Of Derelicts Worth Remembering
By Racquel Lee
1: The Kingdom of Thymos
The Jester with No Name
The usual metallic scent of hot iron, of charcoal, of napalm and oil that secretes itself into this nation’s foundations is replaced, unfamiliarly, but not unwelcomely, with the aroma of sweetness, fresh-baked bread, the heartiness of stew, and the candidness of laughter. It’s a rare change in the air; the Festival of Concordia, where the vendors hand out treats at no expense, instruments mingle together to make birdsong, and performances of all kinds entertain and gather the entirety of all townsfolk. It’s a yearly tradition, a symbolization of the promise of harmony in a place where harmony is not what is strived for, not completely, at least. King Edmund made sure of that.
It’s funny for the Jester to see it, to feel it dance across his skin, this vibrancy. He lets it settle in his limbs for his performance—his final performance, he might add delightfully. It brings a spring to his step, just the thought, the liberation he will feel, the amusement that will course through his ribs and crackle up his vertebrae, then down to his feet. He has not felt this excited since he was at war, fighting in the fray, eliciting a couple of chuckles. It will be his last act, and it will be his best. Royals and commoners alike will be impressed. He’ll make sure of it.
He laughs to himself in anticipation, moving swiftly through the bustling crowd of citizens, snagging a bag of melting chocolates from Miss Valorie’s candy booth. He flashes her a wink, but she pays the Jester no mind, and that spurs his vindication even more. His bag is filled with everything he needs, so he pops a smooth chocolate into his mouth in celebration, savoring the sweet flavor that layers his tongue.
He spins, whistles, and twirls around Baker Samuel, who ends up pushing him away with a sneer. The Jester guffaws, the bells from his collar tinkling, but the man only stares at him blankly before shuffling away.
How boring this place is, the Jester thinks. These people need more fun in their lives.
The Jester follows the cobblestone pathway that leads to the town hall, but bumps into a cloaked figure, their journal dropping from their hand at the unexpected impact. The Jester swiftly goes to grab it, flipping it in their hand dramatically before handing it back to the young man. Some individuals stare at the interaction, but more so at the cloaked figure with flickering gazes of apprehension.
“Here you go, mister,” the Jester exclaims, his lips stretching into a silly grin. “Don’t want your work getting sullied by the funkiness of this town.”
The man’s skin is that of a sepia brown, like the brown of towering trees or the smoothness of wet earth. His eyes gleam a pleasant hazel, and his brown hair is coily, stretching outward into a small bunched-up ponytail, a few stray strands curling down his face. The Jester’s never seen him here before. He must be a traveler.
The man smiles at the sweet, small thing.
“Thank you,” he replies. “I’ll be sure to keep that in mind.”
The Jester blinks, smile faltering before an abrupt laugh escapes his lips.
“I would suggest leaving before things get too hectic.”
The young man raises an eyebrow.
“Hectic, you say? I just arrived, and I’m recording the events of the festival today.”
The Jester’s eyes scan the golden pin on the left side of the mysterious man’s cloak, and his heart flares up in exhilaration.
“You’re one of those Asteron folks, huh?” The Jester suddenly shakes the man’s hand excitedly, smile wide and blinding. “Make sure to watch my performance and record all the details you can, okay? Enjoy the festivities!”
The Jester quickly skips away but hears the man snort distantly from behind him. He soon makes it to the town hall with such speed that his limbs cry out at the sudden overexertion. That man will make sure the news gets out. His act will be in all the books the world has to offer.
The Jester grabs the items from his bag just as people start to gather inside. The town hall has a dome structure with an array of seats. The floor seats are designated for the commoners, the ones who work and will die working. The elevated seats are exclusively for royalty, the ones prone to self-delusion and derangement. Thymos’ crest adorns the pillars of the upper seats, shimmering in navy blue, brown, and maroon that symbolize this nation’s fortitude, craftsmanship, and warriorship. It’s a crest of strength, of unanimous power, so says the King, with clashing, intertwined swords that leak with melting metal and a melting crown. His motley is made up of the same colors.
The Jester snickers at the thought as he gathers his supplies, his cockscomb jingling at the action. His excitement is almost palpable, but no one bothers to spare him even a glance or a curious flicker of the eyes. It’s laughable, the Jester thinks—laughably funny, and he restrains his giggles as the last couple of guards rush in, their armor gleaming and unperturbed, swords prepared if necessary.
He rests against the far-right wall, swaying and humming before he flinches as someone settles beside him quietly.
The young archivist from earlier gives him an attentive glance. It leaves a chill stumbling within his skin. It almost leaves him giddy.
“I suppose you’re the main attraction for today.”
