The years flow by like water, and one day men come home again.

[tezcatl-ipoca.livejournal.com]

The Carnival
June 3

Three years. Nearly, anyway. I've been angry the whole time.

I wanted to know why we left. I wanted to know why he didn't come and find me. I wanted things to be alright with Syl again. I wanted - want - to find a way to punish Management for what they did. I wanted things to be right. I wanted to go home.

The Carnival used to be home. It's not any more. I realised that soon after we left town. Leaving hurt, like something tearing in me. And even if I wasn't missing - people - things weren't how they used to be. I can't do the sort of show I used to, and if I could I don't like people looking at me, now. Working as a roustie's been different from being a turn.

I couldn't leave, so I wrote. Letters to Valmont and Alice, long and rambling, talking about what I saw and some of what I felt. And I sent - things, to Iblis. I started writing to him, one night in some nameless place when I missed him so much it hurt, and when I touched the paper after I could feel that pain throbbing out of it. I burned it and buried the ashes, but a while later I put that same longing into a carefully-pressed flower, a reminder of another time, and sent that.

I never got a reply, but I sent other things, from time to time. My anger like a spring-coil in a page torn from a book. Fear, as a kind of dry joke, in a handful of dust. I never sent any letters, just - moments. Pieces of myself. I don't know if he got them.

And now I'm back here and he's still caught in me like a fish-hook. And I want to see Valmont and Alice, and Glass as well (I stole a book for her once and sent it, delicate drawings of herbs). Other people, maybe. His child. I'm twenty now, in this body at least, and I look more like a man.

And I think I know why we've come back. I have my own plans now.

[OPEN]

Comments

[al-shairan.livejournal.com]

"Rose gave it a soul, after a fashion. She is a very gifted child." I smile, thinking of her.

"I am, too. I think I - have to be. And I...wouldn't want you to be alone."

"I am always alone," I say gently, leaning over him. "I will be alone at the end." But when I kiss him, pushing him slowly back into the grass, it is something like thanks.

[tezcatl-ipoca.livejournal.com]

After a fashion? Interesting. I see how he smiles when he thinks of her. If it wasn't his child I might be jealous. I feel strangely proud instead, though I don't have any reason to.

"I am always alone. I will be alone at the end."

When he kisses me it's like warm sun. It hasn't been like that between us since a long time before I died. There's a memory somewhere of vines in a room, him crowned with leaves. I shrug a little: "I will be there, then, when you are alone." I put my arms up round his neck. "Whatever else," I promise, because he's always been wise enough not to trust my nature, "I'll be there." I tug him down further and kiss him again. I'm very hard. I smile against his mouth, remembering when I was with him last, when this body was new to me.

[al-shairan.livejournal.com]

I think of all the ways he could betray me. Has betrayed me. He will do again, I am quite sure of it.

"I'll be there."

"I know," I say again, and return his kiss. He is hard underneath me. "Do you remember the things you did with this body, before you died?" I ask. "You liked this one particularly. I burned it for you, when you died."

[tezcatl-ipoca.livejournal.com]

"Some of them. It's easier to remember here. I ate its heart once." We must have looked even stranger together then. I touch his face thoughtfully, imagining it burning. "Did it hurt when you burned it?"