Hey people! My computer pretty much died, so I have to write at the library, but we're getting it back today, so updates will be once a week again. Anyway, here's the next part of eleven! I had lotsa fun with the circus thing; I can only hope that I'm not the only one enjoying it…

~*Eleven Part II*~

Alexander stood silently in one of the furthermost edges of the carnival, watching a man in grease paint and a top hat paint a young woman's face. He watched the man make quick brush strokes across the girl's face. He made it look so easy

This is real art, Alexander thought, none of those famous guys Dad works with are even half as good as this.

This man didn't look like any of the rich art dealers Alexander had come to know on various countries; he was impossibly tall and thin, like a praying mantis wearing an ancient looking striped suit with exaggerated coat tails and a huge bowtie. Alexander also knew that this man would never be famous; he would be ambiguous all his life, and Alexander would probably never see him again after this night. He wished he could take pictures or something, but then, this man probably wouldn't want that.

At last, the man finished transforming the woman's face into that of a dog, finishing the already metallic paint with some shimmering golden powder. The face was whimsical, surreal, realistic, fantastical, and just a touch unsettling all at the same time, and Alexander was entranced. Once the woman had paid, thanked him, and left, the man turned to Alexander and winked--he didn't have any eyelashes.

"Would you like a painting?" He questioned in a thickly accented voice, still tucking the few crumpled bills into the breast pocket of his coat, "On the house."

Alexander nodded and thanked the man in perfect Romany.

* * *

Jagger edged away from a pair of pseudo-vaudevillian, mime-like clowns performing in the center of the festival. Now removed from the chaos, the vampire child set to explore the darker fringes of the area, determined to see what kind of trouble he could get into.

The dingy, striped tents created cryptic alley ways in between that stretched in narrow paths before bleeding out into fields. Jagger had always felt most at home in dark, enclosed places…particularly dark, enclosed places where he wasn't supposed to be. So, the boy grinned to himself and glanced swiftly around before starting down the nearest alley.

The cloth walls of the tents created balloons of dim yellow light on both sides as Jagger walked. From time to time, Jagger would stop at a tent and watch the shadow-figures on the other side move about and listen to them as they spoke before growing bored and continuing onward. Besides the occasional bizarre conversation, he had yet to stumble upon anything of great interest. Jagger slipped through the first alley silent and stealthy as a shadow before looping around the back to the next.

"Hey."

Jagger turned quickly to see a gypsy youth leaning against the side of tent, hidden in the shadows just as well as himself. The boy seemed to be around Jagger's age, and just as skinny. He was deeply tanned with black hair and eyes and a long scar across his torso, visible through a satin vest adorned with red and black swirls.

"Hey," Jagger replied, sizing the boy up in moments and deciding that he was very well worth some time.

The boy, who had come to the same conclusion, took a step away from the shadows, "I like your necklace," he motioned toward the blood-filled amulet hanging around Jagger's neck.

Jagger couldn't help but smirk a bit to himself at gypsy boy's choice of object, "Yeah? I like your rings," he replied offhandedly, referring to the overload of jeweled bands adorning the boys long fingers.

"Mmm…" The youth tilted his head as though he hadn't heard Jagger speak. He was still eyeing Jagger's talisman when his dark eyes flared up and a sly grin crossed his face, "Betcha your necklace I can show you a trick that'll scareya."

"Alright," Jagger nodded, accepting the challenge before smiling devilishly, "Betcha I can show you a better one."

* * *

Luna was dizzy. She was dancing in a small throng of people gathered in front of a loose circle of musicians. The strange lights and dancing flames spun as she twirled, and the head-spinning music produced by violins, fiddles, tambourines, and roughly carved flutes swelled over the girl, making her light-headed and giddy.

It seemed to Luna that she went on forever like that, dancing and whirling and letting the music move her. When she finally re-laced the ribbons of her black silk ballet slippers over her dusty feet and pushed her way out of the crowd, she had the sense that she had spent hours in the music cocoon.

Deciding to explore the rest of the carnival, the fair-haired girl set down a warmly lit street of tents that branched out from the main one. There were no performers in this section, but that wasn't really what Luna was interested in right now, anyway.

