S95: Spellbound
Title: Spellbound
For: S95
Rating: PG
Length: 1505
Summary: Night Circus!au. Swept up in a world of half illusions, half spells, Sehun's drawn into the bewitching circus and the owner's son who owns his own brand of magic.
Author's note: Based off Erin Morgenstern's “The Night Circus”. It is not 100% necessary to have read it to understand this fic, but I definitely recommend the novel and would make more references understandable. Le Cirque des Reves translates as the Circus of Dreams.
From the day that Minseok was old enough to see, to hear, to gurgle happily, he’s believed that magics exits. No, he knows that magic exists. He can’t deny that it exists when it happens everyday around him.
Minseok’s born into the circus, the travelling circus, on the eve of Halloween. It’s a magical night and the circus is abuzz with anticipation of his birth, news of the lady owner going into birth rippling through the circus and that night’s performance is something even more spectacular than usual.
The circus that Minseok is born into is beyond that of a regular circus. No one quite understands how the circus works but the most noticeable difference is that Le Cirque des Reves only opens its gate after the sun falls. The circus comes and goes from town to town without warning, showing up one day, with its gates closed until sundown and leaves as suddenly as it appears. The next most striking thing of the circus is the stark lack of color. Le Cirque des Reves drains out all colors leaving nothing but black and white. The entire theme of the circus revolves around the two colors and it adds to the mysterious, dreamlike quality of the circus. From the ordinate clock that welcomes visitors to the whitened grass to the performers’ outfits, everything is chromatic.
Large black and white tents sprawl across the circus and each tent holds its own attraction, some with normal circus attractions, large cat exhibits, acrobats, to unimaginable attractions, illusionists, a dream tent. While the circus stays in each town a number of days, no visitor is able to see every single tent, some drawn to particular tents and spend their duration of their visit in the single single tent and others wander from tent to tent, going to different tents every night. But even those who go from tent to tent never seem to be able to finish going to every tent, rounding corners of tents they’ve already visited, another tent seems to have popped up over the visit and once again, the visitor is drawn in.
Minseok is raised in the circus, raised on watching the illusionist vanish from one side of the tent to reappear at the other, the tarot reader reading with terrible accuracy of the next pranks he’s going to play unto the employees, leaping from cloud to cloud in the maze tent. It’s undeniable that he belongs to the circus as well.
The night that Minseok is born, the cauldron of fire that’s been burning since the day the circus first opened its gates, licks its flame much higher than it has any other night and not a single person is able to step near the cauldron, not even the fire tender. The flames are burning, raising the temperature of the air 10 degrees and those who had brought a scarf to protect against the brisk October wind tie their scarves around their waist. Minseok’s father had called it magic, an omen of his son’s birth. The hot, hot flames licked up and up, ice blue but inferno hot.
When the clock nears midnight, the thin wail of an infant wrenches through the night and those around the center of the circus, gasps at the wall of fire that leaps from the cauldron, the stunning cool blue contrasting the black and white walls of the circus.
When the babe opens his eyes from his wailing, his right eye is colored an ice blue, the same shade as the fires that leaped for his birth night.
Whispers trail behind him like ribbons, snatches of words floating along, teasing him, torturing him. The wind carries every bit, like a puppy nipping at his heels but he’s learned how to ignore it. He’s learned how to tune everything out, how to ignore that tugging in his chest when he’s in an open field, how to ignore the playful wind that tosses his hair in every direction, how to ignore all their cruel words that the wind catches.
He has a hard face but a soft heart, but the little paper cuts from their sharp words leave him with a hardened heart after so many years of abuse.
Sehun leaves home the day after he turns nineteen, vanishing from the small town without a trace and to this day the town leaves this lanky, pale boy of nineteen an urban legend, never quite sure if he ever existed but sometimes, sometimes when the wind is particularly gentle that day, the town is oddly reminded of the quiet child that grew up on the outskirts of the town.
“We hired a new performer,” his mother says one morning when they’re travelling from one town to another.
Minseok blinks, not quite registering what she said.
“He’s got this affinity to the wind. It’s almost like he charms it, yes , that’s it. Like how a snake charmer entrances the serpent to follow his wishes, this child does the same with every stray breeze,” his father adds, stirring in another sugar cube to his tea.
“A wind charmer,” Minseok muses more to himself than either of his parents, who are already chattering away to each other.
Minseok meets this wind charmer, and oddly enough, his gift fits the slim boy quite well, shocking white blonde hair blending seamlessly into the monochromatic theme of the circus. He’s stoic with this serious look in his face and Minseok can see the nervousness in his body language the moment Minseok steps into the tent.
It’s a welcoming party for the wind charmer in the acrobat tent, the largest tent of the entire circus. Sure enough, as every welcoming party, Minseok’s father give a warm welcome speech a little over 30 minutes into the entire affair, when everyone’s pleasantly buzzing from the refreshments and from the sweet, sweet wine. The wind charmer, introduced as Oh Sehun, has the most stoic look on his face but when his hand trembles just the slightest, Minseok cocks his head in curiousity at the contradiction.
