Not today Justin
I'd rather be in outer space đ¸
No title available
he wasn't even looking at me and he found me
sheepfilms
pixel skylines
Cosimo Galluzzi
will byers stan first human second
if i look back, i am lost
styofa doing anything
#extradirty
2025 on Tumblr: Trends That Defined the Year
Love Begins
No title available
Keni
AnasAbdin
Peter Solarz
â
occasionally subtle
đŞź
seen from Germany
seen from Italy
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from Mexico
seen from United Kingdom
seen from Maldives
seen from United States
seen from T1
seen from United States
seen from Malaysia
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from United Kingdom
seen from Germany
seen from United Kingdom
seen from United Kingdom
seen from United States
seen from Chile
seen from Italy
@silvervein-archive
welcome to the Silvervein archive
this place is a lore blog for these oc's Aurelia Puppeteer Pom Pom Flutura Batsby Sylvara Twisty
this is the tag list to find each oc's lore #Aurelia the seraphina #the puppeteer tfc
#pom pom the goat fool
#Mr. batsby #Sylvara
#Twisty the handpuppet master
#the glasswing walker
the black widow representation
The black widow motif in Puppeteer's design isn't decorative. It's diagnostic. The spider is woven into who they are â their psychology, their relationships, the way they move through the world and leave wreckage behind.
Beauty Hiding Danger
A black widow doesn't chase. It doesn't snarl or posture. It simply exists â still, elegant, patient â and lets the web do what the web does.
Puppeteer works the same way. As Kiyotsura, they never needed to raise their voice. They watched. They waited. They preferred the slow pressure of manipulation over anything as blunt as force, and people read that composure as safety. As softness, even.
Then: a brother dead. A court realigned. An empire sliding into war.
The danger was never hidden. People just kept choosing not to see it.
The Web
This is the sharpest parallel. A black widow doesn't hunt â it builds, then waits. The architecture does the work.
Puppeteer thinks the same way. Direct confrontation is a last resort, almost an admission of failure. Instead, they construct: relationships, loyalties, dependencies, small obligations that accumulate into something inescapable. Every person they know becomes a strand. By the time someone understands what they've walked into, the web is already complete around them.
This is what Puppeteer means when they place control above authority. Authority is positional. Control is structural. One can be taken from you. The other has to be dismantled thread by thread.
Venom
A widow's venom isn't dramatic. It doesn't announce itself. It enters quietly and works from the inside out, and by the time symptoms appear, the damage is already done.
Puppeteer's influence moves the same way. They don't break people â they redirect them. A planted doubt here. A reframed memory there. Gentle pressure applied over months until a person makes a choice that feels entirely their own. From the outside, it looks organic. It looks like free will. That's the point.
Devouring What They Love
The widow consuming its mate is the image everyone knows. For Puppeteer, this plays out emotionally rather than literally â but it's no less real.
They do love the people around them. The dolls. Serafina especially. That love isn't performance.
But love, for Puppeteer, comes with an undertow. They refine. They correct. They shape toward some ideal that only they can fully see. The people they care about most tend to end up the most thoroughly remade. They don't intend destruction. They intend improvement. The outcome is sometimes the same thing.
Motherhood Twisted Into Predation
Black widows carry strong maternal symbolism â protective, territorial, dangerous in proportion to how much they're guarding. That combination maps almost perfectly onto Puppeteer.
They are a parent. A teacher. A caretaker. All of those things are genuinely true.
They are also someone who cannot fully separate nurturing from ownership. The dolls are their children, their creations, their family, their instruments â and none of those things cancel out the others. They coexist, uncomfortably, the way contradictions always do in a character built around control.
That tension is the most "black widow" thing about them.
The Red Hourglass
The red hourglass marking on a black widow isn't camouflage. It's a statement: I am beautiful, I am visible, and approaching me is your decision to make.
Puppeteer's palette says the same thing. Deep red. Purple. Gold. Black. The colors are rich and deliberate â regal on the surface, and underneath: blood, decay, power, the particular elegance of something that has outlasted everything that tried to stop it.
The warning is always visible. It always has been.
The Most Important Parallel
What makes Puppeteer fit the black widow so precisely is that neither reads as a predator on first encounter.
We picture predators as large, loud, obvious â wolves, bears, things that announce their danger. A black widow is small. Delicate-looking. Easy to dismiss.
So is a person who prefers silence to confrontation, patience to aggression, and a carefully built system to anything as graceless as force.
By the time the web is visible, you're already in it. That's not a flaw in the design. That's the whole point.
Flutura never developed abilities meant for war.
Her kind survived through confusion. Through light. Through making predators hesitate long enough to escape.
But survival changes creatures.
Especially creatures hunted for generations.
Glasslight Enclosure
When Flutura fully spreads her wings, the stained-glass membranes begin refracting light far beyond their normal passive distortion. Colors spill across the environment in thin radiant trails, stretching through the air like strands of liquid glass.
At first, the effect looks beautiful.
Soft.
Almost harmless.
That illusion never lasts long.
The ribbons are not physical threads, nor magic in the traditional sense. They are concentrated distortion fields created by the refracted light passing through the evolved structure of her wings.
Once the light touches a body, perception begins to fail.
Depth becomes unreliable. Movement feels delayed. Sound dulls into distant echoes. Limbs grow heavy, unresponsive, dreamlike.
Panic itself slows.
Victims often describe the sensation as being trapped inside colored glass â aware of their surroundings, but separated from them by something impossible to push through.
Not restrained physically.
Restrained perceptually.
The ribbons usually connect along vulnerable points of the body:
throat
sternum
spine
wrists
Like invisible hands holding someone still from across the room.
Flutura rarely moves while using the ability. She simply stands there beneath the lantern glow, wings extended wide enough to dominate the entire space.
Still.
Elegant.
Watching.
And the more frightened someone becomes, the harder it is to escape the distortion.
This behavior evolved from something much older.
Glasswing butterflies once wrapped one another in their wings during harsh winters, creating enclosed spaces of warmth and muted light where smaller members of the species could safely rest.
A cocoon.
A shelter.
A shared safety.
But survival twisted that instinct into something else.
Now the same behavior functions as restraint.
Comfort and captivity became indistinguishable.
When Flutura uses Glasslight Enclosure for hunting, the ribbons slowly destabilize the body itself.
Heat drains first.
Then energy.
Then awareness.
The target grows quieter with every passing moment, slipping into a calm haze while their body gradually loses the ability to resist.
There is very little violence involved.
That is what makes the ability disturbing.
Flutura does not overpower people.
She simply makes struggling feel impossible.
The ability also becomes unstable during emotional distress.
Fear.
Grief.
Protectiveness.
Desperation.
Under intense emotional strain, the distortion fields can spread unconsciously throughout the environment, causing nearby individuals to freeze, collapse, or lose spatial awareness without Flutura actively intending harm.
Because beneath all her control, the instinct remains biological.
A frightened Glasswing does not attack first.
It encloses.
To audiences unfamiliar with her species, the ability appears almost holy.
A radiant butterfly surrounded by ribbons of stained light while bodies lie motionless beneath her wings.
Beautiful enough to look divine.
Quiet enough to feel wrong.
The Many Deaths of Aurelia
Aurelia did not die once.
She died often.
Not dramatically. Not heroically.
But in ways that felt small and cruel.
Poisons her magic could not neutralize. Infections that spread faster than porcelain could repair. Internal ruptures when her body tried to heal something it did not understand.
The magic that assembled her would not let her remain dead.
But it did not always protect her from the process.
How It Began
In her early years, survival was something she had to learn.
She was created with obedience. With performance. With instinct.
But not with experience.
She did not know which berries were toxic. She did not know how much blood loss her body could tolerate. She did not know that even monsters must rest.