Here, Luna saw brightly-colored booths with strange but beautiful accessories and fortune tellers with little heaps of bones in piles on their tables. She saw other things too, more intimate things, like mothers singing their children odd, haunting lullabies in languages Luna didn't understand, and young couples in colorful garments and gold jewelry pressed up against each other against sides of tents. It really was a different world.

Luna made her way gracefully down the street, only rarely eliciting any attention from other people on it. At one point, she past a group of boys around her age playing a game on the hard ground involving three oddly shaped dice and a cup covered in scraps of different colored velvet. As she passed by, the boys glanced up at her with mean black eyes and laughed while trading raspy whispers. Unbothered, Luna gave them a bright smile. There was an instant of uncertainty before the boys smiled back warmly at her, and their eyes didn't look mean at all anymore. One boy made a motion for her to join them, but Luna declined politely. The boys just shrugged and called out various farewells before returning to their game.

The girl picked up her pace now; she had the strange sense that something here was waiting for her, something meant just for her, and she wanted to see what it was. She wanted to do something brave or crazy or impulsive tonight, 'cause this was the perfect time and place for it.

Finally, she reached the end of the path and felt a vague sense of disappointment, just before catching sight of one final, tiny booth tucked behind another. Slowly, Luna approached to see a beautiful young woman seated on a tall wooden stool, rearranging a row of vibrantly colored dyes. She caught sight of Luna and smiled at the girl, her dangling coin earrings catching a string of overhead lights.

"Would you like one?" She questioned Luna, her musical voice rich with accent.

"One what?" Luna questioned, already spellbound by the shifting dyes.

"A tattoo," She responded, her full lips widening in a grin, "Special mix of herbs; painted, but permanent."

Luna thought that she couldn't think of any place that would just offer tattoos to unattended eleven-year-olds, but then, this wasn't "any place."

"I'd love one," Luna replied boldly, plopping herself down on the smaller stool across from the woman.

The gypsy woman smiled in amusement as Luna happily handed her a jumble of coins, "And what tattoo would you like, little one?" She glanced at Luna's dress and sparkling bracelets, "A butterfly, perhaps? Or a pretty white orchid?"

"No," Luna shook her head and pointed to a drawing of a black rose with petals laced with thorns, "that one, please."

The woman was only briefly bemused as Luna pushed up her puffy sleeve. She gave a short laugh and nodded as she began to mix the dyes

* * *

As the festivities started winding down, the three kids inevitably found their way back to each other. Jagger caught sight of the other two first.

"Hey, Luna, 'Xander!" His voice carried across the grounds. When he had their attention, he pitched rings across the distances to both of them. Alexander caught his and jogged over, giving Jagger a suspicious look.

"I take it you didn't buy this," The dark-haired boy fingered the gold band Jagger had tossed him, running his thumb over the huge oval onyx set in the middle.

Jagger shrugged and put on his most innocent look, which wasn't all that innocent, "I won it. Just accept the gift, Sterling."

Alexander continued staring at Jagger but didn't say anything else.

"Well I don't care where ya got it, Jag," Luna said happily, stroking the Celtic swirls adorning her own ring, "Thanks."

She gave her brother a quick hug, making his snow-white skin turn faintly pink.

"Whatever, Loon. You're…welcome…I guess." He muttered, shoving his hands into the pockets of his new black and red vest.

"Hey Alexander, you look like a kitty-cat!" Luna exclaimed, catching sight of Alexander's face.

"I'm a tiger," Alexander informed her proudly in a tiger-esque growl.

"So I can't pet you?" Luna looked disappointed, and Alexander looked extremely uncomfortable.

Upon catching the look on the other boy's face, Jagger thumped Alexander on the back and began to laugh. Luna started to giggle too, leaning slightly against Jagger for fear of collapsing from exhaustion. Alexander just looked straight ahead, unable to shake the feeling that he had missed some sort of joke.

~*~

Yup, THAT was fun…for me anyway…tell me what you thought of it in a review!