[b]"I don't want to perform."[/b]

The woman was sprawled in the midst of four jet-black horses, all lying around her protectively, all exactly the same with bright, violet eyes to suit their mistress. She was wearing a costume, yes - a black lace dress, an elaborate headpiece to look like a skull...but she was spread out in the sand of the second-largest tent, the rows upon rows on empty chairs boxing her in. [b]"I don't want to perform,"[/b] she pleaded to the grey canvas roof, her only light was the artificial glow of the rest of the circus. It reached out to her, reminding her sickeningly of her new duty.

One of the horses nudged her tenderly, and the woman slowly and painfully got to her feet. Each horse was bare, but the coats shone with the amount of care that their mistress placed into them, making them spotless. The only change was their faces, for each had a different mask of paint upon them. The woman strode over to the light box, and choked out a couple of bitter sobs. [b]"I d-don't want to,"[/b] she moaned, hands shaking. She shoved the plunger on the box like it said something offensive to her and the horses moved backstage obediently, leaving a large ring of sand and no sign of life as the woman sat with her horses behind the curtain.

This wasn't the first time Diedra had crumbled a little before her stage performance, but she never permitted herself to cry in public, or show any signs of discomfort. Holding her shaking palms face-up to the sky, she stared at her wrists and, like she always did before a performance, focused hard and almost [i]felt[/i] the metal shackles cutting away at her freedom. Her horses watched on in silence, resonating with the despair of their mistress, swaying a little as Diedra held her hands to the sky in a pleading motion. She prayed to long forgotten deities, the ones who were only alive because of her unflinching devotion, for salvation on her cursed form.

When nothing happened, the silence rung through the tent with the murmur of curious voices becoming as monotonous as the colour scheme. Then loud, carousel music boomed out of the speakers and Diedra climbed onto one of her horses, murmuring a call of good-luck. They all snorted comfortably in response, and trotted out onto the stage.

Diedra heard her own voice call out passionately over the music, from the speaker-boxes on the top of the tent. [b][i]"Have you ever wondered what would happen if, in the sands of time, the four horsemen fell off their rotting steeds and succumbed to death?"[/i][/b] she seemed to ask the audience, as the four horses trotted in a wide circle around the ring. Diedra stood up on one of their backs, head in her hands, a look of theatrical self-loathing emanating from her person. [b][i]"What would become of their cursed beasts, where would they be forced to wander? Surely, you didn't think that a beast stronger and faster than a man could simply die with their owner?"[/i][/b] said the voice, as the four horse stopped at each corner of the stage. Diedra climbed forward, balancing on the horse's neck, and then on her head. She spread her arms out wide as the music swelled to a manic degree, before shrieking [b]"NO! THEY FIND A NEW MASTER TO FOLLOW, ONE STRONGER THAN THE APOCALYPSE COMBINED, AND OLDER THAN TIME ITSELF!"[/b]

Diedra broke off into loud, powerful laughter as the four horses reached in the air, keeping perfect balance before slipping off her mount and allowing them to continue the show. They were, at the very least, well-trained; they could jump through hoops, and even go so far as to stand on one another's backs whilst cantering around the sandy ring. Some of them did somersaults whilst the others demonstrated their strength, kicking 'rocks' into dusty gravel, neighing manically. Diedra herself was never still, either; when she wasn't dragging out new props for the horses to act, some of the horses would spontaneously act, grabbing her costume in their powerful jaws and flinging her into the air, only to land on another's back and be whisked around the stage. The roar of the crowd added to the constant blare of the music as her audience became more and more excited, At the finale, the horse performed a spectacular feat of charging through flames one after the other, towards the audience, before reading and slamming their hooves down on the barriers, causing the families bundled against it to shriek and fall back. Then, the music dropped to lower degrees of fury, before eventually calming down completely.

Diedra never created an 'end' for her acts, she never stopped the music from playing as she walked off, four horses in tow. Confused, the audience sat eagerly awaiting one final encore, but when they realised that the performance was over, they slowly started to file out of the tent. Diedra shrugged off her costume, and washed the horse's bodies with clean water before setting them loose upon the entirety of the circus. Some of the spectators from her previous show shrieked with surprise as the four black horses pounded across the circus, weaving between people, neighing and whinnying loudly as they ran laps around the tents.

A few minutes later, Diedra appeared at the curtains to Caius' tent, smiling wearily whilst wearing an arabian belly-dancing dress, her hair adorned with beads; a far call from the tight lace number she had on just a few moments before. It looked like she was trying to fit into Caius' décor, perhaps solely with the purpose of being able to sneak in during opening hours and hide out in the tent before her next show. [b]"Caius,"[/b] crooned the woman, not waiting for an answer as she sauntered into the tent and sat down on the floor instead of the chair. [b]"My babies are stretching their legs, and I grow lonely in that big tent on my own. I hope you don't mind if I sit and look pretty during your acts..."[/b]