#jester!sero

The pair of you always knew it'd come to this. It was your duty to marry a noble and birth an heir- it was inevitable. He simply chose to pretend the day would never come, he was too content with the way things were to acknowledge the reality that was just over the horizon.

His breath caught in his throat, back stiffening as he watched your soon-to-be husband, spin you around before dipping you, laying a kiss on your painted lips. The same painted lips that he'd stolen the first kiss off of long ago. Sero couldn't handle this anymore, the jealousy, the way you'd galavant around with this man, then lay down with him at night. He hated being your secret.

Finally, he dragged himself off the floor and dusted himself off, storming out of the ballroom, which did not go unnoticed by you. He'd prepared for this, the time was now, and he couldn't wait any longer. Seeing him walk off, you politely dismissed yourself from your fiance, following far behind.

Breaking through the door to his chambers, Sero made a beeline for his armoire, throwing the doors open, knowing exactly what he was looking for and where to find it. He hauled a decently sized suitcase out of the armoire and yanked a set of traveling robes off the shelf, throwing his jester's hood off his head. As he stripped, he tossed his motley on the cobblestone floor, ensuring to step on it as he slipped into something less attention-grabbing.

Meanwhile, you were wandering the castle's corridors, quietly calling out to him with gentle concern lacing your tone. Not finding him anywhere in the wing of the ballroom, you decided to check his chambers next, though you'd arrive much too late. "Hanta?" You asked, knocking as you pushed the heavy wooden door open. "Are you-" You paused, eyes falling to a pile of cloth on the ground, tangerine and black in color, scuffed with dirty bootprints. "Hanta!" you repeated, this time in a gasp as you took off down the hallway, heels clacking against the stone.

Sero halted in a cold sweat, hearing his first name echo through the castle walls. Only one person called him by his first name, and coincidentally, it was the one person he was trying to get away from- you. Ultimately, he decided to ignore it, sprinting down the stairs to the ground level of the building. He just had to get to the stables, then he'd have a way of escape. You couldn't catch up to him then.

Realizing your heels were slowing you down and what was at stake, you stopped, kicking out of your shoes and bunching up your gown into fistfuls before taking off again, running as fast as your sore feet would allow. "Hanta, wait, please!" You begged, now deep enough into the corridors to know only he could hear you. "Please, just talk to me!"

Your pleas struck him, sending a shiver down his spine, and for a moment, he did wait, his hands cradling a worn-out saddle. He quickly came to his senses, however, and resumed strapping it to his horse. "Hanta?" Your voice echoed again, this time errily closer. It unnerved him that you were blindly looking in the wrong direction. He had to leave- now.

With shaking hands, he hopped up, mounting the painted horse, taking the reigns, and leading her out of the stall. He was so close to freedom that he could nearly taste it. "H-Hanta, don't go!" Sero paled, hearing your voice so clearly now, knowing he was already within your line of site. His eyes darted between you over his shoulder and the open stable doorway. With a flick of the reigns and a kick to the horse's ribs, he bolted towards the exit.

In a panic, you sprinted in the direction he was heading, throwing yourself on the ground in front of the horse's path, forcing him to halt. "Your highness!" He shouted, frustrated as he yanked on the reigns, his desire for your safety outweighing his desire to be free of you.

"P-Please don't go!" You begged, tears streaming down your face as you stayed crumpled on the hay-covered floor, arm raised defensively in preparation to be trampled.

"My lady, stand aside," He said sternly, eyeing you from above.

"I won't!" You argued back, just as fiercely. "Not until you explain yourself!"

"I'm leaving, that is all the explanation you are entitled to." Truthfully, he would have loved to tell you why he was leaving. Maybe if he did, you'd finally understand the depths of his love for you and admit that you were his, but he knew that was a simple pipe dream.

"You are under the employ of this family and you will answer me!" You commanded, standing at last, covered in dirt, cheeks flushed with frustration.

"Banish me if you must," He sassed, with narrowed eyes, looking down his nose at you, fighting off the urge to tell you how beautiful you looked being disheveled in the moonlight. "I'll soon choose a life on the run than this torture."

"Torture?" You retorted, balling your fists. "Need I remind you how luxurious of a life you lead here? Servants don't tend to have private quarters, personal horses, and all the amenities of a royal, like you have!"

"I am no servant," He sneered, ready to hop down from his horse and throw you out of the way himself, onto a soft bed of hay of course, but nevertheless, you were testing his patience.

"And you are no noble either." You seethed back.

"An astute observation, princess," Sero said with a fake grin. "For if I were a nobleman, 'we'd already be wed', I believe those were your words, weren't they?"

"Bite your tongue, I'm warning you-"

"No," he finally snapped, totally fed up with you. Throwing his leg over, he slid down from the saddle and approached you with a furiousness that frightened you. "Just this once, I won't bite my tongue." He said roughly, grabbing you by the arm, his nails leaving imprints on your skin. "I am a man driven absolutely mad with an obsession for something I was not born with the right to claim. And despite this, the object of that obsession lets me claim her night after night. Have you any idea how that tears at me?"

"Hanta, unhand me!" You gasp, struggling against a tightening grasp.

"I will not!" He bellowed, leaning in, face inches from yours. "I have loved you since the day we met and if there is only one thing I know in my heart of hearts, it is that you love me too." You could do nothing but stay still in his grip, watching the clouds rolling in his stormy eyes.

