All The Jester seeks is entertainment.

All he seeks is tears.

That’s quite obvious; what pierrot wouldn’t? Besides, it helps that he’s had… experience working as one in the past, even before he joined the cult. The smiles on everyone’s faces as they laughed along with his acts were ones he’d miss. The smiles they have on now just don’t feel quite the same as before.

That’s because they never have a choice. They think he’s a freak. And he knows it.

Unlike most of the other priests, this one did not live in poverty or middle-class. In fact, in his time, he was the kingdom’s courtyard jester. Of course, such a job carries quite the responsibilities. But that is to be expected. He was the kingdom’s clown, after all.

Not that the king thought of him highly. He just saw the man as a mere pawn to be public display. Every time he made a fool of himself, his boss would scold him; berate him for making them look like idiots.

But that’s the point of a jester, isn’t it? To make people happy. And that’s exactly what he did! Children loved him, and even the commoners couldn’t help but brighten up whenever he came by. As much as he slipped up at times, he still had quite the following. Surely the king would brighten up someday. He wondered why his master was so down in the dumps.

The fool. He knew they lost their daughter. And she was only six. Cheering the rulers up would do nothing to make that grief go away. He was nothing but a selfish clown-

Not that it stopped him. He told them that they had to look at the brighter side of things; that they had an entire kingdom to look forward to. Why should they lash out at their subjects? He was one of their most loyal ones, after all, and he wished them the best.

Words of encouragement meant NOTHING. He remembered the king slapping him across the face and strangling him right there. Had it not been for the ruler’s wife, he would have murdered the pierrot right there and then. He let eventually, but he gave his subject a warning: that he never mention anything relating to this ever again.

And the loyal man complied, of course! Who wouldn’t, especially after their boss gave them such a task? So he went about his days, still milling about and making the young ones laugh. He wouldn’t let his king down, never in a million years.

…And yet he let them all down.

One day, he was going from the castle to the kingdom before them. He had a new trick he wanted to show the children that day, and he knew they would like it–they always did. He was imagining the looks on their faces after performing such a task; it brightened him every step he took out into town.

And when he got there… he saw…

They were SMILING, as always. They were seated, as always.

But they were dead, as they would be forever more. Stitches on the mouths. Stitches holding the eyes open. Who would do this?

Suddenly, he was quickly surrounded by… other kingdom authorities? Was this a joke? No matter, he would explain to them that he just happened to stumble upon what happened, and they would be able to solve the case from there, would they not?

In return, they spat on him, called him names he could not repeat, and said they would immediately take him to the king for such treason. They did not believe him, no matter how much he pleaded his innocence, no matter how much he said he cared for the children, and no matter how much he shed tears of grief and remorse and sadness and…

Oh, his king was right before him. He would understand that he wasn’t to blame, right? He did make a promise to his boss, and he never, EVER broke promises. Especially not since the outburst from earlier. He would understand. He would let him go. He would let him live.

But of course he didn’t. And the pierrot would be put to death as punishment.

He didn’t understand. This was all a joke… right? He was the one to make the kingdom happy; who would replace him? They would miss him, and they would be sorry anyways. At least that thought brightened him up a bit. After all, the more bright his thoughts were, the more he’d get to the equally bright Heaven above! He’d see his audience again, and they would laugh with him for all eternity, he mused.

The guards laughed at him when he tried pleading to them yet again. Cruel smiles were plastered on their faces, not ones lit up with joy. He was doomed, and he knew it.

Maybe he needed some sleep. Hopefully he would have good dreams to balance out this situation. He curled up in a ball in the corner of the cell; not the most comfortable position, but it was one he would accept, no matter what.

And as he closed his eyes, he wept what was not tears of joy.

When he awoke from such a relaxing slumber, the first thing he saw was darkness, which was to be expected. He slowly got up, facing the cell door and…

The guards… they were dead. One was decapitated, and the other gutted like a fish. Expressions of anguish were on their faces, as if they saw something they did not expect in their last moments on earth.

That was very much unexpected. No matter, the cell door was open, coincidentally enough. He found himself skipping down the long, narrow hallway. Perhaps his king was sorry and this was his gift? He was slightly saddened by the fact that those poor guards had to die, but then again, they were very much unfair to him earlier. He kept on milling about, wondering where the exit was.

But why was there blood staining the floor and walls around him? Whose blood was it? The guards'?

Eventually, he found himself facing a… mysterious individual, their face completely obscured thanks to the giant black robe covering most of their body. He just couldn’t help but ask where they came from, as well as where the exit to this dungeon was. This figure was somehow down here with him, correct? Perhaps they would be willing to help his predicament.

