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From: stv@unislc.slc.unisys.com (Steve Spencer)
Subject: [returning character] The Jester
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Message-ID: <1995May24.153427.7870@unislc.slc.unisys.com>
Organization: Unisys Corporation SLC
Date: Wed, 24 May 1995 15:34:27 GMT
Lines: 64



	The air in the room had changed somehow. Nothing identifiable really,
nothing so noticable as a warm breeze, or a cold wind. Something deeper.
Something that you somehow felt, but without really feeling it, like the
way that the pouting skies of a gloomy morning seem to bring a subconcious
tear to ones eye, and a choke in the throat with the unheard words that it 
whispers to one's soul.

	But it wasn't the subtle sorrow of a goomy sky that the people felt,
on the contrary. This was more of an uplifting, merry song that permiated the
air atuned to one's bones and soul. A chipper, strange feeling; but it was
there.

	The doors to the pub parted slowly, and a most peculiar looking fellow
strode through them; the grace of a dancer carrying him, weightless across the 
floor. His gaudy, ridiculous garments were remeniscent of a circus, or a 
side show fortune teller that had strayed too far from hisa tarot cards. 
But there was somehow a charm to the whole package. A subtle, unnamable
beauty in his merry stride, and his inhumanly perfect smile that gave men
pause before their taunts, and made a woman blush as she gasped, for reasons
she knew not. 

	He leaned lightly on the bar, almost subconciously dancing a golden
coin across the back of his knuckles, back and forth, back and forth, to the 
merry toll of a tune that played a private symphony inside his head. He 
motioned to the barkeep, his pleasant smile still in place, a beacon of light
framed by his perfectly trimmed, raven black beard and moustache. 

	"A pint of your best." he adressed to the barkeep happily, as a tiny 
white mouse darted from his sleeve, carrying the golden coin that had been 
in his opposite hand the instant before, and dropped it to the counter. Before
the coin had even hit wood, the tiny mouse had been engulfed in a hungry flurry
of merry blue mist that stole it from sight, and then danced lightly through
the still air, caricoles twisting it in intricate patterns throughy the gaudy
silks and satins until it slowly, reluctantly dissipated. 

	Tha man turned, and surveyed the happily little pub, one of his hands
absent mindedly sweeping back his jet black hair that terminated at the back
of his skull in a well kept ponytail; all the while a gnomelike imp darting 
playfully back and forth across the straps of his multicolored sandals. 

	"My, but it's fine to be back." He mused to himself happily.

	The barkeep responded to his statement, as he set a drink to the counter
with out hand, the other hand cautiously testing the coin laid there, to make
sure it was more substantial than some of the other tricks of light that he'd
just seen played out, "I take it you've been here before?"

	"Oh yes. Yes indeed." The man replied, now looking somewhat wistfully,
longingly across the crowded room, "I only regret that it is not still the
haunt of some of my friends. 'Twoud be nice inded to lay eyes once again upon 
Raven."

	The man stood there silent for some time after that. He was not sure
what would happen next, or what lay in store for him. But there was no doubt
about it; Jester had returned.


++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
| It's the sputter of a raindrop. It's the sunlight on my face |
| My mind's eye into other realms. It's my paradise escape.    |
| Steve Spencer	SLC, Utah 	stv@unislc.slc.unisys.com      |
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++