Strings Attached
Synopsis: Travel nurse Marinette Dupre comes to Greyford expecting long shifts, bad coffee, and keeping an eye on her younger sister during a gap year.
What she gets instead is a traveling circus that arrived overnight, strange tickets that grant "special admission," and a silent performer in a porcelain mask who keeps appearing wherever she goes.
Mari tells herself she's being paranoid. About the bells she hears every night; or the figure in the mask she sees at every corner; or the people that are going missing around her.
Until her sister takes a pink ticket admission to the circus. And never comes back.
A/N and potential triggers: Hi, I fell in love with this VN recently and decided to do my own little work on it. Below is the first chapter of something I'm working on called 'Strings Attached’. There will be more chapters on my AO3 after I finish the first act. But, if you're interested, then I hope you stick around! This chapter includes fear, mentions of kidnapping, strong language, and unseen violence, and mentions of drunkenness. Хохо
The Freak Circus is a 18+ VN. So minors DNI.
Word count: 5k+
The morning air in Greyford had that charming ‘fish guts meets burnt sugar’ aroma that made her question every decision that led her to walk along the brick road closest to Greyford General Hospital from her rental. Her toes were frozen in her sensible sneakers as they slapped against the pavement. It was autumn, and while the trees and shrubbery had clearly gotten the memo, displaying beautiful rusted shades of gold and red that gathered near her feet and crunched wonderfully under her shoes. The air certainly had not gotten the message. Choosing to freeze instead of cool, biting at the skin of her face with unnecessary enthusiasm.
She assumed she bore more of a resemblance to a red-nosed clown than an actual human nurse heading to her morning shift.
Though she could have looked at her reflection in the passing, almost depressingly empty store windows as she passed them, she actively chose not to. Because she would only see her brown curls shoved into a messed bun on top of her head, her glasses perched high on her button nose, and her plump body squeezed into the royal blue scrubs her agency provided. Scrubs that she insisted were too small for her.
And, if she were to catch the sight of the bags under her brown eyes she would simply turn back around. And go back to bed.
This morning wouldn’t be so rough on her already, if she had actually slept the night before. And she fully blamed her temporary home for her lack of sleep.
The rental the nursing agency had given her was small, minimalistic with the few things that Mari could provide on her meager salary inside of it–which was mostly books, the odd thrift store furniture, and the clothes that had taken forever to ship from America. Still she resisted the urge to put too much in that shoebox apartment. She didn’t want to get used to the thin walls. The screaming couple in the apartment next to hers. Or, the noises at night.
All people from all walks of life seemed to live in her building. Early twenties. Late fifties. College-aged. Retirement-age. Loud at all hours of the night. Their screams or moans were predictable. Acceptable, even. The price of living in an apartment complex with twenty other families. She expected that. She expected car horns, televisions turned too loud at three in the morning, the thud of someone dropping something heavy upstairs, followed by angry cursing when that heavy thing fell on someone’s foot.
She didn’t expect the bells.
Last night she had been staring at her ceiling. Thinking, as her eyes traced shapes in the popcorn molding above her head, while the moonlight flickered through the trees, casting shadows over her comforter through the thin curtains.
Her thoughts wandered, like they tended to do, to Becky. Taking a gap year from college. Adventurous. And, a current pain in Mari’s ass. Becky, who was under the impression that life was a walking rom-com, or dating simulator. Becky, who’s current ambition was to see how many Canadian boys she could get into the sack. Becky, Mari’s only living family, and the only reason Mari was in Canada of all places right now, and taking a stupid travel contact so that she could keep an eye on her sister as she stayed in this country for the year.
Last night, while begrudgingly awake, Mari had been rehearsing how to bring up birth control to Becky, and how it was not, in fact, protection from STDs. While also trying to figure out how to not sound overbearing while bringing it up.
Then she heard it. That same noise that had been keeping her awake for the last few nights. Finding that she had been awake mostly because she was listening for it, and still hoping it wouldn’t come.
A soft jingle-jingle-tink. The hollow sound of crotal bells that reminded her of Christmas. Of a Santa Claus hat perched on a head; or bells attached to a reindeer’s harness. The sound itself should have been joyful. If not for the footsteps that followed.
Not heavy. Not the large, thumping sounds of a predator. Just the leisurely stroll of someone big, and unhurried.
A jarring step-tink-step-jingle that she would hear walk around outside, through the apartment complex's glass doors, then climbing up the building's steps.
