I scanned the crowd in front of me as I said my lines. My sister Luria and I worked at the Renaissance festival as performers at the Kansas City renaissance festival with our show The Elf and the oversized Hobbit. I'm the elf since my ears are more pointed than Luria's, and she is the hobbit since she thoroughly enjoys food, and is a lot like Merry and Pippin from Lord of the Rings.
"Of course my elven friend can do better than that, I want a loud hurrah for flaming arrows!" my sister encouraged the crowd grinning mischievously. I resisted the urge to roll my eyes as I kept the hula hoop twirling around my waist.
"Challenge accepted." I said as I lighted the arrows notched in my bow. Taking a calming breath I released the string. The arrows sailed through the air the fire extinguished by the apple's juice. The three volunteers sighed in relief as my sister removed the apples from their heads and started juggling them. Digging an arrow each into the three remaining apples I started juggling as well.
"Hey Luria!" I called "Catch!" I shouted as I tossed her one of the apples I was juggling. She caught it and tossed me one of hers. And so the two way juggling started. To add a little excitement to the show the stage hands rolled two large balls on to the stage. We each leaped on to one still juggling the apples between us. The crowd roared with approval.
"What do you think Savannah? Should we take it up another notch?" Luria asked.
"Let's ask the crowd." I suggested. She grinned as the crowd shouted Hurrah. I sent a quick nod to the stage hand that went to retrieve two knives. He came back a moment later and tossed them into the fray. The crowd again roared with approval. My sister started juggling everything as I continued to toss the stuff to her. Once she was juggling everything I did a back handspring off the ball. Then we started juggling the stuff between us again once I was juggling everything Luria jumped and did a flip before landing gracefully on her feet. I tossed her an apple that she started eating while she watched me juggle the remaining apples and knives. Luria picked up the plate and I took a deep breath, I then tossed everything in such a way that the knives cut the apples into slices the cores went into a bucket behind me and the apple slices went on to the plate Luria was holding. I continued to juggle the knives for a moment before tossing them behind me and was caught skillfully by the stage hand. The crowd once more roared with approval as me and Luria started tossing the apple slices to kids in the crowd and a few adults. We thanked the crowd and got the baskets to collect the tips. Once the crowd had departed from the area we put up our stuff and went off to wander the festival. We spent the next hour snacking and watching other shows before we went back to our own stage to do our last show of the day. The show went routine as usual up Intel the "Three Flaming Arrows trick" as me and my sister had taken to calling it. Just as Luria was removing the apples from the volunteer's heads the unmistakable sound of a shot gun sliced through the air and Luria collapsed. I ran to her side but found myself unable to as darkness surrounded me.