We arrive just in time to witness the scarecrow stab a complete stranger.

"Oh," bemoans the stranger, gripping the sword protruding from his... armpit? "The agony of life, stolen, ripped from the righteous hands of youth!"

I turn to Nathaniel.

"Hush," he whispers before I even have a chance to open my mouth. "This is the best part."

"But..."

He glances at me from under his hood and taps his forefinger against his lips. "Remember - best part."

I reign in a sigh and turn back to the tragedy unfolding before us.

"I'm sorry," the scarecrow squeaks using Rose's voice. "I didn't mean to kill you, honest!"

"No, no, my boy. I'm not really dead. It's all just pretend, remember?" the stranger whispers with a conspiratorial wink.

"Oh," says the scarecrow, straightening to its full height. "Right. Please continue!"

"Good, good. Hm, now where was I?" the stranger mutters, drumming his fingers against the hilt of the sword. "Ah, yes. I recall." He clears his throat, inhaling so deeply I begin to question if my books on anatomy are wrong about the human lung capacity. "The agony of life torn away," he wheezes in a poor imitation of a death rattle, "stolen from youth, youth that grasps onto life so tightly..."

Then, tipping ever so slowly, like a felled tree, he faceplants into the grass. The blade sticks straight out of his armpit like a flag of surrender.

To my right, Nathaniel begins clapping. It is shortly accompanied by a second pair of hands: Connie. He'd been standing off to the side out of my field of vision. The guilt about the letter turns my gaze away from him.

"Brilliant performance, my Queen!" Nathaniel shouts, cupping his hands around his mouth.

"Really?" the scarecrow asks, jerking its head towards us. Its arms are left swaying with the movement. "This is the first time I've tried acting, so I was never very good at it." Then its head twitches a little further to the right. Goosebumps run down my arms when I realize it's staring at me. "Good morning, Mr. Whittle!" it says cheerfully. "That was just a practice run! The whole thing is longer, I think! And don't worry, he's not actually hurt. It's just pretend. I'm not a bad person." A pause. Its arm whips out in a wave. "So good morning! How are you feeling today?"

I don't really want to reply, but Nathaniel elbows me in the ribs.

"Good," I finally say. I look down at the stranger. "Who is he?"

Before anyone can answer, the question propels him to his feet. He dramatically unsheathes the sword from his armpit and thrusts it towards me, resting his face against his shoulder so his line of sight runs down his forearm and trails over the edge of the blade.

"Hey, watch where you point that thing," cautions Nathaniel.

"Lorrick von Lorique," the stranger announces with a series of flashy jabs and parries, completely disregarding the warning. "Proud husband, passionate enthusiast for anything to be enthused about, and," he adds with a wink, "Arthronia's most beloved star."

On closer inspection, he's a bit older than I thought. Crow's feet are lightly etched around his eyes and his hair has flecks of silver peppered into it. I've met older adults with a youthful sort of charm, but I don't think that's what Lorrick has. His jaunty, energetic behavior seems forced, like time is pressing a knife to his back, taunting him with the fact that he'd outgrown the spotlight for the dashing hero years ago.

"Wait, the Lorrick von Lorrique?" Nathaniel asks.

Lorrick closes his eyes, places a hand on his chest and takes a deep bow. "The one and only."

Nathaniel's hood turns as he and Connie exchange glances.

"You both know him?" I ask, surprised.

"Well, sure," says Connie. "Everyone does."

"If you don't live under a rock," adds Nathaniel.

"Oho," says Lorrick, glancing up at me, lifting an eyelid. "It has been many a year since I've met someone as unfortunate as you. To not know my legacy!" he says, dipping backwards, resting a hand against his forehead. "To be so ignorant, inane, uncultured! To live in such sad, solitary-"

"Right," I say, smoothing the irritation out of my voice. "So you're an actor."

"Not just the best actor this kingdom's ever had the exceptional fortune to witness," Lorrick replies, affronted. He swings the sword to the sky. "Singer! Dancer! Playwright! I was - am," he quickly corrects, jabbing the blade higher into the air, "a star."

Now all three of us are exchanging glances.

"Wow!" pipes up the scarecrow."That's amazing!"

"Isn't it?" Lorrick replies.