So she died.
Quietly.
Alone.
And thenâ
She would wake.
In a puddle of blood. On cold earth. With blinding pressure splitting her skull as her body forced itself back together.
No ceremony.
No explanation.
Just awareness returning like a slow, painful sunrise.
And she would sit up.
Touch the blood.
And think, very calmly:
"Ah. I must have died again."
Then she would continue.
The Memory Loss
What makes this even more unsettling is this:
She does not remember most of them.
The psychological profile already establishes that time erodes her memory . Faces blur. Names dissolve. Emotions dull at the edges.
Her deaths are the same.
She remembers the fact of them. Not the details.
Only flashes:
Metal taste. Pressure behind her eyes. The sound of something snapping inside her chest. The smell of iron.
Sometimes she wakes with a headache so violent she curls in on herself, hands pressed to her temples, and she does not know if it is a nightmareâ
or reconstruction.
That uncertainty is almost worse.
Why the Deaths Slowed
Over time, she learned.
Not emotionally.
Practically.
She began studying plants. Testing small bites instead of whole handfuls. Avoiding water that smelled even slightly wrong. Binding wounds tighter. Resting longer.
She adapted.
The rate of her deaths declined.
Not because she became less fragileâ
âbut because she became more careful.
And careful, for Aurelia, is survival.
What This Does to Her Mind
This adds something very important to her psychology.
If she has died dozensâperhaps hundredsâof timesâŚ
Then permanence does not feel real to her.
Which explains:
Why she accepts loss so quietly.
Why she rarely panics about her own injuries.
Why she reacts to severe damage with eerie calm.
To her, death is not final.
It is inconvenient.
Painful.
But survivable.
The only death that truly shattered her was the one she could not undo.
The child in the forest.
Because she came back.
He did not.
And that difference carved itself into her forever.
How Pom Pom Might View This
For Pom Pom, this would reinforce his obsession.
If he knows she has died repeatedly, his internal belief becomes even stronger:
If I am not careful enough, she will die again. If I am not here, she may not come back next time. If I fail, she will wake up alone.
And Pom Pom does not tolerate âalone.â
This makes his protectiveness sharper. More frantic. More justified in his own mind .
everyone's sexuality
Aurelia
Sexuality: Straight / Panromantic
Aurelia experiences attraction.
But she does not fully understand it.
She did not grow up with examples of healthy affection. She learned love the way someone studies a ceremony â quietly, from the edges. Watching humans hold hands in lantern light. Listening to softened voices through tent canvas. Observing how people choose each other even when it complicates their lives.
She memorizes these things.
She treats romance like choreography.
But the framework she was raised within twisted the meaning.
To Aurelia, love has always resembled devotion.
Not shared ground.
Not mutual choosing.
Devotion.
Total. Absolute. Singular.
She was shaped to believe that loving someone means centering them. Protecting them. Obeying them. Placing them slightly above herself â not because she feels small, but because that is the only form of attachment she ever saw modeled without punishment.
In her mind:
Love equals loyalty. Loyalty equals worth.
If she is loyal enough, attentive enough, selfless enough â she will not be abandoned.
Where She Struggles
Aurelia does not naturally understand balance.
She may:
Apologize too quickly
Smooth over conflict before it breathes
Offer herself completely before knowing if itâs safe
Confuse self-erasure with affection
She does not mean to overwhelm.
She is trying to secure stability.
Her fear is not rejection alone.
It is becoming unnecessary.
And for someone whose mind is already fraying at the edges, feeling unnecessary feels dangerously close to disappearing.
What Growth Looks Like for Her
Aurelia is not incapable of change.
She is observant. Reflective. Deeply empathetic.
If her partner offers:
Patience instead of dominance
Gentleness instead of control
Acceptance instead of ownership
Reassurance without condescension
She will begin to recalibrate.
Slowly.
The first time someone stops her from kneeling â emotionally or physically â and says, âStand with me,â something inside her will shake.
The first time a disagreement doesnât end in abandonment, she will quietly rewrite a rule in her mind.
The first time someone asks what she wants and actually waits for the answerâŚ
She will hesitate.
But she will answer.
The Love She Becomes Capable Of
Once she understands that love is not worship â
Her devotion doesnât disappear.
It evolves.
It becomes fierce instead of fragile.
Steady instead of desperate.
Protective without self-destruction.
She will still hold her partner through nightmares. She will still listen carefully for tension in their voice. She will still treasure closeness deeply.
But she will no longer shrink to keep it.
And that is when Aurelia becomes truly powerful as a partner.
Not because she worships.
But because she chooses.
Every day.
And is chosen back. ================================================ Pom Pom
Sexuality: Bi / Pan
Pom Pom loves easily.
Gender does not matter to him. Structure does not matter. Presentation does not matter.
The only requirement is this:
You must accept Mother.
Not tolerate.
Not pity.
Accept.
If you accept her â and by extension his family â you are safe in his world.
If you do not⌠you are observed.
Pom Pomâs love is intense. Instinctive. Protective in a way that feels almost feral despite his stitched softness.
He was not made from innocence.
He was made from vigilance.
From hunger. From survival. From the need to see the blow before it lands.
So when he loves someone, he does not relax.
He expands his watch.
He follows.
He learns your routes. He memorizes your habits. He knows which door you prefer, which lantern you avoid, which days your smile thins at the edges.
He appears in places you did not expect anyone to be.
Behind curtain folds. Perched on wagon wheels. Very still beneath bleachers after the crowd has left.
To others, it feels invasive.
Possessive.
Almost predatory.
To Pom Pom, it is simple logic:
If I see everything, nothing can hurt you.
His attachment can become unhealthy.
Surveillance mistaken for care. Proximity mistaken for protection. Silence mistaken for trust.
He guards love like a perimeter.
He believes if he stops watching, something will be taken.
Because that is how he was born.
But beneath the learned behavior â beneath the too-wide smile and the hovering presence â there is something painfully sincere.
He genuinely cares.
Not because you are useful.
Not because you are strategic.
But because you are part of the tent now.
And if he ever manages to break free from the âactâ that hardened into personality â if he learns that love does not require constant vigilance â
He would soften.
Still protective. Still loyal. Still the first to stand between you and harm.
But he would ask before following.
He would sit beside you instead of behind you.
He would trust that you will come back without checking every shadow.
He would choose to stand in the lantern light with you.
Not hide in the rafters, guarding love like itâs a war he canât afford to lose.
And for Pom PomâŚ
That choice would mean he finally believes he doesnât have to earn his place by watching.
He can just belong.
==================================================
Puppeteer
Sexuality: None
Puppeteer does not experience romantic or sexual attraction.
Love, to them, has never been an emotion. It is a mechanism.
In life, they watched affection used as currency â marriages arranged for alliance, devotion performed for advantage, intimacy wielded as leverage. What others called love, they recognized as structure. As influence. As control disguised as vulnerability.
They learned early that attachment creates weakness. Desire creates predictability. And predictability can be exploited.
So they chose not to want.
They do not crave closeness. They do not seek companionship. They do not hunger for touch.
Love, in their worldview, is inefficient.
It clouds judgment. It diverts focus. It threatens long-term architecture for momentary comfort.
If they speak of love, it is strategic. If they offer affection, it is calculated. If someone believes they are loved, it is because Puppeteer decided that belief would produce a desired outcome.
They are not heartbroken.
They are uninterested.
And to them, that is strength. ==================================================
Batsby
Sexuality: Pan / Bi
Batsby loves in a way that feels⌠chosen.
He is capable of attraction regardless of gender â what draws him in isnât presentation, but spirit. Strength. Conviction. The way someone carries their scars.
Love, to him, is not control. Not devotion. Not surveillance.
