Clowning Around (Open)

It was about 9 pm in the land surrounding the island Village and Valrose was sitting around the campfire, a bunch of younger children sitting on logs the jester had provided. The light danced menacingly off his face-paint making it look as if he had a ghoulish face. The children were enthralled, eyes glued in horror at the Jester and the story he wove.

"And then...." Valrose says in a low voice, finishing the ghost story he had been spinning for the last half hour. The story was about a group of children who wandered into a forest, encountering a strange faceless beast as they were picked off amongst the darkness.

"As Yosei peaked around the corner..." Valrose continued, voice low and haunting. "IT GETS HIM!" as he spoke those words, he leapt up from his log, spreading his arms wide off to the side, shadow enlarging as he loomed over the fire. He let out a hiss and bared his sharp teeth. Combined with the glare and the dark Jester's outfit, the children went running, screaming off into the night. Valrose let out a hearty laugh as the children scattered. OH how he loved a good prank. He waited a minute, then two, and slowly the children began slinking back, fear still in their eyes. When they saw Valrose's playful smile however, they began to laugh and make for their logs to hear another story. However, Valrose held up a gloved hand stopping them before they could reach their logs.

"No. No. Its getting late"  Valrose pointed at the full moon over head. The children saw it too, a disappointed look on their faces.

"Find me tomorrow and we'll go into an even SCARIER world...." Valrose would smile impishly and cock an eyebrow. The children laughed, hearts filled with hope as they headed for home.

Now.... Time to Carve a smile into some lucky person tonight.....

Maddohatta was walking the village, the moon was rising high and full, the air was still but cool. The perfect weather for exploring. A full moon always meant new, out of the ordinary, experiences for Goon.  Who hadn't slept for a few days now, plus he was stuck on a diet of tea, books, and  bread with butter, he was beginning to become loopy. He tried to determine the time but to him it was 6'O'clock, as always. The village was quiet as most of the villagers had already went in for the night. This left Goon to wander the streets aimlessly.

He heard a series of several screams, and this snapped him out of his drone-like state, and into action. Goon briskly walked in the direction of the screams, hoping there'd be some excitement there. If there wasn't he'd end up going home and to bed, which was on the list of things he didn't wanna do.

Finally he had reached the area of the screams, only to find it was a group of kids, being told a scary story. Depressing, and I thought this was gonna be fun. Wait....who....what the hell is that? Goon thought as he inspected closer, seeing a white-faced man telling the kids the story. Resembling a clown, but much darker, this clown was a jester. Goon knew that no one else from the troupe he was in stayed back with him. So who the hell was this he wondered. He would for the kids to sent away before approaching sticking to alley near there. When all the kids left and we're out of sight, he walked up to the man. Goon would speak as he walked up, "Nice story, but that seemed to be the kid friendly version. Who are you and what troupe do you belong to? I haven't seen you before neither in the village or another troupe." Goon met a lot of troupes in his travels, and this person would stick out in the village. Scratching the scars on his face with one hand and lifting his hat to reveal a teapot and cups underneath, while waiting for a reply.

Valrose didn't notice this kid before as he came through the wilderness. He looked different than the others... Older.... Valrose turned to face the newcomer, taking out one of his juggling daggers and began to absently throw it spinning in the air and catching it. At the new comer's compliment, Valrose burst out laughing. A throaty, darker version of the Stereotypical clown laugh. Combined with the setting and the knife in his hands, it might've been extremely unnerving if not for the genuine look of joy and excitement on his face.

"Of course it's kid-friendly! I don't want to scare them! Just make them smile!"

"As for who I am..." Valrose caught the knife again and slipped it back into his belt. "I am the dancer in the night... The clown that never frowns.... Jester who's act never festers, Valrose the Clown!" He struck a pose upon completing his introduction, his smile widening slowly. However, at the kid's implication that he was part of a troupe, Valrose scoffed.

"Valrose is a single act circus!" He said, striking another pose. Only as he did so, did he notice the scars on this kid's face. Valrose got out of his pose and shook his head.

"Tsk, tsk, tsk." Valrose said, waving a large gloved finger. "Been naughty, have you...?" He was referring to the scars. Only just then did he notice he didn't offer the new kid a place at the fire.

"Wait! Before you answer, please take a seat by the fire." The clown gestured to one of the logs with his hand, smile still plastered on his face, fire amplifying the black and orange checkers that ran their way up the clown's leg.

Goon had laughed at the notion of being naughty, as he moved onto a log to sit, balancing the pot and cups on his head. He hung his hat on a branch, protruding from the log. "Naughty? No these were necessary, according to my mother. To try and help me more, one was self inflicted to match the other. I showed no kindness as a child, plus I let a man live. So one was my punishment," Goon slightly shook his head to allow two cups to fall, and roll down his arm, catching them in his hand. He reached up to grab the pot, and began to pour tea into the cups. Without speaking he offered a full cup to Valrose.

