[b]Lucien![/b]

Somewhere, [i]The Fairy's Aire and Death Waltz[/i] is being played, enthusiastically and with great technical skill, on a pipe organ threatening to come apart from the violence being done to its keys. But that might be the point. Whatever a clown has become has no greater aspiration in eternity than being able to play something that should, by all rights, be unplayable. The band plays on, and the musical assault whines and howls over the chaos of the storm.

"It's downright [i]magical[/i], ain't it?" The Ringmaster has shucked off whatever he once was. It's impossible to say if he was once human or an animal; he looms like a statue, clothing pulled taut over bulging muscles. His buttons are gleaming gold roughly hammered into shape, and his coat is the rusty red of dried blood. His mouth is a nightmare of crooked knives, and his eyes are hot coals under the brim of his hat. "We haven't had a [i]holler[/i] like this in too long, too long. We'll have a right [i]sacrament[/i] for you, Pilgrim," he says, to the Professor trying to hide behind his book.

All around, grips tighten on pins and clubs and cleavers. In the midst of the storm, the assembled clowns of the Dark Carnival don't look funny at all. They look like monsters born from a cup of blood, wearing joviality and ridiculousness as an ill-fitting suit. They are a final punchline, mocking the world for thinking that anything could matter at the lip of reality's crucible. And the moment that one of the two feuding magicians wins, as soon as there's a winner on one side or another, they'll go into a [i]feeding frenzy.[/i]

And only pieces of Ailee and Evil Jackdaw will be left after that. Very small ones. And a pitcher for blessing the man who doesn't want to go through with becoming immortal. You are, once again, the man of the hour. What's the last cheap trick you've got up your sleeve?

***

[b]Coleman![/b]

"Of course I don't remember," Black Coleman says, sourly: not directed at you, that longsuffering bitterness, but outwards. At this madhouse at the bottom of the drain of reality. "For all I know, you're an Angel trying to test my commitment. Or maybe you're the real one, and I just walked out of the Heart with all my memories no more than an hour old. The Vermissian was our stability, Coles, and with it gone, everything's sliding down into the Heart itself."

He squats down on his haunches and gives Sasha a lookover. "Though I've been thinking a lot about how things went down, back when I had to hatch Sasha myself down there. Maybe if I had the thought earlier, things wouldn't have gotten so bad. I thought I had to make her something that could survive the rails. But maybe what we really need is something that makes the rails [i]better.[/i]"

***

[b]Jackdaw![/b]

The Heart regards you in the dark with... not indifference. A lack of answers. A hole in the world that broken people climb down into to try to find something that's important enough to risk everything for.

In the dark, Wolf pulls you closer. She's still so skinny. So painfully thin. But there's a wiry strength in her that makes clinging to her easy. She strokes the back of your head and silently invites you to let the tears flow. The world is huge and cruel and doesn't make any sense at all, and the Heart is huge and cruel and eats sense for dinner, but the two of you are small and kind anyway. That's the secret, the one that she can't say out loud because she suffers from a scarcity of words just as you have too many, and for much the same reasons.

Two hurt and broken people hold each other, and the Heart watches from all around, in the wet and the dark and the silent. No. Not silent. A low drum. A heartbeat. A pulse in the dark. An absence of words. And in its presence, the boundaries between identities become more fluid. Wolf has opened herself to you, and you in turn to Wolf, and words are unnecessary here.

Roll to Speak Softly with Wolf, or to Speak Softly with the Heart, as you choose.