It is loyalty.
He has already loved once â deeply enough that even death did not sever that bond. And because of that, his love carries weight. It is not impulsive. It is not careless. It is not easily earned.
Batsby is mated for life.
That is not a metaphor to him. It is instinct. It is bone-deep. When he gave himself to his partner, it was not with the expectation of seasons â it was with the expectation of forever.
Even with his lover gone, that bond does not feel broken. It feels⌠unfinished. Quiet. Carried.
So while he is capable of attraction â capable of appreciating strength and spirit in others â it would be very hard to earn that depth of attention from him again. Not because he is cold. Not because he is incapable.
But because he has already given that part of himself once.
When Batsby chooses someone, he does so fully.
He protects. He supports. He stands beside.
His love is steady.
It is the kind that survives loss.
The kind that carries grief without turning bitter.
He does not fall often â and truthfully, he may never fall the same way twice.
But if he ever didâŚ
It would be intentional.
===============================================
Flutura
Orientation: Aromantic
Flutura does not experience romantic attraction.
Not because she is cold. Not because she is incapable.
But because romance simply does not register for her the way it does for others.
She can care deeply. Fiercely, even. She can bond. She can protect. She can attach.
But she does not feel the pull of partnership. She does not long for devotion or intimacy in that way. The language of romance feels⌠distant. Observational. Like watching something beautiful that was not made for her.
Flutura interprets connection as independence.
She values chosen closeness â friendships, alliances, bonds built on respect and shared strength. But she does not want to be someoneâs âother half.â She does not want to be centered in someoneâs identity, nor center someone in hers.
Love, to her, is not fusion.
It is coexistence.
She may struggle with others projecting romance onto her care. She may need to clarify that deep affection does not equal romantic desire.
She does not flirt with intention. She does not nurture with seduction. She does not protect because she longs to possess.
When she stands beside someone, it is because she chooses to stand there â not because her heart demands exclusivity.
Romance, to Flutura, looks like surrender.
And surrender is something she does not survive.
After losing her parents to hunters for their wings , after forcing her sister to eat what remained in order to live , after losing that same sister without sound or warning , after losing the Angel in a pattern that echoed the past â
Her mind learned a quiet rule:
Attachment invites vulnerability. Vulnerability invites loss.
She will not build her life around something that can be taken.
But once understood, she is incredibly stable.
She does not leave because feelings fade. She does not cling because feelings intensify.
She does not become jealous. She does not demand exclusivity. She does not reshape herself to be chosen.
She simply remains â because she chooses to.
Her love, when it exists, is deliberate.
Measured. Enduring. Controlled.
It does not burn hot like obsession. It does not collapse under rejection. It does not fracture under distance.
It stands.
Like glass under stage light â fragile in appearance, unyielding in structure.
Flutura does not reject romance out of bitterness.
She simply does not feel it.
And in a circus built on distorted devotion, desperate attachment, and hunger disguised as love â
She is the only one whose affection does not consume.
She coexists.
And that, in its own way, is a kind of strength.
The Beast Through Pom Pomâs Eyes
(But deeper. Quieter. More dangerous.)
When Aurelia fracturesâ
When porcelain splits along those faint gold lines Aurelia carries like scarsâ
Pom Pom doesnât just go still.
He calibrates.
Because stillness is how he survives.
Stillness is how he thinks.
And thinking is how he protects.
He Doesnât See a Monster.
He sees a threshold.
The others see a 12ft silhouette of fur, antlers, and teeth.
Pom Pom sees escalation.
He knows the signs before the shift:
The hum stops.
Her fingers curl too tightly.
Her eyes spiral a fraction too long.
The air grows heavy with winter.
He doesnât panic because panic wastes time.
He has always lived in the seconds before something breaks.
He Understands Hunger Intimately
Not because he eats.
But because he was made from it.
He knows what starvation does to her mind.
He knows what prolonged denial does to her instincts.
He was assembled from:
scraps
survival reflex
desperate love
the refusal to vanish
The beast was assembled from:
instinct
bone memory
hunger that outlived morality
They are not opposites.
They are parallel evolutions.
One became soft containment.
One became violent survival.
And Pom Pom? He will never say this aloud.
But he does not think the beast is wrong.
He thinks it is unmanaged.
He Will Step Forward â Not Because He Is Brave
But because he believes he is replaceable.
If those teeth close around someone, it cannot be a stranger.
It cannot be Mother.
So it must be him.
And if he tears? He can be stitched.
If she kills? She cannot un-kill.
He is built to absorb impact.
Emotionally. Physically. Existentially.
That is not courage.
That is design.
The Darkest Truth
Here is the part he will never admit.
When the beast removes a threatâŚ
When someone cruel disappearsâŚ
When mocking laughter stops mid-sentenceâŚ
Pom Pom feels relief.
Not horror.
Relief.
Because to him:
harm = destabilizing Aurelia
protection = preventing harm
And sometimes the beast prevents harm faster than he can.
That terrifies him.
Because if the beast becomes efficientâŚ
Where does that leave him?
If teeth are more effective than softnessâŚ
Is he still necessary?
And Pom Pom cannot survive being unnecessary.
The Yandere Shift Is Subtle â And Worse
When visitors recoil?
When whispers begin?
When someone calls her a monster?
Pom Pom smiles.
Too bright. Too wide.
And suddenly the real danger is not the towering form of Aurelia.
It is the small plush creature adjusting his hat.
Because he keeps records.
He tracks tone. He notes inflection. He remembers who flinched.
And while the beast acts on instinctâ
Pom Pom acts on memory.
Memory is far more patient than hunger.
After the Collapse
When she comes back.
When fur recedes. When antlers shrink. When porcelain reforms.
He does not hesitate.
Even if blood is warm. Even if the tent smells like iron. Even if his stuffing is damp.
He climbs into her lap.
Immediate. Certain.
âYouâre still Mother.â
Not reassurance.
Correction.
He is stabilizing her narrative.
Because if she believes she is only the beastâŚ
She may starve herself again.
And if she starvesâ
He grows stronger.
The irony is unbearable.
He does not want to grow stronger.
He wants her whole.
The Circus Implication
Now hereâs the tension under the canvas.
The Puppeteer would see this as inefficiency.
Hunger is a variable. Pom Pom is a compensatory mechanism. The beast is a failure of restraint.
But Pom Pom is not a system.
He is love shaped like necessity.
And that makes him unpredictable.
The beast may kill.
Pom Pom may choose who deserves killing.
That distinction matters.
The Tragic Core
Pom Pom does not want the beast erased.
Because erasing it would erase the proof she survived.
But he wants it quiet.
Leashed.
Contained behind porcelain and polka dots.
Because if the beast ever decides it does not need himâ
If instinct becomes stable without himâ
Then he becomes what he fears most:
Scrap.
And that is something he will not allow.
Not from visitors. Not from fate. Not even from Mother.
The Beast Beneath the Porcelain
When Aureliaâs doll form fractures completely â not just cracks, but sheds â what remains is not elegant.
It is not theatrical.
It is wrong.
Twelve feet tall.
All fur and bone and hunger.
The porcelain doesnât shatter outward dramatically. It splits and falls away like a discarded shell. What stands in its place is something that was always underneath â cramped, restrained, forced small.
Her spine lengthens first.
You hear it before you see it.
A wet, splintering stretch.
Bony protrusions push outward along her back and shoulders â jagged spines like antlers that never learned to stop growing. Fur overtakes what porcelain once hid, thick and coarse, bristling with agitation.
Her limbs elongate unnaturally.
Jointed wrong.
Digitigrade.
Predatory.
And then the jaw.
It splits wider than it should.
Unhinges.
