At one point, she was once a star of a wonderful show. Dazzling lights, golden glitter, animals trained and well kept, everyone looking quite keen. It was once her show, Dahlia's Deluge of Delights. Beautiful woman once walked the tight ropes of the travelling fair, flying through the air with a trail of long golden ribbon on their ankles and glitter that the spotlights would catch just right to truly divert even the most dismayed of audience members attention, to look on in awe and child-like wonder at the spectacle above. A glitter of dark green jewels would catch their eyes to the ground after their act was up.
Men were muscled, large, looking almost like brutes. No one expected them to be able to bend like those in the sky above who seemed to glide so gracefully, but bend they could, like ground dwelling jewels of glittering snakes vs beautiful flittering birds of paradise. They didn't just make the animals preform, but rather preformed with them, going through every exercise as if they to were the animals doing them. They wrestled, they frolicked, the fought in mock fights, looking all the same to fast striking snakes. It drove the audiences mad with wonder, with fear, with delight and stunned disbelief.
Suddenly everyone would looked spooked, even the animals, their heads whipping to the tent entrance, and the audiences eyes snapped over. When nothing happened at first, everyone was gone, one of the big cat's tails being the last thing slipping through the back of the tents flap. Birds, large parrots, ones green, the others yellow, seemed to be on fire when they came in, they landed themselves on the tight ropes. When eyes trained to there they saw the men to one side, and woman to the other, and of course the birds, they didn't notice the figure in the similarly colored feathered boa down below.
Woman danced along the tight ropes with grace and carelessness looking much like they'd fall with almost any step, men danced with finesse and occasionally too much control, ones looking too stiff to cross the rope covered in birds, but once they got to one bird of their respective color, their styles suddenly changed, they leapt at each other, graceful in every sense of the word and the spotlight caught their glittering almost fire-like forms, the birds were gone, but the suits had changed on every single one of the men and women up there. Translucent glowing glittering feathers, as if they were aflame in brilliant light and magic. Once they had all collected their birds and changed, they joined hands. They all seemed to fall, the audience gasp but their eyes stayed hooked above. Only one somewhat fell, they held onto their fellow partners hand as the rest of them swirled around the rope in a spiral, and with each completion of a loop, someone else would fall, an ever lengthening chain of people who seemed to burn brighter with each one that fell. The spotlight finally showed the ringmaster in all her glory, just when the actors swept her up. Everyone cheered, but quieted as they realized that wasn't the end.
They all went faster and faster, coiling around the rope all over again, glitter and lights so bright, that people had to look away, and when they did they heard hissing. They dared to look, and there upon the rope, wreathed in a beautiful array of golden and green feathers, was a giant wondrous snake. Beautiful slitted eyes with intelligence gazed out upon her audience, mouth opening dazzle them with a flash of teeth and sense of danger and wonder. She slowly moved down from the rope up top, and touched upon the floor. She showed off the length of her body, and let the rest of herself slowly slide down, and she coiled up, letting people admire her form under the numerous lights before she bowed her head, closed her eyes, and in a flash, disappeared, feathers turning into birds, and snakes slithering along the ground, with none other than the ringleader at the center with her hands raised, wings spread, and feathered boa coiling around her as if it was alive. People adored her.
That was how it used to be. Her eyes shone with tears of the memory. It wasn't until people who made returns, became fanatics following her, that they started feeling the pull from themselves, one that was too much to not notice. They left the tent feeling emptier and emptier, until some people in audience started dying mid-show, at first in such a low number that no one noticed them as they were leaving, allowing Dahlia to get a meal or several in, but after a while, swathes of the audience died. It caused an investigation and panic and people had already started coming less due to the changing times, but now only those that remember the wonderment and joy, and freeing feeling they felt watching her show could bring others to her show.
The investigation lead to officers finding out that everyone she's ever hired have disappeared, always having to hire new people after a show it seemed, but no one knew where they went, and not even those that came to a show to see could explain their disappearances, other than when they made the giant snake appear, the staff hired were suddenly gone, and with the investigation going, they got to see some of the audience members die, with smiles on their faces every time.
The officers accused her, blamed her, soiled her name because they couldn't find a lick of evidence of her ever doing wrong. They made her out to be a witch, a harlot, anything and everything under the sun to toss her grand name through the gutters all because of pride. But she also knew it was a silent vengance they enacted against her, she knew what was happening and wouldn't reveal the truth, every silver-tonge lie weaving a tapestry of woe, worry, grief, and wonder that they all believed, no holes ever found it. But they subconsciously knew, and she knew as well. She took their souls, their bodies, their emotions even and left them in complete and total wonderment and euphoria.
