Rider Of The Pale Horse

Carnival

The carnival was being held on the empty side lot of some farmer just down along the main road, just from the first glance he could see the Carousel, a Ferris wheel sat in the far back, and in-between he caught the blurred motion of small roller coasters. To the right side was the Big-top where they would be holding small shows, like acrobatic displays, clowns, high ropes, but mostly family friendly. Kael missed the days where they had the freak shows, and the animals performing, that was entertaining to watch. Personally he wasn’t too fond of clowns, in his years he had known one too many of them to be serial killers. That and they weren’t funny to him, nothing was amusing about a fully grown man or woman stumbling around in baggy brightly colored jumpers, with large shoes and a disturbingly painted face.

Kael and Morrigan walked through the front ‘gate’ area which was just two flimsy poles hammered into the ground with a large banner strung between it with the word Carnival printed in bright letters. The smell of cotton candy and popcorn filled the air, along with the muddy barnyard smell of hundreds of people walking over the muddy earth. The minute they were past the gate a female clown hobbled over towards them, in her hand she held several pieces of string that were attached to a bundle of balloons that floated overhead. The clown woman smiled broadly at us and pulled out a string separating a brown bear shaped balloon handing it to Morrigan. Kael watched as her pale green eyes stretched wide open, her lips parted and she glanced to Kael. Tentatively her hand reached out and closed around the balloon string, normally he would have thought that a girl being this shocked to receive a simple balloon was surprising but it really wasn’t considering Morrigans history.

Before she had a chance to thank the clown she had hopped away with her cloud of balloons, leaving Morrigan mystified by the floating piece of rubber shaped like a bear. It took everything Kael had not to snicker at her, she pulled the balloon down so it floated in front of her face.

“Why did she give me this?” She asked turning to look at Kael her eyebrows furrowing in confusion.

Kael smirked and shook his head, “That’s what clowns do, they give kids free balloons.”

“Oh…” She smiled softly to herself before tying the end of the balloon string to her wrist.

She held her arm out in front of her smiling brightly at the simple balloon that was now attached to her, Kael crossed his arms over his chest and watched her. In all his years he had never seen somebody so content to receive a plastic sac full of helium and air. In the distance he could hear the sounds of screams, so did Morrigan, her head shot up and narrowed as she scanned through the crowds of people searching for the screams. He knew it was just the small attraction rides in the back, but in an instance she was gone vanishing into the heavy flood of people. Kael cursed and ran after her following the bobbing brown bear balloon that floated above the heads of the people.

“Morrigan wait!” He called pushing through the people trying to catch up to her before she did something impulsive.

He was taking a huge risk by bringing her here and letting her out in the open like this, if she got hurt here it would be on his head and Orion would make sure he felt the full brunt of the punishment. Finally pushing free of the people he found Morrigan standing staring up at the roller coaster her eyes wide and filled with wonder. She turned and looked at him raising her hand to point at it.

“Can we ride this!” The excitement made her voice tremble, Kael jogged up to her side grabbing her arms.

His mouth opened to yell at her for running off but the second he looked at her face he couldn’t find his voice. She was smiling, a wide bright smile.

“Uh… yeah. Sure, just stay close alright” She hooked her arm around his and pulled him off towards the gates where people were lined up to get on the metal death trap. He wasn’t necessarily scared of these things but they concerned him for her safety. He knew there were a lot of lower level demons who used these contraptions to up the death toll. Being a demon ruined a lot for a person, But there was no way he could look her in the eye and tell her something like that. A, she probably wouldn’t care, and B, she was so excited…