The closer it got, it sounded less like steps, less like jingling-bells, and more like church bells tolling inside of her skull. Right in time with the pulse in her forehead, as she white-knuckled the comforter in her hands.
It was ridiculous. The bells were probably attached to someone’s bag. A grandmother with a sentimental keychain. A student with decorative nonsense clipped to a backpack after a late-night study session.
But, Mari couldn’t stop staring at her bedroom door every night since she first heard the bells. Couldn’t stop watching the thin slash of hallway light she deliberately left on each night, waiting to see if a shadow would cut across it. Imagining every night that she could hear the figure entering her apartment, coming through her living room, then stopping right outside her bedroom door.
Logic screamed out explanations. Stating that it was paranoia. Lack of sleep. But, the physical symptoms of her fear. The cold sweat on her face would speak otherwise.
And it told her that there was nothing normal about those noises.
The noises never stopped near her apartment door, though. The sounds would continue down the hall. Or up the stairs. And, in the end she would hear an apartment door open somewhere in the building. Then close. The bell-wearing person descending down the apartment stairs, right back from where they came. And finally fading away down the street. But, she swore she could hear the sounds of softer, lighter feet padding behind the larger footed steps as soon as she heard an apartment door slam shut. Walking steadily behind the mysterious figure and into the darkness of a Greyford night.
She had every opportunity to part the curtains and watch the bell-cladded person leave. To see if this jingling weirdo was all a figment of her imagination. But, much like how she could have called the police every night this happened. She always decided against it. Her fear deciding it was best not ever knowing.
What would she even tell the police?
‘Hello, officer, I would like to report festive footsteps.’ Mari had a feeling that wouldn’t have gone over very well. Even though her mind prickled at the inaction she was taking.
Especially after hearing every night since the first ring of those hollow bells, one person entering, and two people leaving.
But, she hadn’t noticed any police coming around. No patrol cars. No whispered hallway conversations. No missing-person flyers taped to doors. Someone braver, or nosier, than she would have said something by now. Said something about the bells they could hear at night.
So it was fine. It had to be. It all must just have been a product of her sleep-deprived mind.
Grunting, she quickened her pace, tucking last night’s fear, and this morning’s delusion away for the moment, her tote heavy on her shoulder. The weight digging into the socket where her arm met her torso. Leaving her questioning for the millionth time in her career, if she really needed this many snacks for a twelve-hour shift. Or the steel tumbler hooked in her fingers.
“Hey, get out of here, weirdo!” A voice, gruff, and grating against her ears made her stop dead in the middle of the sidewalk, listening to the thump of what could only be a body hitting the ground—and the sound of bells. “Ever since you guys showed up, people have been disappearing! Go back to whatever hellhole you crawled out of!”
The shouting grew louder as she rounded the corner of the block. Her temporary paralysis was forgotten, as her feet moved on their own, either from muscle memory, or to find the source of the fight. Her head peaking around the abandoned hair salon at the corner with the fading barber pole at the end of the block, her bag automatically slipping off her shoulder, and dropping to the concrete as she gaped at the sight before her.
Around the bend, in front of her was one of her neighbors. Standing in the middle of the sidewalk over a person he had seemingly back-handed to the ground.
She didn’t know his name, and honestly had never cared to learn it. He lived above her; they crossed paths every morning leaving the building. His eyes, normally dulled by booze, were as hard as flint now as he glared down at the person on the cracked sidewalk, still screaming obscenities while kicking a scattered pile of flyers into the sewer drain.
But, Mari’s gaze wasn’t on him. It was on the person currently getting verbally berated by her neighbor, their gangly limbs between their knees. Shoulders rounded. Silent. Not even flinching away from the man’s tirade.
The person—the jester—she decided, wore a large red and black cap. Separated into three drooping points, adorned with the similar bells that had been haunting her sleepless nights. A black and yellow ruffle framed their neck. Their torso was wrapped in a red-and-black fitted top with puffed sleeves and corset-like lacing down the center, layered beneath a short red, and black coat piece, tied by a yellow sash. Finishing off with the jester puff-pants, and black boots.
The costume was odd, of course it was. They were a slash of color on a dull sidewalk. A unique, elegant circus piece in a bleak town.
Mari blinked, once, the whole scene freezing her before she rushed forward. Her bag left behind. Her tumbler was still hooked in her fingers. Planting herself between her neighbor and the figure huddled near her feet, arms out in reflexive protection, voice snapping upward towards her neighbor. “What the fuck is wrong with you? Why are you knocking around this poor person?”
