Chapter 7: Trapeze

Christian's expression changed slightly. He took half a step backwards, as if he wasn't sure whether to run or not. Miss Rapez tilted her head to the side. "Well, well, well. What on earth are you doing here?"

"Errr..."

Miss Rapez looked at the three of them for a long moment, and then her face broke out in a grin and she grabbed Christian in a hug so tight Innocent could swear he heard the man's bones creak. "Pickpocket! You sleazy little German thief, I never thought I'd be glad to see you. Come in. With your friends, too."

"Not like I have much of a choice," Christian muttered from somewhere inside Tia's sweater as she walked him inside. "You are squishing me, Tia."

"Oh. Sorry." Tia released him, and he sank down on the couch, rubbing his arms. "I think you broke my arm..."

"Oops. Sorry."

Christian grinned a bit painfully. "Heh. Not really, my friend. You have kept in shape, then, I see."

"Yeh." Tia turned her eyes on Innocent and the King. "Who are your friends?"

"A clown and the hula hoop lady's assistant."

"Hi," the King said, and sat down on the couch next to Christian. Innocent took a sideways seat on the couch arm. "Who are you?" the King asked Tia. The clowns weren't exactly the most subtle people in the world, Innocent thought ruefully.

"You don't even remember me?" Tia rolled her eyes. "I remember you... The King of Clowns, right?" The King nodded, pleased. "You can call me Tia," Tia said, "but I used to be the trapeze artist."

The King and the Innocent stared at her, openmouthed.

Trapeze. The woman standing across from them was the trapeze artist from Kooza. No, wait, the former trapeze artist - a different one from the current one. Standing in front of them in an apartment in an anonymous city, outside of the realm, looking just like any other normal human.

Well, Innocent thought, that explained some things anyway. And made at least as many things even more puzzling.

"So, what brings you guys here?" Tia - the trapeze artist - was asking Christian, in a tone which suggested that what she wanted to ask more was 'What are you doing out of Kooza, and the hell took you so long?'

"Hey, I just found your contact info, m'friend," Christian sighed. "I've been working in a nightclub downtown for the last year, and my friends here, well, actually I have no idea what they do -" Tia laughed as if it was the obligatory thing to do - "- but they're not with the circus anymore either, if you know what I mean."

"Oh? Okay, I can understand that." Miss Rapez looked sideways at Christian.

"It was a misunderstanding," he said.

"Sure it was. So, you guys want to stay for lunch?"

"Sure, free food is always nice."

Tia rolled her eyes again. "Don't push me. If you weren't from Kooza, I would be kicking your butt downstairs right now."

"Hooray, even more broken bones. You haven't changed, have you, Tia?"

"No, I have." A flicker of something like sadness crossed Miss Rapez's face for a moment, and then disappeared. "Though I see you haven't. So what's life been like over there? You said you were still there until a year ago?"

"Something like that. It's mostly the same. There's a hula hoop lady instead of the juggler, but that's it, pretty much."

"Yeah, you said. What happened to the juggler?"

"I don't know. He disappeared."

"Hehhh. Yeah, like me, right?"

"Probably."

"What about his assistant?" Tia sat down on the other couch arm, across from the Innocent.

"Dunno. I don't keep track of them."

"There was only one last time I checked," Tia laughed. "Have they multiplied?"

"It is not my job to keep track of every assistant to every performer in the realm, Tiahhhh. What's for lunch?"

"Pasta. And not a lot of it either. Sorry. I work full-time packing groceries, it's not exactly the highest-paying job in the world. Next time, call me before you invite yourself and half of everyone from your world over."

"Oy, it's not my world, Tia, it's the Trickster's."

Tia looked away. "I know," she said.

"He was a jerk to you, Tia," Christian said quietly, strangely out of character. "It wasn't your fault."

The former trapeze artist looked for a moment as if she was about to say something extremely snarky, at best. Then she smiled. "I know. Come on, lunch?"

...

There is no way, Innocent thought, that we are ever going to be able to get back to Kooza in time.

