The bell's note died.
For one heartbeat the hall was a painting someone had forgotten to finish.
Then the king remembered he was king.
His goblet hit the table like a war hammer.
Wine exploded across gold and linen.
"Guards!" The roar tore the air in half. "Seize that disgusting thing. Drag it to the yard. Hot irons. Dogs. Now."
The jester's body obeyed before the words finished landing.
Knees folded.
Spine curved.
Bells chimed their old, obedient funeral march.
Inside his head the same exhausted voice that had kept him breathing for centuries:
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 waited for the first gauntlet.
It never came.
Instead a small black-velvet shadow stepped between him and the blades.
Princess Elsbeth.
She looked like a candle standing in front of a forest fire.
The jester's thoughts stumbled 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 tried to crawl backward, to make himself smaller, to disappear the way he always disappeared.
The curse locked every joint. All he could do was kneel there, useless, while the only person who had ever looked at him like he was real stood ready to burn for it.
The king screamed.
The guards advanced.
Elsbeth lifted 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 were quiet.
They sounded like fact.
Inside the jester a panic older than language:
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 tried to speak.
The curse tasted the plea and twisted it into a high, manic giggle that scraped his throat raw.
The sound made a nearby lady-in-waiting flinch and cross herself.
Elsbeth didn't flinch.
She simply waited, hand still raised, death offered as casually as a glove.
The king's face went from red to purple to something almost purple-black.
"You would dare threaten me?"
"I am telling you what happens next," she said.
The jester's thoughts were 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 tried again to move, to throw himself at the guards' boots, to make them take him and leave her untouched.
The curse held him like a puppet with cut strings.
The king spat an order.
"Lock them both in the north tower until I decide which disgrace to kill first."
Rough hands closed on the jester's arms.
He felt the old familiar bruising grip and almost wept with relief.
But then Elsbeth did the worst thing she could have done.
She stepped forward and let the guards grab her too.
She let them bruise royal skin.
The captain's gauntlet closed around her thin wrist and the jester felt something inside his chest actually tear.
A sound came out of him (half sob, half scream) that the curse couldn't twist fast enough.
It came out raw and ugly and human.
Elsbeth looked straight at the captain.
"You will have to drag me," she said. "I will not walk away from what is mine."
The hall watched in frozen horror as the princess of Liveria was half-dragged, half-carried through the doors, the painted jester stumbling beside her, bells singing a broken hymn no one had ever taught them.
The last thing the courtiers saw was the jester trying to curl his body around her as they hauled them both away (trying, uselessly, to take every rough hand on himself instead).
The door of the north tower slammed.
The key grated.
Darkness.
The jester sank to the stone floor, knees hitting so hard the bells screamed.
His thoughts were no longer thoughts; they were 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 curled forward until his painted forehead pressed against the cold floor, arms wrapped around his own skull as if he could hold the curse inside so it wouldn't leak out and kill her too.
Elsbeth's says voice flat
"I meant it.
Every word.
You are mine now, and I do not give away what is mine."
He made a sound like something dying.
Because for the first time in six hundred years, someone had chosen him over safety.
And he had no idea how to survive being chosen.
The cold settled in their bones like a living thing.
Wind seeped through the arrow-slit windows, thin as needles.
The floor was stone old, damp, merciless.
No torches.
No blankets.
Just a locked door, a broken jester, and a princess who had chosen ruin.
For a long stretch of silence, the Jester didn't move.
His painted cheek pressed to the floor.
His hands trembling against his temples.
He looked like a man trying not to scream.
Elsbeth watched him.
Not with fear.
Not with pity.
But with the kind of attention given to something fragile.
At last, he forced himself to breathe and said in the softest voice he could manage a truth he hoped the curse couldn't twist:
"D… don't… sit."
The curse grabbed at the words, tasting them like claws across his tongue.
What came out was 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 winced.
He despised the sound.
It wasn't what he meant.
It wasn't what he ever meant.
Elsbeth didn't smile.
Her expression didn't shift an inch.