Her maw is large enough to swallow a head whole, multiple rows of uneven teeth folding over one another â not clean fangs, but crowded, tearing instruments meant for ripping rather than precision.
There is no sweetness left in her face.
No painted serenity.
Only spiraled eyes burning bright and fully exposed.
The Form That Killed the Child
This is the body she wore in the forest.
This is the body that moved before she could think.
The one that remembers bone beneath its teeth.
The one that does not feel remorse in the moment â only instinct.
The whispers come from here.
Low.
Constant.
Not words at first â just urges.
Hunger. Weakness. You are starving. Let me fix it.
It doesnât sound monstrous in her mind.
It sounds reasonable.
Thatâs what frightens her.
Why Jester Keeps Her Chained
Jester does not fear her doll form.
He does not fear her hypnosis.
He fears this.
Because in this state, Aurelia is not relational.
She is not obedient.
She is not gentle.
She does not respond to tone or authority.
She does not care who stands in front of her.
Friend. Visitor. Circus member.
It does not matter.
The beast does not recognize names.
Only scent.
Only heat.
Only blood.
And once fully transformed, she does not remember clearly. Awareness becomes fragmented. Time distorts. The aftermath returns to her in flashes â iron smell, torn fabric, silence.
Jester fears what happens if restraint fails.
Not because she is evil.
But because she is powerful and unbound.
He chains her not out of cruelty in his mind â but containment.
Protection.
Control.
The same logic used when she was first created.
The True Horror
The most terrifying part is not the size.
Not the teeth.
Not even the strength.
It is this:
The beast feels natural.
Her doll form feels constructed.
The porcelain is the costume.
The fur and bone are instinct.
That truth haunts her.
Because if the beast is what she is without restraintâŚ
Then what is the gentle version?
Choice?
Or performance?
What Happens After
When she returns from that form, the collapse is severe.
Shaking.
Disorientation.
Guilt before memory fully forms.
She will not look at anyone.
She will not open her eyes.
She will whisper:
âDid I hurt someone?â
Even if she already knows the answer.
This is why she starves herself.
This is why she keeps her eyes closed.
This is why she fears losing her mind to regression.
Because if her restraint erodesâŚ
The whispers grow louder.
And one day, she worries she may not fight them.
Not because she wants to.
But because she is so very tired of fighting at all.
Glass Wings and Broken Chains
The tent sat heavy with silence, broken only by the faint hiss of lantern flame and the occasional drag of metal against wood.
Flutura remained near the far corner, one leg folded beneath herself as she carefully cleaned the shallow cuts lining her hand. Thin streams of crimson welled from the marks before she wiped them away with mounting irritation, antennae twitching sharply each time the sting returned. The wounds themselves were insignificant. What irritated her more was how she had received them.
Her gaze lifted once again toward the figure crouched deeper within the tent.
Even now, it barely resembled a person.
It looked like something half-starved that had crawled out from the dark and been forced into human restraints it neither understood nor tolerated. A tattered straitjacket hung loosely from its body, old buckles twisted unevenly where it had clearly tried tearing through them before. Dirt and dried blood stained the fabric in layered patches, impossible to tell apart anymore. Heavy chains remained fastened around its wrists, though several links had already snapped apart from sheer force alone. They dragged noisily whenever it moved.
And it never stopped moving.
Its posture shifted constantly, shoulders jerking at unnatural angles beneath the restraints as though its body had never learned how to sit properly. Fingers tipped with dark claws flexed against the floorboards in restless scraping motions. The rough sack covering its head twitched faintly each time it breathed, the shape beneath it moving wrongâtoo sharp around the jaw, too wide whenever its mouth opened.
Low growls rolled from somewhere underneath the fabric.
Wet sounds.
Animal sounds.
Not angry in the way humans became angry, but territorial. Instinctive. Like a creature still deciding whether everything around it should be feared⌠or torn apart.
Fluturaâs eyes narrowed slightly.
It had struck her only minutes earlier. Fast enough that even she had misjudged the distance. Those claws had cut clean through fabric and skin before she managed to pin it back down again. And judging from the slow licking noises occasionally coming from beneath the sackâ
it was still tasting the blood left behind beneath its nails.
âThis creature is going to be difficult,â she thought bitterly.
The realization settled heavy inside her chest as she leaned back against the support pole behind her. Convincing Jester to allow the thing onto circus grounds had already been exhausting enough. He had looked at it onceâonly onceâand immediately called it dangerous. Unstable. Something better discarded before it became a problem.
Perhaps he had been right.
Dragging it here had nearly turned violent three separate times. For something so deceptively small, it understood how to make itself seem larger. Its body stretched strangely whenever cornered, limbs contorting unpredictably beneath the restraints while those broken chains whipped violently enough to bruise. And its teethâ
Her injured hand tightened instinctively.
Sharp.
Too sharp.
She could still feel the pressure of fangs sinking through fabric into her arm before instinct forced the creature back.
A quiet scoff escaped her.
âI am trying to help you, you know,â she murmured at last, though irritation sharpened every syllable. âBut you insist on behaving like a feral thing.â
The creature shifted immediately.
Not toward her.
Away.
Its shoulders hunched beneath the straitjacket as another low growl vibrated from beneath the sack, deeper this time. Warning.
Fluturaâs wings twitched behind her.
âDo you truly wish to be thrown back into the wild?â she asked coldly. âHumans would kill you within days.â
Nothing.
Only the slow scrape of claws against wood.
âStubborn little thingâŚâ
Frustration finally broke through her composure.
Her wings flared outward sharply behind her, stained-glass colors catching the lanternlight in fractured bursts. Reds spilled violently across the tent walls. Golds melted into blues. Light bent itself around the delicate membranes until the entire space shimmered in distorted color, reflections dancing across wood and canvas alike like liquid glass.
And suddenlyâ
the growling stopped.
Completely.
Flutura blinked once.
The creature had frozen.
Beneath the sack, its head tilted slowly to one side with unnatural precision. Then cautiouslyâhesitantlyâit began crawling forward across the floor. Broken chains dragged behind it with soft metallic scraping while its claws dug into the woodboards one careful pull at a time.
Not hunting.
Not attacking.
Approaching.
One clawed hand slowly lifted toward the fractured colors spilling from her wings.
And beneath the sackâ
its eyes widened.
Flutura could not see them directly, but she saw the way the fabric shifted. Saw the stillness settling into its body. Its breathing changed too, slower now. Quieter.
Curious.
For the first time since dragging it into the tent, the creature was not looking at her with hostility.
It was staring at her wings.
Instinctively, Flutura shifted backward.
The reaction was immediate.
The creature froze completely.
Then lowered its head.
The lifted hand dropped back toward the floor as restless movements overtook it once more, jerking shoulders twisting unevenly beneath the restraints. Another sound escaped itâ
not angry.
Not violent.
Confused.
Lost.
The realization settled strangely inside Fluturaâs chest.
Slowly, her posture softened.
Not fully.
Never fully.
But enough.
Her eyes lingered on the broken chains wrapped around its wrists, on the raw skin beneath them, on the way the creature kept glancing toward the light every few seconds like it feared it might disappear again.
Carefully now, Flutura lowered herself onto her knees before it.
Measured.
Patient.
Her wings unfolded wider behind her until their full colors bloomed beneath the lantern glow once more, warm fractured light washing across the darkness around them.
The creature went still again.
Silent.
Watching.
Flutura said nothing.
Instead, she extended one wing slightly forward between them.
An offering.
A choice.
For a long moment, neither moved.
Thenâ
the creature slowly lifted its hand again.
Tentative this time.
Almost fearful.
Its claws hovered inches from the glowing membrane, trembling faintly before finally brushing against the glass-like surface.
The reaction was immediate.
Color rippled beneath its touch in soft waves of shifting light.