"I-I will admit, you were my first love..." You confess nervously, but truthfully.

"And you are my only love," He interjected, his grasp loosening ever so slightly as his brows knitted upwards. "Princess, you are everything to me; the sun and moon, and every star in between. The thought of seeing you off with some spoiled boy whom you hardly know sickens me. I can't bear the thought of losing you."

"You wouldn't be losing anything, Hanta," You clarified softly, peeking up at him through your lashes. "I intend to bring you with me..."

Something about the way the words rolled off your tongue with such genuine ignorance of how selfish you sounded struck his final nerve. "I will never be your concubinus!" He suddenly shouted, tearing his grip away from you, balling his fists to his chest, afraid he may accidentally strike you. "You expect me to move into your husband's castle just to crawl into your bed while he is away?! And what then, will I do with my time while he is present? Can you answer me that, your majesty?"

His rejection of your proposal and the venom in his voice, made you shrink away, putting further distance between the two of you. "I-I... I hadn't thought about-"

"I'm just a joke to you, aren't I?" He suddenly asked, voice cracking as his anger finally broke into heartbreak. "I'm not your love, I'm simply a toy. My devotion to you and your happiness is a mere game. Every moment we shared, every poetic word, every sacred rendevous was just..."

"Hanta, you're wrong-" You tried, reaching out to him to wipe the tears from his cheek, but he smacked your hand away.

"My purpose in your life was always amusement." He croaked, voice strained with emotion as his obsidian eyes met yours, brimming with tears. "Along the way, I must have forgotten that and convinced myself that I truly mattered to you. That's my own fault, the joke is on me."

"That isn't true at all!" You finally manage to speak, shaking your head and stepping to him, cupping his cheeks in your hands. No longer did you have the compacity to be afraid of him as he stood in front of you, frozen and numb. "Hanta, the only bit that you've gotten correct is that I do love you and I have since I laid eyes on you! If I had any choice in this, you would be my husband, not anyone else!"

Although Sero had longed to hear these sentiments from you for years, they had little effect on him now as his eyes simply shifted downwards, searching for sincerity in yours. "I will never love another, (Y/N)..." He finally confessed, using your given name with no sort of honorific or title. He wasn't speaking to a royal or someone of authority, he was just speaking to you. "And I know that no matter what you profess to me now, you cannot keep that same promise, not if you're married to someone else." With trembling hands, he mirrored you, cradling your face like he had thousands of times before, knowing that this would be the last. "Appreciation will develop and turn into care and then love; it is inevitable."

"In your heart of hearts, do you love me?" He asked, face sober as his shaky thumb dragged across the bag under your right eye.

"I do, Hanta..." You answered, wanting nothing for than to prove your feelings for him.

"Then I beg of you, set me free, my love." He proposed with the saddest smile. "Never again will I love and I will roam the land a lonely vagabond, but please, subject me to this torture of the heart no longer..." He watched as your face contorted with sorrow and your head shook dismissively in his hands. For a moment, his heart sank, realizing that your selfishness would once again stand in his way.

"I-I could never! My heart would ache for your return!" You sobbed, wanting nothing more than to have him hold you securely to his chest, but he kept you staring at him, unmoved by your tears. "H-How will I prove my love for you if you are gone?"

"You will prove your love for me by sacrificing ownership of me," Sero explained calmly, all of his anger had long since bled dry. "Never should you wonder if my heart belongs to you- it does. My thoughts will never be out from under your rule. But please, darling, set my body free."

Deep down, you knew he was right. You had been cruel to him and this one thing was the very least you could do to rectify your treatment of him. "B-But how will I explain your absence?"

"Tell the court I have perished." He answered a bit too quickly; he had rehearsed this part. "Tell them I had indulged too much in the drink and fell into the pond during a moonlit stroll. Nobody will bother to drag the depths to find me. Let the court believe I died as I lived- a fool." Despite the morbid instructions leaving his lips, he smiled down at you peacefully.

"where will you go? What will you do?" You worried, clinging to him.

"As far away as this horse will take me, and then I shall find another one to carry me further. Never again do I intend to settle." He replied, eyes shifting towards the road which seemed never-ending in the darkness.

"Do you have the necessary supplies?" You peered up at him concerned, almost as if you were buying him time to change his mind.

"My personal effects, some bread and cheese, a bottle of ale, and a lantern." Sero nodded, kneeling down, letting his lips brush against yours. "Am I free to go, your grace?"

Reluctantly, you nodded, weeping at the butterflies that fluttered in your stomach when his lips pressed firmly to yours. "Be safe, my love, please write."

"I'll try." He offered, with a content smile. "If only to put her majesty at ease." Slowly, he began to peel himself away from you, completely ignoring your attempts to keep him close. Mounting his horse, he reached back out to you, caressing your flushed face, noticing how you still looked absolutely breathtaking even through your distraught expression. You pressed a hand to his, anchoring it against your cheek, how caring how many tears his pores collected. "My one and only love, thank you," he soothed with a tearful smile. "All is forgiven."

With that, he took his touch away, carrying your tears with him as he took the reigns and led his horse out of the stable. Now on the path, he looked back at you one final time. "Adue, my sweet, I love you. " He called, not waiting for you to return his sentiments. You watched, crumbling to the ground again as he rode off, disappearing into the treeline, never to be seen again.