[He says this matter-of-factly, as though dispensing a weighty truth, but he doesn’t shift from his comfortable posture against the couch’s cushions.]
The reason we visited the county of Meratt was actually to erode the count’s support and “convince” [read: force] him to relinquish his stewardship of the Imperial Summer Palace, but that’s not the sort of thing one can accomplish over the course of a single party.
Or three, [she agrees, equally matter-of-fact. Big fan of shenanigans in this house. Jester has to admit that the mission Liem is describing sounds exciting, though. Any job that involves going to a fancy party and dressing up is okay in her book.]
Sounds like a really complicated job. Did you get it done, though...?
[She's realizing for the umpteenth time how little she actually knows about Liem, and the world he comes from. It sounds pretty dangerous, especially given the whole crossbow-trap situation...]
[He can’t deny that. Although he completed this particular mission before he’d been sent home for his most recent occasion, the time back in Taldor makes it seem realer to him, and more recent. There are details coming to mind now that he hasn’t thought of in months.]
It took about three months, all told. But in the end we cleared out the palace of the count and all those loyal to him, and the princess was able to move in not long after.
[His reminiscing takes on a slightly sober quality as he recalls that the assault on the palace did invariably mean slaying most of those inside who were still committed to resisting. The count had been their immediate superior’s half-brother, so his death had put a little bit of a pall over their news of victory.]
Three months, whew. Were they...you know, bad? This count and his people?
[She knows Liem well enough by now that she can only assume these people must have sucked pretty hard for him to 'clear out' a palace. She's cleared out enough places that she knows precisely what that implies.]
So this princess, she's all in charge and stuff now, I assume.
[Liem frowns slightly, letting the hand holding the mirror settle onto his lap.]
The princess needed access to the palace and its wealth. Regardless of whether or not they were bad people, we would have needed to displace them, as long as they refused to recognize her authority.
[After a grave moment, though, he adds,] But had they been less stubborn, perhaps they would have yielded to words instead of force. We made every effort to persuade those in Meratt County toward accepting the princess’s governance, which is what we spent most of those three months doing. The count was simply too set on opposing her to be convinced.
Sounds like you guys were pretty determined, then. [It all sounds very serious, and very very important. She's not sure what exactly she imagined Liem's job being back home, but somehow it didn't involve political dealings in her head.]
I'm learning a lot about you today, Liem. I kind of feel silly, that I've never asked you much about your life before!
[Liem shifts to lean a little more against the arm of the couch, shrugging faintly in casual dismissal.]
I know I don't tend to volunteer much about my life back home. It's simpler not to get into it.
[He's never been much for talking about himself, which is at least in part because most people simply aren't interested to know, at least in his experience. But he's trying not to assume that quite so much when it comes to his friends.]
But you can ask me anything you like. Or, if you'd like to try out the mirror…
I understand, Liem. My friend Caleb was like that, too, for a long time. Sometime stuff is too complicated to go into all the time.
[She smiles reassuringly up at him, and a thousand questions rise to her lips— but later. Those can be for later, now that he's extended the invitation. So she takes the Memirror into hand instead, turning it this way and that as she studies it.]
Well...there's a zillion things I could show you. Something from one of my stories...I'd show you my Mama, but you'd have to swear you won't fall in love with her.
[Liem returns Jester's smile, gratefully ceding the memirror to her when she reaches for it. It's nice to be understood, especially about something he doesn't speak much about.]
I swear. I won't fall in love with her, no matter how charming she looks.
[His expression sobers as he makes the promise, but his eyes twinkle with the suggestion of amusement.]
Is this a common problem you experience? Friends you show your mother to falling head over heels for her?
[Jester laughs, glancing over at Liem and catching that twinkle in his eye.] More so when they meet her, yeah. Drawings don't quite do her justice, you know. Even mine don't really capture her, and she was my only subject for, like, my whole childhood! Anyway.
[She quickly turns her attention to the Memirror, letting her eyes fall shut for a moment as she pictures her mama. Not standing onstage, because there's no sound and it wouldn't do her performances any justice. No, when she opens her eyes, the image that shimmers to life is that of her mother, a beautiful red Tiefling woman with long, deep red hair and four horns that spiral and twist in ways Jester's two little cinnamon buns could hardly aspire to. She stands on a palatial balcony, wrapped in a deep blue silk gown, an egg-sized sapphire shining at her throat. She appears in profile, first, looking out across a beautiful oceanside city populated by as many elegant white stone manors as there are clay-roofed apartment buildings, a charming sprawl set against white sand beaches and pristine blue waters.