Goon sipped his tea before speaking again, "To be a child again, to have a fear of monsters nonexistent. Its only a matter of time before they learn the real monsters live among us. If only I  had that luxury as a child, but hey they might as well smile as much as they can now, I'm sure you agree Val." Luxuries that will be robbed of them someday, but that was neither here or there. This clown said to be a single act circus, such a sad life, the one of a solo clown. 

"So how mad are ya?, solo clowns never last long, most are truly sad, but as of this moment I don't feel any sadness coming from you. So that can only mean one of two things, one you are indeed mad, or you just started. I'm thinking more of the former over the latter." Goon got right to the point, it was easy for him to tell if someone was mad, having been mad himself. When Goon asked he raised an inquisitive eyebrow, prodding to know the answer, one way or another. This clown was different from most, and most clowns Goon had seen were just a cover-ups, hiding something, or their true self. But, this one seemed true to his persona. "Oh by the way, the names Goon Maddohatta." he was so busy trying to get a read on Valrose, that he forgot to introduce himself. Goon patiently waited, sipping his tea for the jester's reply.

Valrose felt satisfied now that he got a laugh out of the new comer. It looked like he didn't need to carve him a smile after all. As the clown listened to the person's story, he took note of the cup-trick he had preformed. He had to remember that one. Would blend well with his routine. He took a cup of tea, sipping the whole thing down at once. It was hot, but where someone would feel pain, Valrose only felt a tickling sensation. He let out a slight giggle as the scalding liquid reached his stomach and wiped away the excess on his mouth.

"Monsters are only people who don't have the ability to..... Smile...." Valrose's tone seemed to change from clownish to a slightly darker tone at the word smile. Although he was smiling like a fool on the outside, on the inside, his "inner laughter" had dulled from it's normal cackling howl to a slight creepy giggle. Behind his eyes, the scenario played out when he first truly became the clown, when he carved a smile into his son's throat. The shape, the color, the JOY! Gorgeous... The memory only made him long to see that smile again, more and more. Upon hearing the kid's accusation of him being mad, Valrose let out a long stream of laughing. It was the first real laugh he had in a long while. He wiped a tear from his eye with his large clown gloves and leaned forward, as if to tell a secret.

"Asking how mad I am is like asking how alive someone is feeling! Sure we may feel DEAD every now and again, but there is always a method to the madness!" Valrose leaned back into his normal sitting position, drawing one of his juggling knives and sticking the blade into the fire. Looking up from his action, he grinned wide and decided to propose a question.

"What about you...? You come into the wilderness late at night, you approach a strange clown in the distance around a fire, and now your asking how mad HE is!? HAHA! That's a good one!" Valrose took the knife out of the fire, the blade red hot now. He held it up to the night sky, looking as if the hot steel was penetrating the heavens beyond.

"Such a lovely color. Don't you agree?" Valrose asked, referring to the knife.

The clown took the tea, and gulped it down, it seemed he had enjoyed pain. Goon made no comment on the statement of monsters. They seemed to have different views of monsters, but to each their own, who wad Goon to tell the Valrose any different. Plus that'd be just plain rude. He listened and watched closely, gauging someones mental was a delicate process. It was something he liked doing when he met someone, everybody was different. When the jester spoke the word smile, and the tone got dark, he could tell that smiling would have a lot to do with Valrose's actions. He would remember to test this, sometime.

"Madness is the method!" That was a statement that Goon always believed, it left a person open to all possibilities. "There you go with that stupid saying. And, who is this clown?" Mukuro always seemed to know the best times to appear. Goon ignored him for now. Goon had been trying to talk to him for half the day and Mukuro never answered him, so now it was time for a slight taste of his own medicine. "What about me? I'm mad no other way to put it. We're all mad some just choose to hide it while others, like you and me, embrace it." Goon said it with a smile, from ear to ear, he enjoyed his madness. That was the only way he could live. "As for the color, I prefer my red to be a bit darker,with less heat, and flowing." Goon said his face forming back to the emotionless form it usually was. 

"What brings you to the islands of Kiri? Other than to make the people smile." Goon would ask as he began to place his hat back on top of his head. This was more than just a clown, Goon was able to see that by the way he held the knife. Not the way of just a performer but as someone who knew how to use it for better, more fun methods.

Valrose's smile wavered slightly as he observed his knife. It could be a darker red... He stuck the knife back into the fire and shrugged. He looked over at Goon, trying to figure out what made him tick. Maybe he would find out later. Perhaps a mistimed metronome.

