![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Summary: Working in the circus, Kairi the Celestial Mystic tells the future using elaborate star charts. It appears someone has taken her abilities a bit too seriously, and is set on forcing her to work for them, whether she wants to or not. But she has faith that she won't be left in their hands for very long.
Day 25 of AU-gust: Circus AU
This was fun! I enjoyed coming up with circus/carnival personas for the trio.
Kairi sat cross-legged in the trailer, leaning closer to the mirror to apply a bit more of the sparkling gold eyeliner. It could easily have been garish in the light of day, but in a dark tent lit only by fairy lights, it would look alluring and exotic, drawing attention to her eyes and emphasizing their striking color, even in the low light.
Once she was satisfied, she moved away, giving Riku a chance to get the rest of his makeup on. His was done in shades of silver and black, the darkest shades framing his eyes, and the other silver contouring his face, making it look just slightly unnatural. While Riku worked on blending it, Sora combed a sparkling solution through his hair, turning the naturally silver strands to something glittery and inhuman.
Sora was already done with his prep, since his act didn’t rely nearly so much on appearance.
Kairi and Riku were up first, doing one of their combined stage shows, where Kairi the Celestial Mystic would “summon” Riku the Ethereal Spirit. It was a fun show, with some interesting effects, and a dramatic choreographed piece where Kairi had to “fight” to subdue him.
After that, Kairi would set up in her tent, offering fortune telling for a few tickets a customer, divining their futures from the ornate star charts covering every surface.
Riku would do acrobatic feats, supposedly only doable because of his inhuman nature. Sora would do his escape artist routine, picking locks and slipping ropes that would have inescapable for anyone else.
All of them would be together for the day’s finale, along with the rest of the performers.
Makeup applied and costumes on, Sora gave them each a quick peck on the cheek for luck, and Kairi and Riku headed to the stage where their first show of the day would begin.
Riku fell to his knees, and then lay back. His arms bent over his head, and his spine arched. Kairi always thought that pose looked like something out of a classic painting, emphasizing the long, lean musculature of his body.
She drew another complicated sigil with her outstretched hands, muscles tensed as if she were physically fighting against something.
Riku tipped his head back, exposing his throat, and arching his back to an almost painful looking angle, and then collapsed, rolling sideways, to all appearances unconscious.
Kairi let her arms drop, and then fell to her own knees, “exhausted” from her magical duel with the “Ethereal Spirit.”
The stage lights shut off, giving them a moment to retreat backstage before any of the audience’s eyes adjusted. They sound of applause chased them from the stage.
Kairi laughed a little breathlessly. Her show of exhaustion had been very exaggerated, but it was still a physically demanding performance. Riku was breathing just a little harder than usual, despite the fact that his part was probably twice as active as hers.
They shared a high five. “You looked amazing,” she said, leaning in for a quick kiss. She was careful not to smudge any makeup, but she couldn’t not kiss him, when he looked like that. If she’d been in the audience, she’d have half believed he was genuinely some impossibly beautiful being from some other plane of existence.
“You always do,” he answered against her lips.
“Wish I could stay.” She sighed. “Alas, time to go see the future.”
Kairi was almost finished setting up, adjusting some of the fanciest of the star charts, making sure the glass globes, arcane looking brass objects, and raw crystals that weighed down the corners were positioned perfectly, when she heard a rustle at the entrance to the tent.
No one was supposed to come in until she’d opened the tent, but she didn’t let her annoyance show. “Do you seek answers from the stars?”
There were three men standing inside, glancing around the tent. Kairi suppressed a frown. “Please take a seat, and I will consult them on your behalf.”
The tallest man looked at her, and the look in his eyes chilled her. He said nothing, but nodded to the other two. They flanked her in the small tent, trapping her behind the table where she did her readings. She opened her mouth to scream, knowing that half a dozen of her fellow performers would be there in moments. Before a sound could escape, one of the men had closed a hand over her mouth, while the other grabbed her arms, wrenching them behind her.
Riku was waiting for Sora when he finished his first escape act. This was the simplest of them, escaping from heavy locked chains that bound his arms and legs behind him, while suspending him from the ceiling. The actual locks he needed to pick weren’t as impressive as the chains looked, and Sora was able to defeat their mechanisms while barely even causing the rig to sway.
“Effortless as always,” Riku said, throwing an arm around Sora’s shoulder.
The wispy, gauzy fabric of Riku’s “spirit” costume snagged on the spikes of Sora’s hair, and he ducked, feigning annoyance. “Effortless? As if you could manage it.”
“Tragically, I am but a willowy spirit, confined to this plane quite against my will,” Riku sighed dramatically.
“Should we go bother the mystic who so cruelly trapped you?” Sora asked.
Riku grinned.