After a moment, Jester appears to say something, because Marion turns to look at her, and she real Jester gasps slightly, because it's been months since she last saw or even spoke to her mother, and the sight of her angelic face with its luminescent yellow eyes is as comforting as it is melancholy.]
[Liem leans in slightly to get a view of the mirror as Jester summons her memory. The woman he sees is indeed reminiscent of the rendition that Jester showed him in her sketchbook, but life and motion add an extra dimension of beauty to her visage. He can easily see how such a woman came to be a famed and coveted companion, even with her obvious fiendish heritage.]
Ah… She is quite a beauty.
[It must be a strange feeling to leave your family behind, knowing they're still waiting somewhere for your return. Like missing home and knowing that your home misses you back.]
Was she already so well known by the time you entered her life?
[Jester looks surreptitiously between her mother's image and Liem's face, her mouth curling into a small smile, enough to let her tiny fangs poke past her lips.]
I know, right? Ugh, I miss her so much. [A blue fingertip brushes carefully over her mother's tiny, wistful face. This was the day her Mama had finally agreed to let her go outside, and Jester can see the barely-restrained worry around the edges of Marion's expression as she turns back to look out over Nicodranas.
Jester nods, bells tinkling softly.] Ja, she was already really famous. Men would travel from all over, really important men, just to hear her sing and vie for a chance to spend a night with her. She hid it really well, when she got pregnant with me, and pretty much nobody even knew she had a daughter. Lots of people still don't, actually.
[Liem's eyebrows raise in surprise at the news that Jester is, apparently, a complete secret to a lot of her mother's admirers. Having a secret baby sounds like it would be difficult enough for an ordinary woman, let alone a famous courtesan.]
That sounds like something out of a story, [he accuses her.] People really don't know?
[He can't see any reason why Jester would mislead him about this, but it's certainly unusual. What kind of fears would lead to a woman like Marion Lavorre keeping the entire existence of her child a secret?]
[Jester's not really surprised by Liem's reaction; it's a pretty common one for people not familiar with sex work as an everyday way of life, after all. Still, she raises her eyebrow at him, a little dubious.]
Well, think about it for a minute. Most men who pay for sex aren't into, like, moms. She was still really young when she had me, you know, and a lot of those guys, if they knew? They would think she was all used up. Which is stupid and fake, obviously, but tell that to men.
[She huffs, blowing her bangs out of her face.] But to answer your question, there's probably, like, 12 people in the world not including my friends who know I exist, and whose daughter I am. Even fewer people know about my dad.
[She's just one little mystery, wrapped in enigma!]
[Jester's explanation earns a doubtful frown from Liem. It's true that he doesn't have any personal experience with sex work, and given Jester's background, he's inclined to believe that she knows what she's talking about. But he wonders if this might be one of those things that comes from cultural differences between different countries and worlds, because after all… well, sex workers are the opposite of virginal, and while contraception does exist in Golarion, it's far from infallible, especially for those who can't afford magical protection. Certainly he would expect a fair percentage of lower-income sex workers to end up with children at some point during their careers, and that doesn't make people who frequent those establishments "into moms" so much as being into… sexually active adults. Right?
But then, Liem definitely falls into the intersection of "men who pay for sex" and "men who are into moms," so perhaps he's undervaluing the importance of childlessness to Marion's reputation. Also, this isn't the first time Jester had made a statement about Marion's work that didn't make sense to him, so her home is certainly quite different from his. In any case, there's little point in going into it.]
That's a lot of secrecy. Is your father someone well known also?
Ja, well, when you're famous all the world over like my Mama, it's a big deal to a lot of people. [Jester's mouth stretches into a small, mischievous grin.]
Well, sort of. To certain kinds of people. But he wasn't when he met my mom. He was just a lowly sailor, and they totally fell in love and stuff, but then he left her when she was still pregnant with me...it's all really complicated, but he sort of accidentally became a crime lord while he was trying to prove himself worth of Mama.
[And now the pieces of the puzzle are likely falling together for Liem. A famous courtesan and a crime lord: the perfect storm to create the grinning blue devil before him.]
[Jester's story earns a rather pointed eyebrow raise from Liem. He doesn't by any means find the idea of her father being a crime lord hard to believe; if anything, it's probably more believable than if she'd claimed he was just a local cobbler or something.]
He accidentally became a crime lord?
[How, pray tell, does someone do something like that by accident? As the son of a literal dead man he's in no position to call bullshit on dad stories, but it does sound kind of far-fetched.]
Mmhmm, apparently it 'just sort of happened.' Though I think he had to have realized at some point, right? Anyway, he was just trying to prove himself worthy of Mama, which was obviously stupid. [She grins, sharp teeth exposed at the corners of her mouth.] Nobody's worthy of her.
