Seventeen Preferences & Scenarios

Imagine 7 (part two) (republished bc wattpad was being a butt)

The jester remains nothing but polite to you. He doesn't mention the rose, nor his cryptic comments. His eyes still sparkle with mischief, he still pokes gentle fun at anyone and everyone, and he still makes it a point to greet you every evening you are at the palace.

A few weeks later, as you leave, the jester catches your shoulder, lifting his hand immediately in fear of offending you.

"Milady," he breathes, stepping back. "Please allow me to apologise for my careless actions of several weeks ago." He flicks his wrist and a white rose appears in his hand, which he offers to you with a slight bow. "Please accept this as a token of my apology."

You slowly tug the rose from his fingers. It's nothing like the roses he used to give you, so why is your stomach turning and your heart racing?

"I accept your apology, and you are forgiven," you reply quietly. "Do not fear — no harm was done."

The jester smiles, something entirely unlike his teasing, wry, sarcastic smile, bright and full of honest joy.

And for a brief moment, it's Joshua standing in front of you, not the King's Fool, and your heart does a backflip worthy of any circus tumbler.

"You ought to wear white more often, my lady," the jester murmurs. "It suits you well."

The jester wonders that night why you suddenly went pale the instant he smiled. The colour had returned to your face slowly, but you had wandered out of the ballroom with the rose clutched tightly to your chest and a shaken look on your face.

He sighs, draping his arm over his face. I am always misstepping around her, he muses with a wry smirk. You, milady, are the only person in court I need fear offending.

His mind wanders, back to his earliest memories.

Two and a half years ago, a half-starved young man with no name staggered up to the castle gates, protesting as guards tried to drag him away, claiming frantically that this was his home.

His hair was an unnatural shade of blond, almost white, and beneath the fear in their depths, his eyes sparkled with mischief and something more.

Perhaps it was his apparent similarity to the Prince who vanished a mere two months ago, perhaps it was his skills. Whatever the reason, the boy came to be known as the King's Fool, hiding the fact that before finding himself at the gates, he remembered nothing of his life, not even his own name.

The months pass quickly, until you find yourself clutching an invitation to the yearly memorial for him. Three whole years since he had vanished... the thought terrifies you.

With each passing day, it became less likely that you would ever see him again.

You couldn't not attend his memorial, of course. He had been your fiancé.

So on the day of his memorial, you arrive dressed in his favourite colours. Many stare, of course, as they do each year when you arrive in that shade he called rose quartz, blue shades, and no black to be seen.

He doesn't like mourning colours.

The jester is, of course, there as well. All the colour he wore has been traded for black, though he looks uncomfortable, tugging his black gloves with a pensive frown.

His portrait hangs in a place of honour, surrounded on all sides by red roses. The artist captured the laughing sparkle in his eyes well, and the upturned corners of his mouth that add a playful curl to his smile.