The bell's note dies.
For one heartbeat, the hall is a painting someone forgot to finish.
Then the king remembers he is king.
His goblet hits the table like a war hammer.
Wine explodes across gold and linen.
"Guards!" The roar tears the air in half. "Seize that disgusting thing. Drag it to the yard. Hot irons. Dogs. Now."
The jester's body obeys before the words finish landing.
Knees fold.
Spine curves.
Bells chime their old, obedient funeral march.
Inside his head, the same exhausted voice that has kept him breathing for centuries whispers:
Here it comes.
Same song, different kingdom.
I already taste the iron.
I already hear the laughter when the skin peels off in perfect white strips.
Just breathe through it.
You've done this before.
You'll do it again.
He waits for the first gauntlet.
It never comes. Instead, a small black-velvet shadow steps between him and the blades.
Princess Elsbeth.
She looks like a candle standing in front of a forest fire. The jester's thoughts stumble over themselves:
No.
No no no.
Get away.
They'll break you too.
I'm not worth it.
I'm the reason mothers tell children to spit when I pass.
Run.
Please run.
He tries to crawl backward, to make himself smaller, to disappear the way he always disappears.
The curse locks every joint. All he can do is kneel there, useless, while the only person who has ever looked at him like he is real stands ready to burn for it.
The king screams.
The guards advance.
Elsbeth lifts one hand, palm out, calm as winter.
"Touch him and I walk to the highest balcony and fall.
My blood will paint the courtyard before any of you reach me."
The words are quiet.
They sound like fact.
Inside the jester, a panic older than language flares:
She's lying.
She has to be lying.
Nobody throws their life away for a joke that won't die.
Nobody.
Stop her.
Somebody stop her please.*
He tries to speak.
The curse tastes the plea and twists it into a high, manic giggle that scrapes his throat raw.
The sound makes a nearby lady-in-waiting flinch and cross herself.
Elsbeth doesn't flinch.
She simply waits, hand still raised, death offered as casually as a glove.
The king's face goes from red to purple to something almost purple-black.
"You would dare threaten me?"
"I am telling you what happens next," she says.
The jester's thoughts are splintering:
She's not afraid.
Why isn't she afraid of me?
Everyone is afraid of me.
I am afraid of me.
I have seen what happens when people get too close.
They rot.
They vanish.
Get away from me.
Please.
I don't want to watch you rot.
He tries again to move, to throw himself at the guards' boots, to make them take him and leave her untouched.
The curse holds him like a puppet with cut strings.
The king spits an order.
"Lock them both in the north tower until I decide which disgrace to kill first."
Rough hands close on the jester's arms.
He feels the old, familiar bruising grip.
But then Elsbeth does the worst thing she could possibly do.
She steps forward and lets the guards grab her too so she can stay in the same cell as him. She lets them bruise royal skin.
The knight's gauntlet closes around her thin wrist, and the jester feels something inside his chest actually tear.
A sound comes out of him that the curse can't twist fast enough.
It comes out raw and ugly and human.
Elsbeth looks straight at the knight.
"You will have to drag me," she says. "I will not walk away from what is mine."
The hall watches in frozen horror as the princess of Liveria is half-dragged, half-carried through the doors, the painted jester stumbling beside her, bells singing a broken hymn no one has ever taught them.
The last thing the courtiers see is the jester trying to curl his body around her as they haul them both away—trying, uselessly, to take every rough hand on himself instead.
The door of the north tower slams.
The key grates.
Darkness.
The jester sinks to the stone floor, knees hitting so hard the bells scream.
His thoughts are no longer thoughts; they are shards.
She let them bruise her.
For me.
She let them touch her because of me.
I am poison.
I am the reason she will die now.
Pain I understand.
This I don't.
He curls forward until his painted forehead presses against the cold floor, arms wrapped around his own skull as if he could hold the curse inside so it won't leak out and kill her too.
Elsbeth's voice is flat.
"I meant it.
Every word.
You are mine now, and I do not give away what is mine."
He makes a sound like something dying.
Because for the first time in centuries, someone has chosen him over safety.
And he has no idea how to survive being chosen.
The cold settles in their bones like a living thing. Wind seeps through the arrow-slit windows, thin as needles.
The floor is stone-old, damp, merciless.
No torches.
No blankets.
Just a locked door, a broken jester, and a princess who has chosen ruin.
For a long stretch of silence, the jester doesn't move.
His painted cheek presses to the floor.
His hands tremble against his temples.
He looks like a man trying not to scream.
Elsbeth watches him.
Not with fear.
Not with pity.
But with the kind of attention given to something fragile.
At last, he forces himself to breathe and says in the softest voice he can manage, a truth he hopes the curse can't twist:
"D… don't… sit."
