<div style="text-align: center;">The link to the interest check is provided here: <a class="postlink" href="https://creativefreedomrpg.com/viewtopic.php?f=74&amp;t=43728">http://creativefreedomrpg.com/viewtopic.php?f=74&amp;t=43728</a><br/>I will be recruiting a few more people before I allow posts on this thread. So please do <span style="font-weight: bold"><span style="text-decoration: underline">NOT</span></span> post unless approval has been given beforehand. Thanks!<br/><br/><a class="postlink" href="http://img189.imageshack.us/img189/7085/silas.png">[ img ]</a><br/><br/>“I hope you’ve taken what I’ve said to heart,” said a rather impatient man. The man tapped his foot against the ground, alligator hide making a rather strange noise against the Persian carpet rug underneath his feet. The other man whom he had spoken to did not look up. The quill pen in his hands continued to scrape against a roll of parchment, the feather dipping this way and that as the man wrote in his loopy scrawl. It was not a good thing to keep the alligator-shoe-wearing man waiting, but Silas chose to do it anyway. However, the word “chose” would imply he had a choice, which in fact he did not. His other hand steadied the parchment underneath the touch of his quivering pen. He stopped momentarily to dip the feather back into some ink before his signature was strewn along the bottom of the page. Indigo eyes peered upward through dark black hair, staring at the face of the impatient man. The man raised a brow and held out his hand, finger uncurling devilishly as his gaze dropped to the signed paper.<br/><br/>“I’ve listened,” Silas said carefully. He knew better than to make anymore promises to this man. After all, he was already bound tightly enough and wasn’t too keen on having his chains tightened even more. He rolled up the parchment and placed it into the man’s waiting palm. It was unrolled and surveyed with first discontent, then a prick of anger. Silas watched the emotions roll on and off of the man’s face while he read, then tilted his head when black eyes met his own indigo. “You’ll find my quota filled for the year.”<br/><br/>“These are not the proper conditions. What you’ve given me will not suffice.” <br/><br/>Silas frowned and opened his mouth to speak, but the man’s words had sharpened to blades. “Master Silas, you are bound to me. For this new year, your quota will be doubled. If you fail to uphold our deal, you know the consequences. I’ll take my leave. Good day.” The triangular hat the man wore was tipped down as he dipped his chin, the feather stitched into the black fabric trembling as he left. Silas stared at the man’s back, watched the black cloak he wore slither across the ground. Some of the black tendrils detached from the bottom of the cloak and scuttled across the Persian carpet. Silas played with his fingers for a few moments and looked around his room.<br/><br/>His living quarters were cluttered and gave way to his stressful life. Books were thrown everywhere, pages scattered along the floor. A bed was wedged between a book shelf and a chest. The man rose to his feet and stepped around clothes and knickknacks to crouch by his chest. He withdrew a brass key from his pocket and slid it into the lock. With a twist of his wrist, it turned with a click and the trunk popped open. A long exhale blew from Silas’s nose as he reached into the trunk. More pieces of parchment slid under his fingertips, hundreds of signatures, hundreds of souls stuck locked up in a trunk. Once upon a time he’d felt no remorse for what he did, but after hundreds of years of seeing people, witnessing emotions, feeling humanity but growing further from it, his days that were once filled with happiness were now haunted with sorrow. Sleepless nights in this hellish room painted the dark lilac bruises under his indigo eyes. <br/><br/>The sound of trumpets startled him. The trunk was shut again, the lock turned back in place, and the key returned to his pocket.<br/><br/>Dusk had arrived. It was time for the Cirque to wake. <br/><br/><a class="postlink" href="http://imageshack.us/a/img12/7793/secretsm.png">[ img ]</a><br/><br/>It was a lonely place during the day. Secrets didn’t exactly require company, but something about the desolate Cirque, with golden rays of sunlight streaming down on colorful tents and no one around to see the beauty of such abandonment, something about it was terrible. Her wooden staff made the occasional tap when it met against a rock hidden underneath dirt. The talismans that were wound around the top of the staff swung as she walked, beads making music and breaking the silence that held its domain over this place. No one would dare approach during the day. Sure, it had more to do with the warding and spells that wore off by night than anything else, but Secrets had a feeling few would dare to approach anyway. It could be a frightening place, the Cirque, for those who didn’t believe in magic. <br/><br/>She raised a hand and stroked the mask that covered her face. Her hand tilted underneath the curve of the beak. The mask was smooth underneath her touch and felt much like her skin, warm, with a pulse. Her hand stretched to her jaw and fingers crept to the back of her cheek bone; where one would expect to find an edge, a place where the mask stopped and skin began, there was none. The mask faded into skin, but in the dark, one never noticed. The talismans continued to swing on her slender staff as she walked along. A bare sliver of silver could be seen underneath the circular glass coverings that had been stitched into the mask to allow sight. She sniffed and tilted her head to the side. <br/><br/>Many tents lay scattered along the expanse of dirt. Big and small, some were filled with trinkets, some with potions, some with animals, but