[She nods, though, at Liem's follow-up question.] He does, now. We only met in the last couple of years, and it took him forever to admit I was his kid. I mean, I'm freaking blue. I get it from him, you know, he's a Water Genasi.
[Liem leans against the arm of the couch, watching Jester with mild fascination as she tells him a bit more about her parents. The way she speaks about them, it’s not hard to see which parent made a bigger impact on her. The phrase “mama’s girl” seems appropriate here; Liem wonders what kind of relationship he might have had with his own mother if she hadn’t died bringing him into the world. As things were, his uncle and sister rarely spoke of her, so he had almost no idea what kind of person she really was.]
I’ve not heard that term before. “Water genasi.” But I didn’t realize that neither of your parents were human.
[Truthfully, it hadn’t occurred to him to question why Jester was blue when her mother was red. When fiendish energies are involved, he assumes children can be born looking any number of unexpected ways.]
Oh, really? [Jester lilts her head curiously; she supposes they don't have Tieflings in other peoples' worlds, either, so it shouldn't come as too big a surprise.] It means he's, like, descended from elemental spirits or whatever. So I guess that I am, too!
[She beams at him, winking one violet eye, and now at last she sees her opening. A free pass to ask a question that's always seemed a bit rude to ask out of nowhere.]
That reminds me, though. I know we've been friends for awhile... [She gives Liem a sheepish grin.] I've sort of been assuming you're, like, some kind of elf I don't know about? But I'm pretty sure most elves don't have fangs. So...what are you?
Oh— That sounds like what I would have called “undine.”
[Liem clarifies, his curiosity satisfied by the discovery. Like the difference between centaurs and jinba, it’s probably just a difference in terminology for the most part—and does clarify somewhat why Jester would have inherited blue skin from her water genasi father.
Her question, however, makes him momentarily go still with surprise. An uneasy feeling begins to squirm in the pit of his stomach, brought on as always by the prospect of fielding questions about his heritage. But if anyone is likely to take his vampire ancestry in stride, it seems like Jester should be at the top of the list.]
That’s the first time anyone’s accused me of being an elf.
[A wry smile tugs faintly at the corner of his mouth.]
No, my parents were both human. At least, originally. [When they were both alive, he means.] I’m half-vampire.
Undine... [Jester repeats the foreign word softly, filing it away as another word for what she is. She laughs almost shyly at Liem's response to her poorly-made guess, shrugging, her tail thwacking against the floor. But when he actually give her an answer, she blinks a few times, her gaze wandering up and to the right as a few errant puzzle pieces click into place.]
...Ohhhhh. Is that why you, like, never eat very much? Because if I ate as much as you do, Liem, I would be dead. Wait—
[Her eyes are very wide, very sparkly saucers.] Are you dead, Liem?!
[Although he’s happy to confirm that this revelation doesn’t seem to have been especially shocking for Jester, he knows almost as soon as her eyes start going wide that he’s going to have to dispel some wild idea seeded by his confession. He holds up a staying hand.]
I’m not dead.
[It’s not like it’s an unreasonable question; if an undead man can father a child, who’s to say the child itself wouldn’t be undead too? Still, he doesn’t want there to be any confusion on this matter.]
The reason I prefer not to eat much is probably because of what I am, but I would still have to if it wasn’t for this.
[Turning his raised hand, he indicates the ring on his little finger—a gold band set with garnet.]
[Jester cuts off slightly as Liem raises his hand to stay her questioning.] Oh. That's good. Because if you were, that would mean my 'Detect Undead' is very broken.
[She smiles slightly, treading carefully because she can sense that this might be a bit of a sensitive subject. She knows what it's like to be questioned about who you are and what that means, and while she usually fields those questions pretty cheerfully, it gets tiresome. So Liem's ring is a good diversion, and she eyes it with a wary yet curious eye.]
So...you can just not eat or drink anything at all and you won't die?
That’s right. It reduces the amount of sleep I need as well.
[He offers his hand to Jester in case she’d like a closer look, although he makes no move to take the ring off. She’s welcome to look, and even touch to some extent, but the ring has to stay put.]
I’ve always had difficulty eating and sleeping enough, though admittedly I do less of both now.
[Just imagine a Liem who looks even more tired and ill-fed than usual; that’s what he looked like when he first arrived on Noctium.]
I’ve been wearing the ring since before we met, so you wouldn’t have noticed the difference, but I purchased it a while ago to improve my health.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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[He says this matter-of-factly, as though dispensing a weighty truth, but he doesn’t shift from his comfortable posture against the couch’s cushions.]
