Cirque du Fae

A LOVELY DAY FOR A CIRCUS

It is the height of summer. An uncanny heat has been bearing down on the island for weeks, one that has even the locals on edge. But it has otherwise been a fairly normal summer. Perhaps the fact that the number of demon royals is halved has something to do with it, but things have been fairly consistently calm. With the Autumn Leaves summer camp coming to a close as the renovations complete, the amount of peace each day seems to bring is…

Well, honestly a little concerning.

Which is why it should come as no surprise to step out of your front door and find yourself emerging onto the grounds of a strange carnival that Town Hall has no record of.

The entirety of town is filled with colorful banners in rainbow colors, vendors hawking unusual wares in the streets, music and dancing people, with nary a single human among them. There are some things that look almost human, or more frequently like elves, but there is always something in their eyes or the way they move that just isn’t right. However, most of them are unearthly-looking creatures, either squat as if they’ve been smashed flat or lanky as if they’ve been stretched out, bearing strange and otherworldly features that make them look like animals, insects, plants, or something unheard of altogether. The summer sun is darkened somehow--- though the island is bathed in enough ethereal light to simulate day, the iridescent shine is nothing like Kora’s golden sunlight, and the sky above town is a deep, vast blue that seems to no longer extend into the cosmos, but rather come to an end high above the town and wave gently like fabric blowing in the breeze. Like a large tent.

The town has become a fairground, dotted with shops and rides. But in the distance, you can see great and impossible structures bathed in a light that beckons you to them. They sing to your heart, urging you closer.

Welcome to Cirque du Fae. Do we have a show for you.

Fairgrounds

The way to the main performance area (whether you’re aware that’s what it is yet or not) is lined with wonders. Familiar buildings are covered with mysterious plants and bioluminescent fungi, joined by numerous glittering tents, intriguing booths, and clever-looking rides. Come and spend your brass, won’t you?

Food & Shops

There are a number of food booths here, but none of the foods they’re selling look like anything you’ve ever seen before. Shells of white pumpkin full of some sort of liquid cheese, served with an unusual assortment of roasted vegetables and a tiny fork for dipping them into the cheese. Fae folk can be seen eating the mostly empty pumpkin shells afterwards. Giant, iridescent dew-drop looking morsels with peach slices suspended within. Cakes with layers of shimmering pink jelly at the center. What appear to be maki rolls with something in the center that looks rather like a piece of polished labradorite but has the texture of a tapioca pearl. Berry tarts in giant acorn shells. A fruit that looks like a tiny moon until it is cut to reveal flesh akin to yellow dragonfruit. Impossibly dark liquids that smell like somehow-floral coffee served in cupped leaves. There are a whole slew of impossible treats available here.

To simplify food pricing, spend 50B on a single treat, 200B to eat at the fair for a day, or 500B to have your meals here for the entire festival (five days, saving you 100B a day). The food is delicious, filling, and impossible to get elsewhere. However, depending upon how much you eat, you may find yourself drawn into something later.

As for shops, there are a number of strange talismans and charms available for sale, though they don’t feel like they would be a good idea to purchase no matter how pretty they are. If you’re so inclined, however, you can buy one despite the unsettling energy. For a price point of 600B, they must do something, right?

The talismans and charms come in four styles (you can choose the specifics of the design oocly), which are:

• Dark blue and aquatic themed
• Blue-green and comprised of mushroom or tear-drop motifs
• Golden and celestial
• Green and nature-themed

Interestingly, there are no red, insect-themed charms. Each one will do something good and something bad, which will be revealed privately at the time of purchase for you to slip into your threads. How long until other players catch on? It’s all part of the fun!
There is also another shop where, for 200B, you can purchase a pair of fairy wings of your very own that will remain until the end of the festival. They are functional, and designed just for you, so take your pick of whatever style you like and take flight!

Lastly, there are a number of free activities and gifts, such as face-painting and balloons. It seems fae have unique taste in these things as well, so expect unusual and ethereal designs.

Rides & Games

Unlimited rides and games for just 50B per day! For a 5-day festival, that’s a steal! Want to play?

