Dancing on Strings

Forever and Always

"I thought you weren't real," Mai said against his chest.

"What?" The Black Rabbit said, looking down at her before glancing at the mimic on the table. "Oh."

His arms tightened around her as he settled his cheek on the top of her head.

"It's just a puppet, nothing more than the mimic I created of you," he said softly.

"I know but it's not what you expect when you break into a circus and go snooping around," Mai snapped.

He chuckled, the sound rumbling through his chest. He released one arm and reached back towards the puppet.

"See? Nothing amazing. Not even me," he said.

Mai looked over her shoulder. He was holding the top hat, the mask attached, and the puppet was just that now, a wooden puppet. The individual features were gone and it was nothing special anymore.

The Black Rabbit flicked the top hat and it span through the air, landing neatly on a hat stand in the corner, tugging itself amongst other costume parts.

Mai looked at it for a moment, then suddenly remembered herself.

She planted her hands on his chest and shoved him back to arms length, his hands coming up to catch her wrists in surprise.

"Excuse me, I forgot myself for a moment," she said, looking at the ground.

The Black Rabbit grinned. "I don't mind if you forget yourself, I quite liked it."

Mai glared at him and his grin widened.

Then it faltered.

"What's wrong?" he asked; leaning down, peering at her face, worry creasing his visible features, his hands tightening on her wrists. "What happened? You look upset."

Mai looked at him for a moment, then looked away.

"How do they work?" she asked.

"What?"

"The puppets."

He glanced around. "Magic," he said simply. He held a hand up towards one of the small fairy puppets, only two feet tall and dainty as a flower. A few careful movements of the fingers and the fairy suddenly lifted her head, her black hair bouncing around her face, golden eyes glittering as she smiled brightly, her wings beginning to hum like a dragonfly as she took flight from her perch and started to whirl around the tent, summersaulting over head until she settled back into her seat again.

Then her face went dead. Eyes glazed and empty, smile fading.

"Just magic."

Mai looked at the fairy for a moment.

"Did you steal those girls?"

"What?" he asked, looking at her.

"The ladies who went missing. The ones Geneviève came to talk to you about. Did you steal them?"

"No, you know that. Why?"

"I do not know that and I'm asking because of her."

She pointed at the fortune-teller in the shadows.

"She told us Genevieve's friend was dead. How could she know that? She's a puppet."

"Actually she told you the girl was not in our plain of existence anymore and – as you know now – there are various layers to our world. Besides that, she's a fortune-teller, puppet or not. Her power does not diminish just because she's not alive. I give them their existence and they embody that. Some I only have limited control over and become more 'real'."