The creature jerked violently in surprise, chains rattling sharplyâbut it did not pull away.
Instead, it touched the wing again.
Gentler.
Careful now.
Like it could not understand how something that looked sharp enough to cut could feel so warm beneath its claws.
Flutura watched quietly as the creature leaned closer toward the light, movements finally slowing for the first time since she had found it.
And somewhere beneath the caution.
Beneath the irritation.
Beneath every instinct warning her that this thing was dangerousâ
something softer stirred inside her chest.
Small.
Fragile.
Dangerous in an entirely different way.
fragmented memories
The fire always comes first. Not faces, not namesâjust heat. Smoke swallowed the village so thickly that every breath burned, and somewhere beneath the screaming of people fleeing through the dirt, Aurelia remembered it moving. The beast. She used to think of it as separate from herself, something wearing her body rather than belonging to it, because that version of the memory hurt less. Easier to survive if the monster was someone else. But even now she could still remember the way it moved through the village like hunger given shape, jaws snapping around anyone close enough to reach while terrified cries dissolved into wet tearing sounds she could never fully forget. Her mind spared her the images eventually. It never spared her the noises. The crunching. The choking. The awful sound of bodies hitting the ground while the beast kept moving as though instinct alone had learned how to walk.
And through all of it, Aurelia searched for Father.
Not because she feared him.
Because she trusted him.
Even now, the clearest parts of the memory were not the burning homes or the screaming soldiers, but brief glimpses of him moving through the smoke toward her. Calm despite the chaos around him, robes darkened with ash as his hands reached carefully for her whenever she stumbled. His voice carried through the noise in the same gentle way she remembered from quieter days, low and steady enough that some terrified part of her still believed everything would be alright as long as he was there.
âMy daughter,â he had called softly somewhere within the flames, âstay close to me.â
And she did.
Without hesitation.
Without question.
Because to Aurelia, he had never been frightening.
Only safe.
The memory always twisted there, fragments overlapping until she could no longer tell where the fire ended and panic began. She remembered clutching tightly to Fatherâs robes while the beast tore through the village around them, remembered him shielding her vision whenever bodies fell too close, guiding her away with careful hands as though trying to spare her from seeing something she was never meant to witness.
Even now, part of her still clung to those moments more than the horror surrounding them.
The warmth of his hand.
The calmness in his voice.
The way he stayed beside her while the world collapsed.
Then the memory fractures apart again, skipping violently like broken film reels. Suddenly there is no fire, no village, no open sky overhead. Only iron. A cage too small to stand properly inside, chains wrapped tightly around her limbs until every movement cut into skin and porcelain alike. Heavy weights dragged against the floor whenever she shifted, and the air smelled of rust, wet hay, and old blood.
Across from her knelt Father.
For once, he looked exhausted.
Not frightening.
Not monstrous.
Just tired in a way Aurelia had never seen before, blood staining his robes while he remained kneeling near her cage despite the wounds carved across him. Even then, he tried to comfort her. One hand rested gently against the bars between them, steady and familiar enough that Aurelia crawled toward it instinctively despite the chains dragging painfully behind her.
She remembered wanting him to say everything would be alright.
Wanting to believe it.
Aurelia never remembers who stood behind him, only the horrible instant a sword was forced through his back from behind. The sound stayed clearer than the image ever didâthat choking, bubbling gasp as blood filled his throat while he tried to look at her one last time. Even now the memory returned in flashes during restless nights, sharp enough to make her wake trembling inside the circus tent, hands clutching at herself as though she could still feel the chains digging into her skin.
What haunted her most was not fear.
It was the look in his eyes.
Apology.
As though he regretted leaving her alone far more than death itself.
Darkness came after that. Endless and numb and mercifully empty. When awareness finally returned, Aurelia woke alone in the forest surrounded by silence so complete it felt unnatural. The beast was gone. Or sleeping. For the first time in longer than she could remember, she could no longer feel it clawing inside her mind. But when she forced herself upright and looked down, relief curdled instantly into horror. She still was not human. Her upper body looked almost normal despite the blood and fractures splitting across it, but below her waist were trembling deer legs coated in pale fur soaked dark red. A shortened snout still stretched across her face, enough for her to feel every sharpened tooth whenever she breathed. Blood covered nearly everything around her. Most of it was not hers. The rest leaked slowly from glowing golden cracks running through her porcelain body, molten light spilling from fractures that had never truly healed.
That was the moment she understood something truly terrible. The beast had never been haunting her. It had never been possessing her from the shadows or wearing her skin like a disguise. It was part of her. Worseâit was trying to keep her alive. Every horrible thing it had done, every body left ruined behind it, every instinct clawing through her mind had all come from the same desperate purpose: survival.
And somehow that truth frightened Aurelia far more than if the beast had simply been a monster.
Because if the hunger belonged to her, if the violence was instinct rather than invasion, then the gentle porcelain girl she spent centuries pretending to be suddenly felt far less certain. The doll was the constructed thing. The softness was learned.
But the beast beneath itâthe fur, the teeth, the hungerâ
had always been natural.
Threads of Exile
Chapter 2: A Face Among Strangers
Summary:
Exiled from the empire, Kiyotsura arrives at an isolated village and carefully reshapes himself into something harmless. Discarding the robes that once marked him as royalty, he constructs the image of a wounded traveler attacked by bandits, knowing pity is easier to trust than mystery. The villagers welcome him without suspicion, offering shelter and care to the quiet stranger. Yet beneath the performance, Kiyotsura observes everything around him with unsettling precision. In the silence of his temporary room, a forgotten wooden doll catches his attentionâand with a few subtle adjustments, he discovers how easily lifeless things can be made to move more naturally beneath careful hands.
He did not enter the village as he was.
That would have been careless.
Kiyotsura paused at the edge of the treeline, his gaze settling upon the distant rooftops barely visible beyond the rise of the mountains. Thin trails of smoke curled lazily into the evening air, soft and unremarkable against the darkening sky. From afar, the village sounded ordinaryâvoices drifting together, footsteps crossing worn paths, doors sliding open and shut.
Life.
Predictable life.
His fingers moved toward the black fabric resting upon his shoulders. The robe slipped from him without resistance, pooling briefly within his hands. For a moment, he simply stared at it.
The mark of exile.
The final visible tether connecting him to the empire that had cast him aside.
Once, men had bowed at the sight of those colors. Once, the robes themselves carried authority before he ever needed to speak.
Now they were little more than evidence.
Without ceremony, he let the fabric fall into the undergrowth.
It would not serve him here.
What remained were only plain undergarmentsâthe kind worn by men too insignificant to remember. A suitable beginning.
But appearance alone was not enough.
People did not trust strangers who arrived untouched.
They trusted damage.
They trusted suffering they could recognize.
So he adjusted.
His hands moved with quiet precision, dragging fabric against rough bark until the cloth frayed naturally. Dirt smeared across exposed skin. A shallow cut along the arm. Another near the ribs. Enough to bleed.
Not enough to weaken.
Imperfection, carefully constructed.
Then came posture.
His shoulders lowered slightly. His breathing altered. One leg carried less weight than the other. Small details. Believable details.
A story without words.
His gaze lifted once more toward the village.
People needed something familiar.
A victim.
Not a former emperor.
A faint exhale escaped him before he finally stepped forward.
By the time he reached the outskirts, he no longer resembled someone who had once ruled an empire.
Only a man unfortunate enough to be pitiedâ
and unimportant enough to ignore.
Exactly what he needed.
The villagers noticed him immediately.
Not because he was suspicious.
Because he looked weak.
Kiyotsura allowed soft sounds of pain to escape him as he stumbled further down the narrow dirt road, one hand pressed against his side.
