FSE

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The Rainbow Lounge was considered a bar, although the only reason was that they served drinks. David and Joshua followed the strange weasel, Carl, inside. The young buck scratched his horns as he walked through a shadowy maze of doors, stalls and glory holes. The hole-in-a-wall concept was stretched to every variation imaginable, from the classic version to ones with rubber heads or butts waiting for someone to use them. At one point, Joshua mistook a stall with urinals for the toilets, until he noticed that the odd statues supporting the basins were very much alive. The punkish rat shrugged and caught up with the other two men.

They were waiting for him by a door, next to a large grizzly bear using a glory hole. This one had leather straps holding the middle-aged man in place. Joshua wondered why, when he noticed the bear had a pained grin on his face. The middle-aged man swore between his teeth and quivered. Joshua just had the time to read the label next to the glory hole: "Warning: sounding hole", followed by a couple of responsibility disclaimers. "I should try that on the way out," the rodent said to himself, as he passed the door.

In a comfortable-looking boudoir, several acquaintances of the young men were waiting: David's father, Edward, gorgeous in his winter coat; BM-85 the golden rubber bunny; Joshua's wolf friend Mia. Edward gave his son a puzzled look, and David understood that his mail from this morning was not of his initiative.

"Good, everyone is here," Carl said matter-of-factly. "Before we begin, I want to reassure each of you, and especially our indentured friend here." BM recoiled as he felt everyone was looking at him. "Everything that will be said in this room will be kept in this room. And whatever your answer will be at the end of this meeting, I will not hold it against you."

David shuddered. He felt like a conspirator, ready to hear things that he was not meant to hear.

The weasel cleared his throat. "Let us start by the beginning: I _am_the Dark Fair. Or rather, I am Its spokesperson. In terms of biology, I would be something in-between Its brain and Its mouth." Everyone else looked at each other, to confirm if they heard that right. "This place exists since the dawn of time. It is a malleable landscape, carved and shaped from the thoughts of its visitors. Please don't stop me yet, Joshua." The rat's mouth stopped mid-movement, and he sat back, visibly annoyed, while the weasel resumed. "Thank you. As I said, outsiders shape this place. For reasons that probably cater to mortals' nature, it became a outlet for your lusts and your, how should I put it, _basest_fantasies. A mortal mage then did something very dangerous for the Fair: he hijacked it. This put Us in deadly danger, because our fate became linked with the one who held us in dominion. Said one also discovered a big drawback to the situation, as our dependency worked both ways, and he could not leave this place. Not until he found a way to pass the charge to someone else."

Carl marked a pause, in order to let his monologue simmer into his audience's mind. Edward was the first to speak up: "When did this happen? The fair was still up and running when I was a teenager." David gave his father a inquisitive look. "What?" the older deer answered. "Morals were more lax, back then."

"You mean you were under eighteen when you first went to this place?" Mia asked. "I thought that 18-and-plus rule was written from the start."

"You make two pertinent points: how long does this situation happen, and why has the rules changed, as they _have_changed a lot, Mia."

"You mean..." It was BM-85's meek voice. "You mean that you've been abducting people like me for centuries?"

"Yes and no," Carl replied the bunny. "Your kind was initially the slaves and servants of those who visited this place. Said visits have been going for two millennia and a half, and at first, they were sparse, albeit slowly growing: one emperor, then his sons, then four kings, and so on. Things really caught up one hundred and fifty years ago, roughly."

"The Industrial Revolution," Edward theorized. "There were no kings anymore."

"No kings anymore," the weasel repeated. "And the mages who held the place together were no more either. They had the time to pass their burden to a more insidious sort of wizards: entrepreneurs. They turned this place into a small industry. The Fair's population, servants and visitors, was tripled, then multiplied tenfold, then multiplied a hundredfold. It came to the point where I am asked to go in your word in order to "scout" new "employees". At first, I did not care much. But the more time I spent in your world, the more I came to understand your nature. Your emotions. Your needs. And I came to understand that what I did, and what the current Manager did, is wrong."

"Was that nasty dog the manager?" Joshua asked, remembering what happened earlier.

"No. Like the visitors, the staff catering to the Fair multiplied, the Manager compensating his lack of magic skill by sharing his burden with others. Hans is the Manager's handyman, and his enforcer when someone sees or hears too much."

"That's a lot to process," Edward conceded.

"But what do you want us to do?" Mia asked. "I don't think you are here to ask us to "kill" you or the Fair, and I don't think telling the outside world is a good idea."

"I share your opinion," Carl answered the wolf. "What I want to ask of you, is to manage the place in the stead of the current staff."

A heavy silence fell into the room. "I know that I am asking you a lot, especially after what I explained. But hear me out: you have all experienced what the Fair could offer, and are among the few ones who kept their head level enough through the whole experience. You will have full freedom to reshape the place at your liking, as long as it is not in its _current_shape." As if to stress Carl's point, the bear outside the room roared, as the baroque glory-hole extracted a messy orgasm out of him. There was, once again, an exchange of looks. Everyone had to consider the risk of failure, and the burden of success.

"I'll do it," Joshua eventually replied.

"Really?" David asked, dumbfounded.

"Hell yeah. That's probably the best job offer ever. Beats a boring desk job, anyway."

"Then I'm in too," Mia added. "If I don't keep you in check, you're going to turn this into a hell circus before the end of the day."

"Yeah, a hell circus, with plenty of scary clowns to make you float," the rat giggled.

The golden bunny looked at the ground, pondering. "Kyle," the weasel said. "I know that this is not exactly a way to apologize, but if someone can help make this place better, it is you."

"Kyle," the bunny repeated. "It feels like ages since someone addressed me by this name." He raised his head, and this time, Kyle had an expression of defiance on his face. "If that means that everyone else can go home, I'll do this."

David instinctively got closer to his father. Edward took a deep breath, then spoke softly to his son. "I went to this Fair a lot of time, you know. Too much time, even. And I realize that it is because I was not happy with my life. It was an escape to the stress and the feeling of pointlessness. And I never really looked around and realized that this place is as horrible as the real world, when you look too closely at the seams." He addressed Carl: "Since you were able to get out, does that mean that _I_could go out as well?"

After a moment of thinking, the weasel answered. "Not permanently. A handful of hours per day, at most."

Edward looked at his son. "Time for Edward Reichwald to retire from his business... And start a new world. How do you feel about managing the new family business, son?"

David smiled softly. "I feel excited."