Her eyes dropped to the flyers her neighbor was kicking into the storm drain. Noticing the simple black-and-white sheets with a circus tent printed at the top.
Right. The circus was in town. Right across the river on the old fairgrounds. She saw these flyers all over the entrance of her hospital and apparently blocked it out.
She even heard some of her coworkers talking about going after their shift yesterday. An outing that Mari politely declined when she was asked about it. Stating that she would be too tired to go by then.
In reality. She refused because she can’t stand clowns. Normally, darting away if she even made eye contact with one. And avoiding all events that would have a clown in the immediate vicinity of her.
Which was odd that she was protecting a person who was effectively a clown. But, biases and fear be damned when a person is being bullied.
Then a thought hits her.
The bells near, and inside the apartment building must have belonged to one of these jesters passing flyers around town. Maybe one lived in her building, having a temporary position with the circus while in town. Or they were visiting someone there late at night.
Mari might have felt relief at that realization, at the collapse of her midnight paranoia, if she hadn’t been glaring daggers at her neighbor.
“You asshole. This person is just doing their job.” She gave a warning hiss. Her arm shifted slightly back, shielding the jester more fully. “You don’t get to hurt people for doing their job.”
The man barked a humorless laugh that sent spittle flying to her cheek.
“Job?” he sneered, jerking a thumb toward the figure behind her. “Costume-wearing freaks like this thing have been skulking around buildings at night. You know that, missy? Bells jingling at odd hours. Creeping around people’s doors. Folks don’t like it.”
Mari’s sneer deepened, though her mind gave a victorious little vindicated ‘whoop!’
That confirmed it. The festive footsteps were a community experience, not just a solitary delusion. Frankly, with this news, she could have bent down and kissed this creepy little jester for validating her sanity.
She forced her shoulders up a little higher, her fingers tightening around the handle of her tumbler—a silent promise that she would knock this man upside the head with the steel container in one satisfying, hollow thud if he stepped closer. “Are you a detective? Are you with the police? Because from the stain on your shirt and the liquor on your breath, I would say not.”
The man’s face darkened. “Are you callin’ me a—”
“Yes,” she cut in flatly. “I am. But let’s use our critical thinking skills for a moment. There is a circus in town. We’ve noticed jesters passing out flyers for said circus. That obviously means they’re responsible for people going missing—which I haven’t heard or seen until you started yelling—and not, you know, marketing their circus so their families can eat.”
She didn’t say that she, for a moment, believed people were going missing when she heard another set of footsteps leave with the bells at nights. But, she now knew how ridiculous that sounded.
Three people going missing in the same building, one for each night she heard the bells, and the police weren’t knocking on everyone’s doors and demanding answers? It didn’t add up. So, it most likely didn’t happen the way this man thinks.
She would also rather die than concede to any point with an angry, violent drunk when he’s beating up on weirdly dressed people on the street.
There was a beat of silence after her cool, sarcastic reply to the man, his mouth opening and closing, trying to find a response in his building indignation before he suddenly roared. “People are going missing!”
“And you have no proof this person is involved,” she snapped back. “You assaulted someone based on an assumption, based on their appearance. By all means, though, call the police. Report them for suspected kidnapping. Let’s see which one they cart away first: the drunk screaming in the street, or the circus worker doing their job.”
Her neighbor’s face paled at the mention of the police. A muscle ticked in his jaw, and she nearly preened at the sight. Men always seemed to fold the second consequences entered the conversation.
“Bitch,” he growled. “Hope that freak gets you next.”
He stalked off, still grumbling. Mari watching him as he rounded the corner and disappeared completely down the street. Only then did she exhale slowly and allow herself a small, victorious smile. “That’s what I thought.”
Only then did she turn towards the jester.
Half-expecting the jester to have vanished while she’d been posturing like a caffeine-powered, sleep-deprived superhero. Their self preservation most likely winning-out over marketing when two strangers started fighting over them. One coming to their defense with righteous fury fueling her; and the other fueled by alcohol, bias, and bad choices.
She wouldn’t have blamed them if they did leave.
But when her eyes met theirs, she found that they hadn’t moved even an inch.
