The jester rode up the path to the castle, bowed under the events unfolding in the world before him. He looked from beneath this dark hood at the guard at the gate, and in silent communion the man swung the gate open, allowing the dark jester to pass through.

The sky above was grey, and a fog hung in the courtyard, stifling the sounds and making lights only dim halos in the grey. The jester passed on, dismounting his horse and walking slowly, too slowly to want to get where he was going. He let go of the reigns of his horse, leaving the beast to walk on it’s own, as he trudged towards the door of the castle. From inside he heard sounds of reverie once again, and upon entering was bombarded by noise and lights and music. There were indeed a large number of people inside, all masking merry to the rhythm of a band. At the center of this throng the fool capered in a circle of his own, falling over himself and muttering things that made those nearby laughing and those further away frown and wonder.

The jester stood by a pillar, looking at the gathering. The queen was also watching, her throne at the back of the hall. The dance broke, and laughing people wandered back to their seats. The fool too centre stage until the band struck up again. He enacted a vignette of a man who came upon a great treasure, only to have the treasure taken from him by a bird who flew every day just a few paces in front of him, tempting him always to follow. The crowd saw humour in this, a man being outwitted by a bird, but the jester saw through the fools poor guise, and upon seeing changed his premade mind about the man. The bird was no bird which flew, and the man as no more a man than the queen was a dynasty. The music stuck up again, and the fool slunk away from the people. The jester watched him go, and wove through the crowd to follow.

He came upon the fool supping from a tankard in a darker corner of the hall, looking at the wall and seemingly breathing most heavily. The jester approached quietly, and made himself known only by his first words.

‘I take from your act more than mere amusement, oh fool. In your capers I saw more than the musing of a madman, but maybe no man can say that I am not equally mad. More so, because I try and defy the labels people place upon me.’

‘What are you and who to me are you? I have no need or desire to be counselled by a doom monger, when all the dooms in the world cannot change what is. For what is doom but a path trodden flat and well known? I could be said every man has a doom, but it would not concern me if every man were doomed.’

‘Indeed. Who or what has cause d in you such animosity, sir? I take that people—’

‘People! Pah! People who laugh uproariously at what they do not understand? People who find it funny rather than numbingly shocking that they cannot catch a bird in flight? These people, I tell you, do not know nor would they really care if the world was nothing but a dream and each of them a mere phantasm. Bravo, they would say, super. Do you know, in all your darkest wisdom, what they call me, sir?’

‘Indeed I do not. But I can guess that our paths are not so separate as I once thought they were. We do both bear the grab of th fool in this world, and I may hazard that to a man you find those in the hall foolish.’

‘Those and every man, good sir. Even your self, because of the self denial and wandering habit that you take.’

‘I could mock your mindless capers, and yet in see in them not what you wish me to see. Might I be not so far from the truth to guess that you are a hermit, sir?’

‘How would one be a hermit in this place which reeks so strngfly of people that I must gag at an open window to cleanse myself?’

‘By that very action. When you are alone and there are no people near you, and you wish it so, then you are a hermit.’

‘Then sir I am. A foolish hermit to make his trade in halls full of people.’

‘Perhaps, but mayhap you are merely careful. Mockery is terrible thing to live through.’

A man from the hall walked up to the two fools, staggering a little. He had clearly had too much mead.

‘Well well, a veritable gathering of fools! I warrant that if I were to make mention of this before the queen she would not believe me. "Two fools," she would say, on my mark, " two fools, I think not. That would be too foolish by half for nay man to take!"’ At which the man collapsed against a barrel, giggling to himself. ‘Pray, make merry for me, you fools, make merry.’

The two fools squared off, looking into each others hooded eyes. They preceded to mime much to the amusement of the man, a short tale. A man walked far, looking for a fabled river in which all time could be seen. He wandered far and wide encountering all manner of strange beasts and people. Years passed hastily and still he searched. When in time he found the river and looked from the bank into the waters he exclaimed, "why, tis showing me as an old man! A miracle, I have found it!" Upon say, he settled down and died there on the riverbank.

When the fools had finished enacting the tale, the man was sound asleep by the barrel, snoring. They looked long at one another, coming to a silent consensus. The dark jester extended his hand to the fool, and they shook, parting then and men.