"Me? do I need any other reason?" Valrose smiled wide and spread his arms wide, showing himself off to the new kid. "I'm a clown. It's my job! My Passion! I love what I do! Even if it requires more... hands on action." The crazed clown winked slyly at the new kid. Just because he was a frenzied soul didn't mean he missed details.

"You say we are all mad," Valrose began, watching his knife carefully, looking for that perfect color of a improvised smile. "But madness is all in the eye of the beholder. You could be as mad as a bat and I wouldn't know the difference!" The clown pulled his knife out quickly from the flame. The blade had become a perfect red, tip slightly white. Gorgeous. He looked at the person in front of him, smile spreading as he thought about how well a smile might look on this person's throat... As he francized, another question struck him.

"You know..." Valrose said, tossing the burning hot knife in his hands, spinning it in the air before catching the hilt effortlessly while he stared into Goon's eyes. His voice got now and menacing.

"I never found out what the dagger said to the Sword when it greeted him until just now..." While the smile was still plastered to his face like a mask, something changed in his eyes. He was no longer a clown.
"Would you happen to know what that is...?"

It seemed the time for pleasantries was coming to an end, and the real fun was about to begin. Goon watched silently as the clown drifted from his clownly, bubbly personality, to something a bit darker. This sent Goon's blood coursing, the light on his face danced, only to reveal a smile on his face. The smile was demonic in nature, but one of pure joy. 

"Just cause you can't determine the madness, doesn't make it any less. It just means it hidden from you."  Goon was ready for whatever came next, the clown asked a joke, that Goon knew an answer too but didn't know if it was right. "The dagger asked, Are you like me, only bigger." He waited before he did anything else, to see what the clown was gonna do. Goon was slightly on the defensive at the moment. Ready for almost anything, as a mad person it was always that way. You never know what's to happen.

"Goon, I've seen that look from you before, and it's never turned out to be time for tea." Mukuro spoke, almost in an excited tone. He always wanted to see blood. Maybe he might get his wish, or not. Only time could tell, the area was silent it seemed no one could be around all that was heard was the crackle of the fire and crickets. You can never be too careful, plus this clown seems like a prime research project. Goon's thought to Mukuro, the only way to speak to him at the moment. Goon was in a researcher's state, and Mukuro knew not to distract him, so he kept quiet and watched, with a smile on his face.

Valrose's smile widened into one of anticipation before shaking his head in response to goon's guess on what the punch-line was. The mad clown caught the knife in his hand, once more, pointing it at Goon before his eyes widened, clearly going to enjoy what was going to happen next.

"No..." the clown said, almost a hiss through his dagger-like teeth. He would then cock his head to the side as if something snapped in his head. He twitched slightly before his smile grew impish once again, the devilish look in his eyes had disappeared in favor for one of pure, clownish fun.

"It said "Knife" to meet'cha!" He halted on the word knife for a second, letting the punch line sink in before proceeding with the joke. Having said it, the clown rocked back and forth on his log, laughing heartily. After he had his laugh, he blew on the knife to cool it down. Once it had returned to tolerable temperatures, the clown slipped it back into his belt. He was back to his old impish ways. However, as he looked at Goon through the light provided by the fire, he saw in the glow, a demonic smile on the face of his guest, like he was ready to gut something. Valrose pursed his lips, watching Goon with interest.

"I don't like that face. Looks like you are about to gut someone."

"Gutting? No there's never any fun in that just a bunch of blood and organs fall out. No, no, no I prefer to play. Now ripping that's fun it's more personal." The problem with Goon, being awake for too long was he always began to really lose it. That's how he murdered a handful of the patrons at the circus, and how he painted a beautiful portrait using their blood. That was a nice day, if the smile on his face could of been any wider, it would have been. Goon knew what was coming, he knew he was beginning to lose control, but for once he thought he'd be nice and warn the clown. For he liked him.

"Well wouldn't it be a knife saying it then, not a dagger?" Goon found the joke to be a little broken, and his version was a bit better, but who was he to judge. Anyways, that wasn't the point right now. "But, that's besides the point. I feel the need to warn you, I'm gonna end up succumbing to my madness due to lack of sleep, it happens occasionally. I'm gonna end up coming after you, I can't really help it." Goon could of got up and walked away, and some walker of the night would have not made it home. He also figured that Valrose could handle it, and add more thrill. 

"Now you can either walk away now before I can't control it anymore, or descend into madness with me. Your choice." Goon thought he already knew what the jester's choice could be, but he could never be to sure. Some people seem one way and turn out to be something different. That and you could never truly know what someone would do or was thinking.