He—because she decided suddenly, without asking, that the jester was male—was still sitting where she had left him. Arms folded loosely between his knees. Long limbs gathered inward as if trying to occupy less space than he physically required. The bells of his cap, longer than she’d first realized, draped down his back, silent. The front of his long, silvery hair spilled from beneath the cap, falling over his shoulders and chest in mussed waves from his one-sided skirmish.
Mari had the sudden, entirely unhelpful thought that he must be beautiful beneath that costume. Beneath that mask.
Which was a mask, not the face paint she initially guessed when she first looked at him. The surface was too smooth. Too white on the simple porcelain to be a real face.
The design of it is more basic than what she would have guessed for a clown to choose. Not the over-the-top painted exaggeration of emotions she had known that circus performers preferred. Just two black slashes across both eyes. A painted tear. And a carved grin.
Though she was sure that when she rushed over to shield him, that mouth on his mask was downcast, giving a soft frown. Now it was unmistakably smiling.
She frowned faintly. The mask couldn’t have emote. It was a mask. The smile is supposed to be still; unmoving on the hard surface.
The adrenaline from her hero act must have made her imagine things that weren’t there.
Though the bloom of red along the left side of the mask’s cheek was there. A smear of blood perhaps from her neighbor’s hand when he hit him? Or, maybe the jester was hurt in other places that Mari couldn't see and was smearing his own blood on the mask by accident?
She winced sympathetically, if only she had made it out of her apartment a little faster, she maybe could have stopped the assault all together.
“What a bastard.” She hissed, her victory over the drunk, and the concern for the man at her feet transforming back into the same justified anger that had propelled her forward to defend the jester.
She began digging in her scrub pockets.
Mari had been carrying a personal first-aid kit in her pockets since she was twenty-one, when she first became a nurse. And now, she needed a bandaid, maybe gauze, maybe a flush of saline to clean any debris he had in any wounds that monster had given him.
Mari’s fingers probed inside. Finding alcohol pads. Gauze pads. A penlight. A saline flush. A granola bar of questionable origin.
Finally, her fingers brushed against a band-aid. It might be all she needs for now until she can see the damage. But, she hoped for the drunkard’s sake that the jester didn't have any wounds.
Or, she was going to have strong words to say to the building manager later for allowing violent tenants to live on his property.
She pulled it free, discovering a small, pink bandage with a kitten head in the center. She must have swiped it from pediatrics when she floated there earlier that week.
Giving a weary sigh, she held it out for him to see. The jester still hadn’t moved. Hadn’t even reacted to the absurdity of the girlish supplies she had in her magical scrub pockets. Not even his wide eyes—bright yellow irises within a sea of black sclera—blinked at her.
Contacts, she assumed. They had to be.
“Sorry,” she said dryly. “I know it doesn’t fit your aesthetic very well. But needs must when the devil drives, you know? But, hopefully, it's all you need. Let’s take a look under that mask, though, and see the damage. He probably got you good under there.”
Her free hand moved to lift the corner of his mask up, and his whole body stiffened. Not in aggression. Not in preparation to flee. But in the stillness of someone who expected another blow.
Her heart gave a painful lurch. The urge to kneel and wrap him in a fierce, protective hug nearly overwhelmed her. She almost did it. But she was reasonably certain surprise hugs from strange women ranked high on the ‘make everything worse’ scale.
“I’m so sorry,” she said softly. “You just got your lights nearly knocked out by a walking, talking, failing breathalyzer test, and I’m coming at you right after it happened.”
She withdrew her hand and slowly lowered herself to her haunches so her face was level with his. Her smile was gentler now.
“It’s just a bandage,” she said, holding it up at a respectful distance. “You can take it if you want. Or, I can give you more supplies than that if you’re hurt elsewhere. I’ll even take you to the hospital. I won’t ask you to remove your mask for me if you’re uncomfortable.”
His head tilted. The bells gave a soft, thoughtful jingle, and she could have sworn that the carved grin on his mask softened at the edges. Warmer. Touched.
But, before she could address the hallucination in her mind of his carved smile moving again. His hand reached out. His black gloves stretched over large, nimble fingers. The leather pulled tight over nails sharp enough that they almost looked like claws underneath the fabric.
His glove grazed her skin as he took it from her. Making her breath hitch at the sudden, smooth warmth of the material. His touch lingering, before he pulled away and peeled the backing from the bandage with careful precision and pressed it directly onto the red mark on his mask.
Tilting his head, the bells of his hat giving a playful jingle as his yellow eyes watched her. Like he was waiting for her approval.
