Scythe & Sparrow

Content Warning: This section of the guide includes cursing and descriptions of physical abuse, addiction, and graphic violence. 

Rose and Fionn’s fraught pasts complicate their understanding of what constitutes a true home. Rose has lived on the road ever since she joined Silveria Circus when she was a teenager, and although she loves the “rush of the cheering crowd” and “the speed and the risk” (10) of her performances, she sometimes feels that life with Silveria is “not enough” (10). Traveling from place to place prevents her from settling down and making roots. Because she has no siblings and does not speak to her parents, her friends and coworkers at Silveria constitute her only family. Because her entire world is limited to the transient lifestyle of the circus, Rose doesn’t know where she truly belongs in life. Although her circumstances contrast sharply with Fionn’s, he is similarly alone. Ever since leaving Boston, he has lived a socially alienated life in Hartford, Nebraska, deliberately separating himself from his family and friends and locking himself into a rigid routine in an attempt to suppress and deny the darker aspects of his past. He fills his time with shifts at the clinic and hospital, trips to the gym, and occasional outings to his crochet and boxing clubs, and his alienation makes him feel unmoored and ungrounded.