The curse grabs at the words, tasting them like claws across his tongue.
What comes out is a strained, hollow laugh:
"Oh princess, beware! The stones bite harder than I do!
Sit and they'll nibble your royal backside clean off!"
He winces.
He despises the sound.
It isn't what he means.
It isn't what he ever means.
Elsbeth doesn't smile.
Her expression doesn't shift an inch.
"You don't want me to sit on the floor," she says simply, deciphering him the way others read weather.
His breath hitches.
She understands.
She understands.
Slowly, painfully slowly, he pushes himself upright and crawls toward the far wall.
Every bell on his costume whispers in agitation, as if warning him against what he is about to do.
He stretches out on his side across the cold stone, forcing his spine flat, aligning himself against the wall like a human rug.
He doesn't look at her.
He just whispers:
"Warm…er."
The curse tries to twist it.
The floor tries to twist him.
But the word escapes mostly clean.
He swallows hard, then forces out the rest:
"Sit… here."
The curse tangles the sentiment and what comes out is:
"Oh, princess dear, take pity on your bones—
sit on the fancy jester carpet!
Freshly flopped! Guaranteed non-poisonous for the next ten minutes!"
He slams his eyes shut in humiliation.
He wants to claw the paint off his face.
He wants to tear the bells.
He wants to beg, properly beg, for her to understand he isn't mocking her.
Elsbeth approaches.
Her footsteps are quiet.
Measured.
She stands beside him, looking down at the strange, broken shape he'll made of himself.
"You're offering warmth," she murmurs.
He flinched.
She kneels not on the stone, but beside his ribs, her dress brushing his sleeve.
Close enough to feel the tremble of his breath.
"I won't sit on you," she says.
"But I'll sit with you."
Those words aren't soft.
They are steady like planks laid across a collapsing bridge.
The jester's throat tightens painfully.
He whispers:
"You shouldn't."
The curse seizes it.
A weak, breathy giggle escapes him:
"Oh princess, I'm terrible seating!
Lumpy stuffing, wobbly legs—
you deserve a throne, not a jester-mattress!"
Elsbeth places the black book beside her like a silent guardian.
"I don't need a throne," she says.
"I need truth."
His breath hitches.
She reaches not to touch him, but to rest her hand on the floor only inches away.
"Tell me," she whispers, "what you were trying to say in the hall."
He curls slightly, bells trembling.
Inside him, the truth fights for freedom:
Please don't die for me.
Please don't get close.
I destroy everything I touch.
I don't want to watch you rot.
I don't want to watch you turn to dust because of me.
I don't know how to survive being chosen.*
His lips part.
His voice cracks.
"I… I…"
The curse claws the words into something bright and stupid:
"I meant if they kill me, do save the bells!
They're hand-stitched!
Vintage!
Practically royalty themselves!"
He chokes.
He hates himself.
He hates the sound of laughter when he wants to sob.
Elsbeth doesn't flinch.
She doesn't recoil.
She doesn't laugh.
She simply studies him with the calmness of someone who has spent her entire life being misunderstood.
"I heard the scream underneath," she says.
The jester goes still.
Absolutely still.
His heartbeat kicks against his ribs like something terrified of being seen.
Elsbeth leans back against the wall, eyes half-lidded, exhaustion beginning to weigh down her posture.
"You spoke a joke," she murmurs, "but your eyes were begging."
He swallows hard enough it hurts.
"Begging for what?" she asks gently.
He shuts his eyes.
The truth rises like a broken prayer:
*For someone to see me.
For someone to understand.
For one moment—one where I'm not alone in the dark.*
The curse pounces.
But Elsbeth holds up one hand.
"Don't fight it," she murmurs. "I'll listen anyway."
He makes a sound half-laugh, half-sob.
The jester stays on the cold stone floor. His bells twitch when she moves, but he keeps perfectly still, waiting—almost bracing—for whatever she will say.
She looks at him carefully, as though his mask might shatter if she blinks too hard.
Elsbeth (warm, hesitant, painfully sincere):
"I… I've been thinking about you."
The Jester's head tilts the smallest motion, but full of attention.
Elsbeth brushes her thumb over the book's spine.
Her voice softens, steadier now:
"This book doesn't tell me much yet. Not the details. Not the names. But it holds the thread of the truth."
She presses the book closer to her chest.
"But it tells me enough to understand what you've lived through. And—"
She stops. Breathes.
"You've suffered more than any one person should ever have to. Not just hurt… not just sorrow… something far beyond that. Something… carved into you."
The Jester's fingers curl slightly.
Almost like he's afraid she'll stop.
Elsbeth's eyes warm, truly warm, for the first time in her life.
"I know what it feels like to be blamed for something you didn't do. To carry a curse people decided you had."
