A flicker of luminescence, seeming to float like a full moon, illuminating a starkly beautiful face, before guttering out. A crystalline orb thumped heavily against the grassy ground, lost but for the true full moon casting a borrowed light upon the world. The owner of the face sighed tiredly, and scooped up the faintly shimmering crystal ball with one foreclaw. Depositing it as carefully as she could in her sashes, Mizuki turned her gaze up to the moon.
There were no two ways about it. She was losing her touch. Not practicing and not performing her little show, with its juggling and illusions, was taking its toll. Not that it mattered. Cirque Lunaire had fallen apart. No gawking crowds of Soquili and familiars to entertain with her routine of tricks and misdirection. No comforting, joking family of creatures to travel with, finding new audiences just over the next horizon. If Mizuki were the drinking sort, the dull loneliness of it all might drive her to drink. As it was, Mizuki would be happy enough to even have someone to talk to, to share her stories and her performances with.
She’d never realized how much the carnival had meant to her until it had fallen apart. At least Cirque Lunaire hadn’t undergone a violent breakup. The members had just scattered to the winds and lost touch with each other. Mizuki didn’t entirely blame them. They’d been older, for the most part, and some had had families in distant parts that they wished to spend more time with. Others had left for other sorts of personal reasons. In the end, the last few troupe members had finished the show one night, and just decided to never reopen. At first, Mizuki had been glad of the vacation, fine with being on her own. Trained from foalhood to be the next Ringmaster, she had never just been a pretty face; a competent fighter in her own right, able to use her “pole”, Moonbeam, as a weapon, and a magician with crystal balls, versatile, strong, clever, charismatic. The ideal Ringmaster, as far as the previous Ringmaster had been concerned, pushed single-mindedly into the role. Mizuki hadn’t been sure what she would have preferred, possibly something more acrobatic, but now…she even missed the patter of a skilled Ringmaster, both the center of attention, and merely a gracious emcee and hostess. It had actually been sort of natural to perform, once she started. Even fun.
Mizuki reached back and took Moonbeam in her muzzle. Taking a deep breath, closing her eyes, she found her center. Combat forms flowed smoothly through her, swipes, bashes, claws, kicks. Mizuki growled irritatedly. Stiff, slow. Still out of practice. Finishing with a flourish, she set Moonbeam back into its holster, looking for all the world like a carousel pole, unaware that she might have any audience.