TotalAmuto- I'm back! LOL! This chapter is dedicated to Alyisse Temno who convinced me to update ^^'
Ciel- Lazy Bum.
Sebastian- I agree with Bocchan.
TotalAmuto- hehe...weelllll anywayyyy, I think it's obvious that Kuro doesn't belong to me, so th disclaimer is unnecessary anymore!

A small grin spread on Sebastian's face as he approached the cage in the center of the performance tent. He threw the cloth covering the cage off, and let it fall on the ground. "Wake up," he ordered loudly.

The boy in the cage let out a tiny groan and slowly opened his eyes, and blinked them a few times. Light was pouring in from the tent's entrance, and his pupils grew smaller at the sight of the light. He squinted up at Sebastian and croaked out in a tiny voice, "Why am I here?"

Sebastian peered down at him and said, "I went over this yesterday, but then again, the drugs might have made the events blurry. Basically, you're a part of my circus now." He then bent down and unlatched the cage's bolt and reached in. He grabbed the child's foot, causing the boy to flinch back, and grabbed the chains on his ankle. "You won't need these anymore, well, if you cooperate," Sebastian said. He gave the chains a tiny jerk, and they were ripped off the ankle.

He grabbed the boy's arm, and pulled him out of the cage, causing a whimper of protest to pass the boy's lips. "The rest of the performers are going to come in soon to practice. I don't want you to be in the way," Sebastian explained as he dragged the boy out of the tent. "Do you have a name?"

The child stumbled and tried to keep up with Sebastian's pace, shivering as the cool air hit his exposed skin. "Ciel," he whispered.

It seemed that Sebastian somehow managed to hear him as they rushed past various tents. Finally, they stopped in front of a black tent that was larger than all the other tents that Ciel had seen, excluding the main tent of course.

They entered the dark tent, and Sebastian walked to the side of the tent, letting go of Ciel's arm. He bent down in front of a large wooden chest. He opened the latch, pulled the top of the chest back, and starting digging around in the chest. After a few seconds, he seemed to find what he was looking for. A pair of black shorts along with a plain white blouse, a pair of brown shoes, underwear, and an earring was tossed at Ciel. He managed to catch everything, but once they were gathered in his arms, he just stared blankly at Sebastian.

Raising an eyebrow, Sebastian said, "Put these on. The earring is just used to tell others that you're…special and I wouldn't be cruel enough to not allow you to wear clothing," he paused and smirked, "Unless you prefer not to."

Blushing, Ciel quickly slipped on the underwear, shoes, and pants, and pulled off a blue earring that was on his right ear. Then he slipped the new earring, which was a black cross, into the hole. However, he kept the shirt in his hand, and sighed. Sebastian watched as Ciel tossed the shirt back at him. He caught it as Ciel said solemnly, "My wings."

"My mistake," Sebastian said, grinning. He pulled a small pocket knife out of his pocket and made two quick incisions in the back of the shirt and walked behind Ciel. He pulled the long sleeve up Ciel's right arm and gently slid Ciel's wings through the holes before sliding the other sleeve up Ciel's left arm. The child buttoned up the shirt himself, as Sebastian waited. When Ciel was done, Sebastian made a wave with his hand, signaling Ciel to follow him.

As Ciel followed Sebastian, he saw people walking past him, up to the large performance tent. They were bringing all types of things, such as balls, rope, hoops, and more! Ciel gaped as one woman, who was pulling a cage on wheels that had a lion inside, walked past him. How can people treat living creatures like that? Ciel thought. Others that walked by just were chatting with each other, and exchanging 'good mornings'.

"Mornin' Black!" A male voice called out from behind Ciel. The owner of the voice ran up to the two, and smiled down at Ciel.

The male was wearing a black jacket that had checkered designs on the hems, along with a matching checkered vest underneath, a white shirt underneath that, black shorts that were checkered on the sides, with white stocking and a pair of black shoes. A large yellow bow was on the collar of his shirt, and it stood out along with his bright orange hair. A tear drop tattoo went from above his eyelid, to down where his cheeks were.

"Is this the new member? He's so cute! Where'd you pick him up from?" The man inquired cheerfully towards Sebastian. Sebastian smiled at the man, "This is Ciel. He just got here last night, and I was just going to see if someone could show him around before the show tonight. You just got the job."

The man didn't seem bothered when Sebastian gave him the order. He just smiled and said, "Hey Ciel! The name's Joker, hope we get along!" Joker grabbed Ciel's arm and started dragging him to one of the tents on the right of the main tent. "Did you eat breakfast yet?" Joker asked.

Ciel shook his head.

"Then we better get some food in you! You're so skinny. I'm surprised you haven't collapsed from malnutrition yet!" Joker laughed. "Breakfast is over, but I'm sure the cook wouldn't mind cookin' something up for you."

Ciel's eye twitched at the joke, but said nothing. He let joker bring him in front of a wooden table in the tent, and he heard the man yell into the tent.

"Bard! There's a new kid here! He missed breakfast so can you cook him something?"

