Chapter Text
Every part of the circus makes me feel at home. Something about growing up under the bright lights and cheering crowds has molded me into the boisterous bubbly woman I now am, and I will never get over the thrill of standing on the trapeze right before a flip, spot lights obscuring my view of everything. It makes me feel like I'm the only person left in the world. Yeah, maybe this was a skill that seems more like daredevil territory, but none of them can do it with my awe factor–that's why it's my trick.
The gasps of the crowd as I fall backwards never get old, and catching myself on my antlers as I grin in the direction of my three bestfriends, confidents, and most importantly, fellow acrobats, is pretty much second nature.
Just as the cheers dissipate, I jolt my head back, unhooking myself from the bar and using my momentum to spin myself backwards and catch it, this time with my flexed feet. I glance over to the wings where I can see Tango begin to spin my trapeze, all the while contributing to the roar heard from backstage as I flipped. That's the other reason I love it here.
I spread my arms out to the crowd just in time for Pearl to swoop down, snatch me up and bring me back to the safety of steady ground.
I hear her murmur in my ear, "You did so good!" and my smile widens.
"You ready for this?" My lines are almost as rehearsed as my routine–it's time for our big finale. We both know it by heart and could do it with our eyes closed, but this is our courtesy for shows. Compliments and questions. Reassurance and a steady, reminding presence.
On the ground we join up with the other two and get into our usual position, Lizzie jumps up to sit on False's shoulders while I do the same on Pearl. Our bases turn to face each other as Lizzie and I grab hands and both stand up gracefully, or as gracefully as you can while on someone's shoulders.
Pearl grabs my ankles and gives them a gentle squeeze. Presence, reassurance.
Once I'm steady, I squeeze Lizzie's hands to signal my balance, and once she squeezes back we press our heels gently into the necks of our bases to let them know we're ready.
Together they extend their wings, and then, we're airborne. Rising upwards, slowly and as smoothly as possible after accounting for wingbeats. Once we reach the correct height the bases pause their ascent, hovering with the same practiced steadiness and leave it up to Lizzie and I.
With our best mimes we show to the audience that we plan to swap spots with a simple jump. We let go of each other, and lock eyes, counting down mentally.
With a small nod at zero we both spring off our place. The crowd cheer. Maybe the crowd gasp. Either way, they make a lot of noise, quite distracting noise.
My feet reach False's shoulders, but no. I wobble in place and flail my arms before my feet slip off and I fall past her with a scream.
The gasps and yells of the crowd get even louder as I fall. Plummeting towards the ground there's nothing I can do to save myself.
So it's lucky False knows exactly what comes next.
She loops down, giving Pearl a speedy high five on the way, and reaches out to grab the hands I've outstretched to her. We clasp hands and I stop falling just before the ground. Close enough that if I pointed my toes I could just about skim them on the wooden stage floor.
It took a lot of testing, training and calculations for this trick to work correctly, a fair amount of padding and bruises too. But we've perfected it, and landing on the ground to take a big bow with my three best friends I've ever had is just another thing that feels as natural as the smile on my face. We end up with our arms around each other's backs, bowing in one cohesive fold as the crowd cheers louder than ever, having recovered from the horror of earlier after catching on that it was planned.
Once we break away from our hold Pearl snags my hand so she can give me a spin and gently squeeze it. Presence.
I laugh and attempt to spin her back, but with our height difference it doesn't quite work the same as she hunches over dramatically looking towards the audience pointedly. I cross my arms with a faux grumble, glad that the crowd are too far away to truly see the fondness apparent on my face.
Lizzie though, she's right next to us and gives me a sharp elbow with a wink as we head offstage. But she doesn't get a chance to actually say anything before she's swept up in a hug by her boyfriend.
I poke him in the side, "Thanks a lot, idiot, I know where I stand now I suppose." It's a typical jab of mine. But Joel deserves it– "We've only been siblings for my entire life or something. Practically pales in comparison to what, a year and a half?" –sisterly duties and all.
- ☆ -
Running on stage at the end of the show feels like breathing out after holding in a breath.
Moving on and off the stage is the one time that nothing is planned, nothing but the big bows and even bigger smiles. Even so, after so long nothing is truly improvisation anymore and sometimes (a lot of the time) it just feels like going through the motions.
Despite the repetitive nature of what we do, we adore being silly and doing fun things on stage. Being in a circus most of us have roots in theatre that we will never be able to satisfy with carefully planned and curated routines. Mr Faire knows that, so he lets us go wild.
Pearl walks on stage with me on her shoulders. Well, dangling off her shoulders and down over her head, making faces at her. Still both giggling at each other, she puts me down to join in with the mischief of our friends.
I glance around to see what impromptu chaos I can join or create and see the backstage crew being forced out of the wings. I poke Pearl and run over, trusting that she's following me. We've been friends long enough for her to understand what that specific prod means.
We get to Ren, False and Joe who are all dragging (slash convincing) Cleo to join them onstage. It's a wonder this hasn't gotten easier over time. Considering we do it every show, you'd think they'd all be less reluctant by now. I suppose some of them are, like Tango–he doesn't mind it too bad.
Cleo's laughing as they get pulled towards the crowd, somehow still holding a clipboard. I pluck it out of her hand and run it behind the curtain.
By the time I get back X is adressing the crowd. "–for you coming to see our show! And we hope that you enjoyed! But don't you worry, it's not quite over yet, you get one last chance to show your appreciation to our performers. With that said, make some noise for our group of courageous lion tamers!"
Bdubs, Joel, Scott and Wels step forward, Wels seems to be trying to get the others to join hands, which they are obviously reluctant to do. I laugh at my brother as he crosses his arms. Wels just rolls his eyes and grabs a hand on each side of him, raises them above his head and takes a bow, which the other three follow in, joined together or not.
With the problem children out of the way, the rest of the bows pass by quickly and smoothly. I contribute loud whoops and cheers as my friends get the appreciation they deserve. And before I know it I'm flipping forward to join with my friends, and fellow acrobats.
Pearl throws me a glance and squeezes my hand. Reassurance.
We bow, and when we get back up, I look into the audience. A sea of delighted faces and bright lights. I try to imagine mum and dad, smiling up at me, laughing at the chaos of Joel and his group. It comforts me a bit.
When she notices that I've gone off into dreamland, Pearl picks me up and carries me out of the spotlight, playing it off as another silly bit. Laughing into her chest I wipe the thought of my parents from my mind. They made their opinions on us clear. This is my life now, wrapped in the arms of my friends on a stage under the lights with a crowd cheering for us. And a good one it is.
X calls up the tech crew to all take a bow, which they do, with varying degrees of reluctancy.
I glance to Ren and Martyn, a silent question on whose turn it is. Martyn gives me a shrug and Ren nods his head to me, so I step forward and project my voice out into the audience the best I can.
"Can we get a final round of applause, and a bow from our beloved ringmaster, Xisuma!!" I direct the attention to him dramatically with my arms, and he sighs fondly at me as he takes a small bow.
"Yeah! Sashwammy!!" I hear Keralis call out from the crowd of performers and it makes us all laugh.
Looking at these people, as I fall back into my spot wedged between Pearl and Lizzie, I realise how at home I truly feel in this place. Even if the place never stays the same for longer than a week. Home is wherever these people are–my friends, my family.
In one line across a stage that definitely doesn't have enough space for all of us, we take our final bow before screaming as one, "Thank you for having us Gowlishaw!! You've been an amazing crowd! Have a good night!" Our words overlap and our accents all clash together, creating a sentence that just barely gets its meaning across. It's scuffed, but it's ours.