Chapter 3: Hi-Diddle-Dee-Dee, a Carny’s Life For Me
Mistress Dusklight returned with her newest charges to the Celestial Menagerie and had her medics attend to their wounds. Over the next few weeks, Dusklight met with Midori and the others individually and wove her unctuous web of magical charms, psychological abuse, and intimidation to break their spirits and ensure their loyalty to her. However, Midori still expressed a desire to go back home to her extended family. Mistress Dusklight could not tolerate any of her “new family” to have any remaining desire to return to the outside world.
Handsome Frankie the orc clown escorted Midori from the tent where she had been recovering to the interconnected wooden trailers where Mistress Dusklight kept her office and quarters. They arrived at the entrance to the foyer where Makok, Mistress Dusklight’s half-orc bodyguard, stood guard, a spear in his right hand. “Mistress wants to talk to this one,” Frankie jabbed a thumb in Midori’s direction. Makok nodded and let them in.
The foyer was decorated with crimson red curtains, richly stained wooden furniture, painted silk room dividers, and a variety of shiny knickknacks. Midori noticed the sharp contrast between Mistress Dusklight’s chambers and the spartan tents that housed the other circus folk. The decor reminded her momentarily of her family home in Minkai; a wave of homesickness washed over her.
Frankie directed Midori through the door to the second trailer, which had been divided into partitioned-off bedchambers and the office where Mistress Dusklight sat waiting.
“Midori. Come here and heed me well. No, do not stare at the floor, but look at me. At me. In the eyes!” Locking her eyes with Midori’s, Mistress Dusklight’s eyes lit up with a golden glow of magic power and she began to work her control spell. Midori’s eyes glazed over slightly. “Little kit, you should be grateful that I took you in. No one else would. No one else wanted you. Where is your Niji-iro clan now? Did they come to your rescue when your parents left you? No! Who came for you? Answer me, whelp!”
Midori could only admit, “You did, Mistress Dusklight.”
“Who took you in? Who took care of your wounds? Who filled your empty belly with costly food free of charge? Who gave you space in a warm tent with warm straw to sleep on?”
Succumbing to Dusklight’s power more and more, Midori replied, “You did, Mistress Dusklight.”
“You owe me everything. You are such a disappointment to me; to me, the one who bends over backward to give you a better life! But you! You never do anything right. You haven’t lifted a grubby paw to help out around here—!”
“I was hurt and bleeding—”
“Don’t you dare interrupt when your betters are speaking!” Dusklight struck Midori across the face sideways with the back of her hand. Midori looked up at Dusklight with an expression of shock as tears started to well up in her green eyes. “Watch yourself or else you will taste the lash of my whip! Impudent ones will not earn happiness in my circus! Cheeky children will never build friendships here! Do you want a future? You are nothing without me. Stupid child! You are a disgrace to this family!”
As Dusklight’s tirade grew more and more frantic, her words and magic wove into mystical cords so tight and strong that they bound Midori’s very soul to her.
“You are lucky that I love you. No one else will ever love you like I do. You must pay me back! Reciprocity!“ Small drops of spittle flew from Dusklight’s lips. "You will make yourself useful. You are small and weak, but you are quick and nimble. Those tiny fingers of yours will find purpose! Learn thimble and needle! Learn whisk broom and dustpan!” Dusklight leaned in more closely, nose-to-nose with Midori. “Learn to find coin to bring back to me. As long as it’s not from our family, I care not where it comes from.” Dusklight drew back and straightened up to her dull height, towering over the diminutive Kitsune. “Become a useful member of the Celestial Menagerie family—” Dusklight’s face twisted into a sadistic, toothsome grin as her eyes flashed with mad energy. She unhooked her coiled whip from her belt and yanked it taut in front of herself with both hands. “—OR ELSE!”
As a young child, Midori wasn’t of much use to the Celestial Menagerie immediately. But Dusklight provided her with food, shelter, and utilitarian work clothing in exchange for Midori’s loyalty and willingness to be trained in whatever the circus saw fit. Midori learned basic janitorial skills to keep the circus clean and presentable. She picked up some seamstress tricks to help repair the performers’ costumes and keep her own uniforms from falling apart. She learned the dark, hidden secrets of crafting cotton candy, popcorn, and caramel apples. She even convinced old Pokeroot the gnoll handyman to teach her how to pick locks. You know, in case of emergency.
Despite Mistress Dusklight’s discouragement, Midori made friends in the Celestial Menagerie quite easily. Not so much with the rough-and-tumble security guards or the grumpier clowns, but with the kinder, gentler circus folk who had previous lives outside of the circus.
Itty Bitty, a seven-foot-tall orc clown, declared herself to be Midori’s big sister almost immediately. She knew how rough the Celestial Menagerie could be and felt that the diminutive kitsune would do well with a little protection.
Early on, Midori met Toby, a red-headed human boy around her age. They took one look at each other, smiled, and pointed at each other’s hair in glee. Toby exclaimed, “Your hair is like mine! Let’s be best friends!” They became practically inseparable from that point onward.
