The storm outside definitely will dampen tonight's pairing ceremony if it doesn't let up. 

Shurik's gone now though and I won't get another chance. 

I float up to the kitchen ceiling and grab a hanging wicker basket. Then I pull out a strawberry patterned white linen towel for cushioning the bottom of the basket and set the sprout inside.

The basket handles are a little worn, but this will have to do. I can't just fly around in the storm with the sprout. She'll stay dryer inside here and probably be more comfortable too.

I stuff an extra empty flour sack in my tote and then lift up the basket with the sprout inside. To my dismay, the entrance to my tent opens and in walks my brother with Marvin. The old faery grumbles something too inaudible for me to comprehend and Shurik drops my pairing dress on the table. It's covered in a special blanket that keeps the elements such as water at bay.

Marvin speaks first, "The child I will take, my dear. Let me see her, please."

I can imagine him accidentally dropping the sprout on his way to the fields. I don't release my grip on the basket and he practically yanks it out my hold. The little sprout inside begins crying. Marvin makes hushing sounds but it doesn't do any good. Shurik steps around the Jester with his hands folded behind his back.

The Jester eyes my dress on the table before looking at me. "I think I may just give you this sprout," he beings to say, and then quickly adds, "That is if you wish to keep it."

"We'll think about it. We'll see you tonight, Marvin," my brother says for me. I clench my fists yanking my dress off the table.

What does Shurik mean 'we'? I won't be here tomorrow! Marvin doesn't look too pleased either, but he leaves the kitchen heading outside with the sprout.

My brother leans against the kitchen counter. 

He picks up a piece of raspberry bread from the brown bag he sets down. He must have gotten food while fetching Marvin from the market. The tiny yellow and white painted tiles on my favorite big kitchen cupboard get smudged with berry juice when my brother opens it with his berry juice stained hands.

I'm surprised he has the nerve to eat strawberry bread when Marvin could walk right back in here and catch him eating it. I clutch the dress to my chest thinking of the sprout that's now somewhere outside in the storm with the ancient-looking faery man.

Shurik closes the cupboard. "Get dressed now or you'll be late. The ceremony starts in fifteen minutes."

"Shurik, I have a bad feeling about the sprout...could you maybe get her back?" I ask him carefully.

He rounds the table, speaking in a mocking voice, "Bad feeling?"

Outside our home, the rain comes to an end and the sun's rays hit the top of our tent sending streams of pink and red light down into the kitchen. Will this even be my home tomorrow? I could be living in my pair's home instead of here. Shurik approaches me with his hands resting on the waistband of his pants. His pink and silver hair is already dried standing in short spikes on top of his head.

His voice hardens, "I'm not an idiot. If I go anywhere you'll just try leaving again."

"You can't make me stay," I argue while trudging into our room.

"If you want to leave so bad convince your pair to go with you. You should not be traveling alone."

"I don't need a pair," I remind him.

My eyes bug hearing the beginning of the pairing ceremony as the haunting melody of the calliope reaches our side of the fair. 

It's clumsy tune drifts through the air like a drunken butterfly. Graceful, but free-spirited with no particular desired direction in mind. It used to bring such excitement to me, but now it only brings terror. The Jesters say our fair music can be heard for some miles on end...probably to lure the humans in for extra sales.

My brother's lips curve into a cruel smile. "Sadie, you're going to the ceremony. Now get changed or I'll tell the Jesters why you were really out in the woods."

I stomp into our room and change into my pairing gown while my brother waits in the kitchen with my dried thistle flower crown. All the potential pairs will be wearing the same headpiece with other flowers and plants composing theirs. My parents were supposed to have made one for me, but since they passed away Shurik took the easy way out and just bought me a premade one at the market square.

The plain silk light lavender silver gown kind of matches my eyes, but other than that, it just makes my body look as round as a pumpkin. It's very loose and flowy which I like though since it really only hugs my chest. Most of the material drags on the ground below me because another annoying thing about the pairing ceremony is we have to fly the entire time.

"What's taking you so long?" Shurik asks loudly from the kitchen.

Screw the pairing ceremony, I'm not going. I grab my scissors off my dresser that I've been using to cut string for my gum wrapping garlands. In a rush, I stab a hole into the wall of the tent and drag the sharp edge of the scissor blade downward. 

The tent rips without a noise allowing me to manage to squeeze through the slit when I pull it wide enough open.

I swear the music is twice as loud out here. I fly above into the sky and glance toward the center of our fair seeing the sky covered in our folk dressed in their fanciest attire for the occasion. Ribbons of silken cloth ranging in all colors of the rainbow stretch across the sky as our people move like flying cattle toward the market square for the ceremony.