The reason we visited the county of Meratt was actually to erode the count’s support and “convince” [read: force] him to relinquish his stewardship of the Imperial Summer Palace, but that’s not the sort of thing one can accomplish over the course of a single party.
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Sounds like a really complicated job. Did you get it done, though...?
[She's realizing for the umpteenth time how little she actually knows about Liem, and the world he comes from. It sounds pretty dangerous, especially given the whole crossbow-trap situation...]
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[He can’t deny that. Although he completed this particular mission before he’d been sent home for his most recent occasion, the time back in Taldor makes it seem realer to him, and more recent. There are details coming to mind now that he hasn’t thought of in months.]
It took about three months, all told. But in the end we cleared out the palace of the count and all those loyal to him, and the princess was able to move in not long after.
[His reminiscing takes on a slightly sober quality as he recalls that the assault on the palace did invariably mean slaying most of those inside who were still committed to resisting. The count had been their immediate superior’s half-brother, so his death had put a little bit of a pall over their news of victory.]
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[She knows Liem well enough by now that she can only assume these people must have sucked pretty hard for him to 'clear out' a palace. She's cleared out enough places that she knows precisely what that implies.]
So this princess, she's all in charge and stuff now, I assume.
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[Liem frowns slightly, letting the hand holding the mirror settle onto his lap.]
The princess needed access to the palace and its wealth. Regardless of whether or not they were bad people, we would have needed to displace them, as long as they refused to recognize her authority.
[After a grave moment, though, he adds,] But had they been less stubborn, perhaps they would have yielded to words instead of force. We made every effort to persuade those in Meratt County toward accepting the princess’s governance, which is what we spent most of those three months doing. The count was simply too set on opposing her to be convinced.
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I'm learning a lot about you today, Liem. I kind of feel silly, that I've never asked you much about your life before!
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I know I don't tend to volunteer much about my life back home. It's simpler not to get into it.
[He's never been much for talking about himself, which is at least in part because most people simply aren't interested to know, at least in his experience. But he's trying not to assume that quite so much when it comes to his friends.]
But you can ask me anything you like. Or, if you'd like to try out the mirror…
[He gestures slightly with the memirror.]
You can certainly be my guest.
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[She smiles reassuringly up at him, and a thousand questions rise to her lips— but later. Those can be for later, now that he's extended the invitation. So she takes the Memirror into hand instead, turning it this way and that as she studies it.]
Well...there's a zillion things I could show you. Something from one of my stories...I'd show you my Mama, but you'd have to swear you won't fall in love with her.
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I swear. I won't fall in love with her, no matter how charming she looks.
[His expression sobers as he makes the promise, but his eyes twinkle with the suggestion of amusement.]
Is this a common problem you experience? Friends you show your mother to falling head over heels for her?
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[She quickly turns her attention to the Memirror, letting her eyes fall shut for a moment as she pictures her mama. Not standing onstage, because there's no sound and it wouldn't do her performances any justice. No, when she opens her eyes, the image that shimmers to life is that of her mother, a beautiful red Tiefling woman with long, deep red hair and four horns that spiral and twist in ways Jester's two little cinnamon buns could hardly aspire to. She stands on a palatial balcony, wrapped in a deep blue silk gown, an egg-sized sapphire shining at her throat. She appears in profile, first, looking out across a beautiful oceanside city populated by as many elegant white stone manors as there are clay-roofed apartment buildings, a charming sprawl set against white sand beaches and pristine blue waters.
After a moment, Jester appears to say something, because Marion turns to look at her, and she real Jester gasps slightly, because it's been months since she last saw or even spoke to her mother, and the sight of her angelic face with its luminescent yellow eyes is as comforting as it is melancholy.]
That's her. Marion Lavorre...The Ruby of the Sea.
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Ah… She is quite a beauty.
[It must be a strange feeling to leave your family behind, knowing they're still waiting somewhere for your return. Like missing home and knowing that your home misses you back.]
Was she already so well known by the time you entered her life?
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I know, right? Ugh, I miss her so much. [A blue fingertip brushes carefully over her mother's tiny, wistful face. This was the day her Mama had finally agreed to let her go outside, and Jester can see the barely-restrained worry around the edges of Marion's expression as she turns back to look out over Nicodranas.
Jester nods, bells tinkling softly.] Ja, she was already really famous. Men would travel from all over, really important men, just to hear her sing and vie for a chance to spend a night with her. She hid it really well, when she got pregnant with me, and pretty much nobody even knew she had a daughter. Lots of people still don't, actually.
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That sounds like something out of a story, [he accuses her.] People really don't know?
