Palomino exhaled the breath she forgot she had been holding. In the fading light of the empty circus tent the pale gold of her hair became a tapestry of stardust and moon silk. Ethereal white and glory gold. These were the things that pretty Palomino was made of. A shard of diamond, a cut of glass all contained in a precious jar. Her heart. Her memories. Her emotions.

It had been what seemed another lifetime since she had entered the circus tent once more where the acrobats and tight rope walkers offered the spellbinding visuals of their acts of breath-taking feats.

Remedy.

Another breath drawn in. A close of eyes to crush the threaten of tears. A shuddering breath to deafen the sudden sound of her thundering heart. Her spirit was a wild mare. Never broken and never tamed and yet things never remained. She was dust and memories, sunlight and sorrow, moon dreams and despairs.

A rustle of fabric from the silk of the ropes and ribbons they took flight upon and wove about their lithe figures brought her eyes once more to open. The loss was suppressed by the simple beauty of Prymm interwoven through the ebony and ivory of the ribbons she took flight from. The vision brought a smile to the lips of Palomino as she watched the prot?g? with affectionate fascination and proud pleasure. For a time she could forget what had been. What once was?

Life however was not so sympathetic or forgiving. A voice smooth as dark honey to match the dark beauty on the ground below. The dark beauty that would draw her eyes from Prymm in that moment held not her attention but instead what she held. Elegant fingers danced around the sharp edge of a bladed playing card. Palomino narrowed her eyes in speculation before the sharpened scrutiny of her gaze proved her suspicions.


The Ace of Spades.


As if in acknowledgement of Palomino?s understanding the Enigma herself shot a wink upward towards Palomino. A flick of fingers and something more than parlor tricks left the playing card to disappear.

?So now that you know who I am, I imagine it is time that I confess that I know who? you are, pretty witch.?

Palomino blinked once, twice, revealing nothing and speaking less. The tension would not cut the night with a knife but it did still Prymm?s motion till she was suspended like a fallen angel in mid-air. Breathless. The world was waiting for a response. Palomino?s heart beat a solo melody that begged and ached for the duet it once knew. Where was that song? where was the resolution? the salvation.



Remedy



Gone. Gone. Gone.



Forever was a long time?


It spiraled and twisted. A silk ribbon once so soft upon her flesh felt now to be something to strangle her. Suffocate her.

The enigma who was Sidonie Malloy smiled a bittersweet smile of madness and loss. A heartbreak of a woman never to be the same again. Like the light and the dark it seemed the pair were to be in this moment.

?Should I speak your name? Call it out like the summoning of a clarion call? ?

?No. You know it well enough. No reason to say it out loud?

?Yes of course, names have power.?

?So they do?

The words were spoken with a near angelic descent by the woman that had called herself Palomino since she had been a part of the carnival. The circus itself had ever wielded to those within its employment the opportunity to wear a mask. Sometimes more than one, those pretty facades they all would wear.


For so long Palomino wore her own so well but with an Enigma sudden to become a Spade, all of those facades came falling down and breaking away.


Dark and Light faced off within the shadows and the moonlight where neither of them elected to speak. It was the startled gasp of Prymm and the breathless whisper of a name that sent the silence to shiver on the feathers of ravens and doves, crows and swans.


?Krysanthe??