Red and gold

Colette crossed her arms, the clinking of churning gears a familiar and comforting sound in the air. Her hair drifted in the stiff breeze, and she pushed at it with a resigned sigh. Performing for a king. They would soon be performing for a king.

For a king.

Damn Asmodeus. Damn Cirque--Damn Jacque. Colette scowled, narrowing her eyes against the sunlight. As the rising tent was buffeted by the wind, the familiar smacking sound of flapping canvas took her back to earlier years.

Her brother, known to the Hirondelle as only Alphonse, was bouncing on a small trampoline, doing backflips as easily as a bird takes to the air. Colette, all of twelve years old, had been fiddling with some hemming at the time, her stitches crooked and uncontrolled as the wind-whipped flags that circled the camp perimeter.

Auréle--no, Alphonse, she reminded herself. She'd never get used to the peculiar name--flipped neatly from the trampoline and walked over to Colette, his breaths coming in huffs, his cheeks flushed and his eyes sparkling. The heavy tent fabric moved overhead as the wind tugged with greedy fingers at its fastenings; the canvas let streaks of sunlight through, but they were painted in bright colours by the dyes and pigments that soaked the canvas. The scent of sawdust prickled at Colette's throat.

"Hyacinth," Auréle said, a note of disdain in his voice. "What on earth is THAT."

Colette frowned up at her twin. "A jacket."

Auréle only cocked an eyebrow. "Suuuuure."

Colette scowled, ducked her head, and resumed her uncoordinated stitches.

"Here," Auréle said, sighing. He took the cloth from her protesting fingers, and the needle darted in and out of the cloth, neat stitches lining up behind the flashing steel like a row of determined ants at a picnic. He dropped the finished piece into her lap, and the contrast between their handiwork was as evident as black birds against a thin grey sky.

A shadow fell over Colette, and she looked up to see Jacque's smiling face. "Teaching your brother to sew, Hyacinth?"

Colette's lips pursed at the show-name, and she shook her head. "He's teaching me."

"How... nice." Jacque's face changed to an expression Colette couldn't easily read. "Alphonse, come with me. We have real work to attend." Colette frowned at the thinly veiled insult, and was about to respond when her brother stifled her with a swift jab of the needle. She locked her jaw and looked down as Alphonse--not Auréle, her sweet brother--rose immediately and stalked away, his stride matching Jacque's, step for step, contempt radiating from the smug tilt of his head. A mirror image of the ringmaster.

The tent snapped with sound and Tom Sry cried out. "Steady boys!"

Colette's mind whipped back to the present as if blown by a stiff breeze. She blinked, and turned slightly. Marie had materialized at her elbow, and the ringmaster was taken back for a moment. What a kind young thing the acrobat was--if a little clumsy with youth. How akin to looking into a mirror--but no. Things had changed. Colette was different now. No longer an awkward, scared little rabbit, but a ringmaster in her own right. In control.

Of course.

She spoke smilingly to the trapeze-tumbler. "Marie. How good of you to appear just as I needed you--today is going to be a handful. What have you been up to--have you any word for me?"

Marie extended an envelope addressed in a delicate hand, the seal broken and the paper torn open. Colette gave the girl an arch look. "Not only delivering my mail but reading it as well, now?"

"I couldn't read it, sir." Marie didn't seem at all upset to be caught snooping.

Colette skimmed the letter, and then swore. Marie looked up, bouncing anxiously from foot to foot. "What is it? Are we in trouble again?"

Colette stuffed the envelope into a pocket unceremoniously. "We're not. Except for Asmodeus. He's in BIG trouble."

Marie's mouth dropped open. "With the prince??"

Colette stalked away. "With me. It's his fault we're in this mess!" She rambled on as she stormed towards her cabin, swearing impressively in a mix of French and German at the small crew that approached her with a question or two. The little group, hurried away by the ringmaster's barking orders, withdrew, and Marie approached them hesitantly.

"What's all that about, then?" She asked one of the men, who rolled his eyes. "Something about dinner and all her clothes having been on fire. I don't see what the big deal is."

Marie understood immediately, though, flashing back to the boy in the kitchen with the overlarge pretzel dangling from his mouth. "Oh, my lord! The circus is having dinner with the king!"

She did a merry cartwheel, and disappeared from view.

The man rolled his eyes again, throwing his hands up in exasperation. "Women."

One of his companions clapped him on the shoulder. "Nah. Circus women. It's them that's the worst."

Such wise words could be contested by no man, and the group dispersed.