Chapter Text
The Jester had only been out in the forest behind the circus because god forbid he got peace and quiet, when Harlequin kept antagonizing Pierrot, who looked just about ready to kill his fellow circus member. He had found peace in the forest behind the circus, as it was usually empty besides the occasional animal, but he had liked this place because he could take off the mask on his face, no humans to scream in fear at it. He holds his mask in his hands, his eyes narrowed as he stares up into the sky. The moon was quite round. He hears a scuffle, and a shriek, he promptly puts his mask back on, and heads to the source, assuming it had to be Pierrot and the Harlequin, he assumes Harlequin had completely annoyed Pierrot causing the man to lash out finally, but as he got closer he hears growls, he finds himself moving quicker as he launches himself into the clearing to find a group of wolves attacking something which was flailing, the wolves noticed him, and sensing he was something else turned tail and ran off tails between their legs, laying on the ground bleeding was a girl, not older than three, which surprised him, she lay limp, perhaps she was dead. He stalks closer, staring down at this tiny, tiny body. He notices the faint rise and fall of her tiny chest, and he crouches. She opens her eyes, hazel, they lock onto him, and she stares, trembling, her stomach is heavily bleeding.
“What is a child doing out here? At this hour?” Jester scoffs. All she does is whimper in pain and stare at him. He finds himself picking her up, watching as she squeezes her eyes shut, as if waiting for him to finish her off. He laughs, pitiful.
-
Somehow, he found himself walking back to the circus, the girl in his arms. The Ticket Taker gives him a questioning look, and Jester glares at him, and he walks by. His outfit was getting blood on it; blood was such an annoyance to clean. He glances down to see her staring up at him, and he narrows his eyes. This spooks her, and she begins to tremble again. He could easily kill her, but something made him head towards the Doctor’s tent. He watches as a human stumbles from the tent; it would be empty. As he enters, the Doctor turns to him.
“Ah, Jester, what do I owe you the visit- What do you have there? A gift, oh you shouldn’t have-” The Doctor reaches out to take the child, who flinches, and Jester finds himself swatting the man's hand away.
“She’s not a gift.” Jester growls, the Doctor huffs. If the Jester could see his face, the man would have a pout. Denied a chance to poke and prod at something. “She’s hurt, and she’s a child, her parents, who are doing a terrible job considering I found her in the woods alone, must be worried, and since so many people have been going missing, we’d be the first suspected to have her, so we will find her parents and give her back, but we can’t give back a dead child now can we?”
The Doctor sighs, “Put her on the table, I’ll get to work.” The Jester places the girl on the table, noticing how she flinches as soon as her back touches it. She looks terrified, beginning to tremble again, albeit more violently, weird. The Doctor shoos the Jester out of the tent. Promising he wouldn’t do anything too cruel. The Jester decides to stand outside the tent, to ensure A) no one entered, and B) the Doctor tried anything because that birdbrain would try anything to get the thrill of experimenting, he could burst in and stop him. Everything goes smoothly, the Jester reenters and finds the child has hidden under the table, and is trembling worse than before. “Well?” The Jester asks. The Doctor looked deep in thought.
“It's quite peculiar, she’s got quite the assortment of… unique scars.” The Doctor says.
“What? Abuse?” The Jester asks.
“Yes and no.” The Doctor says, kneeling and grabbing her, lifting her tiny body. She starts snarling and flailing, but he stops her by holding her more forcefully. The Jester glares at him, and he loosens his hold. “She’s got surgical scars,” He shows the Jester, hundreds of old scars, some poorly healed, others well healed. He holds her with one hand and points at her stomach where stitches now rest, “I had to redo the previous stitches as the old ones were broken; whoever did it was clearly doing something. She’s also quite peculiar in anatomy.” The Jester glares at him, “I couldn’t help it, but she seems to have a tail.” The Jester faulters at that.
“A tail? But she smells overly human.” The Doctor turns her around, and sure enough, a tail pokes through a slit in the white gown she wore, its small, fluffy, but patchy in some places. “A monster?” The Doctor shakes his head.
“Everything else is similar to a human's bone structure, even in organs. Albeit there is something a bit different about her stomach. I would greatly appreciate it if you let me-”
“No.”
“...”
“...”
“Fine. But anyway, she also appears to have been branded.” The Doctor says, pointing to her upper arm where two digits, 14, burned on the flesh of her arm, old though. “She also resisted the sedatives I injected; I had to up the dosage quite a lot.”
The Jester grabbed the girl from the Doctor, and she clutched him tight, much to his displeasure. She reaches up and tries to touch his mask, but he swats her hand away, grinning as he watches her flinch. “I’ll be on my way. I’ll send a Fool to try to find her parents; they must be missing her.”
-
A Fool had been sent out with a flyer with the description of the girl, and Jester took her back to his tent, placing her backstage. He had to perform, and he couldn’t with a child. So he leaves her, and gets to work, getting some fools, he gets the Fools and sets them up, watching as people file in.
Everything went well, but when he went backstage, the girl was gone. He bristles and bursts out of the tent, looking around, and finds her trailing after a familiar green figure who was sauntering away. The Jester charged after them, snatching her up, glaring at Harlequin, who looked disappointed.
“What do you think you're doing?” The Jester snarls.
“Whoa, whoa! Calm down, I was just curious. Besides, she looked hungry.” Harlequin holds a hand over his mouth. He wasn’t wrong; the girl was rather light and thin. He’d have to find something to feed her. He whisks her away, and he can feel Harlequin’s gaze bore into his back as he leaves.
He takes her to one of the stalls. What did a child eat? He looks around, frowning. He feels her squirm, and he looks down to scold her, but she’s staring intently at the hotdog stand, reaching a small hand out, making a grabbing motion. Ah, it appeared he didn’t have to do it himself. He heads over to the Fool running the stand, stares at him, and he knows what's in the food, so he manages to get one that isn’t drugged. She forgoes the bread, much to his disdain, and aims straight for the hot dog. Digging into it with hungry bites, he notices how sharp her canines are and how pronounced they are. He watches her eat until a Fool runs up and directs his attention to a commotion at the front of the circus. He growls, looks like some guest isn’t being so proper, he puts her down, “Stay here, don’t move.” He growls and stomps off to deal with the troublemaker.
-
When he returns, she’s gone, he curses loudly, children wouldn’t fucking listen, you tell them to stay put, and then they don’t. He looks around. At this point, he would honestly love to let her die, but they wouldn’t want to get run out of town if a child died, now would they? And if they were, they’d be chased out of any other place due to warnings. So she had to stay alive. He snarls and starts to look, asking guests if they’ve seen anything a few pointed to Pierrot’s tent, but he dismissed that, she wouldn’t, but as more and more started pointing to the tent, he found himself at it and he enters, there was the girl, laying a top a frozen Pierrot who looks more confused than upset at the sleeping child on him. Pierrot looked at him with a look of confusion and silently pleaded for Jester to get her off of him. But that proved to be difficult as she snapped at Jester when he woke her, and she clung tighter. He assumed she liked his scent, as Pierrot smelled very much like the food sold at the shops, including that of the hotdog stand. Jester growls, and she finally lets go. Pierrot bolts as soon as he’s free, rushing out of the tent, and Jester picks her up; she clings to him now, yawning. He sighs and carries her away.
-
He puts her back in his tent, onto his bed, and he takes a seat. With a sigh, he watches as she curls up and falls asleep. This was harder than it looked, he was in fact beginning to regret he even decided to help her.