âPleaseâŚâ he called quietly, his voice strained with careful desperation. âI was attackedâŚâ
The reaction was immediate.
People gathered quickly, concern overtaking caution. Questions rose from every direction at once.
âBandits?â
âWhere did you come from?â
âAre you hurt badly?â
Kiyotsura lowered his head, allowing his breathing to shake unevenly. He answered little. A nod here. A weak shake of the head there. Just enough to keep them filling the silence for him.
Fear made people speak.
Pity made them trust.
Before long, he was guided toward a small medical house near the center of the village. Warm light spilled through the paper windows, carrying with it the scent of herbs and burning wood.
Inside, an elderly healer cleaned the shallow wounds while others hovered nearby, murmuring among themselves.
Kiyotsura watched them carefully.
Not obviously.
Never obviously.
A mother trying to quiet a restless child. A tired farmer with calloused hands. A young girl clutching a worn wooden doll missing one of its arms.
His gaze lingered there briefly.
The child noticed and hid it against her chest.
Interesting.
Even damaged things were held onto tightly.
Eventually the village chief arrived, an older man with a tired expression softened by concern. He crouched beside Kiyotsura, offering him a cup of tea that still steamed faintly in the cool air.
âEasy now,â the chief said gently. âYouâre safe here.â
Safe.
What a fragile thing to promise a stranger.
Kiyotsura accepted the tea carefully, allowing his hands to tremble just slightly around the cup.
âBanditsâŚâ he murmured weakly. âThey took everything and left me for dead.â
He paused before lowering his eyes further.
âI am nothing more than a humble performer. I carried little worth stealing.â
The lie came easily.
Not because he enjoyed deception.
Because people preferred stories they already understood.
The chief sighed heavily, rubbing a hand against Kiyotsuraâs shoulder.
âBandits are cruel creatures,â he muttered. âWe understand your suffering. Youâll be allowed to recover here.â
Kiyotsura allowed silence to settle before speaking again, softer this time.
âYou are too generous.â
âNonsense,â the chief replied. âNo one should be left alone after such hardship.â
A dangerous philosophy.
Stillâ
Useful.
The chief eventually guided him toward a small room near the rear of the house. Simple walls. A sleeping mat. A low wooden table worn by age and use.
Small.
Quiet.
Perfect.
As the chief slid the door shut behind him, Kiyotsuraâs expression slowly settled back into stillness.
The weakness vanished first.
Then the fear.
Then the exhaustion.
Until nothing remained except thought.
His gaze drifted toward the small wooden doll resting near the corner of the room. One of the healerâs children must have left it there long ago. Its painted face had faded with time, and one arm hung unevenly from worn thread.
Crude craftsmanship.
Poor balance.
The joints would not move properly under repeated use.
Without realizing it, he reached toward it.
His fingers adjusted the arm carefully, testing the movement of the strings connecting the limb to the body. A slight shift. A tighter knot. Better weight distribution.
The doll moved smoother afterward.
More natural.
His thumb brushed against the wooden face thoughtfully before he set it back down exactly where he had found it.
Curious.
Such small adjustments could create the illusion of life remarkably well.
He leaned back slowly against the wall, eyes half-lidded as silence filled the room once more.
Outside, the village continued peacefully, unaware of what it had welcomed into its borders.
And within that quiet little roomâ
Kiyotsura began to think.
To observe.
To rebuild.
Not as an emperor.
Not yet as something feared.
But as something far more patient.
Something that no longer needed a throne to control the people around him.
The Mask as a Second Face
Twistyâs mask is designed to function as a controlled expression layer.
It mimics what his real face cannot reliably produce.
A smile.
Stable. Clear. Understandable.
But it is not fully static.
The painted smile cannot openâhe cannot eat through itâbut it can shift slightly.
Subtly.
Controlled in small ways that allow it to:
stretch into the ghost of a wider grin
tilt or adjust to suggest amusement
exaggerate happiness without ever breaking form
It never becomes a true expression.
But it becomes enough of one to be believable.
To others, it reads as simple emotion.
To Twisty, it is:
a functional substitute for something he cannot do himself.
When the Mask Comes Off
Twisty removes the mask only when necessary.
To eat.
To clean it.
Or in moments where performance no longer matters.
Without it:
his expressions become strained or absent
his eyes become the primary focus
the illusion of normal emotion disappears completely
There is no replacement then.
Only what he actually is.
Core Truth
Twisty didnât create the mask to hide who he is.
He created it to finish what his face cannot do.
To give people something simple.
Something safe.
Something they wonât questionâ
so they never have to look too closely
at whatâs underneath.
Jester and Aurelia / rewritten
The canvas flap opened with a soft, reluctant sigh.
Inside, the air felt undisturbed. Not staleâcontrolled. As if nothing was permitted to shift unless something within the room allowed it.
Aurelia paused at the threshold.
The circus stretched behind her, dim beneath a bruised sky, its sounds distant and hollow. Out there, things moved. Laughed. Broke.
In hereâ
nothing happened without purpose.
She stepped inside.
The scent reached her first. Not sharp. Not overwhelming. Just present enough to be noticed if one paid attentionâmetal, faint oil, something aged. It settled quietly in her lungs.
Her heels clicked against the floor. Too loud. The sound lingered longer than it should have.
She slowed.
She already knew he was there.
He always was.
âDarling.â
The voice didnât startle her.
It never did.
It simply arrived, smooth and unhurried, as though it had always been part of the room.
âCome in.â
Jester sat in a chair that looked older than the tent itself, one leg crossed neatly over the other. Nothing about him appeared strained. Nothing forced. Even the way he watched her felt⌠effortless.
His attention settled on her like a hand placed gently at the back of her neck.
Guiding.
Never pushing.
âGood of you to be punctual,â he added, tone light. âI do appreciate consistency.â
Aurelia stepped forward.
Each movement measured.
Each breath careful.
âSame as beforeâŚ?â she asked softly.
It wasnât quite a question.
More something offered.
Jester tilted his head slightly, considering her.
âMm. Not quite.â
The words were gentle.
Almost kind.
He stoodânot abruptly, not with any sense of urgencyâbut with a quiet certainty, like something inevitable unfolding.
By the time she realized how close he was, his fingers had already found her chin.
Not harsh.
Not painful.
Just⌠firm enough that she didnât resist.
He lifted her face slightly, examining her.
ââŚyouâve been outside,â he observed.
Not accusing.
Not curious.
Simply stated.
Aureliaâs hand twitched faintly at her side.
âI was permittedââ
âWere you.â
He didnât interrupt her.
He replaced her.
The correction sat neatly over her words, smoothing them into something else entirely.
His thumb brushed lightly along the surface of her mask.
A pause.
Thenâ
a soft, almost thoughtful hum.
âThereâs a tension here,â he murmured. âYou do carry it poorly.â
The pressure increased.
Not enough to hurt.
Enough to remind.
A faint crack whispered beneath his touch.
Aurelia stilled.
ââŚIâm fine,â she said quietly.
âOf course you are.â
Immediate.
Agreeable.
Final.
Another small shift of his fingers.
Another fracture.
Barely audible.
âYouâve always been⌠resilient,â Jester continued, tone warm in a way that didnât comfort. âItâs one of your more useful qualities.â
Her breath caughtâbut she didnât pull away.
She knew better.
âYou understand why I keep you close,â he went on, almost conversational. âIt would be irresponsible not to.â
His gaze lifted from her mask to her eyes.
Steady.
Unblinking.
âYou remember what happens when youâre not.â
The words were soft.
There was no need to elaborate.
Aureliaâs pulse stumbled.
âYesâŚâ she whispered.
âGood.â
The word settled like a seal.
Satisfied.
He released her thenâjust as easily as he had taken hold.
