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The nagini rose on his coil from a raised platform, his body swaying hypnotically in a shockingly sensuous dance as a night elf nearby, her dark hair spilling over deep indigo shoulders, bent her head to the flute she played. She likewise swayed as the haunting elven music rose so that the pair appeared almost like lovers moving in perfect accompaniment. As she watched them move together, MaryAnne could almost forget the predatory way the male had watched her when she’d met him.
As beautiful as he was with his scales polished and gleaming as he performed with the elf, he certainly struck her as someone who would at least entertain the idea of eating children if he were hungry. He didn’t quite seem the sort of kidnap and just keep them, however, unless she was grossly mistaken. Not exactly the sort of face that could lure away a trusting child with its sharp angles in all the wrong places, and blunt features where no human would have them.
He didn’t even mingle among the other fae within the carnival much by what she saw, preferring to keep to his own company. As far as MaryAnne was aware, even the night elf who performed with him did not keep him company when they weren’t performing. It would almost be sad if the nagini didn’t try so hard to be unpleasant and frightening toward everyone. Pale yellow-green eyes suddenly shifted over the crowd, and MaryAnne ducked in closer among several women standing beside two men.
Her head tipped curiously as she caught their murmured words.
“Do you think it will call?” a woman on the far right murmured to her friend next to her.
“It calls when the fog rises. It calls in the night,” replied the second knowingly with a tip of her head.
The third at the farthest right groaned softly. “Sweet surrender and ecstasy. When will it be my turn?”
“Patience,” advised the first with a quiet hiss. “One must be properly prepared. They are quite demanding.”
The three women looked over at the men standing just in front of them who stood, almost swaying themselves, with glassy eyes. MaryAnne peered at them uncertainly. Was there something wrong with them? The women, on the other hand, seemed to be eyeing them like crows watching a dying animal, just waiting to pick its bones clean. MaryAnne shivered, and sidestepped, creeping away from the crowd gathered around the nagini’s performance.
That was creepy. But then, what wasn’t creepy anymore? The only thing that didn’t seem like a harbinger was the fog creeping across the ground. Perhaps it was because she’d become so desensitized to it, but it was strangely acting… normally. It drifted around them like a cool, damp hug, but there was a transparency that the fog had lacked on most days since she arrived at The Bend. There were no thick walls ready to swallow anything that neared them. How odd.
Hurrying forward to keep up with a passing crowd, MaryAnne took a right at the bend as she attempted to retrace her steps to the place where she had encountered them last. Was there something about that spot in particular? That question had haunted her, enough so that she had taken a few passes in the general area where she thought it to be during one of her “strolls” with Raskyuil, and yet none of the children had approached her again.
She had begun to wonder if it was her mate. Perhaps they were afraid to get too close when there was a troll around. So she hurried up the path, pushing her way to the center of the group when they passed Naya’s stand so that Barok’s sister didn’t spot her creeping among the crowd.
She kept her distance as much as possible from the female orc without coming off as rude, certain that something would trigger the memory of seeing MaryAnne in the carnival with all her kids around her when they visited her stall. So far, she hadn’t seemed to make any connections yet. Their encounters were usually brief and in passing. Far more infrequently than those with the single males who loitered and worked in places where MaryAnne was more likely to run into them. Still, it would be just her luck that seeing MaryAnne out in the carnival could dredge up a memory.
Lights spun on the rides up ahead, the fairy music rising sweetly. Without the drugging influence swamping her, it bore an eerie cadence to its melody, as if it were a parody of a song that had never been properly heard, the tune all wrong and in the incorrect key. Wasn’t the minor key supposed to make everything sound wrong? That was what it was like, she decided. Like someone took a cheerful song and fucked it up so that it sounded haunted instead.
The whisper of a thicker plume of fog rose, and MaryAnne’s heart leaped in excitement. That was more like it! If she could just communicate with even one of the children, she could probably get that one to show her where they all were. Unless they were so separated from their bodies that they didn’t know. It was a sobering thought, but she only had room in her mind for one potential disaster at a time, and she was currently occupied with trying not to get caught.
She trailed after the fog as she slipped through the crowds while simultaneously trying to avoid getting stepped on or tripped over. But then the worst happened. Elwyn stepped out from a tent just ahead of her, a pleased smile on his face as he quickly worked to adjust his cuffs before lifting his head. His pale purple eyes skimmed over the crowd, and at the same moment MaryAnne ducked behind a particularly large male. She stiffened nervously when she heard him call out a greeting seconds before he bade them all a good time as he continued along the path. She caught just the impression of gold fabric of his fancy cloak and tunic flashing before he was gone, and she blew out her breath in relief.
