| " | \n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t“Come, come! Let us speak face to face!” Shari calls out to Cream, beckoning her closer. There was something, very, very off. And yet, she couldn’t say no to her. She couldn’t say… anything? Cream grasps her neck, opening her mouth but not a sound comes out. The Cheshire cat speaks, but her mouth doesn’t move. “I know you were expecting a show, but you see it’s so hard to find good help. Just the right levels of enticement, with that hint of modesty that sends the crowd into a tizzy! Your clothes, you’re mannerisms, you’re… perfect.” She needed to run. She had to get out! Cream uses her ears to fly off the stage! Or, she would have, had her body moved at all. Her panic increasing, her eyes darting as the feline raised her hand, and to her dismay her own hand raised in turn, mimicking her. “You’re going to be my new dancer! Not forever mind you, I’m not allowed to keep them anymore. Only a couple hundred years!” Her feet moved in tandem with her captor, no longer so distant from each other. Cream could now see the finer details of the Cheshire cat; her wide, painted eyes, her insane, manic grin, and more distressingly her joints being hinges. This buxom burlesque dancer was a marionette herself, her sharp teeth in contrast to that cheerful and perky voice. “Relax, enjoy! Let’s turn that frown into a nice, wide smile!” Cream watches as strings from the tips of the Shari’s fingers drop down, attaching themselves to her own arm and their energy sends a tingling, then a cold numbness through her side. She looks on in horror as she her fur smooths, becoming a soft gloss sheen that inched it’s way across her form. Her body become segmented and limp, held aloft by her captor. And through it all, that smile ingrains itself into her minds eye, the only thing she can see even as she looks away. A laughter fills her head, and a part of her can’t help but smile with it as her expression freezes into that same wide grin, save for her darting eyes. “Almost done, just need to empty those nice little thoughts of yours and-” Shari’s words are cut off by a sudden and striking light from within cream’s gripped hand. The energy washing over her and forcing back the corruption, freeing the rabbit of the spell. Her mind becomes her own, and the desire to flee grips her again. Shari’s reels back as the gold glow burns away her strings. Her voice was ever steady, but Cream could still hear in her tone an underlying fear. “Oh dear, that ticket. That would mean…” “Yes, dear Shari. This one is seeking her own fantasy. Not yours.” A familiar voice echoes in the theater, a figure walking down the ramp with a clatter of heels.\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t | \n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t