Hey Readers!
Please comment. I appreciate everything from personal issues with the plot, to simple syntax/grammar errors. This first chapter contains no sex, it is merely an introductory section to allow for character exposition. This is a fantasy story, so it is set in a world pre-condom. Ergo, any sex in this series is unprotected. But don't get any ideas, we have access to sexual protection so use it. Really.
All characters are over 18. There will be a chapter after this one, most likely.
-KuraiKusai
I took a deep breath in through my nose. I held it, and released it through my cupid's bow lips, puffing out my cheeks as I did so. I rolled my weight onto my back foot, my long, white (and decidedly shapeless) shift brushing my ankles.
I waited for the perfect moment, that exhilarating rush of adrenaline as the trapeze swung towards its highest point. Then in a motion like the striking of a snake, I jumped forward into the empty air. For a heart-stopping second I simply fell, before the smooth bar of the trapeze swung under my outstretched hands and I instinctually gripped it with a strength belied by my small stature.
I swung with the trapeze as it reached the other high point of its arc. As the trapeze touched its zenith, I continued with my momentum, releasing my clenched fingers and swinging my legs forwards and over my head in a mid-air backwards somersault which left the audience gasping in sympathetic fear. My body straightened into a perfect vertical plane, my feet pointing to the heavens as my nose indicated the direction of my dive: right down to the hard, packed dirt of the circus ring.
I plunged down through the air which whipped my midnight hair across my face. The crowd screamed and shouted, convinced that this performer was to meet her doom. At the last possible instant I spread my arms, and the shift was ripped along my back as two vast snowy wings burst through the material and opened in synchronicity with my extended arms. The air gathered beneath my powerful appendages and I pulled out of my dive to soar up into the top of the tent. I flipped and flicked my body through the air with a careless abandon in sharp contradiction to the careful routine of before. The air was my home, my friend, my lover. It lifted me, excited me, caressed my skin and my heart with electric licks of adrenaline and a building glow of joy. The tight black leotard, (low at the back, to allow for my wings) which had been hidden beneath the boring shift, clung to my body, showing the strength of my slight physique while still allowing the aero-dynamicity I needed to efficiently cut through the air like an arrow.
The crowd was silent as I finally landed; falling forward into a roll to protect my joints and bones after my feet touched the floor. I straightened, and the crowd went from dead silence to roaring applause, foot stamping, and exuberant whooping and cheering.
I grinned, bowed, and retreated out of the ring into a smaller tent along the side of the larger one. As soon as I was out of sight, the large guard hired by the ringmaster leapt forward to clap a thick hand around my shoulder. With a small sigh of regret, I concentrated and my wings shrunk to miniatures of themselves, tiny wings that while unable to carry my weight, were easier to conceal under baggy clothing. Still clutching me, the guard tugged impatiently and lead me out the back.
'Superb! My dear, what a lovely sight you were. And what lovely coins you bring rolling in!' crowed Ringmaster Yeful as I exited the tent. He was short, although still taller than I, as I was as petite as a pixie, in both height and figure. Where I was small he was not; the ringmaster was squat and round like a ball, which endeared him to the crowds but not to me, as I was incapable of affection for the cruel creature that was my master.
He had bought me four years before from my own father, a drunkard who had sold me at the first sight of another pretty coin to feed his habits. Had he known about my abilities, he might have demanded more, but luckily for Ringmaster Yeful my father couldn't even remember my eye colour, let alone notice that his weird, pale daughter had sprouted wings and was suddenly very valuable indeed. At first, while outraged at my newfound value and newly lost freedom, I thought that my new master looked rather funny and rather reasonable, as far as owners went. However, when I had first questioned his ownership of me, he had simply smiled at me before tying me up and tossing me in a crate for the entirety of their journey to the next town, a few days away. When he had finally released me, I was near insane from dehydration and the humiliation of having lived in my own faeces and urine. Needless to say, I stopped questioning, and eventually stopped speaking at all, requiring only vague gestures of "yes" or "no" to answer my master's questions, as an excess of information or opinion was rewarded only with darkness and tight spaces.
I nodded to my master, and then stared pointedly at my caravan until he chuckled and waved a hand. My guard walked me over to it, left me inside and closed the door behind him. I peeled off the leotard and threw myself onto the nest of blankets and pillows which was my bed. I found an actual bed too restrictive. Rolling onto my stomach, I let my wings grow and unfold before wrapping them around myself. Once in my own embrace, I relaxed and allowed myself to rest, knowing that the next performance would give me some time to rest before I went back on for my other act.
The next performer was a woman by the name of Reeda, a sword-swallower. Reeda was tall and shapely, and I knew that many of the male performers would often stare openly at her, or more accurately, the mountainous breasts which heaved and jiggled as she swallowed blade after blade. I felt my own modest bust and thanked whatever gods there were that my tiny mounds, barely a handful each, were not enough to attract the attention of the men around me, for I was a slave, and often heard the lewd sounds of Reeda swallowing a different kind of sword, namely that of our mutual master Yeful. But while I did not envy Reeda's body, I was not entirely without jealously. I wished dearly for Reeda's eyes, which were as blue as the ocean. My own were a peculiar shade of grey, similar to that of storm clouds. In addition to that, I kept my black hair in a chin-length bob which followed the curve of my jaw, unusually short for a woman. With my hair, eyes, and wings, I was certainly a strange-looking individual.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
I was woken by a loud knocking on the door to my caravan, signalling that my act would start soon. I stood up and went through a series of stretches to warm up my body once more, before donning the outfit of my next act.
Anyone looking at it would simply think it to a rather long ivory scarf, but I twisted it around myself until it formed a tight, sleeveless covering long enough to conceal my modesty but short enough to allow for easy movement of my legs, crisscrossing over my back to make room for my minor wings.
After dressing, I left my caravan and made my way to the tent, accompanied by my constant guard.
'Hush! Hush!' I heard Ringmaster Yeful coo to the audience. 'This next act is a real treat. Our angel will be returning to the ring once more to show you an ancient dance, taught to her as a child by the now extinct order of the Genuvi'aan Priestesses!'
Bullshit,
I thought,
I made it up one sunny afternoon almost four years ago so that my master wouldn't punish me.
'Here it comes, folks . . . the Dance of the Caged Songbird!' I entered the ring as Yeful left it, taking my place in the centre before assuming my opening pose. The okar player on the edge of the ring began to strum his instrument gently, and I allowed the music to carry me through the choreography of my act.
As I danced, I sung the story of the dance in the outlandish language that I had known from birth, but had never been taught. The strange tongue had come to me in flits and flickers, like a long-forgotten memory, but by the age of ten I was more fluent in it than in Common, the lingua franca of my country. The dancer is a caged songbird, who sings sweetly as she flits around in her cage. But in time she begins to hate her captivity, and throws herself at her cage until she falls to the floor, battered and exhausted. The human lord who owns her, thinking her dead, tosses her out of the window. The songbird sings out in joy, lifting herself up and spreading her wings to her first taste of freedom.
