The Moonlight Carnival

Rate of availability

Brings question to

Wanting something for all to enjoy

Needing the resources and reputation

Is better than

Letting everyone in

Can be rewarding, but

Being known for prestige

Is what we should strive for

“Do you like my poem?,” Ayden asked his brother Aaron.

“Ah yes brother, very wonderful and so unlike your usual ranting about equality,” he nodded in approval to the paper the poem was written on.

“Read it bottom to top now,” he replied "It is called a reverse poem."

Aaron reads from bottom to top and changes his tone abruptly, “Oh I see, I should have known you wouldn’t care for resources and reputation. What a trick from you yet again, sir magician.” he goes back to the papers he was shuffling through and ignores Ayden yet again, all the same as his mother and father. Ayden didn't want to be apart of his uptight family any longer. He had felt love for his family, but they did not feel any for him. At the age of 18 he came into his inherited money and ran off to start a circus. He would find and take care of those less fortunate that were treated like freaks.

He found a group and decided to brand them all after tarot cards. He was the magician: the ringleader of the group who would take them on trip to trip. He decided from then on that love was not for him. He had seen relationships constantly turn ugly. He was to be a show seducer and leave himself as nothing more.

He believed all people did was cheat, lie, and fall into greed. Audrey Rose showed him love was real when he watched her with lover boy Thomas. It made him so jealous and want her to love him the way he saw her loving someone else. He had to then find his own, so he went searching for a great love.

He thought it would be difficult until she practically fell into his arms. A woman with a similar dream that he could care for. A woman named Lotus, like a beautiful flower brightening muddy waters. She was also trying to escape her family. She didn’t want to marry any of the men they pushed for her to take hand in marriage, so she took off with their money after hiring a man to pose as her father to gain access to the accounts. He found her while she was engrossed in her new life, reading fortunes on the streets.

He walked into her tent and she read that Justice was in his future. He asked her to join his carnival. He told her she could find and learn an act. She already could hula hoop and wanted to learn how to juggle. She later reminded him of the justice tarot card she read because of how she believed in truth and fairness. The justice in his future would then become her. She cared about standing up for her fellow performers and giving them a descent life.

After a few years, they ended up marrying in a small carnival wedding with plenty of green fairy juice (absinth) for all of the performers collected along the way. The fire breather named Cassie handled the fireworks. Sebastian the sword thrower walked her to him because of how she didn't have her father present to give her off. They became a performing team that forever travels on a never-ending honeymoon.

This story is a fan fiction based off of the character Ayden, ring leader of the Moonlight Carnival in the book Escaping from Houdini. I was sad the way his character was left and wanted him to be able to have his own love story.