Juno Melville ♥ Destiny Rumancek (sacredwhore) wrote in thereincarnates, @ 2017-10-28 13:47:00 |
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Entry tags: | juno melville, marius astor |
Who: Juno Melville & Marius Astor
What: An unlikely meeting at the circus
Where: Salem, Massachusetts
When: Saturday night, October 28th, 2017
Warnings: TBD?
Every year the Cirque went to Salem for the entire month of October to participate in the city's Festival of the Dead. Aside from the city sponsored Psychic Fair, the Witchcraft Expo and the annual Halloween Ball, the Cirque did special Halloween events every weekend during the month of October. Juno was especially excited for it this year, because it would be the first year she performed her new stage trick for Salem's audiences. She'd been practicing for months and had only just started performing it for an audience, but so far, it was going really well. Juno was thrilled. More than anything, she wanted to be Dorothy Dietrich, her personal hero and pioneer for women in the field of escapes and magic. Juno would have to work up to catching bullets in her mouth and escaping from straightjackets while hanging in the air from a burning rope, but still. This was a pretty good start. One that even the likes of Houdini could respect.
She didn't have a stage name, although some people just called her The Escape Artist. Otherwise she just went by her first name. You couldn't get much better than a name like 'Juno', and she'd always been told that the shorter your magician name, the better and more memorable. It worked for Houdini? It felt a little like she was actually living two separate lives. For all the audience knew, Juno wasn't her real name either, since the customers who came to her trailer only knew her as Madame Fortuna. With a well placed wig the color of violet that she wore on stage for her escape artist tricks, there were many people who didn't even realize she was the same person. Most people who came to have their palms read weren't the type to also enjoy a good death defying feat to round out their circus going experience.
Juno had been doing this act for the last three months and she'd attracted a pretty dedicated fan base. There were already people who came to wherever the cirque ended up next just to see the Great Juno perform her impressive act of attempting to escape from handcuffs underwater with a bucket full of piranhas threatening to be dumped into the tank with her if she doesn't manage to escape in under sixty seconds. A risky act, if you didn't know the trick behind it. Juno came out onto the stage to an eruption of cheers and wolf whistles, grinning from ear to ear under her long, violet hair and waving to the audience, wearing nothing but a black sparkly bathing suit since she was about to get very wet.
"Good evening, boys and ghouls! And Happy Halloween!" The only other thing besides Juno on the stage was the big water tank, already full, and she strode over to it with confidence while continuing to address the audience. "I see some familiar faces here tonight, you guys know the drill, but for everyone else? My name is Juno and I'm here tonight to perform a daring act for all of you, one no one else in this place has ever achieved. I'm going to escape from this tank in under sixty seconds! While holding my breath! And my hands and feet handcuffed! Oh, and did I mention that if I don't make it out in under sixty seconds, that bucket of piranhas hanging overhead is going to tip over into the tank with me? Sounds like fun, right guys?!" Everyone cheered and whistled again, so without further ado, Juno climbed up the small ladder to the top of the tank and waved once again to the audience before making a show of handcuffing her wrists and ankles together and doing a delicate hop off the side and plunging into the water below.
As soon as she hit the water, the lid over the tank latched shut and the countdown started on the clock hanging overhead. For a split second, Juno was floating in suspension, eyes closed, making no move to try and save herself yet. Then her eyes shot wide open and she began her escape, taking the key that had been between her teeth and working quickly to unlock the handcuffs from around her wrists. It all seemed to be going well, she had her wrists and ankles uncuffed with twenty seconds to spare, but when she was free, it seemed like something was wrong. Nothing was happening. The tank's lid wasn't opening back up like it was supposed to once the cuffs were undone, and after a few seconds, Juno starts to look panicked as she begins banging frantically on the glass. Audience members who haven't seen this act before immediately start to get freaked out, some even leaving their seats and attempting to get her out, though they have no idea how, while the rest of the crowd that's already familiar with her act just look on in amazement.
The twenty seconds were up, the timer buzzed, and everyone gasped. There was a brief second where time seemed suspended, and maybe some even hoped that the bucket of piranhas wouldn't actually drop down into the tank with her. And then they did. As Juno struggled in the water for breath and a way out, the bucket tipped and everyone started screaming as the water almost instantly turned red, already so thick that you couldn't even see Juno anymore but many were assuming that it was her blood, and that she'd already been eaten alive. In the middle of all of the shouting and panicking from the audience, suddenly a very wet Juno without a scratch on her appeared in the middle of the audience a few rows back from the stage, some people immediately noticing her and crying out as she shrugged with a grin and shouted over the others. "Did you all get your money's worth?!" The crowd erupted into cheers and she bowed, taking her exit.
An hour later and Juno was back in her trailer, dried off and wig discarded, feeling exhilarated. The act was still pretty new, but she didn't think she'd ever get tired of it. Being up there performing like that, it was a rush she never got from reading tarot cards and palms. She still loved doing that too, obviously, but it was different. She was comfortable doing that. Learning escape tricks? Now that was taking a risk. Juno was all about taking risks. Right now, though, she was waiting for her first customer of the night, taking a seat at her table and draping herself in a dark purple shawl. Her trailer was littered with jars of weird insects and herbs everywhere, candles covering nearly every available surface along with the lingering scent of incense in the air. The area of her trailer where she did her readings was a little less chaotic, but for anyone first stepping into it, it might be a tad overwhelming.