I can't help being a little entranced by the sight. It's not enough to keep me here though. 

Shurik screams my name below in what I used to call my home. Not wasting any more time, I fly as fast as I can into the wooded area behind our tent. The ground below is covered in a blanket of lush green grass with sprinklings of wildflowers surrounding some trees. Eventually, I make it to the outer edge of our fair where our strawberry field is.

The harvesters are still out here picking strawberries and checking for sprouts. I hadn't thought they'd be still working especially since it just was storming. Can't they hear the music? They should be going to the market square, but of course, with my luck, they're still here and have already spotted me.

Someone shoves me from behind. "Hey!" I shout in protest.

I stumble onto my knees getting my dress covered in dirt. 

Luckily, I didn't fall to my death, but I can't say I enjoyed being dragged down to the ground. I look up angrily through strands of my pale hair. My brother towers over me with my flower crown in one hand and a spool of thread in the other.

He leans toward me with deep focus. "Stay still."

"No!" I yell while jumping up and flying away from him.

However, forcing me back, Shurik catches the corner of my right wing causing pain to explode in my back. 

I collide against his chest biting back pain, but his arms are like steel. He uses one to keep me in place while the other places the last piece of my pairing day outfit on my head. The string gets looped around my flower crown keeping it in place as silent tears of frustration dampen my checks.

"Don't you understand? This isn't about you, but the future of our people. I'm sorry I have upset you, but there are some things you're going to have to do even if you don't want to. I shouldn't have drunk so much the other night, but you aren't the only one being put through things you don't wish for."

"I don't expect you to understand. You don't even have to find a pair," I retort while trying to get out of his hold.

"That's not what I'm talking about, Sadie," my brother whispers, "Marvin is dying. They need a Rasblood to replace him."

I swallow bile looking up into my brother's purple eyes. There are older Rasbloods. He's not even paired yet. Why would Marvin choose him?

New worry rises in me. "What do you mean?" 

"I thought you would be delighted," he tells me in a dry voice.

"No."

My heart plummets as we re-enter the shady woods. The dark green foliage repeatedly hits our wings as Shurik rushes back to the fair dragging me with him. I pull against him again grabbing onto the thick branches we pass.

"You're going to your pairing ceremony whether you like it or not!" he barks back roughly.

"Why c-can't you just let me leave?"

He pulls me further back into the woods away from the strawberry fields. "Don't you think people have tried to leave before? What do you think happens to them?" he asks. He continues in a softer tone, "The same thing that happens to rasblood sprouts born with purple skin."

"They get relocated?"

My wings are already tired from flying all the way to the field and Shurik's are much bigger and stronger than mine. I lag behind him and descend lower to the ground like dead weight.

"Yeah," he says while tugging me away with him up higher into the air. "Come on, we have to hurry up. We're going to be late."

I'm pretty much not putting in any effort flying and he lifts me just high enough above the ground so I don't touch it. Shurik doesn't complain and doesn't even look back down at me. I grunt when a tree branch gets caught in my hair.

"Ow! Stop!" I cry out feeling my hair painfully pull.

He turns around and drifts over to me. I already tried untangling my hair from the branch, but I can't see above my head. His chin hovers near my forehead as he lowers himself nearer to my level.

He starts untangling it. "Stop crying. If you don't like your pair you can wait another year. Your pairing needs my acceptance anyway," he mumbles in a deep voice.

Does he really think the Jesters will consider him my guardian? He's no more an adult than me. 

Well, I really don't know now that Marvin is considering Shurik to replace him. Marvin is kind of like his father, or in the least, his role model. Both of them are nuts. After all, Marvin is the most traditional of the three Jesters and is behind the strange relocation system the purple Rasbloods are put into upon birth.

He finishes untangling my hair from the branch and we continue flying back to the fair. Eventually, we make it to the source of the awful music. The market square is really a giant tent made of spider silk netting. It's in the shape of a square with tight knitted diamond-shaped silk netting.

Dried flowers are weaved around the white netting of the walls stretching to its peaked center in the middle of the tent. They call it the market square because of the numerous trading tents in here where go to barter with our own people. Mostly we just come here for the necessities like clothes and food.

Lights are strewn across the center in zig-zags lighting up the huge space. The netted walls shimmer with faery dust. 

A maypole stands in the center keeping the netting up. Hundreds of long streams of patterned fabric hang down from it. The small faery children like to grab onto the fabric and run around the pole in circles chasing each other.

It looks like everyone is already mostly seated though. The stone stools stretch in a circle. My brother nudges me forward and I step inside. He sits on a stool watching me without a trace of remorse for having brought me here. The stares of hundreds of sets of eyes on me doesn't do well to calm my nerves or agitation at being made to take part in this ridiculous charade.

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