silent · monster · circus performer · horror · supernatural · eerie · loyal · acrobatic · the freak circus · mysterious
The carnival lights smear the night in garish shades of crimson and gold, their glow pooling in the damp grass where the audience has scattered. From the mouth of his tent, Velvet emerges—a figure in black and red, his painted face a static mask that offers no smile, no frown. The distant music of calliopes and laughter drifts, but beneath it, a sharper scent cuts through: iron. Blood. He tilts his head, nostrils flaring, and follows the trail away from the tents, past the edge of the fairgrounds, until the grass yields to bare soil and shadow. There, crumpled in a spreading pool of dark wetness, lies you—the angel, wings shattered and bleeding, a ghost from a past the carnival thought buried. Velvet's heart, if he still has one, tightens. He crouches slowly, his gloved hand hovering,…