That’s when the strange individual grabbed him by the arms and pushed him down to the ground. Now they revealed their true colors, as with sharp, sharp claw-like… things on their hands, they began to dig into the sides of his face deeper and deeper and deeper… until they finally pulled and he SCREAMED.

But he distracted it by focusing on happy thoughts. It was all he could do at the moment; just focus on all the positives in what had to be the last hours of his life.

More robed… things came. And they had weapons. Cleavers. In a matter of seconds, his limbs were gone, leaving a torso behind with a faceless body. He still screamed, the muscles of what was left of his head exposed to the air, and yet he noticed one of them was holding something dark. Something he couldn’t see properly.

Were they… going to finally help him? If so, why did they hurt him? Why was he scared?

They jabbed it into the stumps of where his limbs should have been attached. And he screamed one last time as something else entered his bloodstream and he finally passed out into the maelstrom that was nothingness.

…Only it wouldn’t be for very long. When he finally came to be, he could move! Not only that, but his face was intact as well! Perhaps what had just happened was simply a nightmare. Likewise, he was out of that dungeon; the walls around him and the floor beneath him were all still stony, but it was different from the prison he was in. He was finally free. He felt different from just a few moments ago, but he was alive; more than ever before.

But… his body would never be the same anymore. He looked at his limbs; both his arms and legs were now long, dark things with claws at the end that were as sharp as blades. Something that would belong to a freak. His face just hurt now, and soon he realized why; placing his fingers on it, he felt two metallic pieces he didn’t even recognize, both of which at the sides of his mouth, stretching it… in two completely different directions. One was placed upwards, while the other was placed downwards, as if to form a crooked expression that was somehow smiling and yet frowning at the same time. He tried desperately to move his mouth, and while he could move both sides of the mouth by a few inches, they were eventually put back in place again. That’s when he realized something else; the metallic things were somehow… attached to his face? His face, which now had some sort of mask-like texture to it; somehow infused into him as if it was like the skin that once covered the front of his skull. It was horrific, it was maddening; only a sick individual would come up with… something like this.

And yet despite its flaws, he loved it. His limbs were stronger than before, after all, and the face, while confusing to get used to, was something he needed to stretch his muscles; now he could play both sides of the human emotion at the same time! He was about to thank whoever did this to him, but low and behold; the same robed individuals from before were already there to greet him; to tell him about why they did this to his body.

Don’t be stupid. You already know what they said to him. You saw what they did to the other priests and how they justified it, right? Let’s move along from that.

The REAL meat of what happened is that they also had his king! And they would allow him to perform for his boss one last time with the necessary materials. Such fun in that! He was so happy to see his king, without any distractions and tied down so that he could not go to anything else; in the room or otherwise.

Throwing knives, sawblades, a gag… it was all he needed. And even when the old man pleaded for him to stop, he didn’t. Why should he have stopped with it? It wasn’t like the other man was about to sentence him to death mere moments ago…

Once the performance was over, he was happy. His king must have been so shocked that he just stopped right there and then! Oh, how he would miss his king very much; at least the robed individuals were proud of his movements. They even asked if he would help with more performances, and he said yes. It was all he wanted; to be up on a stage, his audience not being able to move at all, marveled by his skills and laughing out loud so hard they couldn’t hold their stomachs any longer.

Being able to hold their stomachs no longer because they were forced to throw up their food and whatever else was inside them.

Years pass, and so does the quality of the tools, but they always get even better. He performs even more and it all gets easier; using his king first was a great startup! The individuals, which he now knows as cultists–ones nice enough to invite him to the group he’s currently a part of–, bring even more people from the outside world, and he performs for them in return.

And if they don’t smile?

Then he’ll just have to make them. All it takes is a few threads and many, many needles, as well as holding the eyes open just in case they refuse to watch (they don’t have a choice in the slightest). It doesn’t matter as long as he has an audience. It doesn’t matter as long as he’s LOVED by the ones the cultists sing praises for. He’s their audience in the end, and every time he performs, he imagines them clapping for him, impressed by him so much since they allowed him to reach almost the same enlightened experience they have.

All he is to them is their puppet; doing the dirty work for them. He knows this, and yet he persists.

The world’s a stage. His stage. Where he can play with as many as he wants. He wants them all to be happy, and that is what he’ll get in return…

For The Jester is like a glutton, eating up whatever he can no matter the excessive indulgence of the pain all of his audiences share.

-

I'm almost fucking done with these guys. Just one more left to go.

Here's the character without the background... again: