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rethomiata · 2 months

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A Special Kind of Weird; chapter one (cross posted on AO3)

Jester Lavorre is a Traveler fan.

Okay, maybe a lot of folks are fans of The Traveler, but none are as enthusiastic about them as Jessie. She’s read his books since she was old enough to vaguely understand the concept of romance — back when her mother would read her children’s stories, and the little tiefling would steal her books off her bookshelf in the dead of night.

She’s just… a big fan. Yeah. Big fan.

So why is The Traveler making college so fucking difficult?

It’s the first week of September; college is on the horizon, with students just getting into their dorms, meeting their roommates, the likes. It’s a time that, as a child, Jester looked forward to — and now, as she sets a box on one of the three beds in her cramped dorm, butterflies dance around in her stomach. Her roommates have barely arrived too, which she’s thankful for — it gives her a last few minutes with her mom, the Ruby of Nicodranas — famous singer and performer, who Jester wishes she could be like.

She tears into the box as soon as Marion leaves for another… in it are posters of The Traveler’s main character, Garmelie, a satyr who goes on… well, to Jester they’re romantic escapades… to others, they’re sexual flings that would normally result in a bunch of STDs. The poster she first gets out is signed by The Traveler himself — one she was lucky to get in a giveaway online, even though she’s never met the man. The second one has Garmelie and a unicorn — unicorns are Jester’s favorite animal — and the third and forth share The Traveler’s cloaked portrait, with his right index finger up to his lips, as though he’s telling the photographer a deep, dark secret that’s not for anyone’s ears but theirs.

Oh, how romantic…

“Sapphire, did you pack your toothbrush?” Jester instinctively shoves the forth poster back into the box as the Ruby comes back, holding a stack of boxes labeled ‘Jessie’s clothes’ and ‘fun thingies’. She sets them down beside her daughter’s bed before going to give her a tight hug. “I can’t believe it… my baby is a college student. It’ll be so lonely without you, little one.”

“Aww, Mama! I’ll email you like, every single day,” the blue tiefling says through the squished hug. She squeezes her mother back, only to feel sad when Marion backs up after a few solid minutes of hugging. She sits down on the bed, staring up at Jester, who’s… trying hard to be brave. For her mama. For school.

For The Traveler.

“Do you know when your roommates are coming?” Marion takes a look around the small dorm; there’s a small desk to the left, and a bathroom that the three girls will have to share — the three beds are bare, just boxes atop them, no bedsheets or pillows to make it look homey. It almost makes the blue girl want to dig out her paints (that she brought, of course) and paint everything a nice pink or blue… maybe yellow? “I’m sure they’ll be… more friendly than the kids at school.”

More friendly could mean anything for any kid. For Jester, it means ‘kids who don’t pick on me for writing nasty fanfiction instead of going to beer pong parties’.

Yeah… her old friends are a relic of the past.

The girl takes one of her posters and heads to the corkboard above her bed, where she starts to pin it up with pink starry push-pins. “Ah! Oh my, doesn’t he look just so cute ?” I’ll avoid Mama’s statement if I can, she thinks. “Mama, do you think you can convince Bluud to invite The Traveler to the Chateau during the winter break?”

Her mother doesn’t suppress her giggle. “I’ll ask him, little Joy.”

Just as the pair are about to banter on, the dorm door bursts open with a ca-thud . Two girls struggle to go in, each saying “after you”; one looks like a sad poet, and the other looks like she could bench press Jester like she were a sack of flour.

The ‘poet’ is the first to enter. A white haired girl, she’s wearing an Orphanmaker shirt and ripped leggings; she has only a small bag with her, and a pillow under her arm. The other girl, who Jester feels both intimidated by and also… very interested in, has dark brown hair, brown skin, and striking blue eyes; she’s in gym clothes and has three duffel bags in her arms. A little boy no older than three is running after her, yelling, “Beau! Beau! Beau, you’re gonna miss me?”

“Yeah, you shithead, I’ll miss you.” The girl, Beau, says to the toddler as she throws her bags on the bed closest to the bathroom. The toddler simply giggles. “Don’t tell Mom that I swore and I’ll get you a… fuck, what are kids into? — a toy or something, when I get home. Yeah?”

“Okay!” The boy screeches and runs back out of the room, most likely to whichever adult was helping Beau take things in. She swings herself onto the foot of the bed, narrowly missing the bed frame’s wrath.

Beau looks at Jester with peak curiosity. “You one of the new roomies?”

“Yeah…” Jester’s voice goes quiet; she looks over at her mother, who’s helping unpack her clothing and putting it in the trunk at the end of the bed. She takes in a forced breath before turning back to Beau with a plastered-on smile. “I’m Jester! You’re—”

“Beau. Just… just Beau,” the other girl says with a smirk on her face. She looks like she could pick Jester apart just by words alone, and yet— “Oh, you a… a raunchy book fan?” She points to the poster. “Not gonna lie, I’ve only seen the movies, but they’re better than Fifty Shades, really.”