In the games corner, there are a number of carnival games with fun, magical twists. (Feel free to come up with your own ideas, as well.) One of the ones available is something akin to goldfish scooping. However, the multicolored, glittering, translucent, betta-like fish swim through the air inside the tent rather than water. Play competitively with friends or simply catch magical fish at a leisurely pace until your net breaks. When dropped into your ceramic bowl after catching them, the jewel-like fish become chunks of crystal, marbles, glass or stone beads, or other delightful trinkets. Feel free to keep your winnings! There are all manner of other fantastical carnival games, such as a game where you throw darts at enchanted balloon animals that run from your attempts to pop them and tease you for missing, a game where you attempt to catch acorns tossed by pixies into paper cups, and one called “persuasion plinko”, where a colorful disk is placed into an upright peg-board and you attempt to persuade it verbally to fall into one of the winning slots. It seems silly at first, but those capable of making compelling arguments may cause the disk to stop falling mid-plinko and change course! But what does one say to persuade a disk? Knowing that it is a pixie in disguise might help!

Then there are the rides, which are just as magical as the rest. In the center of what is normally the festival green, you can catch a long flight of stairs up to a floating, double-decker carousel with all sorts of fantastical animals to ride--- unicorns and giant frogs, golden kingfishers and phoenixes, seahorses and hippocampi, gryphons and stylized spiders. Even a carriage for two that looks like a butterfly.

Then, replacing the Greymare Library, is a strange “hall of mirrors”. Disorienting and dark, the mirrored maze takes you through all manner of strange environments, from dilapidated houses, to ancient ruins, to mystical forests, to rainy jungles. Those who are unlucky might catch sight of a figure from their past--- someone they miss, just out of reach, or someone they fear, stalking them through the maze. But it’s all just smoke and mirrors… isn’t it?

Also, the train has been converted into an elaborate roller coaster. Good thing the mining crew won’t be needed for work during all this.

Familiar Fortune Teller

And of course, there is one final fairground attraction, situated in the gazebo in town square, decorated with proud orchids and climbing pink flowers, red glass butterflies and crystal baubles. The sign over the entrance says “Fortune Teller”.

At the table sits Amarantha, the curious woman who helped dispel the undead some months back. There is a deck of tarot cards on the table in front of her. She is bathed in candle light.

Won’t you have a seat?

Five-Ring Circus

{ CONTENT WARNINGS: Memloss (indigo prompt, optional), body horror (teal prompt, inherent) }

On the far side of the island, behind where Leeds Manor sits, there are a number of impressive structures that beckon those who look upon them like a lighthouse. A massive glass greenhouse, a land-bound coral reef that arches upward like the canopy of a forest, a butterfly pavilion encased in shimmering pink net, an ancient stone temple being worn down by moss and shelf-mushrooms, a beautiful and elaborate golden tent that sparkles in the aurora-like light. It’s here that you will find the main attractions.

The Grand Atrium

A glass and wrought iron greenhouse the size of a skyscraper reaches for the atmosphere, cutting an imposing silhouette that outpaces the size of all of the other four structures. The whole thing is technically a window, but dense green vegetation consumes any view the glass might provide. Your only choice, if you want to see more, is to push open the massive doors and enter.

Within the greenhouse, there are trees. Hundreds of them. Grand sequoias so colossal that your mind aches as it tries to fathom the distance between the branches and your eyes. Between them, beds of plants with leaves the size of pole-flags and flowers ranging from dinner plates to whole rooms in the size of their petals. Toadstools tower overhead, looking like you could live within them. Looking back at the normally-sized door behind you allows you to confirm that you haven’t been magically shrunk, and as you begin to process your new environment, you can see that regularly sized plants also dot the area. You are simply surrounded by megaflora.