Minseok claps politely along with the rest of the circus, the more louder performers hooting and hollering at the newcomer and even from the distance, Minseok can see the soft pink that dusts along his cheeks, showing up easily against his cool complexion.
Sehun’s eyes meet his and they widen marginally. It’s a normal reaction, every first impression like the last and Minseok doesn’t think, just acts, his lips quirking up in a soft smile and he winks back. The color on Sehun’s cheeks darkens and Minseok watches as his dad laughs boisterously, clapping Sehun strongly across the back.
The low buzz of chatter resumes and Sehun steps down from the stage, disappearing in the crowd in moments. Minseok doesn’t worry, he always has this uncanny ability to track down the right people at the right time and when the moment comes, he’ll comes across Sehun again. They’ve both been placed on the same path, travelling with the circus and being able to experience the same things. Minseok doesn’t doubt it for a moment that he’ll be seeing much more of the wind charmer.
From the moment of his audition to his welcoming party, everything passes by in a blur, swept along in this crazy pace that this circus travels at. The entire company seems used to this hectic speed but Sehun is pushed into this cyclone and he’s left dizzy from the sensations, from the noise, from the sudden push into this new environment different from his last by every bit.
He lies there that night (day, really, the entire circus is nocturnal and it messes badly with Sehun’s unadjusted body clock), eyes wide open in the dark room. Er, his room. His dark room. They’ve given him his own room in a train car, this blank canvas. All the other doors that he had passed to get to his own had this trace of the occupant lingering somewhere in the doorframe but when he got to his, he knew right away that this was a blank canvas for him to carve on.
In this blank space, Sehun tries to sort out his thoughts, from the mass introductions thrown his way to the general direction of even how to get to the dining area back to his room. Everything’s in a tizzy and he can honestly only remember bits and pieces. Sehun’s never had this much stimulation thrown his way in such a short period of time, going from this strolling breeze to this galloping gale. He’s signed up for this so all he can do is hang on tight and enjoy the ride.
The hours slowly bleed away, eating away at his alertness until the comfort of drowsiness dampens and slows his racing thoughts and just before he slips into sleep, a pair of eyes imprint onto the back of his eyelids, a cool blue piercing through his thoughts and permeating into his dreams filled with unimaginable magic.
For: S95
Rating: PG
Length: 1505
Summary: Night Circus!au. Swept up in a world of half illusions, half spells, Sehun's drawn into the bewitching circus and the owner's son who owns his own brand of magic.
Author's note: Based off Erin Morgenstern's “The Night Circus”. It is not 100% necessary to have read it to understand this fic, but I definitely recommend the novel and would make more references understandable. Le Cirque des Reves translates as the Circus of Dreams.
From the day that Minseok was old enough to see, to hear, to gurgle happily, he’s believed that magics exits. No, he knows that magic exists. He can’t deny that it exists when it happens everyday around him.
Minseok’s born into the circus, the travelling circus, on the eve of Halloween. It’s a magical night and the circus is abuzz with anticipation of his birth, news of the lady owner going into birth rippling through the circus and that night’s performance is something even more spectacular than usual.
The circus that Minseok is born into is beyond that of a regular circus. No one quite understands how the circus works but the most noticeable difference is that Le Cirque des Reves only opens its gate after the sun falls. The circus comes and goes from town to town without warning, showing up one day, with its gates closed until sundown and leaves as suddenly as it appears. The next most striking thing of the circus is the stark lack of color. Le Cirque des Reves drains out all colors leaving nothing but black and white. The entire theme of the circus revolves around the two colors and it adds to the mysterious, dreamlike quality of the circus. From the ordinate clock that welcomes visitors to the whitened grass to the performers’ outfits, everything is chromatic.
Large black and white tents sprawl across the circus and each tent holds its own attraction, some with normal circus attractions, large cat exhibits, acrobats, to unimaginable attractions, illusionists, a dream tent. While the circus stays in each town a number of days, no visitor is able to see every single tent, some drawn to particular tents and spend their duration of their visit in the single single tent and others wander from tent to tent, going to different tents every night. But even those who go from tent to tent never seem to be able to finish going to every tent, rounding corners of tents they’ve already visited, another tent seems to have popped up over the visit and once again, the visitor is drawn in.
Minseok is raised in the circus, raised on watching the illusionist vanish from one side of the tent to reappear at the other, the tarot reader reading with terrible accuracy of the next pranks he’s going to play unto the employees, leaping from cloud to cloud in the maze tent. It’s undeniable that he belongs to the circus as well.
