Of Jesters and Kings

Part 6- The Alchemist's Tale

The Jester placed his hand on the door knob. It was cold and feel of it was coarse, being spotted with dots of rust. He opened the door slowly and walked through the thresh hold. The air smelled of sulfur and overall the interior was extraordinarily messy. There were shelves upon shelves of jars. Each contained a small yellow label describing the contents within. Fairy dust, Griffin Beak, Pixie wings...

The Alchemist seemed to be tinkering with a small orb like object, gears and sprockets prodded out from it's sides. He stopped what he was doing and set down the item when the Prince walked in.

"Hello?" the Horse Prince said after he glanced around. "Lukas?"

"Yea?" The Alchemist said as he turned around.

Suddenly, they froze when they saw each other.

Lukas seemed surprised for a second, he jumped alittle when he saw the Jester.

"Holy shit man...." The Jester stood there, his eyes wide. "It's YOU! W-Where have you been?!"

"George?! ...Well I'll be..." he broke out into a wide toothy grin.

"Yo your gotta tell me what the hell is going on... " George's voice rose alittle, the playfulness returned to his voice, he took a step toward the other boy. "And what is this place? Why are you here?" the prince said with a smirk as he pointed his finger at the chemist.

Lukas's smile slowly faded. A sad look now loomed across his face. "God...dude... there's so much to explain.." He let out a deep sigh, and looked George straight in the eye. The Jester could feel some thing was wrong; the air reeked of it.

"You shouldn't be hear..." Lukas said quietly.

***

Charlie dodged a blow from the right, and recovered quickly enough to parry another strike. The monkey, a tufted Capuchin to be exact, on his shoulder snarled and scampered down his arm into the cook's leather satchel. Julie advanced slowly, she rapped her wooden sword rapping against the floor.

Charlie twirled his fork shaped staff and staved off another swing; the force of the impact made Julie stumble back alittle. The Princess swiftly resumed her stance and was about to close in on the Cook, when Charlie's monkey appeared out of the his bag and threw a walnut at her.

The nut bounced off Julie's forehead and clattered to the floor.

"Sonuvabitch... that actually hurt." She mumbled and rubbed her forehead.

"Aha..aha sorry.." Charlie gave her a sheepish grin. "I guess you could say my monkey's nuts." He twirled a ponter finger around his temple area.

"...."

"Ahhh? Geddit? Cause he threw a nut at you..?" Charlie said enthusiastically and raised an eye brow.

"Yeah I get it...." Julie answered. "It's just not funny..."

"Oh, well it walnut happen again.." Charlie replied, purposely placing emphasis on his pronunciation of walnut.

"No."

"Okay.."

Charlie sighed. Man no one appreciates these puns. As the two royals resumed their fighting stance to spar again, a knock was heard on the door.

"OY?" Charlie called out, his Scottish accent flared up again.

"OY!" Called back from behind the wooden door. "You decent?"

The Cook let out a laugh. It was just the Queen.

"Yeah I'm good. How about you?" he looked over at Julie. She made a face.