A path lay ahead, advertising trained animal performances at a woodland stage deeper in. However, the path is treacherous, the enormous woods concealing person-sized carnivorous plants and scheming puca who would love to tempt you off the road…

However, if you make it to the stage, formed of a colossal tree stump cut low to the ground, there is a fantastic show in store! The animals, while still larger and more fantastical-looking than normal, are not nearly as oversized as the trees--- chipmunks the size of dogs and elephant-sized rabbits perform a series of clever tricks alongside dryad trainers with bark for skin. Winged people in colorful costumes and leather armor ride horse-sized squirrels and joust with oversized pine-needles that snap or bend harmlessly on impact. A genuinely entertaining sight!

In one of the high-up seats on the far side of the stage, carved into the rotted trunk of a dead tree, you can see what appears to be a very, very tall man garbed in leaves. He has what appear at first to be massive antlers, but upon further inspection, you can see that they are branches. He watches the performance passively. But sometimes, it feels like he’s watching you.

The Azalea Butterfly Garden

The net-bound structure in pink is exactly what it appears to be--- a beautiful butterfly garden, full of fluttering black and magenta butterflies. Unlike the atrium, the show begins right when you walk in. Amid the garden, full to the brim with red and pink flowers, there are insectoid fae-folk performing all at once, inviting you to walk among their ongoing performances. A pair of twin orchid-mantis women swing from pink trapeze, laughing joyfully all the while. A man with a shiny brown carapace and a massive set of horns and a muscular woman with massive moth wings like an Atlas moth perform feats of incredible strength, each attempting to outdo the other. Young boys in black costumes with stick-like ant’s antennae perform stunts that involve stacking on top of one another. An elongated fairy woman resembling some sort of iridescent stick-bug performs on aerial silks and hoops elegantly. A jewel-beetle fairy juggles three companions---- chubby, red clover mite pixies, who seem to find it all to be great fun, but who will occasionally roll out of the juggler’s hands, attempting to trip him up. He always seems to recover, though.

Walking among the audience members, there is a man with insectoid joints to his fingers and spines on his arms, sporting red robes and what appears to be a mask made of deep-pink butterfly wings. At least until the wings begin to move on their own. He merrily greets his guests, prattling to whoever will listen about his flowers.

The Acropora Amphitheater

Within the coral building, everything is steeped in a strange, eerie twilight. It’s dark, but not too dark to see, as light reflects off the living coral walls in patterns resembling the surface of water. All around are smaller bits of coral--- pink fans and green brains and black elkhorns, all bathed in blue-violet shadow and cerulean light. Dark fish with glowing eyes and bioluminescent squids drift, unworried, through the air. Far off, you can hear music.

As you move through the ocean landscape, you begin to see signs of freshwater biomes blend together with the marine ones. Polished river stones and water reeds begin to pop up among coral polyps and driftwood. It creates an unsettling atmosphere, for some reason. It just feels… wrong.

Finally, you reach a lake with a sandy shore, which serves as the stage. The pool is lit with a strange sort of moonlight that seems to be coming from within the water, creating the eerie blue light which now turns more silver. Leaning against the shoreline or sitting on protruding rocks, sirens with glowing golden eyes and indigo scales sing alongside dark blue fish that peek their heads up above the surface to provide a lovely baritone. The song seems to be harmless, though the sight of singing sirens might draw panic from you at first. Should you stay to watch them perform, they will cycle through a number of incongruous genres of a cappella music, ranging from classical choral arrangements to sea shanties to (oddly) doo-wop music from the 50’s and 60’s. Their performance of the 1962 song “Stand By Me” is both jarring and charming.

As the performance seems to draw to a close, another aquatic Fair One emerges from the water. She is frighteningly long and slender, with a deep blue complexion and matching hair-shaped fins draped with a tattered white veil. Golden eyes, pupil-less, peer out from the darkness. As soon as this large woman appears, towering over the other sirens, you sense that something about this performance is going to be very different. This is your chance to flee.

For those that do stay to hear her sing, her ethereal voice resounds throughout the coral amphitheater, stirringly beautiful in a way you didn’t know was possible. Such character, such depth, such emotion. “Forget yourself,” the lyrics beckon. “Let the currents take your troubles away.”

When the song concludes, you realize you have.

