[Carnival]
She did as she said, and she left a ticket at the ticket booth, his name written on it in her feminine script, and the red piece of carboard tucked into an envelope that smelled like summer.
The night was crowded, and the weather was a little to blame. Not too cold, and hints of spring clinging to the night. There were lights in the trees, and the big tent was striped and cheery, lights hanging off the edges and the barker leading people in with his song. The main show was thrilling. Gymnastics and acrobatics that seemed impossible, and animatronics that felt alive, and fortune tellers that plucked people from the crowd and told futures. It was a bright show, loud and evocative of a simpler and more elegant time, and the hooch that followed was no different.
The hooch was in a smaller tent, a separate fare required for admission, and the men all crowded in to watch the girls sing and dance. It was burlesque, and it was dirtier, tawdry in the way that only something performed on a wooden stage over dirt could be. Lights flickered, and the girls wore ribboned underwear and tassels on top. Wren sang, and she was Wren now, close to changing the name officially on the forums, and she sang and swayed hips slow. Her skin was glitter, and there was no pole for her to swing around, but she didn't need the accessory. Her hips swayed under the twinkling lights, and she looked at every man in the crowd like her husky song was for him. She lost the tassels, and she came close enough for men to ghost fingers over dusky nipples, and the spotlight kissed her skin like she was made for the display.
But she knew that Rory was there, somewhere, and she wasn't for sale that night. When the auction began, she wasn't on the block, and she slipped a robe over ribbons and slipped out the back.
People wandered, going into smaller tents for inking and to commune with their dead, to see long lost mermaids and boys with wings. But Wren waited, moving slow and not returning to her airstream yet. Rory would find her on the outskirts, and she knew that with the same certainty that she knew her blood was tainted and her soul forfeit. She stayed in the shadows, barely dressed and not wanting to shock. Her feet were bare on the icy grass, and she dug toes in and listened to the carnival's song, eyes closed and face tipped up to the night.