BRUTUSThe Dancing Fool
The Jester of Glorall
He flipped.
One moment, he was merrily splashing through the water like the jackass he always was, and the next his eyes were locked on a face he had never seen before. Oh, and there was that part where he totally forgot to keep swimming and almost drowned before he garbled and coughed his way back to the bank and frantically sought out that face again. It wasn't a face he had ever seen, he was certain, but somehow he still knew it.
All the years he had spent uselessly wandering suddenly had a purpose that he had previously been unable to comprehend. It was all, most obviously, to bring him right there. To that river, that near-death-water-up-the-nose experience, and that face.
The poor boy almost had a heart attack. He was confused, frantic, because while he had never before given a shit about anything in life (and yet still managed to love every second of it), suddenly something was important. And he didn't know why. While his body thought it fit to lean and stumble forward, the Jester's frazzled brain yanked him back and kept him from approaching her.
Instead, he stalked her.
He didn't feel he could get too near to her, but he certainly couldn't keep far from her. He waited in the bushes, behind trees and piled rocks, slinking behind her even as she left that riverside. He had followed behind but out of side for days, trying to machinate some way to get her attention, some way to approach her. Some way to do something other than stare at her from the shadows like the creepy little skeleton he was.
Of course, then, Brutus was fully aware that she was in the Glorall packlands. His packlands. The simple luck, the true good fortune, the wicked twist of fate made him giddy. It gave him that little bit of courage he had been trying to scrounge up. It meant that today was the day and, with a mangled squirrel hanging from his jaw, the Jester slinked his way closer to Latika, his tail wagging rampantly and whacking into branches and brush. It wasn't a very silent approach, but at least it would be less likely to startle her.
At her mercy, a mere two yards away, he dropped the small corpse and grinned like the Fool he was titled for. "Oh, hey! Okay, okay, okay. I brought you this dead thing. Well, it wasn't dead when I found it... I promise."
Oh, how beautiful it used to be,
just you and me far beyond the sea -
the waters, scarce in motion,
quivering still.
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