Midori also befriended Mistress Dusklight’s lover, Myron Stendhal, a tall human with well-groomed facial hair and a booming voice, whom his friends would call “Thunder.” Midori reasoned that, since Mistress Dusklight was her Mama (she hated being called that and would snap at Midori every time she called her that), then Myron should be her Papa. She started calling him “Papa Thunder,” which Myron found endearing, but Mistress Dusklight found even more infuriating. Midori would only call him by his nickname in private after Dusklight threatened her with her whip if she ever heard the moniker again. Myron enjoyed playing with Midori, sometimes chasing her around the circus grounds while making dinosaur noises.
A few years later, as it would turn out, Myron had a falling out with Dusklight. Midori was not anywhere near the incident to see what happened, and the other circus folk were strangely tight-lipped about the details, no matter how many times she asked. She did, however, find a note that Myron had left on her bunk before he disappeared: “It’s not safe here. Find me in the fields just outside Abberton if you can ever get away. I will always have a place for you, little kit.” As time went by, Midori heard through the grapevine that Myron was looking to start up his own circus with an aging circus performer known as The Professor. Midori’s mind was too clouded for her to even think about leaving the Celestial Menagerie.
During communal mealtimes, some of the circus folk would play musical instruments and sing. Midori started joining them and quickly found that she had an excellent singing voice and a talent for improvisation.
Despite Mistress Dusklight’s control over her and having the circus as her adoptive family, Midori missed both her real family and her real home greatly. But Bufurug, a pug-faced shoony and one of the cooks who lived his life outside as a druid before joining the Celestial Menagerie, was able to make deep-fried tofu and savory noodles for her that tasted fairly close to the ones her mother used to make, which helped to take the edge off of Midori’s homesickness.
Midori frequently spent time with Bufurug, not only because he would sneak her some extra treats from time to time, but also taught her how to speak the language of his people.
As she grew older, Midori was given more responsibility and more important jobs.
When Midori grew into adolescence and had a sizeable growth spurt, she began work as a stagehand. She worked long and hard on the job and honed her strength and dexterity, but she yearned for more.
A few years later, Midori asked to be transferred to concessions duty, working with Toby and his team. Midori had thought that this would be the perfect job, as she would have more time to spend with Toby during her work shifts and less time carrying heavy objects that would hurt her lower back.
However, selling snacks to the audience rarely allowed time to socialize. Moreso, unfortunately, Dusklight managed the sales so that Midori and the others had to purchase their own concessions to sell at whatever profit they could get. Midori would rarely break even. But as sneaky as Midori was, she found that she could get away with picking the pockets of her customers under the cover of taking payment, making change, and fumbling the treats into her customers’ hands. Mistress Dusklight didn’t mind a little bit of light thievery, as long as Midori didn’t get caught in the act and, more importantly, as long as Dusklight got her percentage as tribute.
Soon, Midori grew to adulthood and the time came when Midori was able to try her hand at performing to earn her keep.
Midori was quite agile, so she tried her hand at the high wire. Unfortunately, she discovered that acrobatics and tumbling
were not her forté, and she nearly injured herself while falling off.
Mistress Dusklight heard of Midori’s reputation for joking around, so she had Midori put on a costume and greasepaint to join a rehearsal session with the clowns. This plan also fell through because Midori spoke far more than a mostly silent role would allow, she dodged two pies that other clowns threw at her face, and she hogged the spotlight in general.
After the clown fiasco, Mistress Dusklight thought that she could work Midori into a stage magic act. She brought Midori to the big top one day to audition. Dusklight looked her up and down. “Midori, as a kitsune you can change forms. That ability could make you useful as a magician’s assistant in some of the illusions. What is your alternate form?”
Midori shifted uncomfortably. “Tailless, Mistress Dusklight. That is…the human form, I mean.”
“I haven’t seen you out of your normal form in all the years you’ve been here. Why is that?”
“Don’t like to shift. Human form is…weird…to me.”
“Well, time to ‘put on your big girl panties,’ grow up, and get used to it. We’ll have you shift forms in the 'magic cabinet’ during the act. Let me see what we have to work with. Show me your human form.”
“Yes, Mistress Dusklight.” Midori concentrated for a second and her form began to shift quickly. Her fur and tail retreated as her ears, bones, and joints changed size and shifted positions. The costume Midori wore stretched and contracted along with her changes due to her inherent transformation magic. Seconds later, Midori stood in front of Mistress Dusklight and the other performers as an adult human Tian-Min woman, red hair and green eyes and all, wobbling awkwardly on her bare-footed tiptoes. She began to shiver as she fell back onto her heels with a soft thud. “It’s cold like this.” She inhaled deeply through her nose. “I can’t smell anything. And it’s dark in here.” She pulled at her costume. “This itches. How do humans wear these things? Do we have this in silk?” Then she froze as she saw everyone’s eyes fixed on her. “What? Guys? What?” Kitsune were uncommon on the Isle of Kortos, but not unknown. However, nobody in the Celestial Menagerie had ever seen a kitsune shape-shift in person, especially not one who shifted into a human form with a face whose classic beauty rivaled that of depictions of the goddess Shelyn.