Thank gods… Jester’s forced smile turns more genuine at the thought of someone knowing her passion — and oh, how this series is a passion! She takes a seat at the desk nearby, looking at the ‘poet’. “And you are…”

“Oh…” the girl with the white hair is hanging stringed lights from her cork board and bed frame as she pauses to speak. She’s a good six feet tall, if possible. Jester has to really look up to meet her eyes — colorful ones, too. “Yasha… you’re pretty uh, colorful?”

“Thank you, Yasha!” The tiefling looks down at her own clothes (a pink skirt, pastel, of course, and rainbow Converse — a custom made one she bought recently with money from the café she part-timed at) with a wide, toothy grin. “You look kinda… are you into poetry?”

Yasha stops hanging the lights, holding the strings in her hands for a solid minute… before nodding. “I like… poems. My sibling and I write together, though he prefers, ah, songwriting… he’s also a tiefling, if that means much to you..?”

Tiefling? Another one? “Is he here, too?” Jester inquires, with an ounce of hope in her voice.

Yasha nods, not looking away from the stringed lights. “Yeah… his name’s Molly… er, Molly mauk , but everyone calls him Molly, really. He’s weird, but he’s… you know, a good kind of weird. Like—”

“Like me!” Jester says enthusiastically. The white haired girl chuckles as the blue girl gets up and spins in the tight quarters. Marion beams.

“Sapphire, I better get going.” The mother stands from her daughter’s bed; she’s tall, too, but nowhere near as tall as Yasha. She takes Jester into a tight hug, kissing her forehead, before leaving the room, trying (and failing) not to look sad.

Jester isn’t used to being away from her.

“Man, did she look like she was gonna cry or what?” Beau blows a bubble of pink gum and pops it. “Jess, you’ll be fine. There’s like, no need to cry.”

Am I crying? The tiefling touches her cheeks; her fingers come back damp, and she’s quick to wipe her tears off on her sweater. With a sniffle, then an eye rub, she heads back to her side of the room, grabs another poster, and starts to hang it up…

xxx

“Ja, I-I know, I know, Essek —” click .

Caleb Widogast sucks at relationships. Period. He was in a relationship of three, maybe four years that blew to smithereens by the time he graduated high school… then there was his summer boyfriend Essek, who didn’t seem too awfully thrilled about a long distance relationship with the human boy.

The human throws his phone down on his barely-made bed as his roommates snicker. “Shut up,” Caleb mutters; Mollymauk chucks a pillow at his head, just narrowly missing him. “Molly!”

“Look, I’m sorry Mister ‘I bring three fucking toothbrushes with me to a sleepover’ is mad, but you’re too damn adorable for him.” Molly is a short genderfluid tiefling with spiky black hair that falls to his shoulders, and has a habit of wearing funky outfits to ‘find myself a partner’ (his words, not Caleb’s). His other roommates are a half orc boat lover named Fjord, and a giant firbolg known simply as Caduceus, who’s not really studying anything, but he runs the library at school for tuition. “You shouldn’t waste your time with him! Find yourself a new man — or woman, whatever your little Zemnian heart desires.”

“Please… stop.” Caleb feels his face grow red just in time for Molly to ‘ooooh’ about it; thankfully Fjord elbows the purple circus man in the neck, making him shut up. “I didn’t… think he’d break up over the phone.”

“As opposed to in person?” Caduceus isn’t very versed in romance; he’s more of a ‘watch and learn’ type, whether that be from his years as a ‘homeschooled’ kid or just… general ‘Deuces vibes. “At least it wasn’t in front of your family.”

Ah… family.

How did he tell them about his fucked up family? Maybe he would ignore it; maybe he’d pray that his ‘dad’ wouldn’t show up for band practice or fun days. Maybe…

“Well, it’s over, which is good, ain’t it?” Fjord asks. The half orc is quite short for, well, one of his kind, but it doesn’t stop him from trying to sound big. In all fairness, no man is as tall as Caduceus, so Fjord has little to fear.

The human groans into the palm of his hand. “It’s… I actually liked Essek, though,” he mumbles; prays nobody picks up on what he said. “He was… fascinating. Breathtaking, even. It’s… I don’t know—”

“Can’t you just, like, bone someone and call it a night?” Molly flops onto Caleb’s bed, sprawling his body out like a cat.

Caleb’s cheeks burn red. “I— listen, circus man , it’s frankly none of your business, ja ? Yeah.” He tosses a small box on his bed before deciding, albeit last minute, to open it.

Inside, amongst pictures of Essek, is his favorite book by his favourite author — a known Traveler, who a girl in another hall idolizes…

Here’s hoping Caleb isn’t the only Traveler fan in freshman year…

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