🐾 The Menagerie Docks
“If it breathes, it has a place in the act.”
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Overview
The Menagerie Docks form the southern rim of Harlequin Vale, where the mirrored mountain runoff meets the sea.
Half stable, half stage, and wholly chaotic, the Docks serve as the beating heart of the city’s animal trade, maritime shows, and traveling beast-taming troupes.
Here, the smell of saltwater mingles with hay, greasepaint, and roasted fish; gulls and parrots scream over the crash of waves and the laughter of handlers rehearsing tricks.
It is a place of contradictions — where compassion wrestles with spectacle, and every cage door doubles as a curtain.
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Geography and Structure
The Menagerie sprawls across tiered wooden wharfs and barges tethered to the cliffside.
The upper levels hold the Trainer’s Row — rope bridges, harness platforms, and aviaries filled with doves, crows, and trained parrots from Port Chimera.
The middle decks house the Water Acts, a cluster of floating rings used for sea-lion dives and synchronized dolphin displays.
Below them lies the Tide Stable, where cages, tanks, and holding pens rock gently with the tide.
A narrow catwalk leads to the Beastmaster’s Office, built into an upturned ship’s hull. The nameplate, nailed sideways, reads simply:
> “Talli Bramblecoat — Keeper of Beasts, Keeper of Promises.”
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Role in the Vale
The Docks supply the city’s Big Top performers with trained animals and exotic creatures for shows and parades.
But they are also a sanctuary: a halfway house for retired performers, injured familiars, and lost familiars from failed acts.
Many locals donate scraps and coin here rather than to the churches.
The Riggers’ Guild maintains the hoists and nets, ensuring no act collapses mid-show.
The Clown Hospital periodically sends students to study animal therapy, learning how motion calms trauma — an unofficial alliance between laughter and loyalty.
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Wildlife and Origins
Harlequin Vale imports its beasts from every corner of Aescharion:
Sea creatures — dolphins, seals, and the occasional octopus — from Port Chimera’s fishermen.
Swamp creatures — crocodiles, herons, and brightly colored frogs — from Fenmarrow.
Mountain animals — bears, goats, and hawks — from the slopes of the Glass Range.
Desert beasts and elephants — from Caravan Caravels traveling through central Canava.
Most lions, tigers, and exotic birds are not native to Canava; they are carefully bred descendants of early import stock, sustained only through the Vale’s care.
A few handlers whisper that not every creature under their watch is what it appears to be.
One of the oldest rules, carved into the dockside post, reads:
> “If the beast asks your name — do not answer.”
For some performers swear a few “animals” are doppelgangers hiding from recognition, wearing borrowed fur and silence.
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Culture and Atmosphere
To the people of Harlequin Vale, the Docks embody the city’s soul — wild, compassionate, dangerous, and full of applause.
Children grow up watching trainers practice trust-falls with lions or teaching otters to juggle shells.
Morning bells ring to the rhythm of hooves and laughter; evenings end with torchlight dances along the pier, when handlers and animals share the same meal.
Tourists see the Docks as entertainment.
Residents know them as family.
Every beast that performs becomes part of the Vale’s unwritten covenant: that joy and danger belong together.
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Leadership and Organization
Guildmistress Talli Bramblecoat oversees the entire operation.
A trollkin of great strength and gentle humor, she is equally respected by performers and beasts.
Her guiding motto — painted on every gate — reads:
> “No creature performs twice without consent.”
Under her are several distinct circles:
The Harnessers’ Circle — rope and net specialists trained by the Riggers’ Guild.
The Aquatic Troupe — divers and water mages who maintain the tide tanks.
The Ashen Caretakers — keepers for retired or ill beasts, many former performers themselves.
The Whisperers — volunteers who use empathic magic or song to calm frightened animals (and sometimes people).
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Economy and Trade
The Menagerie’s income flows from performance contracts with the Big Top, donations, and touring troupes who rent trained animals for provincial festivals.
Fish from Port Chimera and fodder from the Still Fields are traded daily.
Embervault’s artificers have also designed prosthetic limbs and heat-resistant harnesses for injured beasts — a collaboration both touching and controversial.
When Silverwake inspectors arrive, the animals mysteriously “underperform,” refusing commands until the uniforms leave.
The locals consider it civic duty.
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Public Opinion
To outsiders, the Docks are chaotic; to locals, sacred.
The Tranquilists frown upon the captivity, yet admit the beasts seem content.
The Rational Coin praises the economic efficiency.
Only the Sanctifiers of Stillness condemn it outright, claiming the animals’ wild motion offends Serendahl’s perfect symmetry.
They have tried to regulate the Menagerie twice; both times, their paperwork was stolen by a parrot before it could be stamped.
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Notable Residents & Figures
Talli Bramblecoat, Beastmistress and unofficial guild-mayor of the Docks.
Fen Thistle, halfling water-mage who choreographs the tide acts.
Crumble, a one-eyed bear retired from the Big Top who now guards the feed stores.
Vesper, a mysterious raven rumored to speak in reverse.
The Three Otters of Coin and Cannon, comedic aquatic trio trained by Alon Brasswick’s apprentices — their act involves lighting cannons underwater and surviving.
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Rumors and Hooks
Some cages hum faintly at night — mirrorstone residue in the chains, or something watching through them?
A lion that drowned during a storm was seen weeks later walking calmly along the Ropewalks, dry as bone.
Talli has been offered enormous sums to sell her griffin “Ashfeather” to Silverwake; she refuses.
The Docks’ under-pens may hide an escape route for fugitive performers and beasts fleeing religious persecution.
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In One Sentence
The Menagerie Docks are Harlequin Vale’s living heart — part refuge, part circus, part rebellion — where every roar, screech, and splash is a reminder that motion itself is holy.