The Carnival at Moonbright

Near Lopper and Rags’ shop, Lyla looked over and saw the group at the main tent, and Myla followed out after a tiny gnome. It was Leaf! Going to the next tent, Lyla dipped in, hoping to find an exit somewhere to get away. The panic stepped into the tent before Lyla did. Without realizing where she was, a hand reached out and grabbed hers.

“And here is the perfect assistant for my next trick!” The centaur proclaimed loudly.

Lyla looked around to see a cluster of children sitting in a neat row, with parents towards the back of the tent. Above her stood the tall centaur, Kohl Elmbinder. His back half was primarily black, his torso covered in fur and tattoos. Piercings lined his ears and face, with choppy, messy hair on the top of his head.

“Some of you know of real magic, but the world’s metaphysics can’t describe some tricks!” Kohl looked over at Lyla with a smile, and she smiled back. This might work out for her. She knew this trick.

“So, you can see here that I have my wand, my magical copper looping circle, and I have an assistant. Watch here as I say the magic incantation and…”

Kohl took the hoop and raised it above Lyla. He dropped it, and as it fell around her, she felt the sensation of an egg being cracked on her head. Time seemed to stop. The air in her lungs seemed to press outward from inside her. She opened her eyes and found herself outside, behind the tent. She exhaled and looked around.

It didn’t seem like anyone from the carnival could see her behind the tent, and with Kohl’s help, she could have gone anywhere.

“Tough day?” she heard beside her.

Beside her, roughly at hip height, a small white rabbit stood on a crate.

“It has been a crazy day so far, Sir Maximilian,” Lyla spoke back to the rabbit, unfazed by the talking animal, considering Kohl’s abilities with animals far exceeded the normal. Using his magic, he managed to “awaken” the rabbit, as he would say, giving it a higher intelligence and the ability to speak.

“And now, to bring my assistant back as a bunny!”

“Bye, Lyla. Gotta go!” The rabbit took a deep breath and readied himself. Lyla watched as the rabbit disappeared in a flash, and applause and happy screams erupted from the children inside the tent.

Leaf turned and watched Lyla disappear from the centaur’s magic. Clearly, he used a teleportation spell, but anything easy enough to be seen as a trick meant that she was still close. He walked behind the tent and listened closely.

“Bye, Lyla. Gotta go!” he heard from behind the tent. As he reached the outer corner…

Smack!

“Hey!” a woman cried out as Leaf ran around the corner and into her. He looked up and saw her face.

“Meat Shield! I mean, Lyla!”

“Leaf!? What are you doing here?”

“I came to see Madame Ramona. I saw someone who looked just like you, but it wasn’t you. I didn’t know you had a sister!”

Lyla and Leaf moved out into the middle of the tents as she looked around.

“Well, I didn’t think it mattered a whole lot. I didn’t really want anyone to know I was out that night. Myla would kill me if she knew we almost died from that guy.”

Leaf noticed that Lyla wasn’t exactly paying attention. He followed her eyes and saw her focus was on her sister, who was about forty or fifty feet away. The sister looked upset, but they seemed to communicate by looking at each other.

Maybe some twin thing? I don’t know…

“Yeah, she’s not very happy with me. I accidentally thought she was you, and I called her Meat Shield… She didn’t like that. She took it way worse than you did.”

The sister went to take a step forward, but the look Lyla had indicated that things were okay. The sister sat in the middle of the field as other creatures near the big tent watched.

“I didn’t expect you to have such an entourage, but I guess if you can throw fire from your body, someone would watch. Archmage Orin keeps watch over me and my studies, so I get it.”

“Again, Leaf…” Lyla said, her voice now calmer as she looked down at him. “Why are you here looking for me exactly?”

“I already said… I came to see Madame Ramona, the taromancer, but I saw her, thought it was you… You get it. I wanted to tell you about what happened after we left the tavern that night.”

“What happened, Leaf?”

“Well, I went to the Athenaeum like I was supposed to, but I doubled around to see about the bodies. I knew we didn’t kill all of them, and granted, it was in self-defense for the ones we did… but I wanted to take another look at the main guy. Something about him was off.”

“And?”

“Guards had shown up, and a few of the thugs were being arrested. Some were being put on stretchers. But I looked around, and I couldn’t find him. He wasn’t there. No blood where his body was. No heart lying on the ground. Nothing. It was like he didn’t even exist!”

“That does seem odd.”

BOOM!