((Open to whomever wishes to participate))

Lark made for a morose figure as he leaned over the edge of the small forest pond. He stared at his own reflection in its still waters. Eyes swollen, red, bloodshot. Facepaint running, ruined, down his cheeks like weeping red blood stains.

"...You've done it again, you fool," he choked, forcing back another sob that was all too likely to restart a crying fit he just recently managed to get under control.

This was his only his third day since he was forced to leave the court of his lord and patron. He didn't know if anyone would else would hire him. Or if he could even panhandle on the street. His main concern at the moment however, was if he was even going to survive the forest. All he could do was keep walking and hope to make it to the other side, and so he tried to put it out of his mind.

He reaches into his satchel of remaining possessions and began to dig around. When he had first been cast out of his Lord's castle, his arms were laden with his many instruments, canvases, art supplies, and his masks for the commedia dell'arte. But as his lord had put it, 'they had not even the enough gold to saddle him a horse', and now a majority of his possessions were scattered throughout the forest like a trail of miserable bread crumbs as he had to rid himself of more and more of it.

After enough digging through sweat-stained laundry Lark found his makeup kit and opened the small leather case. He took from within a small metal tin, and took a peek on what was inside. His red face paint, and it was running low. Soon he would not even be able to afford to look the part of a Jester, let alone get employment once again.

With some of his last makeup dabbed onto his shaking fingers and his face washed, Lark leaned over the pond once more and began to reapply his facepaint.

He watched the image of himself in the water, slowly covering up the signs of his misery in clown paint and began to choke back sobs once more. This time, he did not succeed.

"Oh, Lark, you've come undone," the clown wailed.

He rested his face in his hands and sobbed, red tears falling from between his fingertips into the waters below. He had to pull it together. As far as he knew there was no one around, but he couldn't bear for anyone to see him like this.