The memory loss effects of the song cause you to forget everything but your name, and can last as long as the player sees fit, from a few hours up to the end of the circus.

The Jolly Dawn Stage

You proceed to the golden tent, its fabric an intricate shining brocade, and you feel a warmth wash over you. It’s bright inside, like you somehow walked out of this strange place and back into a normal summer day. Lush green grass sprawls out beneath the tent, where harlequins and jesters mingle and laugh.

Much like the butterfly garden, the performers here play out their acts simultaneously, allowing guests to wander through their space. Clowns dressed in star-patterned costumes tell jokes to one another and to passers by, perform dance routines and wholesome slapstick. Mimes in black and yellow stripes that make them look like bumble bees tease the clowns--- and you--- harmlessly. The wholesome humor and too-bright sun glow afford the space a sort of dreamy feeling. And flying high among them, performing airborne stunts and aerial dances are---

Angels?

No, those are still fae, you realize. White-feathered and holy-looking in this warm golden sun, but upon further inspection you spot bird-like features, making them resemble albatross, doves, and barn owls.

As the harlequins engage with patrons, they are friendly and warm, funny and charming in each their own way. But the longer they talk, they always seem to land on the same subject after a while. “What’s your fondest dream?” “What’s your dearest desire?” “What do you want most in the world?”

It’s a big question. But should you answer it earnestly, you may find that a woman in gold, with skin the color of plaster and a pink spider-lily pinning back her alabaster hair, is listening in. Her rose-colored eyes watch you intently.

When you leave the tent, you may emerge into a place other than the festival grounds, but into a strange fairytale dream, born of your longing--- or that of another. But be careful what you wish for. Fairies are known to be very literal.

The Hall of Petrichor

The final performance space is that of the stone temple. Passing through the doors doesn’t lead to any sort of strange other world or impossibly large space. It is honest. It leads to a ruin.

Within the temple, there are mossy pews whose once-detailed carvings have been eroded by rainwater. Old, dilapidated wooden rafters are rotted away and filled with holes made by termites and mycelium. Moss and blue milk-caps dot the less-rotten wood of the floors. Blue oysters make shelves of themselves along the worn walls. And all the while, rain drip-drip-drips into the holes in the ceilings.

Like clockwork, every other hour, a myconid-like fairy with tattered black dragonfly wings and a cap dripping black ink onto the floor comes onto the stage where an altar might once have stood, and announces that a new performance is about to begin. She welcomes you, placidly but politely, to the freak show.

Whatever you are expecting from a freak show--- perhaps a grotesque display of ableism with a vaudeville twist, or a demonstration of talent put on by odd-looking but charming, skilled people--- this is not it. Instead, the creatures before you are the most uncanny of fae folk. The kind whose bodies are made of the ancient, unkillable, flexible and strange matter that we know as fungus.

A pale ballerina whose honeycombed body perpetually leaks globs of thick, blood-like, syrupy fluid dances across the stage, arching her body in ways that look painful and squeezing more red sap onto the stage. A being with a body half-consumed by decomposers, ribs exposed but with very little organ matter to show for it, with chanterelles composing half their head shuffles through. A pair of legs supports two arching bodies which form a u-shape, with long arms whose slender blue-green claws drag the ground and whose shoulders give way to blue oyster mushrooms where heads should be. (But they still have eyes between the tongues of mycelium by which to look at you, of course.) And finally, a massive, regal figure whose head is a large mushroom, with ribbed gills up their “neck” and over their “face”, sporting a frilled teal cap and tattered robes, from whose sleeves a pair of skeletal arms emerges. This last being, impossibly tall, is once again joined by their ink-capped friend who introduced the show. She bows, and thanks you once again for attending. “We thank you for your attendance, on behalf of Regent Copricus,” she says, before exiting with the regal figure.

Despite the frightful nature of the performance, this one ends without actually trying to harm you. But this does nothing to diminish the fantastical terrors you’ve seen. You surely won’t forget the sights you’ve witnessed for a long time. How could you? You’ll see them on the backs of your eyelids every time you try to sleep.