"It was also said," Nathaniel adds, "that the great and talented Lorrick von Lorrique had been very humble about his accomplishments. One of the things people liked best about him, actually."

"People change," Lorrick scoffs. "Why not acknowledge the gifts the Gods gave me? Especially in such abundance?"

My eyes flicker to Nathaniel's hooded figure in the hopes that maybe, just maybe he would find Lorrick so unappealing it would force him to look at his own arrogance from a fresh perspective.

"Fair point," Nathaniel replies with a chuckle, dashing that hope.

"So if you're the great Lorrick von Lorrique," I say, "aren't you supposed to be with a trope of some sort? Where is the rest of your company?"

Just as quickly as the shadow crosses his face, it evaporates.

"Oh, them?" he says, crossing his arms and turning away. "Well, as it happens, we had a bit of a, ah, falling out. As it so happens." He starts swinging the sword at nothing in particular. "But see, you see, that's just show biz for you."

"You can't just have a falling out with the Summer Circus," Nathaniel points out. "You're the ringmaster."

"Well, I just did," snaps Lorrick.

Recognition flickers at my the back of my mind. Eager to not seem like a complete shut-in, I grasp for it. "The Summer Circus?"

"Alright, I call bullshit if you say you don't know what that is," Nathaniel says. "Marigold wouldn't shut up about it whenever it came to Crown's Peak."

Recognition sharpens into memory. Whenever the Summer Circus came by, Marigold would plant herself on one of the cots, swinging her legs and chattering on about how she ate way too many candied apples, complain about the leading actresses ("She was obviously stuffing her bodice..."), describe how hilariously creepy the clowns were, poke fun of the nonsense predicted by fortune tellers. Usually I would tune out a handful of minutes, going back to reading scrolls or writing out a report or whatever I needed done that day. That never deterred her stream of words.

There were a few times, though, that I put my work aside and listened. She loved it when I did that. I could hear it in her voice, in the way her focus would shift from snarky complaints to rich, vivid descriptions, the way her hands would flutter and pivot as she recalled the feats of lions and their tamers and the swinging strut in her hips she put on when she reenacted the worst scenes from the worst plays. And every time we fell into the position of gifted storyteller and captive audience, I would promise to go.

And I'd mean it, too. I truly would. But something - a report, an exam, a project - would always come up. And so I would shadow that broken promise with another one and another one until disappointment dulled the expectation in her eyes, diminishing it into bored, brittle resentment.

Last summer she didn't bother mentioning the circus. Shortly after, her visits came to an abrupt stop. I would be lying if I said I didn't miss her clever company, but it was something I dwelt upon between books and reports, moments that came far in between. I told myself that she could visit at her leisure, so I would simply wait. I thought it would only be a matter of weeks until she came knocking on my door.

Weeks turned into months, and now here I was, miles and miles away, traveling with Connie and a pair of lunatics on a quest for her dead sister, wasting time on some impostor suffering from a bad case of megalomania.

"Well, it was very nice meeting you," I say. "But as we are on a limited time constraint, we must-"

"You boys are headed over to Robin's Nest, right?" says Lorrick.

My eyes narrow. "Who told you that?"

"I did!" says the scarecrow excitedly.

I reel in another sigh.

"The first thing Stanley mentioned," says Lorrick. "He practically shouted it while I was fishing in the river, scared the living daylights out of me."

"I can imagine," I reply.

People aren't sure what to make of the scarecrow upon first sight. Somehow, with Rose's voice as clear and high-pitched as a choir boy's, we manage to pass the thing off as a very tall simpleton named Stanley. Stanley has sensitive skin that has to be covered from the sun. And he is especially fond of pumpkins.

It's a horrible lie for sure, but this is one of those few cases where a lie is much more credible than the truth. Besides, if anyone were to figure out what it really was, we could be hanged for the promotion of black magic.

The same more or less had to be done with Nathaniel. Most of the travelers we came across were excited to stumble across a lucky chance of meeting the Young Dragonslayer on a quest, but a few were a little less enthusiastic.

Arthronians love a good story, so gossip flowed from lips to ears like wine from a wineskin. Rumors exploded in a torrent after the incident at the ball. As the dust settled, people sifted out the blatant lies and began to discern those with a seed of truth. And, well, some truths weren't very pretty.

