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[pinkfox567]

“What’s it like to be you, Jester?”

Oh what a question.

“Do you enjoy your life, what you are and what you do?”

There’s no easy answer.

“Jester, are you happy?”

Happy?

I spin my baton around and around until my fingers feel numb. I twirl the colorful stick until it feels like a task I can never stop. The repetition is blinding and soothing against the harsh thoughts of my mind.

My head tilts lazily towards the girl sitting on a plush bench only a few feet away. My eyelids are drooping and the hat on my head threatens to slip off onto the ground.

I sigh and close my eyes to shield them from the icy coolness of the air in this room. Or maybe I’m avoiding this girl’s gaze. My baton keeps spinning and I’m lost in the action of it. When I hear the girl pick up another cookie from the tray on the table, I blink my two-toned eyes back open to give her the satisfaction of my attention.

I can’t focus on talking while spinning this baton, so I catch it and lazily toss it into the holder in the corner of the room. It spins as it flies and my eyes follow its fleeting trail until it lands in its destination, next to other batons that look identical in shape but wildly different in color.

“Well, princess, is that something you should ask a lowlife like me? I am but your humble court jester.”

“Jester, please, I’m curious.”

The girl breaks the cookie she had grabbed in half and tosses me the piece she deems as smaller. I catch it above my head without a second thought and take a small bite. The baked sweet melts in my mouth and the prickle of something acidic stings my tongue. She takes a bite of hers as well and licks her lips with a small smile.

“Why don’t you call me my name, princess?”

“Why don’t you call me mine?”

I laugh, a sound closer to a giggle, and my eyes blink shut with the action. I swing my legs up and set them on the table crisscrossed, not making a single sound in the process. I feel weightless, like a ghost. I recline backwards in my seat to achieve a little bit of a higher level of comfort.

“Well, simple; it’s so much more fun to call you princess.”

She blinks at me with a hint of surprise and smiles. The girl laughs, her mouth curling up and showing her teeth in the prettiest way. A way that a princess would never do in front of her subjects.

“Well, Jester, I don’t know your name. You’ve never told me.”

“Have I not?”

My hat finally slides off the top of my head and hits the couch with a muted thump. It’s hard to even notice that it happened. It distracts me for a moment and I can barely recall what we had been talking about just seconds before. Has it been seconds? Maybe it's been minutes. Maybe hours.

“Tell me your name Jester, I bet it’s beautiful.”

I smile, wide, to the point my gums start to burn with the tug of my lips. Maybe my face is ripping itself apart, tearing a line from my dimples to my ears. A breathy laugh slips out of my lungs that stains the air with chocolate and butter.

“Oh, princess, nothing about me is beautiful.”