A gruff looking, blond haired man came out from behind another table and yelled back, "Fine!" Then the man, Bard, bent down to a brown sack on the ground and pulled out a brown thing from the sack. Then he breathed in deeply and suddenly breathed out. A red flame erupted from his mouth onto the brown object, making Ciel jump slightly on his seat in surprise. People can breathe fire? Ciel wondered.

Ciel saw Joker laugh at his reaction, and he gave a huff. "I know what you're thinking, but everyone here have special attributes that make them different from 'regular people' so we usually aren't bothered by it," Joker laughed. Ciel nodded, just noticing that no one had questioned his wings, and realizing the reason why.

Just as Ciel finished his thoughts, the brown object was placed in front of him on a plate. Bard grabbed it and made two cuts on the top and peeled the brown areas from the X shaped mark down. There was a white anterior that had hot steam streaming from it.

Ciel stared at the object as if someone just told him he had to eat an animal raw. Bard and Joker paused and stared at Ciel, waiting for a reaction. Finally, Ciel opened his mouth and asked the question that he was wondering since Bard took out the object. "What…is this?" Ciel asked uncertainly.

The two older men paused for a second before they both burst out laughing. "Haha! Y-you..ha..don't know…hahaha..what this..i-is?" Bard managed to say between laughs.

Ciel stared at him blankly before the two men realized that he was serious.

"Well, this is a potato. You can eat it, although most people wouldn't eat the brown part, which is the skin, if it's steamed like this, haha!" Joker explained, chuckling towards the end.

Bard and Joker watched as Ciel hesitantly bit down into the potato. The boy's eyes widened once he started chewing and he quickly swallowed it. He stared down at the potato with a starry look in his eye, as if the potato was a gift from the heavens. He quickly ate the rest of the potato, leaving the skin on the plate, and snapped out of his daze afterwards.

"Ciel…was it really that good?" Joker asked.

Bard cut in and said, "Of course it was! I am a great chef afterall!" However, both men knew that what he just said obviously wasn't the reason. All Bard did was cook the potato, no salt or unnatural flavorings were added either.

Ciel nodded, "I've never ate food like that before….and it was warm! I never ate any warm before either."

Instantly, the two men felt bad for the child. Potatoes were peasant food, and the boy never even got to eat that. What did he live off of in the past? Stale bread? However, neither of them voiced their questions out loud. Joker decided to put on a smile, and he said to Ciel, "Wanna meet the other performers?"

Ciel nodded and stood up.

"C'mon," Joker instructed. He led Ciel out of the tent as Bard yelled a quick "goodbye!" They went into the main tent, but it looked nothing area that Ciel hazily remembered from the night before. Now performers dressed in all sorts of colorful costumes were spread around the large area. People were walking on ropes, jumping through rings of fire, swallowing swords, walking on large balls, walking up poles, lifting tons of weight, juggling, and more!

Ciel was so utterly amazed at all the skills the people here had, that he just stood there frozen. Joker laughed, "C'mon!"

Joker took grabbed Ciel and brought him in front of a teenage boy who was lifting an entire cage, with the animals inside! Ciel didn't like how to the boy was treating the animal, but then again, it wasn't him inside the cage. The teen stopped and placed the cage on the ground when he saw Ciel and Joker.

The teen showed a big smile, "Hi! You're new right? My name's Finny! What's yours?"

"Ciel," was the blunt reply.

Finny reached his hand out to shake Ciel's, and Ciel placed his hand in the other's. "Nice to meet you! I hope you have fun here, Ciel!" Finny said, crushing Ciel's hand in a tight grip. Ciel let out a cry of pain when Finny's grip was starting to bruise his hand. "Oops! Sorry! Sometimes I don't know my own strength," Finny laughed nervously.

"It's fine," Ciel replied.

"Ok, now let's meet Maylene," Joker said, happy that Ciel made a new friend. They walked to another area of the tent to where a red haired woman was. She was concentrating really hard on a bag of items on the ground.

"What is she doing?" Ciel asked curiously.

"Well Maylene can see through things. It's an odd skill, but people pay a lot to have her 'predict' what they have in their pockets," Joker explained.

Ciel frowned, "Where do all these people get these skills from? It can't be natural, can it?"

Joker's smile faded and his voice went quieter. "You're right. Actually, most of these people are from failed science experiments. Bard, Finny, and Maylene are perfect examples. People that do the tightrope walking and juggling are just average people that were usually abandoned for some reason though. This type of skill doesn't appear normally, but you're the same aren't you? Your wings.." Joker said.

Ciel shook his head and his face looked even gloomier then the expressionless face he had before, "No..I was born like this…"

Joker's eyes widened, Is that even possible?

Before he could ask anything, Maylene walked over. "H-hi! T-this is t-the newcomer right? W-welcome! My n-name's Maylene, I hope w-we get a-along!" She stuttered nervously.

"My name is Ciel. I hope we do too," Ciel said.

