It took two hours. Two hours of lion tamers, acrobats, jugglers, rope walkers, clowns, comedians. Of magic shows, of elephants, beds of nails, contortionists, even necromancy.
Two hours of acts when the intermission started. There was a slow stampede of people as they went to get more food and drink for the show. Rags, however, rushed backstage, waving his backstage pass excitedly at security.
“Glee! What’re you gonna do for your show?”
Glee startled, spinning around to look at Rags. “Oh, it’s just you. You’ll see,” they said with a wink.
It was Rag’s turn to be startled when they saw Glee’s appearance, flames etched onto their face, their outfit very different from Glee’s normal, simple style: bright-colored loose jeans and a loose, saturated tee.
“Woah! You look cool as hell,” Rags said honestly.
Glee laughed. “Thanks, kid. I’ll be up next; I’m lucky. Everyone will be refreshed, no chance of zoning out during my show.”
“What’ll you be doing?”
“You’ll see,” they said with a wink.
Rags wiggled in his place and ran off to buy more snacks.
There was an amazing assortment of food where he went to buy it: dried fruit sweet as sugar, honeycomb, clouds spun from sugar, peppers so spicy they could burn the tongue off a pyromaniac. The drinks were equally diverse, the stands filled with juices of exotic fruit, lager, brandy. Drinks made by Moriokin who liquified different foods: almonds, mangoes, exotic plants Rags had never heard of, even desserts.
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Rags traded his money for liquified mangoes and adines mixed together, as well as honeycomb and dried fruit. He moved back to the circus tent and regained his seat. Almost as soon as he did so, the vast majority of attendees returned from the intermission, holding food and drink.
The lights, controlled by Sokori like Zephyr, turned on, startlingly bright and pointed at the stage. They dimmed slightly so as to not blind the performer on the stage. The performer walked out, arms spread slightly, an almost unnerving grin plastered on their face. Before Glee could do anything in their act, a ball of flame shot out from the side of the stage, flying straight at Glee. Glee jumped up, seemingly far too high, and turned in an aerial cartwheel, the fire whizzing underneath their head.
Glee landed just as a separate blaze leapt towards them from behind. They jumped high and turned in a backflip; they could hear the fire crackling as it shot below them.
After a dozen more fireballs, they finally subsided, replaced by jets of flame shooting straight up. Glee pulled out three knives with black blades and handles out and began to juggle them. Flickering tendrils of fire leapt towards the blades of the weapons and caught on the metal.
Glee continued to juggle the flaming weapons, dark eyes focused on the knives, when another was thrown at them. Glee appeared unfazed as they caught the weapon and added it to the arc of glowing flames, the lights now dimmed, the jets of flame gone.
Fire jumped through the air from one knife to the other, leaving all four knives ablaze.
Knives kept coming until Glee was juggling ten at once. When they’d juggled all ten for a bit, the lights returned. Glee responded to this cue by tossing the knives higher, giving them several seconds to return to Glee’s hands. They held some as the others flew high. Glee covered their eyes, quickly tying on a black blindfold with deft fingers.
Bulls-eye targets moved out from the wall. Glee tossed the knives to the side, now holding all of the weapons, and all ten hit the bulls-eyes of separate targets.
They took off the blindfold and tossed it towards the seats as they took a flourishing bow as a phoenix swooped over the crowd, eliciting enthusiastic applause from the attendees.
Glee outstretched an arm and the phoenix landed on them. It spread its wings and dipped its head, seeming to mimic Glee’s bow.
“Thank you, Aermei,” Glee whispered to the phoenix.