Mari made a strangled noise somewhere between a cough and a laugh and covered her mouth with her hand before it escaped. “T-that’s one way to do it,” she managed. “Who says bandages can’t go on masks?”
The bells chimed softly. His shoulders shaking in silent laughter. Pleased.
They stayed like that on the ground for a long moment, her on her haunches, him with his arms between his knees. Watching her with an intensity that made her skin prickle with awareness. Thankfully, her thighs started to burn uncomfortably from the position, and she got up, stretching and popping her knees as she stood to her full height.
“Well,” She began, holding her hand out to help him up. “I suppose we should stand and introduce ourselves like normal humans who just bonded over an assault.”
His hand rose again. Nearly shooting out to grab her hand, that carved smile widening like he was excited at the prospect of touching her once more.
And there it was, his smile changing again. But, this time she chose to accept it, rather than linger on it. It was probably some odd form pareidolia affecting how she was seeing the mask. But, instead of faces in the clouds, she was imagining the face of his mask changing slightly.
Either that, or she was hallucinating, and these were the first signs of schizophrenia affecting her brain.
And, she decided, she didn’t have time to unpack that right now.
She pulled his hand, and his body unfolded with the grace she didn’t expect for a man who had spent the majority of their first meeting on the dirty concrete next to a pile of sad, wet, circus flyers.
Mari looked up at him–and up some more—her mouth making a surprised ‘O’ as he just kept unfolding.
The jester was standing at an intimidating six-foot-six compared to her five-foot-nine, not so short that it hurt to look at him, with her head barely reaching his chin, but enough to make her blink—she doesn’t think she ever met a man in her life that didn’t rise above six-foot-two. Hell, she was the one that towered over the majority of her short stack family.
It was actually a welcome surprise to be looking this far up at someone for a change—though he was standing far too close. Giving her whiffs of old leather, and that same burnt sugar smell she has been smelling since this morning from his clothes.
That explained the smell that had been sticking to Greyford. A combination of the circus’ burning sugar from their several confections they were probably selling at the old fairgrounds.
And the smell of fish guts sticking to the air was probably near the docks from the town's main export: fishing.
Though—she found she didn't dislike the jester’s smell.
“Someone’s been drinking their milk.” She tittered nervously, backing up a step. Telling her mind it was due to being too close than socially acceptable. But, mostly so that she wouldn’t get the urge to sniff him weirdly like a dog.
His hand did not release hers, though. In fact, he was staring at his larger hand wrapped around her own. Like, he was remembering how fragile bones are under his huge palm, and was deciding how much pressure to apply. Which was probably a normal occurrence for a man his size.
She imagined he had to duck under a lot of doorways in his life. And probably smacked his noggin’ on them even more times than he would admit.
Mari let out a puff of air that could have been a laugh, and shook his hand once. “I’m Marinette Dupre—Mari.”
She waited, letting him hold her hand. Pretending she didn't enjoy this brief warm contact in the frigid air. “And you are–?”
The jester let her go, his movements slow, almost reluctant as he looked around. His yellow eyes looked at the people passing by the street. A woman walking her yapping dog on a leash. A dad pushing his baby in a stroller. Two college kids with brightly colored backpacks, and coffee in their hands. All glancing at the chubby nurse talking to the tall, overly dressed circus employee on the street before going about their business.
He shook his head.
“Oh.” She said. “Are you mute? Nonverbal? I know some sign language if you–”
The bells of his hat moved with him as he shook his head again. His fingers making a zipping motion across his mask’s smile, then making a theatrical flourish with that same hand.
Understanding dawned. “Oh! It's a part of your act! You’re like a–”
One of her hands made circles in the air, searching for the word, her mind only supplying the word ‘mime’. But, that didn’t feel right. His costume was too extravagant. Too similar to a jester or a harlequin to be a modern mime.
Mari looked him up and down. Seeing the tear on his mask, and the silence of his act, then clapped her hands together once in excited realization. A broad smile growing on her face. “I got it! You’re a Pierrot! I may not dig clowns much–they kinda give me the creeps. But, I love Pierrots! They are symbols of the disenfranchised. Observers of the human condition. Sorrowful performers that all men can connect to–it suits you.”
For a moment, nothing happened. Her beaming smile faltered, falling slightly on her face.
Was that a lot of information to throw at him at once?
Mari’s knowledge was a mix-match of weird factoids, and odd points in history. But, at one point, to help her get over her fear of clowns, she did research on the history of circuses and clowns.