No shove.
No force.
Just absence.
She swayed slightly before catching herself.
Jester turned away, already finished.
âTry not to damage yourself before your next performance,â he added lightly, adjusting one of his gloves. âIt complicates things.â
A small pause.
As if remembering something insignificant.
âOhâand Seraphina?â
She froze.
âYou may wish to be more mindful of where you wander.â
A glance over his shoulder.
A faint smile.
âIt would be unfortunate if I had to limit that⌠further.â
There it was.
Not a threat.
A fact.
He returned his attention elsewhere, dismissing her without gesture.
âRun along.â
She didnât wait.
The flap closed behind her with that same quiet sigh.
Only then did her hand rise to her face.
The cracks were shallow.
Manageable.
Still there.
Her fingers trembled anyway.
Behind her, the tent remained silent.
Unchanged.
As if nothing had happened at all.
Twisty snaps
The tent felt wrong.
Too quiet.
Too still.
And yetâ
not empty.
Twisty stood over the human, his small frame casting a warped shadow across the canvas floor as his head tilted slowly to the side. The bells on his hat didnât jingle this time. They just⌠hung there, silent, like even they understood something had shifted.
âThese visitors just donât get it⌠do theyâŚ?â
His voice came out uneven, stretched thin between amusement and something far more unstable. A shuddering laugh followed, crawling out of him in broken pieces as his spiral eyes deepened, pulling inward, tighter, darkerâfocused entirely on the figure beneath him.
The human couldnât move.
Bound.
Frozen.
Their hands were forced close together, pressed tightly against their chest, a blade hovering just shy of skinâclose enough that even the smallest tremble would draw blood.
Twisty crouched slowly.
Carefully.
Like he was studying something fragile.
âSee⌠she may be just a toy to youâŚâ he murmured, head dipping lower, voice softening into something almost thoughtful. ââŚsomething to break⌠something to ruinâŚâ
The knife tilted slightly.
Closer.
âBut youâŚâ
A pause.
Then his head snapped up, that grinâhidden beneath the maskâfelt in the way his body moved rather than seen.
ââŚyou hurt her.â
The words landed wrong.
Heavy.
Final.
His fingers twitched, claws flexing as they hovered near his mask, scratching faintly against the yellow surface without quite tearing into it.
âThese voices keep telling me I need to be strongerâŚâ he continued, his tone slipping, breaking, reforming into something more erratic. âStronger so I can protect her⌠stronger so nothing like that happens againâŚâ
Another laugh.
Sharper this time.
Unstable.
âAnd youââ his voice hitched, almost delighted now, ââyou just made that so much easier for me.â
He leaned in closer.
Too close.
âLike a baited offering.â
The words dissolved into giggles, his hand pressing firmly against his mask now, claws dragging just slightly as if resisting the urge to tear it off entirely.
âI play nice for my butterfly,â he went on, almost conversational now, like this was all part of a routine. âI let her handle things because sheâs strong. Capable. She doesnât need me hovering, doesnât need me ruining her little performancesâŚâ
The knife pressed just a fraction deeper.
A thin line of red formed.
âBut you ruined that for her.â
His voice dropped.
Flat.
Cold.
âYou ruined her performance.â
A beat.
âAnd mine.â
Silence swallowed the space between them.
Thenâ
âSo youâll pay.â
His grip tightened.
âBoth hands first.â
The blade shifted.
âThen your life.â
A small, almost absent tilt of his head followed.
âJester be damned if he finds whatâs left of you.â
The screams didnât last forever.
They stretched.
Broke.
Started again.
Then broke for good.
Time blurred inside the tent, the sounds dulling into something distant, something meaningless as the hours dragged on.
Untilâ
nothing.
Silence returned.
Heavy.
Complete.
Twisty sat there for a moment.
Still.
Breathing slow.
Then, almost absentmindedly, he reached up and pulled his mask aside just enough.
Just enough.
His jaw unhinged with a quiet, unnatural shift.
And he swallowed.
Slowly.
Deliberately.
When it was done, the mask slipped back into place like nothing had happened.
He looked down at what remained.
Head tilting again.
ââŚAhhh,â he exhaled softly, almost disappointed. âSuch a shame.â
A small step back.
A glance over the mess.
âYou werenât even worth it.â
His foot nudged something aside without care.
âAnd now look at youâŚâ
A faint scoff.
âEnding the show early because you couldnât even last six stabs.â
The disappointment sounded real.
Genuine.
Like the performance had simply failed to meet expectations.
He stood.
Ignoring the blood trailing behind him as he moved, each step light, almost casual again as the shift beganâslowly, subtlyâback into something more familiar.
More controlled.
More Twisty.
âIâve got to clean up now,â he muttered, half to himself, adjusting his sleeves slightly. âCanât go see her like thisâŚâ
A pause.
Then softerâ
âShe needs company.â
The tent flap shifted as he slipped out, leaving the silence behind him.
Leaving the mess.
Leaving everything that had just happenedâ
as if it were nothing more than another act.
Another performance.
Already finished.
if his love was returned
If Flutura ever returned Twistyâs love, he wouldnât know what to do with it. The thought alone felt wrongâlike something misplaced, something that didnât belong in the shape of the world he understood. He had never built himself for that kind of outcome. Never allowed for it. She was meant to remain distant. Unreachable. Something to admire from afar, not something that could ever turn and choose him. And if that ever changedâif she ever did choose himâit wouldnât bring him peace. It wouldnât quiet anything inside him. It would unravel him completely.
Because in Twistyâs mind, love was never meant to return.
It was never part of the story he gave himself.
If she loved him back, then there would be no distance left to hide behind. No illusion to protect either of them. He would have to stand in front of her as he truly was, without the careful space he kept between them. And that meant showing everything. The parts he buried. The parts he refused to name. The parts that, to him, were wrong in ways that couldnât be undone. Ugly in ways that couldnât be softened. Unacceptable in ways that no amount of quiet devotion could ever fix.
His white, uncolored skin. The scars carved across his face. The way his body movedâthe way it existed at all. It didnât feel natural to him. It never had. It felt like something that spread, something that tainted whatever it touched if it was allowed too close. Like a sickness that didnât stay contained.
And FluturaâŚ
Flutura, in his eyes, was none of that.
She was something complete. Something whole in a way he could never be. Light caught in glass, untouched by anything that could ruin it. Meant to be seen, admired, kept at a distance where nothing could reach her and nothing could change her. He couldnât allow himself to be the thing that altered that. Couldnât let himself become the reason something so perfect lost its shape.
Even if that perfection wasnât real.
Even if, somewhere deep down, there were parts of her that werenât soft at all.
He didnât want to see them.
So if she ever returned his feelingsâŚ
He would reject them.
Not out of cruelty. Not out of indifference. But out of something quieter. Something heavier. A kind of preservation he had convinced himself was kindness. He would turn away not just to protect herâbut to protect the version of her he needed to believe in.
Because loving the real Flutura would mean accepting something closer. Something flawed. Something that could bleed, and break, and stain just like he believed he did.
And thatâ
that would destroy everything.
So he keeps it where it belongs.
Distant. Controlled. Safe.
A quiet devotion that asks for nothing. That expects nothing. That never risks becoming real.
Because distance keeps her perfect.
Distance keeps her untouched.
Distance keeps him from seeing what she truly is.
And if it has to endâ
then it ends the only way he knows how.
With him remaining exactly what he believes himself to be.
An unwanted thing. A broken creature. Something never meant to be chosen.
While she remainsâ
not untouched.
but untouchable.
The Contained Performer
Aurelia is known to the audience as a graceful acrobatâan elegant figure who moves through silks and ribbons with unsettling precision.
What they do not see⌠is that she does not belong to the stage.
