Inked seemingly from head to toe, the man in front of her had a wickedly intense gaze from which she could not tear away.

"What does that one mean?"

She tilted her head toward his forearm, painted with the intricacies of a tarot card. She knew nothing about those.

"The Wheel. Opportunity for fortune and... the like."

"Do you have any of its companions on you?"

He nodded almost imperceptibly but said no more.

Vivienne floated her glance around the room, eyeing the sheaths of fabric draped around its walls. The carnival tent, she found, was much larger on the inside than it had appeared when she approached. The flaps of the tent had been open. Inviting, coaxing. Nameless was the tent, so she had been quite unsure what lie inside for her to find, but now here she sat.

The man in front of her was unfortunately bald, yet not one lick of skin was uncovered by swirling ink, depicting rattler snakes and constellations and the mysteries of tarot. Vivienne knew not what any of them meant to him, only that he implored her to let him mar her just the same.

"Your skin is not unmarked."

"What an astute observation," Vivienne deadpanned. Though how he was sure she was hiding a tattoo of her own underneath her relatively modest attire, she didn't want to know.

She kept her eyes trained to the table between them, uncompanionable silence filling the tent. She desperately wanted to go home.

Risking a glance behind her, Vivienne saw that the flaps of the tent had closed themselves, sealing her inside. The man gave her a small, knowing smile. She was not to leave, then.

"Are you opposed to tempting fate this night?"

Vivienne was unsure of how to answer.

"I'm not quite sure what you mean."

"This tent, you see, was designed to invite only those who are troubled by the unknown. Haunted by the possibilities of fortune or misfortune. Destiny."

"I don't believe in that."

"Sure, sure."

Vivienne found herself suddenly very uncomfortable. Her back went rigid of its own accord, her knuckles turning white as she clenched her folded hands together. The tattooed man only looked at her, waiting for a response she didn't know how to give.

"What do they mean?" she ventured.

"What's that?"

"Your tattoos, I mean," she said. "You have many. Surely some of them mean something to you."

She used her head to gesture toward his exposed chest and the rattler snake inked in its center. The tattoo was heavily detailed, like much of the rest, and depicted the rattler's vicious eyes and deathly teeth bared directly at its viewer.

"Like that one. What is it for?"

Vivienne disregarded the quiver in her voice as she spoke. She tried in vain to ignore her discomfort, but the man's unwavering gaze was difficult to dismiss.

"Oh, like all the rest. Fate, fortune. That is what I do, as I'm confident you've gathered."

She had gathered no such thing.

"So your tattoos... they're all about fate?"

"Quite."

Vivienne considered this for a moment.

"You do them yourself."

"I appreciate the lack of question," he replied. A brief moment's pause allowed her just enough time to become confused before he continued, "I do them myself and I do them for others."

Vivienne nodded, yet again at a loss for a reply and increasingly aware of how awkward the situation was becoming.

"Ink would suit you, were you to indulge in it," the man said to break the silence.

"Is it your belief that I harbor some secret desire to be covered in ink like yourself? Because that's not what I'm here for."

"And what is it that you are here for, then?"

The man's question rendered her speechless. Why _was_ she here?

He nodded at her loss and picked up the tattoo gun that was perched on the table.

"Do you want to uncover your fate? Or leave it open for change?"

His query was far from simple. Vivienne had never given fate any consideration because she just hadn't believed in it. And yet, when she had approached this tent from the circle of many present at the carnival, she'd felt that her feet had led her here unwillingly. She scarcely even remembered entering or sitting down or introducing herself to this stranger. Is fate a temptress that leads you blindly into the dark? Is that what that was supposed to feel like?

Vivienne did have one tattoo. One that she did herself with a stick-and-poke, newly and dumbly seventeen. It was almost entirely faded now as she approached her thirties, but some semblance of it remained, tucked into its place above her knee. She glanced down at it now, lacking any of the distaste she usually felt when she looked at it. It was barely visible under her tights, but the sight of it jarred her all the same as the little carnival tent inked into her skin stared back at her.

Maybe that was fate.

She considered the man before her, his face permanently marred by the symbols and lettering he'd embedded in the skin, his torso and arms swathed in whorls and swirls of ink. She admired the handiwork, truly, but she was getting the impression that they were more than just ink.

_This tent was designed to invite only those who are troubled by the unknown_, he'd said. And what was Vivienne if not troubled?

"I'll uncover my fate, then, what the hell?" She layed her arm down on the table between them, feeling and thinking nothing as the man pressed needle after needle into her flesh, marking it and supposedly uncovering her fate at long last.