Like when a person has a fear of spiders, and goes on a deep-dive of species of spiders to alleviate their fear.
The research ending with her falling down the rabbit hole of pantomime and commedia dell’arte. Practically falling in love with Pierrots, adoring their symbolism in history, and feeling their heartbreak when they fall in love with their Columbine in the theaters.
Turning the sad little clowns into the only clown she could tolerate. That explained why she was standing here, letting this performer shake her hand, and stand over her. And not running for the hills like with every other clown she would come across.
Though she couldn’t explain why his costume was so—different from the normal white duds a Pierrot wears. Maybe his circus decided to modernize his look.
But, she was certain that he is a Pierrot. She felt it in her bones that it was true.
Still, she wallowed in her awkwardness for that single beat of a moment, wishing she could learn that not every thought and strange fact had to be voiced to a perfect stranger.
Then the bells gave a tiny, tremulous jingle. Summoning her attention again, her eyes meeting his wide yellow ones.
His breath hitched as their eyes met. His shoulders drew in slightly like he was trying to keep something massive, and fragile inside of his chest. His gloved hands clenching, and unclenching at his sides like he was trying to stop himself from reaching for her.
It appeared, from his reaction, she hit the nail right on the head.
And though his grin remained unchanged on his face–something pink exploded faintly on the white surface of his mask, just under the kitten bandage. Different from the questionable red mark left by her neighbor.
This new mark on him was warmer. Like heat painting across a person’s cheeks in a deep flush.
Okay, maybe she really was hallucinating. Because now instead of seeing small changes for his smile. She was seeing ceramic actually blushing at her.
“I-I guess I got it right, huh?” She stuttered up at him.
The Pierrot gave an empathic nod of his head, before giving a theatrical bow just for her. A move that said: ‘I am Pierrot.’ Pulling a chuckle from her lips, despite the weirdness of the interaction.
Right up until the ringing in her pocket broke the bubble between them, and sent her free-falling back to reality.
Cursing, she fumbled for her phone, grabbing it by its star-shaped phone grip on the back (a gift from Becky), and turned her alarm off.
For each shift she set up three alarms. One to wake her up; one as an emergency to go off ten minutes later if the first one didn’t wake her from her deep slumber; and a final one to alert that she’s supposed to be clocking in to work now.
The third alarm was the one she just turned off.
Mari’s feet moved to her abandoned tote from where she dropped it earlier, throwing it back on her shoulder with a grunt. Her movements panicked as she rushed to make sure everything was still inside. Afraid that someone could have pocketed her things while she was distracted with the Pierrot.
Inside was still everything how she had left it: wallet, keys, pens, notebooks, and most importantly—snacks.
She nearly made a run for it down her original path. Anxiety kicking at her heels for committing one of her personal cardinal sins she never wished to make. Being late.
Then, she noticed the Pierrot. Forgetting about him for a moment in her haste.
Mari paused beside him. Smiling warmly up at him despite the panic of being late thrumming in her veins. Her mind supplied for the first time ever in her life that being late didn’t matter.
What mattered was saying goodbye to this odd Pierrot on the street. “Well, Pierrot. I got to work. Don’t want us both getting in trouble by lolly-gagging with each other all day.”
She gave him a theatrical little curtsy that felt silly and oddly appropriate for his profession. “Hopefully the next time I see you, it won’t be helping you off the ground. Goodbye, my Pierrot.”
Mari didn’t know why she said that. She easily could have said ‘Mr. Pierrot’, or just ‘Pierrot’. But, she chose ‘my Pierrot’ and wasn’t gonna correct it.
Bending down, she handed him the unruined flyers from around the gutter, taking one for herself, not because she wanted to go—clowns were still not her thing, and a circus was basically a guarantee that she would see a real one in the wild—But, because it was a part of his job for her to have one.
Meeting his eyes once more, she smiled, and walked around him to follow her original path to Greyford General. Already formulating excuses as to why she was late for the morning huddle, and her patient reports from night shift.
Mari, not feeling his gaze in between her shoulder blades, kept walking at a speed-walking pace. Too lost in her upcoming shift to feel the heavy, constant weight of his yellow eyes. Unaware that he was tracking her movement. Making sure she was real.
Not seeing his widening grin as she rounded the next corner, or seeing the blush on his porcelain mask covering the whole surface. And, certainly not hearing the bells of his hat as he followed behind.
