25th Day of Summer, AV 511
If there was one thing that he had always hated about Sunberth it was the winds that kicked their way through the outskirts of the city. As one moved further away from the center of the population, the buildings had less time to stop the winds that would whip across the countryside around the city. The quick and dramatic temperature changes between day and night usually meant that there were good winds that would push through the wilds outside the city. And through the outskirts, there were just not enough buildings concentrated about to keep the wind from getting to you. And Essik hated that fact. Granted, the temperature right now was a lot warmer than it had been the last time he had been out in these parts. Before he’d gotten laid up for as long as he had.
While he had recovered, Essik had heard rumors that the circus had fallen apart where it had sat, in the middle of the old troupe’s work of disassembling the whole thing. He’d been there the day that everyone had started getting ready to leave for the next big city. Everyone had started working to tear all the tents down and pack all the equipment and belongings onto the carriages. He’d been called back into town by his mentor for one last mission before he’d be heading off to other cities. That was a whole different story. But needless to say, it had seen him all but crippled for the last months on end, recovering his strength and abilities to where they had been before his wounding. It was during that time that he had heard about the dissolution of the performers and the entire enterprising endeavor. It had saddened him to head about it, and it had saddened him more that he could do nothing to help until he was fully recovered.
Even now, as Essik headed toward where the circus had last been, he was still favoring his right leg a bit. But he needed to see it with his own eyes finally. He had been putting up fliers across the city to hear information about any of the performers that might still be in the area, or anyone else who might want to join into the whole thing. He posted on them all when and where to meet up, and he was on his way there now. He wanted to be the first one to see it all. See what had become of everything. If anyone was interested, they would soon show up there. If not, he was going to have a lot of work to do by himself. Essik sighed as he spotted the ragged top of the main tent still sticking over the top of the near by buildings. There were holes in it and the flags on top of the main braces were tattered, torn, and dirty. He closed his eyes for a second, shaking his head as he continued on down the street.
As he arrived at the location, he saw just how bad it was. Things had simply been left where they lay. People had just dropped everything in the middle of taking the whole thing down and left it there for the weather. The animals were all gone, off to destinations that only the gods truly knew. The carriages, some of them empty or half loaded, some of them already completely loaded, were still sitting in their lines, waiting patiently for their loads to be lashed down for the journey that never came. The performer’s tents were already down, but only one was loaded to where it needed to be. The entire scene was a massive chaotic mess. Essik couldn’t understand what had come of all of it. He wondred what happened to Jokor and Leiwienn and Cheska. He smiled a little at the thought of Cheska, nodding to himself knowingly for a second before he started to make his way further into the cluttered mess, picking out things that would need to be fixed or replaced. He wasn’t sure he wanted to know how much it was going to cost to replace the animals for any of the acts, but that would only be necessary if he could find some talent to train and display them. But horses would be needed for sure, if only for the wagons.
Essik eventually found his way intot he tattered remains of the “big top’ tent. The inside had been used by the homeless of the city for however long before even they had grown tired of it. Or at least they were too busy out grifting and begging to realize that he was in the middle of their ill gotten home. Essik was pretty sure that getting ride of the squatters would be trouble. He knew that if he had found a place like this during his time on the streets that he and his companions at the time would have fought tooth and nail to keep it. But those poor kids would find him to be a fair match for them in his determination to exercise them from this place.
Essik looked up to the towering top of the tent, looking to all the holes torn in the fabric, some small, some large. They dotted the surface of the top, letting lances of sunlight pour in through places where it wasn’t meant to. All the riggings around the main masts had all been torn down or broken as it had sat there over the months. The masts themselves had gouges taken out of them in places. It was amazing that they had retained the weight of the tent without crumbling before. They would need to be replaced whenever they were taken down.
Essik sat down on the single item sitting in the middle of the tent, the Ring Leaders Raiser. The circulat metal stand had remained in tackt, if a little rusty in places. It let out a slight creak of protest as Essik sat down on it, groaning out from the sudden use after sitting abandoned for so long. Essik sighed shaking his head slightly for a second as he waited. If there were others, they would be there soon. He hoped, anyway…