Some of the tension eased from her shoulders and back, and she began to straighten and walk with a more confident step as she looked around curiously. She was getting closer to the rides. Game booths took the place of food stalls, with their brightly colored prizes hanging as the games whirled and made all kinds of sounds with their flashing lights. She blushed, her eyes falling upon a certain shoot-em-up game that Raskyuil had taken her against. Someone leaned over the same counter now, taking aim with the fake rifle, and all she could think of was the way her troll pinned her to that counter and fired all that he had into her.
Choking back an embarrassed laugh, she shivered and purposely looked away, her eyes scanning the bright displays surrounding her. There were more goblins intermixed here among the guests, many of them in some sort of horrific clown costumes, their garish painted smiles leering as they frolicked around the guests in a leaping sort of dance that sent the little bells sewn to their clothes jingling. Her eyes followed their performance as she moved toward the outer edge of the crowd, skirting humans and fae alike who were slowly gaining a bit more liveliness and yet looking all the paler and frailer for it as they laughed.
The fae from the town were holding out a little better and didn’t look quite as frail as the humans in their company who were gaunt as if they were already dead but still walking. But she could see a weariness in the fae scattered among their company who appeared to be losing mass and substance right before her eyes. A gray veneer clung to them as if she were looking through the filter of a grimy window.
She gave them a perplexed look as she inched past. It was strange to see the fae townspeople being affected by the magic of the carnival. Was that even normal? None of the other fae that she knew were affected by it. MaryAnne had to eat her special little berry every morning to keep from falling under its spell, but she was human. She thought that the fae had a natural immunity to it. She made a mental note to ask Nivira as she turned toward the dancing lights of the rides.
They sang as they spun, and she searched the fog for a hint of the children, but it scattered with the hurried footsteps of adults bustling around, their voices twisted in a strange childlike gaiety as they laughed and stumbled from ride to ride on quivering legs. At times she thought she caught sight of a shadowy form of a small child among them, but it was gone too quickly. She followed every hint of a humanoid shadow that she saw, and all of them dissolved into wisps the closer she came. She finally gave up and carefully backtracked, making her way back, ducking among those ambling about until finally she slipped inside the dryas’ tent.
Ayla startled, her arachnid legs arching from her back into the air as if prepared to strike. MaryAnne stared at the sharp ends aimed at her and stumbled back. Although they bore resemblance to a spider’s segmented leg in form, the hard claws at the end in no way resembled a spider’s foot. They were defensive, for piercing and weaving, and perhaps for climbing the same way a mountain climber would use an ax and spikes to make their way up hard surfaces. She supposed it even made sense given that the body of the drya was more humanoid with similar weight and distribution rather than like that of a spider, but it wasn’t doing anything to allay her fear in that moment. Not when Ayla was hissing venomously and making a strange rattling sound in her throat as she quickly sidestepped with a rapid, jerky motion.
The female blinked her purple eyes, and a look of recognition crossed her face that was quickly replaced with wry amusement. Huffing in exasperation, she folded her arachnid spinal limbs and shook her head.
“I see you have returned. Nivira said that you had stepped out to explore. Was it everything you hoped for?” she asked, raising a brow.
“Not really,” MaryAnne grumbled.
The drya chuckled, leading her along the tent wall toward the back, her laughter pitched quietly. Did Nivira have a client? A quick glance toward the table set up in the center confirmed that she did, and MaryAnne picked up her pace to stay with Ayla, who peered back at her, her purple eyes glowing faintly in the shadow like two little specks of light hanging in the air as she stepped into the deeper shadow where the lantern didn’t quite penetrate.
“Oh? Did you not enjoy the frivolity of it? I was certain that is what everyone comes for. To dance upon our bones if we collapse in the dirt, to fuck, to consume, to take every sensation that the carnival gives,” she hissed. “And it gives them its all—butyouwere not satisfied?”
There was a chilly note to her question, and MaryAnne hesitated. Her position suddenly felt precarious. “It’s not that,” MaryAnne whispered. “It was actually really fun to see everything up close without the magic affecting me, and without Raskyuil drawing everyone’s attention to him like a huge danger sign. The performances I did see were beautiful and fascinating. What the carnival does is incredible.”
Ayla’s lips curved in obvious pleasure. “Yes. It is, isn’t it? You should see me dance next time. Come to the far tent… the big one. There are various compartments for specific acts, and I believe mine is the finest.”
“I will be sure to do so. But I am curious about something.”
