A Crane's prey
The smell of blood filled your senses. Back when you used to live with your psycho family they would make their children fight for food.
Everyday. For one meal. You would be lucky if it was anything near human meat or blood.
They would make you fight with cousins, uncles, aunts, even your brother sometimes. You would only fight until the other were badly bruised or knocked out.
But on rare occasions where there was human meat involved, you would have to fight to the death.
And luckily for you, you had dragonic traits! So it would be easy to kill your cousins and uncles. You never even liked them anyway!
Until.
Until you had to fight your 5 year old sister.
Your mother was not a very clean woman.
You knew you weren’t your fathers child.
For fuck sake, you were born with scales, while everyone had feathers and fur.
But you were sorta loved, mainly by your father which would be shocking.
But your mother just had to have another child with the same man she had with you.
And your stupid half brother just had to make the suggestion to have you fight her the death.
So there you were. Standing at one end of the pit you would fight in with your sister in the other.
You didn’t move.
You couldn’t move.
You would rather have her kill you then you kill her.
But Crane didn’t want that.
And in the end he always ended up getting what he wanted.
So he jumped into the pit and ripped out your unnamed sister’s heart in front of you.
In front of your mother.
In front of everyone.
He ended up being the leader of your entire family when you reached 15.
He decided that every fight should be the fight to the death and threw you and your mother in a fight.
Your heart was pumping as your tail shivered, the sails that formed slowly going back into your tail.
Your mother was the opposite. She stood tall and had an emotionless face, but she didn’t move.
Your brother, of course didn’t like this and shot her on the spot.
He forced you to eat you right there, in front of everyone else.
No one helped.
No one said anything.
Crane ended up fighting your dad and killed him with no regret.
His blood lust ruined your family or well ruined it more than it already had been.
Crane threw you into one of the pit cells and kept you there with a muzzle covering your face.
Your family continued to fight and when someone dies, Crane would get some blood and swipe it over your muzzle, making you wild and keeping your dragon features out.
It would make you lose your mind in hunger and blood lust.
When you were freed for your fights, you showed no mercy and killed those without struggle like before.
And you would of course eat them right there. After all, you were barely fed so you had to eat what you could.
After about 6 years that, your brother decided to fight you to see your strength. It wasn’t suppose to be a fight to the death but you didn’t know that. And you craved to see his heart getting ripped out by your mouth.
Seeing him choke on his own blood, crying and begging for you to end it. Just the thought alone made you smile. Ripping him apart end feeding him to rats and oh you just couldn’t wait to kill him.
But of course with him watching your fights, he knew of your weaknesses but you knew of his.
The moment the muzzle was free from you, you launched yourself at him, turning into a snow leopard and aiming for his arm.
He was somewhat shocked by this and barely had any time to dodge. Your paw made a giant gash on his upper arm. He landed a square punch on the side of your muzzle.
Your back spikes grew more and more at your anger and hunger. You pounced onto him again, your wings holding his arms and wings down as your tail stabbed into his feathery bird one.
You had it. It was right there. But he of course was a trickster.
He kicked you right in the sternum of your leopard self, forcing you to change back and fall to the ground. He laughed darkly behind you, grabbing your wings. “Say good bye to your last hope of freedom.”
His cold words made you turn around and swipe at his face, taking a bit of his nose and cheek. Blood squirted out onto your hand and face. He screeched in pain, ripping your wings clean off before falling onto the ground, gripping his face.
White hot pain exploded upon you as you choked out blood. You let out a deafening screech, your tail stabbing into Crane’s forearm, whipping him away from you.
One of the outside gates opened as people rushed in for Crane.
That was your chance and you took it.
You quickly turned into your leopard self with what little energy you had left and ran like your life depended on it. Crane yelled as some people went after you but were slow to catch up.
You didn’t stop as you ran and ran, eventually running into a river that lead toward the Atlantic Ocean. You plunged into it and kept going.
You ended up on the beach of South Carolina, thankfully there was no one around as you changed back. You hid everything little thing about you. Tail, the little wing stud on your back along with your spikes, Your ears, even your spots and markings.
You were a loner, picking and kidnapping people to feed on and oh stars. You never felt so full in your life. At least this way you won’t go back to being crazy. As long as you are at least one person a week.
Eventually you had found a job in a completely new state. It was a simple job, working at a cafe. You ended up showing more and more of your spots, saying there were tattoos since hiding them took a lot of energy and to your surprise everyone believed it.
Everything worked out in your favor.
Until you met those stupid hot clowns.