She places her free hand over her heart.
"I know what it's like to be seen by everyone… yet known by no one."
Her gaze softens even further.
"You're not an omen. You're not a curse walking around in colors. You're… kind."
"I don't think anyone has ever told you that."
The Jester's bells quiver, making a faint trembling sound he didn't intend.
Elsbeth smiles a little small, shy, real.
"You're a person, A real person. Not a creature. Not a warning sign. Not a story parents use to scare their children."
She lifts the black book in her lap.
"If there were a way to free your voice to let you speak without the curse twisting your words"
Her breath hitches.
"I would love to hear you. The real you. Just once. I know you hate hiding behind riddles and jokes. I… I know you hate it more than anyone."
Silence.
Deep, fragile silence.
That's when the Jester moves.
Slowly, almost shaking, he raises a hand toward her stops halfway as if afraid he's not allowed.
When he finally speaks, the curse seizes his voice and forces it into a sing-song jest:
A joke burst from him:
"Oh ho! If you hear my real voice, princess, you'll run screaming from the tower!
I sound like a frog who swallowed a thunderstorm!"
He grins wildly, a painted crescent of false cheer.
But
His eyes.
His eyes betray everything.
There is terror in them.
And hope.
Elsbeth hears the joke.
But she also hears what he meant beneath it.
And she whispers, gently:
Elsbeth:
"…I will not run."
The Jester freezes.
The silence after Elsbeth's "I will not run" is heavy enough to feel like a blanket thrown over the world.
The Jester stares at her as if her words are physically impossible.
His painted grin trembles.
His bells hold their breath.
Elsbeth doesn't push.
She doesn't reach for him.
She simply waits, giving him time to understand that she meant what she said.
Finally, she lowers herself fully onto the patch of floor he warmed with his own body, sitting close but not touching.
Elsbeth (soft, steady):
"You don't have to pretend in here."
The Jester's throat works as if he's trying to swallow something sharp.
A laugh bursts out of him bright, high, painfully fake.
The curse forced a comedy tone:
"Oh, but pretending is my only talent!
Take away my jokes and I'm nothing but a sack of misery in bells!
Who wants that?"
But his knees draw to his chest.
His fingertips dig into the fabric of his motley sleeves.
His eyes are pleading without meaning to.
Elsbeth watches him for a long moment, then she does something small tiny but it shatters him.
She shifts so her shoulder almost, almost brushes his.
Not touching.
Just close enough to share warmth.
A gesture that says:
I'm not afraid of you.
I'm not disgusted.
I'm here.
The Jester inhales sharply like she stabbed him with kindness.
Elsbeth:
"You're not a sack of misery."
A pause.
"You're someone who has survived what should have destroyed you."
The Jester's bells shake barely.
Not with movement.
With emotion.
He forces a grin anyway.
The joke was playful:
"Oho! Survival is easy when you can't die, princess!
Like being praised for winning a race no one else is allowed to run!"
But the words underneath the joke are clear:
I don't know how to be alive around someone like you.
I don't know what you want from me.
I don't know how to deserve any of this.
Elsbeth doesn't answer the joke.
Instead, she lifts the black book, opens it, and sets it between them like a third presence.
Elsbeth:
"This book brought you to me."
A breath.
"I think it wants you to be understood. Even if you don't believe you deserve it."
Something inside the Jester reacts like a chord plucked too hard.
He whispers (soft, shaky, the curse unable to twist a whisper):
"...No one has ever wanted to understand me."
Elsbeth's heart twists.
Her hand rises hesitates then lands gently on the floor beside his.
Elsbeth (quiet):
"I do."
The Jester turns his head slightly toward her hand.
His fingers twitch once… twice…
As if centuries of instinct scream Don't. You'll curse her. You'll ruin her. Don't.
But something deeper older lonelier leans in.
His smallest finger shifts toward hers.
Not touching.
Not yet.
Just… reaching.
The tiniest gesture of trust he has given in six hundred years.
Elsbeth sees it and her breath softens, warm and unafraid.
He stares at her fingers like they're something holy.
Something forbidden.
Something he has no right to touch.
Her eyes are soft when she looks at him too soft and he has to tear his gaze away before it hurts.
That's when the words escape him.
A whisper first, fragile and honest:
"I see you too."
Elsbeth stills.
He forces himself to continue, because he must because she deserves someone to see her even if he cannot say it cleanly:
He struggled for a human voice:
"I see how lonely you are.
How they look at you like—like you brought death with your first breath.
Like you're… something wrong."
The curse tasted the emotion and instantly made his voice swing up into a bright, cruel mockery:
"Oh yes! They see YOU as a curse too, don't they?
Like a broken charm!
Like a bad omen wrapped in silk!"
