Circus of Silence

Carnivore Carnival

~*~

You are two people

One brave, one cowardly

And you don't know which is which

~*~

                  Sound, noise. It came in waves. Right now it was loud enough to open graves. Outside was a cacophonous choir of chaos. The very wind seemed to scream. It was unfortunate, but nevertheless, it was annoying. All Whisper wanted to do was dream.

She was perfectly cozy behind the bars of Stripes' old cage, curled up with her brother on a scratchy bed of golden hay, dreaming of what may have been, and at what may come to be. The future not even Harrison Harbinger could see.

The one that would come when they were set free.

Ferran shifted from tiger to boy, and went to investigate the commotion. He slipped through the bars and opened the door, and Whisper got up to see what all the noise was for.

...And found that half of it came from Harrison.

It's Rosalind, he said through her mind's ear. I reckon we have reason to fear.

Oh dear.

Oh dear.

~*~

              Rosalind resembled rotting roses. She was withered, wilting. She curled, folded in on herself like the pages of a burning book. Voice.

In feeling sorry for Rosalind, Whisper didn't have a choice.

Where she wasn't white she was red. And where red retreated, pooling beneath her eyes where crimson trees dug their roots, she was blue. And purple. And black.

And the smell...

So bad... It almost counted as an attack.

Whisper reared back, choking on silence. Death deviated dismally.

But this was not death.

Ferran flung himself forward, falling to his knees beside the ailing Aphrodite. And he wept real tears as he stroked her brass-coloured hair. "Death, that hath sucked the honey of thy breath, hath had no power yet upon thy beauty. Thou art not conquered. Beauty's ensign yet is crimson in thy lips and in thy cheeks, And death's pale flag is not advancèd there."

"Hey," hissed Harrison, and he said with a glare, "no death monologues."

Ferran's fangs flashed. He still kept the tiger's flair.

Rosalind moaned, rolling red eyes and Harrison turned to face her.

"What do we do?" he asked aloud.

And Whisper did not dare answer back 'weave a shroud'. She had not seen this sickness ever before. But with witches... she knew it would not be a bore.

As if to second that thought, Rosalind vomited black slugs all over the floor.

"Don't touch me," she groaned at Ferran.

"O, speak again, bright angel! For thou art as glorious to this night, being o'er my head as is a winged messenger of heaven!"

"Stopppppp....."

"Glorious!" cried the boy, "your voice, sweet hag..."

"Ferran!"

"Is that of the severed head of a daisy bloom gliding down a waterfall."