“I think I’ll be soon enough,” the Jester utters. “But this town could do without little ol’ me.”
“Is that so?”
“Yes, mister archivist. This will be the last act of my career, so I guess you’re in for a lucky treat and an even luckier conclusion.”
“And what exactly does that entail?” The archivist has his pen readied like a sword sharpened for war.
The Jester remains quiet for a moment. “I told you things would get hectic, didn’t I? You should listen to the wise words of an old fool every once in a while.”
“Old? We look about the same age.”
The Jester laughs again, bright and abrupt, sharp with slight hysteria. “I suppose we do.”
The young man gives him an inquisitive raise of the eyebrow, but the Jester smiles, getting ready for his turn.
“Here’s a little secret no one else will know. It’s my gift to you, little archivist.” The Jester can see the young man’s eyes sparkle.
“And what secret do I have the pleasure of knowing?”
“My life, the one that you’re seeing right now, is inconsequential. This life that you currently lay your eyes upon has been going on for a long, long while, and it will continue to even after you and your records are gone.”
The young man chuckles. “I am not as ignorant as you think, little jester. You and me both are in the same sturdy ship.”
The Jester pauses, looking at the man, at his fluffy hair and Asteron pin and long, black cloak that almost drags to the floor. Then he looks at his eyes that glimmer with specks of gold. Elation stares back at him.
“How about we travel together after your performance? I’m sure there are so many more things you want to see with that long, long life of yours.”
The Jester can’t do anything after that but laugh—laugh and laugh and laugh until his gut threatens to spill the contents of itself on the ground. He folds over, clutching his stomach before shaking the archivist’s hand in a firm, heavy grip.
“You’re an interesting fella; I’ll tell you that. You got yourself a done deal.”
“Glad to hear it.”
The Jester places a sloppy, dramatic kiss on the man’s hand, running up to the center of the town hall with an excitement too bright to manage under the uninterested gazes of people he’s known his whole life. He looks at the commoners, at the royalty above, at King Edmund right in the center, at the queen and heir who witnessed his acts of entertainment and foolery, who once laughed at it, but now only spared it a bland glance. He looks at Alastar, the King’s personal knight, and waves joyously, but the knight doesn’t spare even the most minuscule of reactions. The Jester only smiles wider.
He’ll make himself worth looking at. He’ll make it big and boisterous enough for everyone to see.
“I’ll make this performance of mine a transcendent experience,” the Jester proclaims loudly.
The Jester does as he usually does at first. He twirls and dances, juggles and trips thematically, plays the lute, and sings with a smoothness everyone in this town has grown accustomed to. But there’s something different there, underlying his current act—a slight madness if you want a name for it.
“Edmund has been a ruler who leads with the mightiest of fists and the sturdiest of plans.”
The room stills when the King’s name is uttered so casually, smooth and without restraint. The King himself stiffens considerably in his seat up above, eyes narrowing and stance carrying a clear warning.
“Edmund, the strong King that he says he is, is not a man worthy of such a title, of such grace. He is an impostor in his ruling, an impostor in life itself!”
He stirs up a lot of commotion at that, and King Edmund stands from his seat, his son and wife following right along. The Jester feels an elation pool in his chest at the sight, and he only laughs like he always does, laughs like he’s always meant to do.
“I am meant to give my unrestrained outlook on the ways of this kingdom—and this kingdom, unfortunately, has been ruled by a King who can’t bother to- “
He doesn’t get to finish his sentence as a guard grapples him by the front of his motley, entering his space with a sneer of fury curling his lips.
The Jester cackles, letting his body go lax as the guard directs his sword high above his head, ready to strike down.
“I suggest you stop while you’re ahead.”
“There’s no fun in that!”
The guard sets his eyes upon King Edmund, and the King nods, a similar, cold expression of vehemence churning his face.
“Now that’s an ugly look for a King to make.”
The guard quickly directs his sword at him, but he manages to get out of the guard’s grip, the sword’s edge barely nicking the top of his leg.
He giggles blindly at the pain as blood trickles into his pant leg.
The guard goes to attack him again, but he trips him with the poised stance of his feet, catching the sword before it can hit the ground. He twirls and flips it theatrically, making a bow toward everyone in the audience before he readies the blade in the direction of the sturdy form of King Edmund.
“This is my final gift to you, sire! Won’t you do the honors of slaying the life of the Great Jester of Thymos in a glorious battle on your soil? Won’t you prove the wrongness of my claims? Reinforce your title as king?”
Another guard charges at him, sword prepared for a strike of ferocity, but the Jester pivots out of the way, swerving with a gracefulness before he kicks the guard to the ground.
