[TAKEN] [Historical Fantasy] [Demons & Exorcists] Freak Show

[Sekah]

THEMES — Non-con, kidnapping.

FREAK SHOW AU [M/GENDERQUEER, M/M or F/M] — 1850 AD. Beast (genderfluid, any pronouns are fine for her) was a curious little thing—demons often are. When he went to England at the height of the Victorian Age to see the brand-new inventions—trains—he was disappointed. Wandering the streets, he found a traveling freak show at the London fairgrounds. Little did she know, the freaks at the show were a little more real than they seemed—the ringmaster, of course, was an exorcist, imprisoning demons, ghouls and spirits to put them to work for him. Beast quickly finds himself in a very sticky situation, imprisoned in the middle of the circus, with a cage, as the winged boy. At night, the ringmaster offers more interesting services to those who desire them—use of the various freaks in a cheap bordello behind the tents. Who is YC? Are they the ringmaster? Are they the ringmaster's young apprentice? Are they a fellow freak? Any are open! I'm also willing to play this story with more than one character for both of us—Tisu could be a strongman and fellow demon, a djinn bound to the service of the ringmaster.

Random smattering of ideas for this:
— Beast up at barely-dawn sewing up their costume after it's been torn off, because they have to wear it again the next night.
— People willing to pay to do things to the strongman/have the strongman do things to them
— Beast sneaking into the dancing bear's cage to sleep curled up against it because she feels safer there
— Beast badly injuring a human child who stuck his hand into the cage.

For your consideration, the starter!

Beast was short for his age and lean, raw-boned, but he was still shedding the awkward wings of childhood for the guise of a duplicitous adult. He came to see the creatures that moved with mechanical wheels, but was disappointed to find they were loud and dirty things, as much as the humans who rode them. They belched overpowering black smoke that got in your eyes and mouth when you rode them. Opening a window ensured a lungful of ash. On top of that, every square inch of the iron-bellied monster was stuffed with humans, whose customs were bewildering and who seemed to view Beast as a tatty low-class adolescent.

Beast had climbed all over the trains when they lay fallow in the yards, but having experienced a moving one, he began to think these humans were dull as cattle. Didn't it choke them too?

Disillusioned and disappointed, he considered crawling back to the nearby portal in an abandoned field behind a cracked stone manger, but he didn't want to return empty handed.

The smog banks rolled in off the harbor, mixing with the dirty breath of the coal factories. Beast meandered over the streets in the limpid morning, but people stopped, turned, and stared, wondering loudly in his presence what a boy was doing in a dress. He'd climbed to the building tops above an alley then, annoyed by the scrutiny, and from there, heard the talk of a nearby sideshow, which seemed better sport than this. Beast skipped over the rooftops, avoiding the gangs of boys who roamed up here, kicking pigeon's nests into alleyways on the heads of old beggars.

Finally he'd chased the show to London's fairgrounds, his sharp vision picking up a circle of bedraggled, colorful tents.

It was a freak show, with big signs Beast couldn't read. A man in a tatty top hat stood out front. He opened his mouth and began to bellow, "Come one, come all, to see a demon from hell itself! No tricks, here, no illusions, a demon in the flesh!"

Beast stirred from his lean against the shadow of a chimney, narrowing his eyes. A demon? Humans had caught a real demon? Who would be foolish enough to become prey to a human?

He crouched there, hard for most eyes to see, and began to cackle.

I must have a look at this demon, he thought.

But in his eagerness, he had leaned too far forward and exposed his silhouette. He felt someone's eyes on him, and turned immediately to the fairgrounds' entrance to find who had been watching.

[Sekah]

Reviving this wanted. Hit me up~!