Midori caught a glimpse of herself in a nearby dressing mirror. For a fraction of a second, she felt that she was looking into her mother’s face [“Mama?” A faint memory stirred in the back of her head…] during shape-shifting practice back home in Minkai [“Back…home?” Cords of magic that bound her soul unraveled ever so slightly…], but the realization that she was looking at herself as an adult human for the first time quickly hit her. Her reflection was alien to her, unfamiliar, grotesque, nothing like how she saw herself in her natural form. Nothing looked right. She felt as if the tent was spinning; her self-consciousness broke over her like an ocean wave. She slowly turned around, her eyes darting back and forth to all of the pairs of eyes locked onto her. She felt like a game animal cornered by hunters. She realized that a few of her co-workers were leering at her, ogling her, smiling lecherously. Trembling and wrapping her arms around herself, she opened her mouth to speak, but only a shrill, scared squeak escaped her lips.
Growing impatient, Mistress Dusklight commanded, “Midori! Focus! Walk to the edge of the ring and back. Get used to moving in this form.” But Midori could only look back at her with her human face frozen in a mask of fear.
“I gave you an order!” Dusklight stepped backward and lashed Midori on the back with her whip. “My whip compels you! Obey!” Although the whip of compliance magically motivated Midori to move, her fear won out and kept her frozen on the spot. “I said move, damn you!” Dusklight lashed out again, but Midori remained immobile, only yelping in pain as another welt rose on her back.
“Jellico! Gnatalya!” Dusklight turned to two of the clowns watching nearby. “Throw her in the oubliette!” The garishly dressed clowns, one an orange-haired human man and the other a tawny gnoll woman, moved toward Midori, who found her voice upon seeing a new threat.
Midori turned to face the human clown, gestured with both of her palms as if to stop him, and screamed, “Don’t you dare touch me!” Her eyes flashed green. From ten feet away, Jellico jerked backward slightly with a look of surprise as if he had stumbled into an unseen spider web, and then his eyes went blank as he stopped in his tracks, dazed.
Gnatalya, however, was unaffected. She scooped Midori up with a full-throated, unhinged burst of laughter, taking her toward the tent’s exit. Surprised, Midori quickly reverted back to her natural form. She flailed and shouted in protest, hitting the gnoll clown with her tiny fists to no avail on their way out.
“And get Adrivallo over there to start on her…re-education.” Dusklight grinned wickedly with schadenfreude.
Days later, once Midori had been brought back to a more amenable mood, Mistress Dusklight continued to find a suitable job for her.
“Seeing as how you are such a loudmouth and love causing a scene, we shall see how you fare as a barker. You have your uniform and your cane. Now,” Mistress Dusklight leaned in toward Midori, nose to nose, “sell me a ticket.”
Midori cleared her throat as she straightened her new green barker’s jacket and adjusted the angle of her green-trimmed straw hat with her cane. She came up with not only a sales pitch, but a melody as well, all made up on the spot.
🎶🎶🎶
Come one, come all, to the greatest show on earth
Where wonders and marvels await you in the Celestial Menagerie
See the amazing feats of Mistress Dusklight and her troupe of stars
They’ll dazzle you with magic, skill, and charm
Don’t miss this chance to witness the rare and the exotic
From the catfolk acrobat to the dragonkin fire-breather
From the unicorn rider to the griffon tamer
From the merfolk singer to the sphinx riddler
You’ll never find a more thrilling spectacle
Than the Celestial Menagerie
So hurry, hurry, step right up
And get your tickets now
Before they sell out
🎶🎶🎶
Mistress Dusklight arched an eyebrow. “Not bad. Perhaps I have found your calling after all. Now show me how to pull rubes up to a carnival game.”
Midori shifted to quick-paced prose, clearly and carefully emphasizing salient details to pique interest: “Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, step right up and try your luck at the most exciting carnival game in the land! Welcome to the Celestial Menagerie, where Mistress Dusklight has gathered the most amazing creatures and performers from all over the world! And now, for a limited time only, you have a chance to win a fabulous prize by playing the Silver Piece Pitch game!
"All you need to do is toss a silver coin onto a board with random marks on it. If your coin lands on a mark, you win a prize! It’s that simple! And the prizes are out of this world! You could win a stuffed unicorn, a dragon scale necklace, a mermaid tail, or even a ticket to see the exclusive show of Mistress Dusklight and her troupe of stars!
"But hurry, hurry, don’t delay! This game is only available for a short while, and the prizes are going fast! Come on, give it a try! You have nothing to lose and everything to gain! Just one silver could make you a winner at the Celestial Menagerie!”
Hearing not one but two mentions of her name in the sales pitch stroked Dusklight’s ego.
“Congratulations on your promotion. Now go make me proud!”
And, with that, Midori began her career as a carnival barker. She worked hard and learned much.
Until that fateful night.