She could still somewhat preform still but things truly died when they banned animal from the circus, for then her days were numbered. When they tried to take them, they ran to her, escaping through premade exits that baffled people, until they realized it all went to the big tent. When they did manage to capture one, they dusted, into a fine black dust that only occasionally glistened with glitters of green and gold. In the middle of the dust would always rest a statuette of the animal in question, and an engraving on the bottom of their name, and the dates they died, which were far older than when the humans captured them.
Dahlia always felt those losses the most, when those souls returned to her, the scraps of her only friends in the living days of mystifying and terrible beast such as herself, flinging themselves into her inner flame to fuel her, they always told her how much they had adored their second life, that the sacrifice was worth it, that if they had the chance they'd let themselves disappear into her a second time.
When they found her among ashes she cried out. Her form changed, to that of the brilliant dazzling snake, the ashes having condensed into her form, she tore into the people, swallowing men and woman whole, soul, emotion, body, gone down her throat. Bullets peirce her hide, staining it red, she ate those ones the fastest, healed, spat the bullets back at the people suddenly flooding the tent to check the commotion. The bullets always glowed a brilliant gold, and struck true. The bodies they struck seemed to flash black, sometimes black and white, but nevertheless they fell. Her wings opened, she hissed, flapped, bit, swallowed, fought, until people fled. Then she vanished, flying out of the tent, evading police and lawmen for years.
She's had to work odd jobs, in Nevada, Florida, California. She even went abroad to steal souls, change forms, hide, thieve, and kill.
No one remembers her shows anymore. She didn't like the attention at first, but soon had to revel in it to get anywhere, and when she did she thought she found her niche. But people came back for more and more not realizing she was stealing parts of their souls and emotions, they died when they came to too many shows. Decades later, no one remembers, not even the police, not the protestors that got her friends to throw themselves into the flames of her form, not even the veterinarians that had witnessed the carnage she unleashed, as if it was all some fantastical nightmare. They ignored the familiar names in the obituary or missing persons list.
Dahlia was only semi-thankful that no one expected her to be a good person. Which, being honest, she wasn't even a person, at least in the expected way. She wouldn't say she was good either. Parading bodies around with magic, fueling herself with their body's, souls, and minds. Leading countless people into their deaths by sapping away at her audience. Using magic to do small almost useless things to garner the most charged and sought after emotions that adults tend to miss terribly. Ensnaring everyone she's hired under a charm. Hypnotising certain parties that would deny her circus a spot or investment into investing or making arrangements.
But what good there was. She gave people their youth back in a way, she kept her friends around for second chances when humans had hunted and killed them, she did take the absolute best care of her staff when they were still with their souls. She was kind, and even kinder to her audiences. But, morosely, she supposed none of that mattered in the long run.
So here she lay, in a half-shell of her true form, sprawled over a tattered couch in an old abandoned and condemned apartment building. Her form not nearly as shiny and feathered, not nearly as big nor as beautiful. Her wings lay sprawled, feathers broken, twisted, missing, luster looking as if it has long since been gone. The mane of feathers usually around her neck was in a similar state though; the neck itself stretched and the scales on the skin there were patchy, thin, and small. It lead to a head, not fully human but rather stretched out. It was almost like looking at a newly hatched bird. A forked tongue would rarely peek out and flicker. Green faded top side met a pale sickly yellow underside, from her head down.
Her arms were thin, like bird legs, complete with talons, scales on it looking green and yellow, but considerably grayed and dulled, as if a snake has built up shed on it. Her waist thinned and her legs were almost passing for human, were it not for the way the skin had stretched and wrinkled, spotted with full scales and feathers that refused to grow further than just being spikes.
A tail followed along her spine, long, but looking damaged. Feathers occasionally came out from under scales, pushing them upwards, breaking a layer of dead skin, only for it to look as if more has just built up under it to seal the gap. Here her scales were plentiful, but they still were dulled, grayed, the green upper half of scales no longer shone like deeply colored peridots. The bottom half of yellow looking as if someone had mixed the once vibrant canary yellow in a crayon box and attempted to draw with it, the color forever looking lost.
She looked withered but she couldn't die. The things that could kill her having long gone extinct, so here she waits for either the building to collapse, or some poor foolish drunkards or druggies, or children to come through the place, so she could shed this facade and feed on them. She was extremely patient.