I started writing this randomly and about half-way through I realised it was unintentionally a fan-fic for The Night Circus. No bad thing I suppose.

---
Her gaze drifted across the ring, eyes straining against the lime light glare to pierce the gloom which hung over the stands. She struggled to pick out individual faces. Here a lady's floral head-piece stood out from the shadows; there a gentleman's spectacles shined in the reflected glory of the show lights.

The gentle murmers of the audience fell to silence as the tent dimmed, the gas lamps flames shrinking until just a shaft of moonlight remained.

With a slow, elegant sweep of her arm towards the sky, the figure at the centre of the ring appeared. Of course, she had been there all along but, in a leotard of palest marble-grey and with skin and hair dusted to match, she had been near imperceptible against the moon-bathed sand of the ring.

Later, Charlotte could not have told even herself what unfolded in the ensuing time. It might have been a few minutes or a turn of the planet, as short as a dream and long as a love's sigh. Though the tent remained in utter silence throughout, the figure recounted a memory of adoration, delight and loss from the peaks of ecstasy to the abyss of despair in graceful flowing motions. Figures faded into and out of view around her as the story progressed, each as pale and otherworldly as the first.

When Charlotte left the tent, the sun was rising on the horizon, little more than a glow in the clouds. She could feel dry tears on her cheek and somehow her heart was lighter.

Around her, other guests stepped into the dawn. A dowager lady dabbed at her eyes with a violet handkerchief. A slight gentleman with a thousand-mile stare cleaned his spectacles on a sleeve. There amongst them, facing her, waiting for her, was the man with the scarlet waistcoat.