Two centuries before the tower’s re-awakening, there lived a jester named Marion. Known across England for her wit and charm, her voice could lift even the heaviest heart. Those who saw her perform said she carried sunlight in her smile. Yet behind the sharp warmth of bells and painted skin, her heart belonged to one woman alone: a painter whose hands could turn sorrow into colour.
They were inseparable, wandering from town to town, once found out, unwelcome yet undeterred. Their love was quiet and yet uncompromisingly complete; until a prince desired what he could not have. The Jester’s lover was taken under the guise of royal favor and returned hollow, her laughter gone, her art - abandoned. That night, Marion held her and felt part of her die alongside her.
Determined to restore it, Marion performed tirelessly. Every single night, she gifted a spot in front of her stage to her lover, hoping to bring joy back.
Each empty seat deepened her dread…yet she performed on, her acrobatics, tricks, and costumes perfected for the laughter of one who would not come.
At home, she cooked, joked, and held her lover, but the silence remained. Empty canvases replaced vibrant art. Her lover had whispered only once: ‘Art embodies the soul, but he took that from me too, my love.’ Marion could do nothing but embrace her partner beneath moonless ceilings.
Finally, one night, she had finally coaxed her muse to attend a play. And as though fate had spat on them, so did Royalty. The prince who had harmed her was present, flanked by charlatans and sycophants. Marion performed, glimpsed her lover in the front row, hope rising. It fell faster to see it replaced by dread. During the interlude, her lover vanished into the crowd. Marion cared not for appearances as she ran into the street.
A watchful street urchin revealed the truth: she had been taken to the castle in a carriage, guarded and unseen amongst busy commoners.
Desperate, Marion abandoned her show. She raced to the stables, spent two whole month’s wages on the fastest horse, and rode, bells clanging, following the scent of the carriage to the castle. She had begged and swore herself to the king. Willing to give anything to see her lover's safety under the guise of a loyal servant. She accepted, sacrificing home, art and comfort for the chance to be near the woman she loved.
Marion performed for the king's courtiers and guests, his family and his vassals, brushed off drunken flirtations from unsightly and unwanted suitors, hiding her fire behind her mask. Every night her eyes darted through them all to the rafters and through their facades to see any sign at all that a semblance of hope remained. She created new acts weekly, creating her own outfits with all the resources given to her at her new position; incorporating feathers, leather, and bones into outfits to satisfy the king within performances
Weeks later, she glimpsed her lover in the courtyard, draped in silk and silver, the prince’s arm around her.
Marion ran towards the scene, the courtyard was empty when she got there - save for mocking magpies. Her grief deepened, they cackled like the courtiers did.
Yet, that night, The Jester performed, mask tight, concealing her all-consuming pain.
Over months, she began hearing laughter in her dreams: hollow, distant echoes of her lost lover. She swore she felt her presence beside her, her warmth, but mornings brought only dead sheets. Her ultimate performance mirrored her life: a woman loving a prince she could never claim. Spilled props, clumsy jokes, and mockery of herself earned laughter from the courtiers. She finally saw her lover, adorned in purple and black, recognition in her eyes, bruises hidden by makeup, but Marion knew her lovers skin so well. She knew. The prince held her hand, and Marion’s hope turned to rage that she concealed.
It was then that she turned to the royal library. Seeking through dark books that only those within the castle could access. Under the guise of ‘her duty’ she was allowed regular access. On lonely nights, she prepared herself with alchemical knowledge, seeking answers hidden by magic that would not fail her the way she had failed. If forbidden magic that she had only heard of could save her; then her very soul was worth the price. She just had to learn.
The last play was not her last performance, but merely a prelude to the seeds she would show: The Hanging of the Fool, cast prisoners as the condemned. Marion begged to alter the play. The prince himself interrupted and denied her because it was apparent the idea was all his in the end.
She obeyed, her last act of submission to be close enough to her love. Within eyesights yet she was not in the masses of nobles, courtiers and royal blood as she had been last time. The prisoners stood at makeshift gallows, draped in rags smeared in mood and soot, as were their skin, and as the play ended with Marion pulling the lever. Six bodies fell; the crowd roared. She held her position and bowed as she always did. After everyone had left. She looked up to the rafters and saw him. Just The Prince, The Jester and the Six Corpses that hung behind her. When all had gone, she looked up. The prince stood in the balcony’s shadows. “I have no need for broken dogs,” he said coldly. “Dispose of the bodies.” He tossed down a handkerchief; her handkerchief - and vanished into shadows.
Then she smelled it - A mixture of flowers, her perfume, that intimate, specific scent that only those who love someone can recognize.
Marion’s heart seized.
Among the prisoners, as she removed the sacks off their heads one by one…she saw her. Her lover’s face was pale and still. Marion cradled her, grief a tsunami, dreams shattered. By her own hands she had snuffed out her only home.
She buried her lover by a river where they had first met, and cried until the sun rose, then returned, relentlessly. She raided the royal archives once more, fanatically Marion discovered forbidden darker and more obscure alchemical texts, and spent high after night brewing an Elixir. A laughter trapped within a bottle, unending, fueled by grief, obsession, and a fragment of her own soul. She would pay any price to fuel her vengeance with no regard for the consequences.
On her final performance, she enacted her own story. The jester who lost everything, who broke law, art, and even mastered unimaginable horror for love. The laughter she unleashed was alchemical in nature - her malice? Unstoppable. Nobles laughed until their organs ruptured, fire spread from a toppled candle and muscles betrayed everyone as the fire consumed them.
Even the crows and magpies could be heard cackling outside.
Marion did not flee; either she could not or she sought not, she instead bowed as the hall burned, she bowed still as her bells chimed faintly through the inferno. Her last thought was of her lover by the river, smiling in sunlight, waiting for her to be reunited.
Lady Fate, however heartless, had other plans. Her soul was cast into Hell, her vengeance binding her there. The prince awaited her, revealed now as a demon. He sought to torment her, mock her failure. She had broken sacred rules.
Then he laughed.
And laughed again.
And could not stop.
The alchemical laughter bound his soul still- even here, and eternal cursed amusement inflicted by her newest talent. In that realm, Marion’s new life began. Never seeing her lover again, but forever able to punish those who took her, it was The Jester’s turn had come; mocking their despair, and turning their suffering into her art. And though she laughs, her eyes never smile.
Two Hundreds of years later, when the veil thins and her bells are heard once more, all must take heed of her terror. If you hear her laughter:
Hide.