Damaris was a lonely creature. Years before, she had been the card reader for the Carnaval de Fleurs, but when the Church began to hunt her kind, the carnival was disbanded. Its members, her family, were scattered from city to city as they fled. Now she traveled alone, a one woman caravan of strange fortune.<br/><br/>By day she slept, tucked away on the outskirts of one town or another, and by night she lit the lamps to draw the Unfortunates to her table. The desperate and the foolish flocked to her. They sought certainty when they asked her for their futures. She gave them all that she had: smoke, poetry, the faded images on her cards, ugly truth. They paid with their blood, but only just enough, and they never remembered. This was her mercy. The only ones she ever killed were the ones who came to her wagon in staggering bands, carrying torches and calling her witch, demon, whore.<br/><br/>Yes, Damaris made due. Hers was a tidy, efficient existence, and she never wanted for creature comforts. However, when the lamps burned out and she lay alone with the curtains drawn against the rosy light, she thought of all she had lost, of those she had left behind when the carnival tents were in flames, horses running blind with panic. She thought of Mother, with her cold mechanical hand, curls of pipe smoke wreathing her flawless child's face. She thought of the Strongman, Leon, so very afraid of the dogs, such a kind soul. She thought of the fire dancers, Vladimir the Human Pincushion, the twins with their paper masks. She thought also of past lovers, those few men and women with whom she had shared her daylights, their soft and knowing hands, the lull of their voices. The memory of their affections sometimes made her unravel like tapestry there in her solitude, mad and feral for all she could no longer touch. She was a lonely creature, indeed.<br/><br/>This night, Damaris was in Kenning, a low sprawling seaside town known widely for its manufacture of small, delicate machine parts. The air smelled of salt and burning things as, dressed in a simple black blouse and long skirt of deep green velvet, she walked the perimeter of her encampment, lighting the lamps. It was the light that called the people - the light, and the smell of burning bay leaves, and her siren's song of "Fooooortunes, Mysteriiiiiieees, Come oooone, come aaaaaall!" They drifted from taverns, from their homes, from the soot of the streets, like fragile little moths, and she, the lonely creature, the lonely, hungry creature.... she waited. She sat at her table with the cards spread before her, lavender eyes sharp and clear with knowing. They would come.