Some people whispered that Nathaniel had been seducing Marigold in a plot to usurp the throne - they had been unusually close for a princess and a knight, no matter how highly-esteemed he was. A few voices chimed in that it would make more sense for Nathaniel to have been seducing Rose, but respect for the late heiress kept this theory from getting too popular.

Others claimed that the characteristically brave knight had snapped under the pressure of the fateful night, fleeing from the mayhem to save his own skin, ensuring Poppy's disappearance. Some even dared to say that guilt and dragonfire had driven him mad - to the point where he would brutally maul unarmed civilians.

But don't worry, said one of the travelers we came across, that last one is an obvious lie. Any Arthronian with good sense wouldn't heed it.

Connie and I could do nothing but thank him.

We collected some of the nastier rumors out of Nathaniel's earshot by sending the scarecrow on errands that it was more than happy to attend to, Nathaniel dutifully trailing after it like a dog. It was pretty obvious what we were doing, but he didn't seem to mind as long as we weren't being condescending about it.

Needless to say, it didn't seem very intelligent to brandish Nathaniel's face to the world, made even more iconic with the heavy scarring. And so the hood went on.

"I passed by Robin's Nest not too long ago," says Lorrick. "Wouldn't head there if I were you."

"Really?" says Nathaniel, the airy amusement in his tone sharpening with interest. "Why would you say that?"

"The decimation," says Lorrick in a low whisper, eagerly feeding off the attention. "The destruction. The mayhem."

"Was it the dragon?" Connie asks, his voice creeping to a hush.

"Oh, it was many things," Lorrick says to Connie, delighted to hone in on an appreciative audience. "The unforgiving elements, the pure madness of humanity. But one could argue that, yes, in the bitter end... it really boiled down to that damned dragon."

"What happened?" I ask, growing impatient.

Lorrick's gaze flickers to me with the slightest of disdain, the way he might toss a glance at a heckler.

"The better question is, what didn't happen?" he says, turning back to Connie. "The wails of dying women, burned men, slaughtered children, they ran far into the night, from dusk to dawn. The dragon, the heartless beast that it was, completely demolished the entire town!"

"So there's nothing left," I say, my heart dropping.

"Ah, I didn't quite say that," replies Lorrick, shaking his finger at me. "Not quite at all."

"So what exactly does that mean?" I snap. "What's left of it?"

"The gigglers, of course!" he answers, a little affronted at my tone. "What else?"

"Gigglers?" I ask.

"Oh, well you can count your lucky stars if you don't know what those are yet," says Lorrick. "But keep heading to Robin's Nest and you'll have the misfortune to find out sooner than you'd like."

"So what exactly are they?" I ask, keeping my irritation in check.

"Monsters, I suppose," says Lorrick, casually waving a hand, "though it really depends on your definiton of them."

My gaze flickers to Nathaniel. "I wager I have a pretty good idea."

Connie clears his throat.

"What kind, mister?" asks Connie.

"What was that?" replies Lorrick, cupping a hand around his ear.

"I mean," says Connie, biting his lower lip, "what kinda monsters?"

"Ah," replies Lorrick, leaning back. "Only the very worst kind." He begins turning Nathaniel's blade, watching it glint in the sun. "Men. Though I'd hesitate to call them that."

A silence falls over us, trailing a sickening suspicion that trickles from the back of our minds and into our hearts.

"We've been searching for a reliable cure for centuries. That's impossible," I say, head buzzing.

"It was, until it happened." He lowers the sword a bit. "And surviving isn't a cure. Not by a long shot. When you get close, you'll hear the gigglers. The whole town is plumb mad."

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Heeello! What was that? Another baby hiatus? I am so. Very. Sorry. 

Life's gotten really busy for me and I hate doing this whole update-every-month thing I've got going on. Best to take some time to write up some really good chapters and post them up once a week, right? I dunno. That's what I think.

I'd love to chat, hit me up! I'll be on Wattpad too. Just not as often. 

For critiques: What did you think of Lorrick von Lorique? Of Devon's past relationship with Marigold? Does it give any more insight to either of their characters? Thoughts on what happened in Robin's Nest?

And as always, votes and comments are always appreciated B-)