"You don't want me to sit on the floor," she said simply, deciphering him the way others read weather.
His breath hitched.
She understood.
She understood.
Slowly painfully slowly he pushed himself upright and crawled toward the far wall.
Every bell on his costume whispered in agitation, as if warning him against what he was about to do.
He stretched out on his side across the cold stone, forcing his spine flat, aligning himself against the wall like a human rug.
He didn't look at her.
He just whispered:
"Warm…er."
A truth.
The curse tried to twist it.
The floor tried to twist him.
But the word escaped mostly clean.
He swallowed hard, then forced out the rest:
"Sit… here."
The curse tangled the sentiment and what came out was:
"Oh, princess dear, take pity on my bones
sit on the fancy jester carpet!
Freshly flopped! Guaranteed non-poisonous for the next ten minutes!"
He slammed his eyes shut in humiliation.
He wanted to claw the paint off his face.
He wanted to tear the bells from his wrists.
He wanted to beg properly beg for her to understand he wasn't mocking her.
Elsbeth approached.
Her footsteps were quiet.
Measured.
She stood beside him, looking down at the strange, broken shape he'd made of himself.
"You're offering warmth," she murmured.
He flinched.
She knelt 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 said.
"But I'll sit with you."
Those words weren't soft.
They were steady like planks laid across a collapsing bridge.
The Jester's throat tightened painfully.
He whispered:
"You shouldn't."
The curse seized it.
A weak, breathy giggle escaped him:
"Oh princess, I'm terrible seating!
Lumpy stuffing, wobbly legs
you deserve a throne, not a jester-mattress!"
Elsbeth placed the black book beside her like a silent guardian.
"I don't need a throne," she said.
"I need truth."
His breath hitched.
She reached not to touch him, but to rest her hand on the floor only inches away.
"Tell me," she whispered, "what you were trying to say in the hall."
He curled slightly, bells trembling.
Inside him, the truth fought 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 parted.
His voice cracked.
"I… I…"
The curse clawed 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 choked.
He hated himself.
He hated the sound of laughter when he wanted to sob.
Elsbeth didn't flinch.
She didn't recoil.
She didn't laugh.
She simply studied him with the calmness of someone who had spent her entire life being misunderstood.
"I heard the scream underneath," she said.
The Jester went still.
Absolutely still.
His heartbeat kicked against his ribs like something terrified of being seen.
Elsbeth leaned back against the wall, eyes half-lidded, exhaustion beginning to weigh down her posture.
"You spoke a joke," she murmured, "but your eyes were begging."
He swallowed hard enough it hurt.
"Begging for what?" she asked gently.
He shut his eyes.
The truth rose 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 pounced.
But Elsbeth held up one hand.
"Don't fight it," she murmured. "I'll listen anyway."
He made a sound half-laugh, half-sob.
The Jester stays on the cold stone floor, arms spread lightly so she has room to sit without touching the freezing ground. His bells twitch when she moves, but he keeps perfectly still, waiting almost bracing for whatever she will say.
Elsbeth sits slowly, the black book heavy in her lap. 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 told you that in a long time."
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 didn't run."
The Jester freezes.
The silence after Elsbeth's "I didn't 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 losing 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 snarled through him:
"NO TOUCHIES, PRINCESS!
THE FOOL BITES BACK!"
The laugh that followed crawled down the stone like a living thing.
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 twisted 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.
Desperate to protect her.
Jester (raw, shaking):
"Princess Elsbeth—stay back—"
Her heart fractures at the sound of her name on his lips, even as the curse forced the next words out like poison:
"OR COME CLOSER!
LET'S SEE WHICH OF US BREAKS FIRST!"
His knees buckle.
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 screamed as the door cracked open.
Two guards stepped inside.
Elsbeth's breath caught.
The jester moved before she could
snatched to his feet by invisible puppet strings, bells ringing like nervous heartbeats.
The curse forced 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 curled his lip.
Guard:
"Still making jokes?
Even now?"
The older one swung a kick into the jester's ribs
a brutal, practiced motion.