[He can't see any reason why Jester would mislead him about this, but it's certainly unusual. What kind of fears would lead to a woman like Marion Lavorre keeping the entire existence of her child a secret?]
Why would she hide it?
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Well, think about it for a minute. Most men who pay for sex aren't into, like, moms. She was still really young when she had me, you know, and a lot of those guys, if they knew? They would think she was all used up. Which is stupid and fake, obviously, but tell that to men.
[She huffs, blowing her bangs out of her face.] But to answer your question, there's probably, like, 12 people in the world not including my friends who know I exist, and whose daughter I am. Even fewer people know about my dad.
[She's just one little mystery, wrapped in enigma!]
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But then, Liem definitely falls into the intersection of "men who pay for sex" and "men who are into moms," so perhaps he's undervaluing the importance of childlessness to Marion's reputation. Also, this isn't the first time Jester had made a statement about Marion's work that didn't make sense to him, so her home is certainly quite different from his. In any case, there's little point in going into it.]
That's a lot of secrecy. Is your father someone well known also?
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Well, sort of. To certain kinds of people. But he wasn't when he met my mom. He was just a lowly sailor, and they totally fell in love and stuff, but then he left her when she was still pregnant with me...it's all really complicated, but he sort of accidentally became a crime lord while he was trying to prove himself worth of Mama.
[And now the pieces of the puzzle are likely falling together for Liem. A famous courtesan and a crime lord: the perfect storm to create the grinning blue devil before him.]
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He accidentally became a crime lord?
[How, pray tell, does someone do something like that by accident? As the son of a literal dead man he's in no position to call bullshit on dad stories, but it does sound kind of far-fetched.]
Does he know you?
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[She nods, though, at Liem's follow-up question.] He does, now. We only met in the last couple of years, and it took him forever to admit I was his kid. I mean, I'm freaking blue. I get it from him, you know, he's a Water Genasi.
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I’ve not heard that term before. “Water genasi.” But I didn’t realize that neither of your parents were human.
[Truthfully, it hadn’t occurred to him to question why Jester was blue when her mother was red. When fiendish energies are involved, he assumes children can be born looking any number of unexpected ways.]
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[She beams at him, winking one violet eye, and now at last she sees her opening. A free pass to ask a question that's always seemed a bit rude to ask out of nowhere.]
That reminds me, though. I know we've been friends for awhile... [She gives Liem a sheepish grin.] I've sort of been assuming you're, like, some kind of elf I don't know about? But I'm pretty sure most elves don't have fangs. So...what are you?
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[Liem clarifies, his curiosity satisfied by the discovery. Like the difference between centaurs and jinba, it’s probably just a difference in terminology for the most part—and does clarify somewhat why Jester would have inherited blue skin from her water genasi father.
Her question, however, makes him momentarily go still with surprise. An uneasy feeling begins to squirm in the pit of his stomach, brought on as always by the prospect of fielding questions about his heritage. But if anyone is likely to take his vampire ancestry in stride, it seems like Jester should be at the top of the list.]
That’s the first time anyone’s accused me of being an elf.
[A wry smile tugs faintly at the corner of his mouth.]
No, my parents were both human. At least, originally. [When they were both alive, he means.] I’m half-vampire.
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...Ohhhhh. Is that why you, like, never eat very much? Because if I ate as much as you do, Liem, I would be dead. Wait—
[Her eyes are very wide, very sparkly saucers.] Are you dead, Liem?!
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I’m not dead.
[It’s not like it’s an unreasonable question; if an undead man can father a child, who’s to say the child itself wouldn’t be undead too? Still, he doesn’t want there to be any confusion on this matter.]
The reason I prefer not to eat much is probably because of what I am, but I would still have to if it wasn’t for this.
[Turning his raised hand, he indicates the ring on his little finger—a gold band set with garnet.]
It keeps me from needing food or water.
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[She smiles slightly, treading carefully because she can sense that this might be a bit of a sensitive subject. She knows what it's like to be questioned about who you are and what that means, and while she usually fields those questions pretty cheerfully, it gets tiresome. So Liem's ring is a good diversion, and she eyes it with a wary yet curious eye.]
So...you can just not eat or drink anything at all and you won't die?
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[He offers his hand to Jester in case she’d like a closer look, although he makes no move to take the ring off. She’s welcome to look, and even touch to some extent, but the ring has to stay put.]
I’ve always had difficulty eating and sleeping enough, though admittedly I do less of both now.
[Just imagine a Liem who looks even more tired and ill-fed than usual; that’s what he looked like when he first arrived on Noctium.]
I’ve been wearing the ring since before we met, so you wouldn’t have noticed the difference, but I purchased it a while ago to improve my health.