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the fool

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The Fool is doing something possibly normal. He's got some apples and is roasting them in the fireplace. They've been cored out and had sugar and cinnamon stuffed in them. They smell lovely.

Also, for once his shadow is also flickering properly, if only because it's behind him and he's sitting in front of the fire.

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"That smells amazing," Violet says.

"Hey, Fool."

"They're quite tasty too. Would you like one?" The Fool pushes the bowl of finished apples in her direction.

"Hello."

"Hell, yeah." She picks one up, tentatively, not sure if it'll be too hot to touch or not.

"It seems rude to call you Fool."

They're currently toasty warm and squishy. "You may call me Alexander, if you wish. But only Alexander, not Alex, Alec, Al, Xander or anything else like that."

"I like it. Alexander."

She takes a bite.

"That's really good."

"Thank you. I'm rather fond of it," he says. "And I don't believe I ever got your name."

His smile gets a bit bigger. "My mother taught me how to make them. We'd make them out of dried apples deep in the winter."

"Your mother? Another Tarot card?"

She's not teasing, just curious.

"I'm Violet. Violet Harmon."

"No. She was quite human as was the rest of my family. I didn't become the Fool until much later."

He tilts his hat to her. "It's a pleasure to meet you Violet."

"Why, thanks ever so, Alexander," she says, tilting an imaginary hat right back.

"How'd that work? Becoming the Fool."

"It's complicated and involved doing something exceptionally foolish in the right circumstances. Also requires getting a rather nice looking hat and coat."

"Accessories make any outfit."

She takes another bite of apple.

"Complicated. I get that."

Even if his accessories are perhaps not as good looking as he thinks they are. Really, that green is hideous.

"Of course they do," he says, taking another apple out of the fire. "And yes. It's not quite like dying... but in a way it is."

It is. But he manages to make it work. Almost!

"If it's anything like dying, then it sucks."

If he made it work completely then he wouldn't be the Fool, now would he?

"It is a bit, you lose who you were and become someone else entirely, someone who has been alive a great long time and who has been a great deal of people."

"I've only been me. I don't know if I'll stay me, though. That freaks me out."

"Who would you become?" He tilts his head curiously and takes his own apple to eat.

"Some addled ghost, out for petty revenge, lost in my memories of who I thought I was. It's pretty creepy to see what's happened to some of the other ghosts."

"Ah. Yes, I can understand that. I would not want to forget who I was. Do you know many ghosts?"

"God. Too many. The house is full of them. Whoever dies there gets trapped there, and lots of people have died there."

"How interesting!" the Fool says. "I've never seen a house like that before."

"You really don't want to. It's a bad place. Now that I'm dead, I don't know if it's worse or better, but I know for sure that for anyone living? It's bad. Bad, bad, bad."

"Hmm..." Now there's an interesting conundrum for the Fool because does he count as living or not? While he does have a human body, he no longer quite fits the traditional manner of being alive.

"One could say that being dead is worse than normal, but I've not met very many ghosts, per-say, so I couldn't say if being a ghost makes being somewhere worse in a place that keeps its dead."

"Trust me on this one. It's worse."

"I suppose so. I know I'd go mad not being able to leave." He pauses. "If I weren't already mad already."

"I wondered about the green," she says, almost teasing. She watches him, curious and a little wary.

Is he really mad? Because she has some first hand experience with that.

"You okay?"

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