellowed a barricaded body guard. "Your father is not going to be happy!"

How terribly unfortunate for him.

Rachel lost her body guards in the crowd within the second. With her hair tucked in a cap, there was no telling who she was. She ran to a large circle of exhibits and vendors, truly emersing herself in the new world she had never known. She had seen it advertised around town long before they arrived, but only when they hit the papers did she feel the pull. The circus ads boasted mystical and strange acts, their photo evidence being of a side show with the name Boy God. He was in a tank of water, dark hair waving and eyes conveying a clear taunt through the grainy page. Rachel just had to figure the oddities out.

The smell itself was enough to make her swoon, fried foods and sweet candies mingling with lofty woodsmoke. Distant roars of beasts sent shivers across her skin in the most amazing way possible, chugging machines and hissing steam skating across her ears in tandem with her racing heart. Colored silks and bright banners waved in the wind, calling to the flow of fair goers. She trailed after clusters as they ventured into booths, shiny trinkets glittering at her from shelves and in the hands of sly operators. It was difficult to decide what to look at, the churning works of the fairgrounds all so different than scenes she had been painted in at home. With the setting sun, a new dawn was settling over Rachel Elizabeth Dare quite nicely.

A little boy glomped huge bites from his pink cotton candy as he watched an operator twirl a knife on the tip of his finger and her stomach rumbled at the sight. She hadn't eaten anything since the night before and the prospect of fluffy sugar was too much to handle on an empty stomach. Looking around, Rachel slipped back into the mainstream and worked her way to a booth with a sign sporting a comically drawn man announcing "Candy Floss". There was a line, but she was willing to wait. The few quarters she had snagged were burning holes in her pocket. They simply begged to be spent on something so tooth rottingly delicious.

However, as she rocked in place, her attention was inevitably drawn elsewhere. A gauzy stand manned by a gorgeous peddler called out, the fabrics ever shifting and practically glowing in the golden sunset. Clothes of foreign makes were no stranger to the young aristocrat, but the scandalous designs on the mannequins before her were always deemed too sinful to even look at.

She smirked, edging towards the empty booth with newfound rebellion. There wasn't anyone to tell her no.

"You would look magnifique en rouge," the peddler had told her, gesturing to a crimson garment hanging behind them. "You simply must try it on."

If she simply had to, how could she refuse? She accepted the clothes, following the slender hand pointing back to a sectioned off stall. It was a small space and she had to stretch her arms high to take off the practical cotton blouse she wore in favor for a fabric that rippled over her skin like water. She couldn't see herself, but the air on her midriff was enough to let her know how daring the outfit was. Loose in places that should be tight, bare in places that should have been covered...it was a mother's nightmare.