“Isn’t this the kingdom of war, the kingdom of fury, the kingdom known for its perilous king and perilous soldiers?!” the Jester laughs out grandly. “I do not see that now! All I see now is a kingdom full of failures! Your brutishness has run dry, Sir Edmund!”
The guards go to attack him again, but Alastar has hastily made his presence known, stabbing the sharp edge of his sword towards the ground as a sign of authority, causing them to halt the garishness of their attack.
“Stand down,” Alastar commands, the guards soon bowing as a show of respect. He turns to the Jester.
“There’s no need for theatrics any longer, Jester. I’ll have the duty of squashing your impudence.”
“You are not the presence I requested, a worthy adversary.”
“The King will not dirty his hands with the likes of you.”
The Jester whistles gaudily at that statement. “He’ll have to if he wants to prove me wrong.”
He looks back up at the king, at his still face and still body that leaks with a restrained rage. King Edmund, surprisingly, makes sure to save that rage for the battlefield, but the Jester knows his pride is on the line, that his very image is at stake. If Alastar does not beat him, he will have to show his stance himself. The Jester knows he wouldn’t do anything else.
But that isn’t what the Jester’s looking for, not quite, so when Alastar readies his sword, dashing at him with a familiar precision he’s seen before, he doesn’t direct the sword his way. He instead throws it with startling meticulousness at King Edmund’s form, the sword etching into the wall just beside the King’s head.
And the first thing the Jester registers after that is the shock and horror of everyone else, the widened eyes and raw screams and watery faces. He notices the blood gushing from the stab in his gut, staining the floor, leaving its imprint, and he wonders absentmindedly how long that stain will take to come off. He thinks about that time in war, the time when a blade stabbed through the flesh of his stomach, when he bled out on the wet ground, and wondered how long it would take for his soul to fizzle out.
He looks at Alastar, at his red armor-clad form, at his perfect-poised stance. He watches the sword exit his flesh with a sort of sickening pleasure.
He looks at the archivist, at his glittering eyes and wide smile, and he hears him clapping, cheering, enjoying the show with a ferocity strange to see.
Then he feels the pain, that sharp, hot burning agony that ripples across his stomach, that spreads and convulses through his body. He feels blood dance on his tongue, and he laments the wasted chocolate in his pocket. His laugh comes out wet and gurgly, and he feels his body give out as he plummets to the floor, his mania echoing pathetically within the walls.
He can still distantly hear the cheering of the archivist, and he wishes he had asked his name, but he’ll be able to, he realizes as his vision darkens. He then hears the overwhelming applause of the entirety of the crowd, the cheers of invigoration and bloodlust, the proof of this Kingdom’s indisputable need for carnage. It’s an exhilarating feeling to hear their cries of vitality, because a Jester will always play their cards right in the end, and will always find a way to entertain.
It’s strange, though, no matter how many times this has happened. He’s grown used to constantly seeing color, to being in the red, blue, and brown of his motley, so the black is always startling once it finally overtakes his vision. He can feel his body mend back together, fix the slice on his leg, the gaping stab in his stomach. He can hear, distantly, the scurry of multiple feet and the whispers of awe as they pass by. How grateful, indeed, Thymos finally is.
He can feel steady steps approach him, a warm body sitting next to his prone form. He can feel quick hands take off the cockscomb that squeaks a sad jingle as it comes off, almost like it was sad to see him gone.
His vision slowly returns, and he sees the colors again: the grey of the walls, the blue, red, and brown of the royal crest, the blood that pooled around him. It’s beautiful, he thinks. And he coughs out a wet grunt.
The archivist is sitting in front of him, spinning the cockscomb that jingles in unfamiliarity within his fingers.
“You don’t need this anymore, do you?” The archivist dangles the hat from its long ear.
“I’d hope not. You recorded everything, right?”
The archivist nods, an amused huff escaping his lips.
“That’s what you’re worried about after everything?”
“Didn’t you hear that applause? There’s nothing else to quibble over but the renown of my act!”
The former jester beams, wide, crazed, and blood-stained, steadily sitting himself up. Faint pains wrack up his gullet, but he chuckles all the while before squeezing the archivist’s cheeks with both his hands, planting a loud, quick kiss on his lips with a sort of wild hysteria. The archivist blinks before he whistles noncommittally, patting the blood-slick hands pressing against his face, wiping the red residue off his mouth.
“I suppose that means you’re ready to leave.”
“That is just a Jester’s means of thanking you.”
The cloaked man blinks, launching the hat behind him. The former jester whistles at the trajectory of the other man’s throw.
“I never got your name, little archivist.”
The other man chuckles lowly. “It’s Raaqim. You got one of your own?”
“Zanni’s the name. Glad to be a source of entertainment.”