*Eight Months Later*

Unique and peculiar creatures are the verozean people.

Lovers of the art of dance, music, entertainment, and the most varied artistic sources, they celebrate the magic of being alive and excited by the spark of experience, aiming to delight in all the pleasures that existence could offer them.

Not only were circus practices active and encouraged, but all the skills and attributes that contributed to the shows were glorified by the attention of the verozean people, which further exalted one of the most extravagant characteristics that a few natives managed to awaken in their bodies: the production of new keratin prominences, in addition to their horns, by the most diverse regions of their anatomies.

They can stiffen their skin in sharp protuberances - like big spikes - in the biggest evolutionary remnant that their oldest ancestors had to defend themselves against predators.

Today, as such a singularity was no longer necessary for them to survive modern life, the skill has been increasingly rare in the desert population, which nothing prevented those who obtained it from displaying it with all pride and ostentation of its varied forms, mainly on that strong sunny day when the circus performed at the central square of Verozys.

Tents and decorations filled the scene with the vividness of their colors, providing a broadly receptive stage for the verozean crowd that now filled the area.

Dance, music, festivity; the arid atmosphere of the verozean society became as comforting as the artists who performed there amid traders' circles. The sounds and aromas of the city were mixed in the biggest entertainment event that any nation could conceive in a space as small as that square, and nothing could stop the euphoria that everyone experienced in the seas of people who traveled through the spectacle.

There, right in the middle of the hustle and bustle - among other artists who performed their respective choreographies - a small verozean girl of only nine years old danced happily around in the most serene and fun of the presentations. Her lovely young robes enchanted not only those who passed through the crowded region with curious people but also the circus colleagues who accompanied her.

She swayed her straight, purplish hair with the joy of a new day of celebration, never containing the happiness of parading with her new clothes and makeup. Pink and green were her favorite colors, and her clothes showed her taste for those nuances very well.

"Yes! Yes! You're doing great, Xarcondra!" laughing with final euphoria, Ruzorh congratulated his daughter who danced right beside him, since he, as a great father, allowed himself to be accompanied by the choreography that she admired so much. "Show to your dad how much you can humiliate him!"

"Don't exaggerate, dad!" smiling with the exaltation for her ascendant, the little girl stimulated her body to jump, rotate, and configure itself in new poses for passing spectators.

Ruzorh and Xarcondra skirted the stage in the most incredible of harmonies, being extremely beautiful and ironic that two such contradictory figures might be able to synchronize in rhythm and bodily musicality. At least, until the father wanted to draw attention to himself.

"Now it's my turn to shine!" Ruzorh exclaimed when joining his fists in a new choreography. His body was stimulated to conceive the renowned spikes of his genetics through the regions of the back, shoulders, and elbows of his anatomy, forming an even more striking silhouette. "Behold this big man!"