The night that Minseok is born, the cauldron of fire that’s been burning since the day the circus first opened its gates, licks its flame much higher than it has any other night and not a single person is able to step near the cauldron, not even the fire tender. The flames are burning, raising the temperature of the air 10 degrees and those who had brought a scarf to protect against the brisk October wind tie their scarves around their waist. Minseok’s father had called it magic, an omen of his son’s birth. The hot, hot flames licked up and up, ice blue but inferno hot.
When the clock nears midnight, the thin wail of an infant wrenches through the night and those around the center of the circus, gasps at the wall of fire that leaps from the cauldron, the stunning cool blue contrasting the black and white walls of the circus.
When the babe opens his eyes from his wailing, his right eye is colored an ice blue, the same shade as the fires that leaped for his birth night.
Whispers trail behind him like ribbons, snatches of words floating along, teasing him, torturing him. The wind carries every bit, like a puppy nipping at his heels but he’s learned how to ignore it. He’s learned how to tune everything out, how to ignore that tugging in his chest when he’s in an open field, how to ignore the playful wind that tosses his hair in every direction, how to ignore all their cruel words that the wind catches.
He has a hard face but a soft heart, but the little paper cuts from their sharp words leave him with a hardened heart after so many years of abuse.
Sehun leaves home the day after he turns nineteen, vanishing from the small town without a trace and to this day the town leaves this lanky, pale boy of nineteen an urban legend, never quite sure if he ever existed but sometimes, sometimes when the wind is particularly gentle that day, the town is oddly reminded of the quiet child that grew up on the outskirts of the town.
“We hired a new performer,” his mother says one morning when they’re travelling from one town to another.
Minseok blinks, not quite registering what she said.
“He’s got this affinity to the wind. It’s almost like he charms it, yes , that’s it. Like how a snake charmer entrances the serpent to follow his wishes, this child does the same with every stray breeze,” his father adds, stirring in another sugar cube to his tea.
“A wind charmer,” Minseok muses more to himself than either of his parents, who are already chattering away to each other.
Minseok meets this wind charmer, and oddly enough, his gift fits the slim boy quite well, shocking white blonde hair blending seamlessly into the monochromatic theme of the circus. He’s stoic with this serious look in his face and Minseok can see the nervousness in his body language the moment Minseok steps into the tent.
It’s a welcoming party for the wind charmer in the acrobat tent, the largest tent of the entire circus. Sure enough, as every welcoming party, Minseok’s father give a warm welcome speech a little over 30 minutes into the entire affair, when everyone’s pleasantly buzzing from the refreshments and from the sweet, sweet wine. The wind charmer, introduced as Oh Sehun, has the most stoic look on his face but when his hand trembles just the slightest, Minseok cocks his head in curiousity at the contradiction.
Minseok claps politely along with the rest of the circus, the more louder performers hooting and hollering at the newcomer and even from the distance, Minseok can see the soft pink that dusts along his cheeks, showing up easily against his cool complexion.
Sehun’s eyes meet his and they widen marginally. It’s a normal reaction, every first impression like the last and Minseok doesn’t think, just acts, his lips quirking up in a soft smile and he winks back. The color on Sehun’s cheeks darkens and Minseok watches as his dad laughs boisterously, clapping Sehun strongly across the back.
The low buzz of chatter resumes and Sehun steps down from the stage, disappearing in the crowd in moments. Minseok doesn’t worry, he always has this uncanny ability to track down the right people at the right time and when the moment comes, he’ll comes across Sehun again. They’ve both been placed on the same path, travelling with the circus and being able to experience the same things. Minseok doesn’t doubt it for a moment that he’ll be seeing much more of the wind charmer.
From the moment of his audition to his welcoming party, everything passes by in a blur, swept along in this crazy pace that this circus travels at. The entire company seems used to this hectic speed but Sehun is pushed into this cyclone and he’s left dizzy from the sensations, from the noise, from the sudden push into this new environment different from his last by every bit.
He lies there that night (day, really, the entire circus is nocturnal and it messes badly with Sehun’s unadjusted body clock), eyes wide open in the dark room. Er, his room. His dark room. They’ve given him his own room in a train car, this blank canvas. All the other doors that he had passed to get to his own had this trace of the occupant lingering somewhere in the doorframe but when he got to his, he knew right away that this was a blank canvas for him to carve on.
In this blank space, Sehun tries to sort out his thoughts, from the mass introductions thrown his way to the general direction of even how to get to the dining area back to his room. Everything’s in a tizzy and he can honestly only remember bits and pieces. Sehun’s never had this much stimulation thrown his way in such a short period of time, going from this strolling breeze to this galloping gale. He’s signed up for this so all he can do is hang on tight and enjoy the ride.
The hours slowly bleed away, eating away at his alertness until the comfort of drowsiness dampens and slows his racing thoughts and just before he slips into sleep, a pair of eyes imprint onto the back of his eyelids, a cool blue piercing through his thoughts and permeating into his dreams filled with unimaginable magic.