Until your brother had found you and beat you almost to death. And stars you wished he did beat you to death.
The room was filled with mocking morning light. Your whole body hurts. Every movement felt like hell to you. You stayed there on the floor for the entire night. your body was just in too much pain for you to even breathe.
You couldn’t even move your tail. It’s a good thing you don’t have work tomorrow. It’s a bad thing you have to go to that damn circus. All because you couldn’t control your hunger. Now your even more hungry sense you couldn’t kill anyone that yesterday.
You didn’t want to anything today, not get up, not seeing those damn clowns, not evening breathing. Crane should’ve just killed your ass. Hmm maybe next time he breaks into your apartment to try to take you is when you can ask.
But knowing him he’ll still throw you in the cage and right back into the pit. Maybe working at circus for a few days won’t be so bad, after all they don’t seem the type to do...... that kinda stuff with you. Without consent at least.
Maybe you can beg that purple one to let you stay for at least four days. Shit what was his name? You went around the circus a little bit to see who's tent was who’s and the purple one did say Jester. Maybe that’s his name? The cyan one also said Doctor.
You attempted to move something but pain just replaced it instead.
This was going to be a while. And by a while meant a whole two hours.
It was about 6 something in the morning when you were finally able to get up and get into your bathroom, cutting on the shower. Normally you would go for a steaming hot shower, but for now you just need the cold water, even if you hate the cold.
The moment you stepped foot in the freezing shower, shivers went up your spine. Stars above you hated this.
The dried blood joined the cold showers streams and down the drains flow.
You had to find someone soon or at least a large portion of animal meat or else you’ll go crazy and get yourself caught.
You scrubbed the fuck out of your scalp and ears, after all it felt like maggots were eating at your head when all it was was just dried blood and dirt. Why must this happen to you now? Why must any of this happen?
Thankfully since you're a monster, you heal much faster, but you're gonna be bruised for a day or two. Hopefully no one asks, after all with your clothes, the only bruised mark is on your face near your smokey mark.
You turned off the shower with slight shaky hands. Maybe you could move again? No. Not again, you barely survived coming here from Africa. Besides, you’re sure your brother will just somehow find you again.
And it’s not like you can kill him, you’ve always been weaker than him. And especially after all these years you have no idea what he could have up his sleeve.
How did he even find you? You went under a whole new name, a new disguise, a new everything! So how on earth did he find you? Did he have a spy chase you from when you escaped? No he would have already gotten you if that were the case.
Ugh why was he so pressed about keeping you? You thought if you escaped and never went back for years would make him not care anymore.
You sighed to yourself, getting out of the shower to put on some covering clothes. You took one look at yourself in the mirror, running a finger at your eye bags.
Your tail still hurts, which was a bit unusual. Maybe Crane pulled it too hard?
After contemplating yourself for the thousandth time, you finally made your way out of your apartment and into the street.
The pink jesters were handing out flyers to people out on the streets.
“Harlequins and Jesters, huh? At least that’s what Pierrot said, though. I don’t really see a difference.” You thought out loud.
“He said that? Oh my, he actually talked to you?” Aaaaaaaaand there’s the green goblin.
You turned you head to the side to see Harlequin standing there, giving you a look you couldn’t decipher. “Hey Harlequin.” You said dryly. You assumed Jester(?) already told everyone that you were a monster and had to go to the circus.
“What? No excitement for me? Or are you just mad that you were caught yesterday?” Hmm, his face looks very punchable right now.
You glared at him as he got closer. “Aww don’t give me that look. You did this to yourself.” He tugged at your hood to which you smacked his hand away, backing up a little.
You didn’t hide your ears since you had a hoodie on and you barley had the energy to hide them. But you don’t need anybody to pull the hood down, like a certain neon green bitch in front of you.
He looked at his hand before returning to stare back at you. People had to be looking at the two of you thanks to him, making the both of you look like a green dot in the middle of the street.
“Could we just go? I don’t want to stay here any longer.” You said.
He hummed before leading the way with you following close behind. You both passed Ticket Taker at the entrance who gave you a side glance. You’re suddenly missing Pierrot right now.
You at least know they aren’t going to kill you..... yet.
Harlequin led you toward a black tent, being silent which made you a bit uneasy. He opened the flap and let you through. After you went in he closed the flap and didn’t follow you in.
Thankfully you can see in the dark, probably better than how you see in the light. You pulled down your hood, your ears popping up.
“I take it you came here without any problems?” A mocking voice said as Jester(?) came out of the dark.
And the shit show starts.