She belongs to the tent.
Her tent sits further from the others.
Smaller. Quieter. Intentional.
It was never designed as a place of rest, but of containment.
Inside, it is divided into two spaces:
A resting areaâbare, controlled, lined only with what is permitted. And a performance spaceâwhere she rehearses, where she is watched, where she exists as something presentable.
There is no true separation between the two.
She sleeps where she performs. She performs where she is kept.
She is not granted freedom.
She is granted permission.
Jester decides when she leaves. When she eats. When she performs. When she is allowed to be seen.
At night, she is restrainedâchains secured to ensure she does not wander, does not slip, does not become something uncontrolled.
On rare occasions, she is allowed brief moments outside.
Sometimes by approval.
Sometimes by request.
Most often through Pierrot, who asks on her behalf.
But even thenâ
it is temporary.
Measured.
Watched.
Her performances are not rewards.
They are controlled exposures.
A way to present something dangerous in a form that can be observed without consequence.
The audience sees elegance.
Balance.
Beauty wrapped in quiet unease.
What they do not see is the tension beneath itâthe constant, careful restraint.
Because if she faltersâ
even onceâ
the illusion does not simply break.
It becomes something else.
There was a time when control was lost.
When her body gave way to instinct.
When the thing beneath the porcelain surface was no longer contained.
It nearly destroyed the circus.
It nearly consumed Pierrot.
And it did not stop on its own.
It took heavy sedationâadministered repeatedlyâto force her still.
Even then, the return was slow.
Uncertain.
Incomplete.
That moment is why she is kept as she is now.
Not out of cruelty alone.
But out of fear.
She is not controlled through hypnosis.
She does not need to be.
Isolation teaches obedience.
Routine enforces it.
Fear maintains it.
And so she remains.
A performer by title.
A prisoner by design.
A creature too dangerous to releaseâ
and too valuable to destroy.
Sometimes, she runs.
Not to escape forever.
Not to fight.
But simply to remember.
What it felt likeâ
to move without permission.
To exist without being watched.
To be something other than what she is now.
And each time she returnsâ
because she always returnsâ
the cage feels smaller.
The silence feels heavier.
And the question lingers a little longer in her mind:
Is she being protected from the worldâ
or is the world being protected from her?
LORE POST â The Order of Spirits
Spirits are what remains of the dead.
Any beingâhuman or creatureâleaves something behind. That remnant does not form randomly. It takes shape based on the life that came before it.
Spirits are categorized not by judgmentâ
but by how they existed.
â
I. Spirits of Peace
Those who lived with kindness, connection, or balance are given a choice.
They may remain in the living world, keeping their form and awarenessâ
or they may descend into peace.
To descend is to cease entirely. No memory. No form. No return.
If they remain, they exist as they were.
But that state is not unbreakable.
If a spirit of peace turnsâif they abandon what they were and act with harm or corruptionâthey lose that choice forever.
They become bound to the living world.
They cannot descend. They cannot change again.
Their form reflects this shift.
Not brokenâ
but distorted.
Something unrecognizable from what they once were.
â
II. Spirits of Ruin
Those who lived in cruelty, control, or imbalance do not receive a choice.
They remain in the living world, unable to descend, forced to exist within what they became.
But unlike spirits of peaceâ
they are not beyond change.
If a spirit of ruin truly changesâcompletely, not partiallyâthey are allowed to descend.
And when they do, their form returns to what it once was in life.
Not as forgiveness.
But as release.
â
III. Memory and Fading
Spirits are sustained by connection.
Memory. Recognition. Attachment.
To be remembered is to remain.
To be forgotten is to weaken.
And to lose all connectionâ
is to fade.
Not suddenly.
Not violently.
But inevitably.
â
IV. Sylvara
Sylvara chose to remain in the living world.
Not for herselfâ
but for Batsby.
She is not bound by place. Not by object. Not by unfinished business.
She is anchored by memory.
Not memory in the abstractâ
but specific, lived moments that still exist within the living:
The nest where their eggs once rested The place he first held them together as a family The quiet lullaby she used to hum beneath her breath
These are not just recollections.
They are foundations.
As long as those memories are held, she remains whole.
But memory is fragile.
It erodes.
Details soften. Voices blur. Moments lose their edges.
And as they doâ
so does she.
If Batsby forgets the way her voice soundedâ
her voice will fade.
If he forgets the warmth of her presenceâ
her form will grow distant.
If he forgets her entirelyâ
there will be nothing left to hold her here.
And BatsbyâŚ
cannot see.
He does not remember her through sight.
He remembers her through what once wasâthrough feeling, through sound, through fragments he holds onto with care.
He revisits those memories. Repeats them. Guards them.
But memory, without renewal, decays.
He cannot refresh what he cannot see.
He cannot correct what slowly drifts.
So even in his devotionâ
even in his refusal to forgetâ
he is still losing her.
And Sylvara feels it.
Not as painâ
but as absence.
When the sound of her voice fades in his mindâ hers grows quieter.
When the warmth of her touch becomes uncertainâ her presence turns faint.
When the image of her blurs beyond recallâ parts of her begin to disappear.
She does not tell him.
She cannot.
Because forced memory is not true memory.
And false remembrance cannot sustain a spirit.
So she lets him remember her imperfectly.
Even when it costs her.
Sylvara does not fear death.
She has already faced it.
What she fearsâ
is being forgotten.
And so she stays.
Not just to protect him.
Not just to watch over their children.
But to remain within the fragile space where she is still remembered.
There is one mercyâ
and it is a cruel one.
He remembers her most clearly in moments of pain.
In grief. In fear. In longing.
And in those momentsâ
she is strongest.
Closest.
Most whole.
The times he needs her mostâŚ
are the only times she fully exists.
And so, while she guards her family from harmâ
she is quietly being pulled toward an end she cannot fight.
Not by time.
Not by injury.
But by the slow, natural fading of memory.
â
V. Puppeteer
Puppeteer does not follow these rules cleanly.
Their magic had already begun to corrupt them before death, threading through them long before their body failed.
When they became a spirit, that corruption did not distort themâ
it stabilized them.
They are not sustained by memory.
They are sustained by structure.
By binding themselves directly to Aurelia, they replaced the natural system entirely.
Where spirits require memoryâ
they require connection.
â
VI. The Bound Heart
Aurelia was created through Puppeteerâs magic.
Because of this, she is not separate from them.
She is part of the structure that allows them to remain.
Not symbolicallyâ
but literally.
Like a heart that does not beat on its own.
If she is removed, Puppeteer does not weaken.
They end.
Completely.
â
VII. The Offered Choice
Puppeteer understood what this meant.
And so they created an option.
They made it knownâquietly, deliberatelyâthat Aurelia could be killed.
That doing so would end the connection.
That their existence would end with it.
They did not act on this themselves.
They did not force it.
They simply allowed it to exist.
A decision left to others.
â
VIII. The Broken Rule
Spirits are meant to choose their own end.
Puppeteer did not.
They placed that choice into the hands of someone else.
And in doing soâ
they altered the system itself.
Because their fate is no longer determined by what they areâ
but by whether someone is willing to make that choice for them.
â
And so, with that option existingâ
Puppeteer chose not to change.
Not because change was impossible.
But because change would risk an outcome they could no longer control.
â
Some spirits fade.
Some are released.
Some remain bound to memory.
And someâ
remain not because they mustâŚ
but because they refuse to leave anything to chance.
How the Collaborations Started
Before thisâ Flutura always performed alone.
Even surrounded by a crowd, even under blinding stage lights, even while bending herself into impossible shapesâ
She was alone. That was how she preferred it. Control required isolation.
No variables. No mistakes. No one else to depend on.
Until one dayâ Twisty decided that was boring.