He leant over and pressed the brand onto the top of her buttock. The agony was white-hot, but she tried to hold her body still. The abject scream blasting out of her mouth without touching the sides of her throat. He drew the brand away, yet the scathing pain blazed on. She dropped onto her side to writhe around in the dirt. A blinding blanket of lightning, bombastic booms of thunder, a splashing sheet of cold rain, suddenly tipping hard and fast. The fire howling as it drowned beside her.
He dropped the cane and stood watching his Little Bird rolling and squirming at his feet. Waiting a while, before stooping to pick her up. She hugged close as he cradled her in his big arms. Carrying her away from the fire and down the slope towards his camp. The bucketing precipitation washed over to cleanse her, but she could feel the precise shape branded into her flesh. His signature burned into her buttock. She was his... again! Tasting the salt as she sobbed happy pain into the rain.
The road looked more like a river as the torrential downpour splashed over the dark concrete. They forded the avenue and moved into the camp, making towards the largest caravan. The door swung open as they approached and he squeezed her body to manoeuvre through the door. It was warm in here. The sound of the rain becoming cosy, pummelling down on the outside. The fragrance of hearth-fire, old antiques and magical brews.
The place was a TARDIS: much bigger on the inside than it looked from without. The ceiling so high you could feel the space stretching out for meters above. Lots of strange objects cluttering the vast room. Racks of throwing weapons and various elaborate pieces of circus equipment. An arcane alchemist's lab, jumbled with glass tubes and bottles of bubbling green liquid. A zoo of taxidermy animals, fronted by a haunted pole-cat, staring intently out of long-dead eyes.
He strode across the room and delicately placed her on the large bed. The soft kinaesthetics of smooth silks and fluffy furs. Luxuriantly comfortable, except for the searing pain of the brand, forcing her to toss and turn. His expression was calm and solemn as he rolled her onto her back. The curling palm of his hand stroking over her head and brushing down her spine. She flinched as he hovered his fingers over the brand, agony twinkling to his touch. She peered up through a pained, twitching squint and their eye-contact lingered.
He scrunched his hand, as if grasping hold of an invisible arrow protruding from her wound. She winced, but held focus and watched his eyes narrow. A jolt in his body and the pain began to rush out of hers, flowing through his hand to collect inside him. His eyes micro-flinching, teeth gritting, the hint of a grunting growl. As he rose and pulled, all the agony flooded out of Sophie in one go. Joyous relief instantly melting into serene comfortableness.
The Circus Master's body racked with tension, muscles writhing over his torso like entangled snakes. He snarled and spun on his heels, sweeping his arm in a whirling arc to hurl several balls of yellow feathers from his opening fist. The little birds tumbled before straightening out, flippering into a flap to whizz in blurry circles around the chamber, before shooting out of the caravan door in a chaotic, trooping line. They took all the pain with them, dissipating it into the night.