It was something like a few hours later, though he wasn't sure how much time had passed exactly. The four of them were hanging out on in the living room again, sprawled out on the couch and the floor, small portions of pasta having been consumed and digested, and Tia was grilling Christian and the King on everything that had happened in Kooza since she had been gone. It was almost creepy, the way she drank in everything they said and did, as if she was trying to soak up the aura of the realm through her ears and eyeballs. It wasn't as if the pickpocket and the clown were the most representative of the talents Trickster had created (or gathered? Innocent wasn't actually sure where Christian had come from originally), but apparently anyone from Kooza was better than no one. Which might have explained why she was ignoring him, if he hadn't been relabeled assistant to the hoop manipulator. He wasn't sure what that was about, except that Christian apparently had some reason for lying about Innocent's origins. As it was, he figured that Tia wasn't paying as much attention to him because A. he wasn't talking, and B. she'd never known him when she'd been part of Kooza.

As far as the Innocent could figure out, her story went something like this: She had been the trapeze artist in the realm until a few years ago, when... something went wrong. Something involving her and the Trickster, which they weren't discussing openly. And apparently she had been kicked out. Left in the outside world to live and age like other humans, to work in a grocery store. It was evident that she missed her realm very much, and she always changed the subject whenever the conversation got too close to the Trickster.

But, Innocent thought, what did an ex-trapeze artist have to do with Kooza and Trickster falling apart? The pieces were not matching up for him at all.

"Tia," Christian said, "I'm sorry, but we have to go soon. I work nights, you know?"

"Okay." Tia pushed herself up on her elbows. "Can I talk to you for a minute before you go, though? Privately?"

"Sure. Wait here, my friends," Christian told the King and the Innocent, and went off with Tia into the adjacent room.

"Well," the King asked Innocent in the sudden silence, "what do you think? Crazy, huh?" Innocent nodded.

"A random trapeze lady. How does he know? I don't even remember her. You don't remember her, do you?" There was a slight pause. "Then again, I don't remember a lot of things."

Innocent laughed nervously, and mimed someone with a pointy hat falling asleep. "Tired?" the King asked him. Innocent shook his head.

"I wonder what they're doing in there," the King said. "...Hey, that isn't her bedroom they went into, is it?"

Innocent looked at him sideways. Well?

"Never mind. Let's not continue that thought."*

Good idea, Innocent decided. He had enough to worry about already without going there. Wherever there was.

They waited, and waited some more. The King checked a nonexistent wristwatch. The Innocent jiggled his knees up and down and tried not to have a panic attack.

The door to the bedroom opened again eventually, and Christian came out followed by Tia. "Okay, m' friends, all ready to go and everything?" The King nodded. "We've been waiting for seven million years, of course we're ready! What were you talking about?"

"Sorry, my friend. We just had to catch up on some things." Christian glanced back at Miss Rapez. "See you soon, Tia."

She smiled enigmatically. "Yes. See you soon." Innocent couldn't read her expression at all.

"Oh, and Pickpocket?" she said when they were almost at the door. Christian turned. "Yes?"

"I do speak some German."

"Oh."

"Next time, try not to make your pseudonym quite so glaringly obvious?"

"Sorry, Tia."

"Just a tip."

"Okay, thank you." Christian paused. "Do you have any idea what 'pickpocket' is in Japanese?"

"Pickpocket. Come on."

"Sorry. Bye, Tia."

"Goodbye, Pickpocket. And King. And assistant. Thank you for coming. I missed you guys." Her smile, much more open than the previous one, was the last thing the Innocent saw before she closed the door on them.

"That," said the King eventually, after a moment of silence as they walked down the hallway, "was extremely random."

A/N: I'm sorry it took me so awfully long to get this chapter up! A lot of things have been going on in my life, including two productions of Shakespeare at once, and I hurt my wrist, so I was unable to type for a bit... and then, on top of that, I had to rewrite this chapter pretty much completely - Tia comes out differently pretty much every time I write her, but this time I think I got more or less what I was going for. She's a lot more like the current trapeze artist than I had originally intended, but that works out okay.

Ask me if you have any questions about this chapter, I feel like I might have not made some things as clear as they could be...

*I'm sorry, this is just my brain. It's so corrupted. I need to stop hanging out with theatre people...