all of them had one thing in common: magic. This place had once seemed like salvation to Secrets. After being lost for so long, she had thought that it had been a miracle when the Cirque had arrived in Venice so many years ago. She had been desperate and it was only the start of her treasure hunt; at that time, she’d been naïve. The Circus would certainly house the means for breaking this curse, she’d thought. After she’d been taken, been gifted immortality for the price of one soul, she found she’d been bound to the Cirque. If she were to step off of the magical boundary surrounding the traveling Cirque, her years would catch up with her and she would die. <br/><br/>She stood on the edge right then. The last tent was to her right. A low buzz thrummed in the air in front of her. She’d known of a few people to do it. They’d gone insane in the Cirque and had walked right out. After two steps, they’d been nothing but dust, whisked away by the wind. It looked peaceful, but all she could do was stare right then. Her hand went up to touch her neck. Browned by time and immobilized by immortality, the sterile gauze bandages that wrapped around her neck were still sterile. Her wound never bled but the gauze remained and her speech stayed trapped. It was only in this form though, that she couldn’t speak. Hindering, sometimes, but it was a blessing at others. When one could not speak, frustration could lead to epiphanies. <br/><br/>Nevertheless, the beak that stretched her face withered and shrank. The bandages soaked into her skin and the staff shriveled up in her hands. The talismans turned to soot and soaked back into her hands. Crisscrossing lines struck her face; a pointed nose twisted upward while tassels sprung off near her forehead. Black and purple bled onto the mask and a fey grin curled at her exposed lips. The half-mask brought forth a different way of thinking, a whole near personality. Secrets smoothed her rumpled corset and she took one skipping step back from the buzzing wall. “Not today,” she whispered and twisted on her heels. The sun set behind her, trumpets blared, and Secrets walked with a haughty bounce to her step. <br/><br/><a class="postlink" href="http://imageshack.us/a/img5/493/lotusm.png">[ img ]</a><br/><br/>Everyone sort of tolerated Lotus. The males only liked her when she removed her human glamour; the females accepted her for what she was and got on with it. It had taken quite a bit of bothering to be accepted into the Cirque, probably because of what she was. Silas shared a deeper connection with her than with the rest of the merry men that made up the Cirque. Even after she’d been taken into the Cirque, she’d continued a relationship with him that reached just a teensy bit past friendship. It was kinship, a sort of sister-brother bond that the two of them shared, no matter if it didn’t seem so out in public. More than once had Lotus gone to Silas when needing advice or when she just needed to talk. It was probably the reason why she was looked at as second-in-command and why Silas usually trusted her to help run the Cirque. <br/><br/>It was why he approached her right then. “Who was that man leaving the tent? You don’t get along very well with him, do you?” she said. The corners of his lips tilted up, but fell flat just as quickly. His eyes glittered with amusement when he spoke.<br/><br/>“And why do you think that?”<br/><br/>Lotus raised a brow. “He was wearing alligators on his feet.” This earned a laugh from Silas, a man who stuck religiously to a vegetarian diet and had a thing for collecting exotic animals for the Cirque. “Marcus chipped his horn again, by the way. He hasn’t stopped complaining since we left New York. I like this valley air, Silas. We should stay here for a while,” she said. Silas kept his hands in his trousers. The pale tan trousers that lacked belt loops and instead housed suspenders were quite old-fashioned. That was Silas, though, with his Victorian clothing. A crisp white shirt rested underneath a blue vest, black tailcoat buttoned over his breast. Lotus reached out and fixed the mussed up sleeve cuff for him. <br/><br/>“See to it that our animal tamer checks up on all of the unicorns. I’m sure they’re all complaining by now,” he said. “People will be arriving shortly, Lotus. Make sure everything is set. The main acts will go up at nine.”<br/><br/>“Silas, honey, we’ve been doing this for decades. You need not remind me every single night of what I have to do.” She grinned and rolled her eyes. He nodded and walked off in the other direction, leaving Lotus to waltz around and holler for everyone to, “Wake up and get the hell on with it.” She found Secrets tossing knives at a target, passed by a few other acts, and told everyone to spread the word before she opened up her own display tent. <br/><br/>Lotus knew a bit about Silas’s quest. It involved the Cirque obviously and some sort of deal made with the funny man that came around every year wearing different animals on his feet with each visit. It involved souls too, since that’s what Silas collected from the people, or whatever they were, when they sought him out to join. Something personal must have been involved though, and to this day Lotus still could not place her finger on it. She had work to do though, so she tossed her slick copper curls over her shoulder and flung her head back. Her olive skin darkened, green eyes flecking with gold and amber. The scent of lotus flowers blossomed in her mauve-colored tent. With a snap of her fingers, dozens of yellow candles that sat in her tent ignited. Violet fae wings slid free from her back and a black dress that hung off of her curves, exposing a tempting amount of skin grew in place of her other clothes. <br/><br/>Ready or not..., she thought with a gleeful smile.</div>