Elsbeth flinches not from fear, but from the pain she hears under the performance.
Immediately, the jester's body curls forward as if stabbed.
His hands claw at his own throat as if he could drag the words back.
The curse forced a sharp laugh out of him:
"Two little curses locked in a tower!
What fun!"
Elsbeth reaches out, instinctively, but stops an inch from his shoulder giving him room to breathe.
He tries again.
His voice shakes, fighting for control, fighting to not hurt her:
Jester:
"I was trying to say…
you're not alone."
"You're not alone in being unwanted!
Hooray!"
He squeezes his eyes shut, mortified, desperate.
Jester (barely audible):
"I wanted to comfort you.
I swear."
Something in Elsbeth softens, not with pity but recognition.
She knows what it is to choke on words you need someone to understand.
She moves her hand closer to his still not touching, but close enough her warmth brushes his skin.
Elsbeth (gentle, steady):
"I know what you meant.
And I know what wasn't you."
He breathes like someone drowning.
Then, voice breaking, he whispers the part he truly meant:
Jester:
"It isn't safe around me.
No one who chooses me survives choosing me.
You should keep your distance."
"Run along, princess!
Before the bad, bad jester ruins you!"
But his eyes painted, tired, ancient are begging.
Begging her to stay.
Begging her to go.
Begging for anything but this impossible closeness.
Elsbeth's voice is warm enough to break stone:
Elsbeth:
"If danger is the price of being seen…
I accept it."
The jester's painted smile cracks, trembling like a mask about to fall.
His smallest finger reaches toward hers again
so slowly, so carefully, as if afraid the slightest pressure will shatter the world.
For a moment there is nothing but their hands
hers steady, his trembling hovering a breath apart.
Then the jester lets the tip of his smallest finger brush hers.
Just a whisper of contact.
Just enough to say I'm here.
Just enough to say I choose you too.
And the curse detonates.
The bells on his wrists and ankles explode into frantic, discordant ringing
not chiming,
not dancing,
but screaming.
His back arches violently. His lungs seize.
Something ancient and merciless pulls at his bones like invisible hooks.
Jester (choked gasp):
"N–no— don't—"
His body jerks away from her as if flung by an unseen hand.
He slams into the stone wall hard enough to crack old mortar.
Elsbeth screams, reaching for him
but his hands shoot up, palms out, shaking wildly.
Not at her.
Warning her.
His voice bursts out in a jagged, twisted howl:
The curse snarls through him:
"NO TOUCHIES, PRINCESS!
THE FOOL BITES BACK!"
Elsbeth freezes.
Not in fear
in horror at what's being done to him.
His body contorts, muscles tightening until his spine looks ready to snap.
Bells thrash against his skin, leaving red welts wherever they strike.
He tries again speaking through teeth clenched so hard blood beads at the gums:
Jester (the real voice underneath):
"Not you…
please…
don't let it hurt you"
The curse twists it brutally:
"OH BUT IT WILL, MY LADY!
EVERYONE WHO LOVES A JOKE ENDS UP THE PUNCHLINE!"
His laugh cracks in half like broken glass.
Elsbeth steps forward.
The jester lunges backward, smashing into the wall again, desperate to stop her.
Jester (raw, shaking):
"Princess —stay back—"
He collapses, arms wrapping around his own ribs as if holding himself together.
The bells give one final shudder
like a dying breath
and fall silent.
For a long moment he is motionless on the floor, trembling like a hunted animal.
Elsbeth kneels near him, not touching, but close enough he can feel her warmth.
Elsbeth (quiet, steady):
"It reacted because you reached for me?"
His voice is barely a whisper.
Barely human.
Jester:
"It reacts because I wanted it."
He lifts his eyes to hers
storm-grey, glassy with pain,
ancient with longing.
Jester:
"I wanted you to touch me.
And it won't allow that."
Elsbeth's breath catches.
She reaches out again
not touching
just offering her hand, open and waiting.
Elsbeth:
"We'll fight it together."
His entire body shudders, a sob caught in his throat.
Then, very slowly
as if the motion itself is forbidden
he puts his forehead to the floor at her feet.
Not in worship.
Not in servitude.
In surrender.
Jester (shaking):
"Please…
don't stop seeing me."
The iron bolts scream as the door cracks open.
Two guards step inside.
The jester moves before she can.
Snatched to his feet by invisible puppet strings, bells ringing like nervous heartbeats, the curse forces him into a sweeping bow:
"O mighty dogs of Liveria's keep,
I gladly offer my soul to reap!
Tell your king he may butcher me
but let the princess wander free!"
The younger guard curls his lip.
Guard:
"Still making jokes?
Even now?"
The older one swings a kick into the jester's ribs—a brutal, practiced motion.
To be continued...