# MADAME MIRAGE

## The Ringmaster

Before there was a Ryanna Rogue Universe, there was Madame Mirage.

Elegant, theatrical and completely at home in controlled chaos, Madame Mirage was the ringmaster at the heart of *Welcome to the Circus!*

With her black top hat, dark curls streaked with red, dramatic burgundy ringmaster coat, thigh-high boots and ornate microphone cane, Mirage was born to command a spotlight.

But Mirage was never simply “the woman running the circus.”

She represented something deeper.

### Control.

The conscious mind.

The part of us desperately trying to organize all the other pieces.

Around her were characters embodying curiosity, distraction, emotion, instinct, anxiety and resilience.

Mirage didn’t hate those parts.

She didn’t try to banish them.

That was the point.

The circus was inside all of us.

Mirage’s job wasn’t to eliminate the chaos.

It was to conduct it.

That remains her role today.

Floyd can create havoc.

Sheldon can go the wrong direction.

Leo can start tap dancing.

Polar bears can begin picketing.

Actual seals can become offended over administrative terminology.

Madame Mirage will stand in the center of it all with her microphone cane and the expression of a woman who somehow suspected this was going to happen.

She doesn’t stop the show.

She makes sure:

### The Show Must Go On.