Kairi awoke in a dark room, unsure of where she’d been taken or how long it had been.
She was seated, her arms pulled harshly behind her. Twisting her wrists around revealed they were both tied with some sort of rope and handcuffed. Someone wanted to take no chances that she was going to escape. There was a table in front of her.
“And the Mystic wakes,” one of the men said. He was one of the men who’d entered her tent and taken her, but she didn’t recognize him beyond that.
“What do you want?” she asked.
“We have a business venture,” a second man said. “One we’d like to ensure succeeds.”
She blinked, feigning innocence. “If you’d like me to look into what the stars predict, a reading costs five tickets.”
A third man, the one with the cold eyes that had frightened her in her tent growled. “We won’t be paying tickets. You’ll be helping us… what is it? Pro bono.”
She flexed one of her wrists again, trying to shift the rope. “If you bring me my charts, I will see what I can.”
She’d hoped that would buy her some time. If these goons had to fetch the charts from her tent, that would give her some time to plan. But instead the first man slammed three of the charts down onto the table in a pile. He clearly hadn’t been careful with them, new creases marring the thick paper, the corners dog-eared. Damn. Naminé won’t be happy at her art being treated that way. And I can’t even waste their time.
“Read,” the man said.
“What celestial answers do you seek?” If the bastard was foolish enough to think that she could really see the future, then she needed to keep playing along.
“We got some land. We need to know where to put in a claim for gold.”
Really? she thought. A gold mine?
“If you would untie my hands..?” she tugged at the rope and cuffs to make her point.
“You don’t need your hands to read.”
Kairi smiled, trying to look perfectly harmless. She leaned forward and stared at the charts.
Kairi the Celestial Mystic’s tent was closed.
Riku frowned. This was often one of the peak times for her, tourists flocking to her tent, ducking into the velvet darkness, the fairy lights simulating the stars she claimed to learn the future from.
Sora lifted the flap, glancing inside just to make sure they weren’t interrupting something important. As soon as he got a glimpse inside, he rushed the rest of the way in.
Riku followed on his heels, as they looked around the tent. Several of her main charts, the ornate ones commissioned from an artist friend, were missing, the objects she usually displayed with them scattered on the floor.
And Kairi was gone.
Kairi frowned as she looked over the charts.
“I’m afraid I see terrible danger for you,” she said. “The stars predict it.”
One of the men grunted again. “Cave in?”
She furrowed her brow, pretending to stare intently at something. “No, it’s something else. The stars are angry.”
“That’s bullshit,” one of the men snapped. “We asked you about the mines, nothing else.”
“You should let me go,” she said. “I can return to my home, back to the circus, and take their fury with me. It could leave you unscathed.”
“No!” he snapped. “You will tell us where to go. And we will take you with us, so you will suffer if you lie.”
Her lips pressed into a thin line. She’d given them an out. It wasn’t her fault if they were too stupid to take it.
She heard the sounds outside the room, and stifled a smile. She knew they’d find her. After judging the dimensions of the room she was in, she was fairly certain it was an abandoned trailer. And if that was correct, it was very possible that it was a specific trailer she’d noticed before, not far from the circus’ site.
There was a knock on the door to the trailer, and one of the men jumped.
“Are you going to answer?” she asked.
“Be quiet,” he snapped.
Two of the men stepped toward the door, while the third stood behind Kairi.
She relaxed her shoulders just a bit more, lessening the tension on the ropes at her wrists.
As the door opened, the men leaning to block any view of the inside, she braced herself, letting the cuffs fall to the floor with a clink.
The man who was ostensibly guarding her jumped at the sound, and she didn’t even try to hide her smile.
You didn’t live with a world-class escape artist without learning how to pick a lock.
With a lunge, she was on her feet, the rope that had been wrapped around her wrists now braced between them. Before the man had even finished processing the fact that the cuffs were open on the floor, she had the rope wrapped around his neck.
As he struggled, trying and failing to pull the rope away from his throat, she watched Riku, Sora, and several of their fellow friends and performers storming in, easily overwhelming her would-be kidnappers.
The show must go on, as they say. About half of the usual crew had stayed behind to keep the circus running while the rest stormed after Kairi.
The men who’d tried to kidnap her were dealt with. Everyone returned to the circus in time for the finale show.
Far later, draped in the bed that took up a significant portion of their shared trailer, Kairi said, “You know, I did warn those men.”
“Oh?” Riku asked, running his fingers through her hair.
“I told them that the stars were angry, and predicted they’d be in great danger. I even magnanimously offered to return home and bring the danger with me, to leave them unharmed.”
“Idiots,” Sora laughed. “They wanted you to tell their future, and then wouldn’t even listen when you tried.”
“Kairi the Celestial Mystic knows all,” she deadpanned.