For the rest of the morning and afternoon, Ciel met most of the members of the circus. There was Snake, a man who could talk to snakes. As well as Beast, a woman who trained the lions, and Doll, a girl who was a talented performer. There were also many others, but Ciel managed to get to know these people more than the others.

At dawn, Sebastian appeared at the tent and told everyone to get ready. He told all the performers that were performing that day to go in the back of the tent, and told them when to enter. Ciel waited in the back as the show started.

"Ladies and gentlemen! Prepare to have the time of your lives! Tonight you'll see entertainment that you'll never be able to see anywhere else, and see sights that you'll remember until the end of your lives! Welcome to the Dark Woods Circus!" Sebastian yelled.

The crowd cheered loudly after his speech, and one by one, the tightrope performers went into the tent from the back. Ciel whispered quietly to Joker who was waiting in the back of the tent as well, "We're in the middle of the woods, aren't we? How to people get here?"

Joker chuckled, "You probably came from the other end of the woods. The circus is actually at the edge of the woods, if you travel a few yards west of this tent, you'll be in town."

"Are we really that close?" Ciel asked. Joker nodded.

Soon, it was Joker's turn to go perform, and Ciel was left alone.

Sebastian walked out to the back and stood next to him. He gave Ciel an expressionless look, "Turn around," he ordered.

"Why do I-" Ciel was cut off when Sebastian forcibly twisted him around so that his back was facing the older man. Ciel felt something tight being snapped around his neck, he remembered what it was. A collar.

He instantly started choking due to the tightness of the collar. "G-get this off!" Ciel snapped.

However, Sebastian didn't do anything. He held onto a chain that was attached to the collar and jerked the chain back so that Ciel's back was up against his chest.

Ciel felt Sebastian lean down and whisper into his ear, "Calm down." Ciel tried punching Sebastian but it was futile. The other man was too strong and grabbed Ciel's hand before it could make contact. "Why should I calm down? You shouldn't have to chain me up! I can go out and face the crowd normally," Ciel hissed.

Sebastian gave a humorless chuckle, "You don't get it do you? This is used to gain the crowd's pity," he said giving the chain another jerk, causing Ciel to choke. Ciel's hands reached up to the collar to loosen the pressure, but it didn't help much. "These people are humans. Humans who don't know what it's like to be different, ones that judge others. Like the ones you grew up knowing," Sebastian smirked.

Once that statement passed Sebastian's lips, Ciel froze. Taking this opportunity, Sebastian grabbed the chain and dragged Ciel to the circus ring. He forced Ciel to his knees and jerked the chain back so that Ciel's head was jerking back.

"Tonight, we have a special addition to this circus. An angel with ash black wings!" Sebastian yelled. He pushed Ciel's body down to expose his wings and the crowd starting cheering.

"Black wings! They're moving!"

"Mama! A demon!"

"What is that monstrosity?"

"What a pitiful creature."

Voices sounded all around Ciel. People were laughing at him, making harsh comments. Some were booing and throwing things at him. Ciel tried to turn around and he saw the sad, pitying faces of the other performers. One person threw a pebble that they had, and it cut his cheek. Just a drop of blood slid down his face though, the cut sealed right back up. The crowd went quiet for a second, but then some people yelled out.

"Demon!" Voices screeched.

They were about to start throwing things again until Sebastian cut in, "Tonight's show is now over! We look forward to seeing you all next year!"

The angry cries stopped and the crowd cheered as all the performers walked into the ring to bow. At that moment, Sebastian had already left.

He took Ciel to his own tent, where the boy stayed quiet. Sebastian unfastened the collar and rubbed the bruises on his neck from it.

"Would it have been worse if you didn't put the collar on me, and treat me as trash?" Ciel whispered after a while.

"Yes," Sebastian replied offhandedly, "They probably would have charged down to kill you."

"Oh."

Sebastian let Ciel sit down on a bed in the tent. "Tonight you'll be sleeping on this bed. I'll be sleeping on that one," Sebastian said gesturing to the bed that Ciel was sitting on, and then to a bed acoss from it. "This way, I can make sure you don't escape," he said.

"Can I really escape looking like this," Ciel touched his wings, "and expect to be accepted among average humans?" Ciel scoffed.

Sebastian chuckled, "No, but I wouldn't take chances. Now go to sleep." He then took off his jacket as well as his shoes, and changed into another pair of more comfortable pants as Ciel turned away. When he was done, Ciel took off his pants and shoes. He was more use to sleeping bare since he usually wasn't provided clothing, but he wanted to at least seem a little proper.

Sebastian blew out the candles and climbed onto his bed.

Ciel felt Sebastian's eyes travel on his body as he slipped under his own covers, but paid no mind. He was use to being stared at like a piece of meat. Whether it was for greed, lust, or anything else.

There was a small painful wrench in his heart, but no tears came out. People always treated him the way the crowd did, so it wasn't worth spilling tears. Closing his eyes, he slowly drifted to sleep.

Sebastian laughed as he watched Ciel sleep. What a funny child. He's so ignorant towards his own origins. That's going to cost him soon, Sebastian smiled.