Headfeathers writing sample, would like feedback on style, information, and layout. This is part of chapter one, not the whole of it. Any and all CONSTRICTIVE feedback is welcome. I'd love to hear opinions please!

---

A perfect winter day, that’s what this was. Ringmaster loved this kind of weather, this kind of Winter. Where he existed for most of the time of time, it had been perpetual Autumn. Not that there was anything wrong with Autumn, but it did get rather dull after a while when nothing changed. But here, the seasons changed dramatically. He had joined this area of time in what was considered Spring, and had existed through their Summer, and through their Autumn which had been considerably different than the one he had grown accustomed too, and now their Winter.

Had Ringmaster not been wearing clothing, you would probably not have seen him amidst the white that made up the existance he was in at the moment. Snow covered the ground, a new object for Ring as he followed his companion. Both of which were hard to locate in the white of Winter. Ringmaster was a tall, extremely thin human, his skin the purest of white that if he didn’t wear clothing he could very well make the snow look grey. But he DID wear clothing, and of a very peculiar color.

Sitting happily atop his head was a faded black stove-pipe top hat, a purple ribbon around the base by the brim, and a bright red patch held onto the body of the hat with white thread, just above his right eye. His jacket was clearly once a shining example of his trade, a tailcoat with tails reaching below his knee matched the color of the ribbon on his hat. Though it was clearly showing wear and tear; the jacket sleeves have shrunken, leaving his wrists bare and the orange satin lining folding out as though a cuff, and pulling through the neck like a folded collar. On his right chest was yet another red patch with the same white thread, and on his left elbow. Though his pants were a simple black, they too had shrunken over the years to leave his ankles exposed, and a patch on his left calf showed that even they hadn’t escaped the bite of a needle.

As odd as these were, nothing compared to that of his hair, hands, and feet. His hair was of a strange diagonal cut, bangs falling over his right eye so none could see it, and so full of grease and mold that it hung in clumps, and had become a startling, bright green color that exactly matched his eye. His shoes, too, had molded so completely that what may have once been shined and polished leather were now nothing more than giant globs of green at the end of his legs. And so large were they! For such a skinny man he had truly over-sized feet. And his fingers, sharp and pointed as the skin formed to the shape of the pointed bones beneath, were in stark contrast to the green and molded fingerless gloves that were pretty much melted into his flesh.

And as though the oddities of him were not enough, the scars across his neck and on his face stood out clearly! For, you see, Ringmaster was not a living being. He was dead as dead could be. He had been beheaded at the supple age of twenty four. His hair and the cut that had removed his head from his neck travel in the same path, as though both had been removed in the same stroke. But his head was sewn back onto his body, rough black thread holding it solidly in place. And across his lips were deep, old scars as though someone had once sewn his mouth shut for a great number of years.

Ringmaster strode through the snow behind his much shorter friend, hands in his pockets while his Staff hopped behind him. It looked very much like a normal walking stick; a purple staff that matched his jacket with a disgruntled looking orange stone Jack-o-Lantern sitting atop. But he wasn’t holding it at the moment, and it was hopping from step to step after him like a loyal dog.

“Serif!” The human cried, trying hard not to smile at the antics of his friend, who had just fallen backwards into a snow drift, “You know you shouldn’t be playing out here. We’re supposed to get a tree! Playing in the snow, how silly, you’ll catch your death of cold.” Catching up with the now motionless bird, Ring kept forcing himself to pull the sternest face he could.

If Ringmaster was odd in this existence, Serif was almost normal. Almost completely white, the wingless, flightless osprey was covered head to knees in feathers of various sizes that did little against the cold of Winter. With his four large headfeathers sprouting from his forehead and sweeping back, the impression made in the snow looked very much like that of a fork with arms more than anything else. Serif was an osprey, mostly white with a small peppering of brown; a brown mask marking started at one headfeather, sweeping across his eyes and back up another feather.

His hair feathers at the back of his head were a mixture of white and brown, and two of the four feathers on his elbows were brown, along with two of the four tail feathers he had. His wickedly curved hook beak was a darker brown, helping his bright yellow eyes stand out from the mass of earthy colors and square glasses. As though to make up for the lack of color change from the white body and brown face markings, his featherless legs were a bright yellow, although sadly his feet were covered in high top brown and white shoes.

Snuggling his chin into the red and white scarf, the bird peered over his glasses at his best friend.

“Next you’ll be telling me that I should have migrated.” The soft voice rose from the ground, seven feet in the air, and crept into the human’s ears. No longer able to scowl, the scared lips spread into a grin of round and missing teeth. How absurd, why ever would Ring want Serif to go away? Reaching down the human offered a helping hand to the fish hawk, who accepted with a smile. Here, in a land where the inhabitants were completely unaware of the magic they used every day to turn feathers into fingers, and have solid bone beaks move into grins and frowns, a bird and a human were the best of friends.

“Me, ask you to migrate?” Serif nodded at his friend’s words. “Never.”