I love the shit that the cast says about Cerrit out-of-game because all together it's completely insane.
Marisha described him as "very classy, very debonair in his own gruff way". Travis said he'd immediately eat a rabbit he saw on his morning walk as a snack. Sam felt that Cerrit was the party's second moral center after Zerxus. Aabria was convinced Cerrit would kill Laerryn, but her PvP plan was mostly "run away" and "cry" because he's too good at killing mages. Brennan and Travis highlighted that he is untouched by the corruptions that plague others of the age and is a thoroughly good person—but still failed to stop the end of days through inaction and inability to look in the right direction. Sam said Cerrit was perfect and flawless; Lou responded he was a bad dad (Travis agreed), but Sam and Aabria protested. Travis said he barely noticed his marriage was slowly falling apart before the campaign. Aabria hoped he lived in Niirdal-Poc after the fall of Avalir. Sam said that his small dog Rigatoni would chase him most out of the Ring of Brass. Travis pitched him as Jor-El, specifically the part where he gets his kid to safety before dying in the collapse of their home. The entire table is extremely proud they worked together to make sure he escaped and survived. Brennan and Marisha called him a final girl. Brennan said if he was a cheese, he'd be sharp cheddar.
i truly cannot think about caduceus telling fjord that someday someone will pray for a miracle and then fjord will show up and their prayer will be answered and then months later jester tries desperately to keep her god best friend from being pulled up to moon prison and fjord, knowing he isn’t strong enough to win physically against a desperate jester, just jumped after her and affirmed that wherever she went the nein cared to follow, but that letting herself be punished for artie’s actions wasn’t a good solution. and caduceus going to fjord after the conflict was resolved and smiling and reminding him that someone prayed for a miracle and there he was and that he’s proud to know him.
fjord who begins the campaign wearing the identity of the man who saved him after being betrayed by the closest thing to a (shitty) brother he had who figures out who he actually is through the ability of him to act as a protector though his oath to the wildmother and through his oath to protect jester while the whole time being supported by this brother he’s found. good grief
20. holding your face in their palm as they smile widely before kissing you, for the physical gestures prompt
20. holding your face in their palm as they smile widely before kissing you
The world may be ending, but if it is, the Nein's gonna get one last party in. Trent Ikithon is dead, or gone, or banished, or whatever, and Artie is working his magic to fix Caleb's hometown, and Jester is engaged. She can't stop grinning as the people of Blumenthal flow in and out of Caleb's magical tower, everyone leaving far more inebriated than they entered. No one really knows what the celebration is for—some guy they've never heard of summoned this terrifying monstrosity and they didn't die, and also there was a dragon, but it was okay?—so Jester tells anyone who asks that it's her engagement party, because, well, it is!
She actually hasn't had much of a chance to see her betrothed since he popped the question. She's been too busy sending her hamster-sized unicorns and illusory duplicates around the town, filling the place with explosions of color and more than enough mischief to make up for the horror of the fight that crashed through their streets so early in the morning. Besides, Beau and Yasha have been razzing Fjord since the big moment, leaving him blushing and stammering as they half-force whiskey down his throat.
Jester loves him like this, silly and happy, so different from the guy she met with someone else's accent and a debilitating fear of being known. Now he's a pirate, looking like something off of the cover of one of the smut novels Caleb sends her from time to time, and he's hers. Quite the catch for a girl who once could only dream of romance from the walls of her bedroom.
"What are you doing here?"
Jester turns, and there's Artie, looking harried and annoyed. She figures there's somewhere else he probably needs to be right now, what with the whole moon fiasco, but she's so glad he's here. "What? I'm just trying to help." She waves her hand, and one of her duplicates dances over to a group of kids with a large plate of food cooked up by some of Caleb's mystical cats.
"No, I mean, why aren't you drooling all over your fiancé?" He layers with the word with all manner of suggestion.
She scrunches her face. "I don't know! We just had this really big fight, and it was, like, really traumatic for Caleb, and also this town got crushed a lot, so...I don't know! It didn't seem like the moment."
"Jester, I'm not going to lie to you." He leans down, and Jester gets up onto her tiptoes to hear him whisper, "I don't know what the fuck is going on."
"No, me neither!"
"Like, things seem bad, right?"
"Really, really bad."
"And not to knock my own abilities, but I think I'm going to be of...limited use in whatever comes next. If, that is, anything comes next, and we're not all doomed to oblivion or whatever..." He flaps his hand generally in the direction of Ruidus. "...this means.
"So go!" He gently shoves her by the shoulders toward Fjord. "Go be silly and in love. I mean, I'll probably survive whatever this is, but who knows how much time you mortals have left! Go be with your slutty sea captain."
"He really is slutty," Jester whispers conspiratorially. "I didn't even ask him to wear his shirt like that, he just does it now."
"No complaints here."
"Of course not, look at him!" Jester rocks up on her toes again to kiss Artagan's cheek. "Thank you, Artie."
"Anything for my favorite."
Jester bounds across the main floor of the tower to Fjord, whose green skin is tinged red with alcohol. "Jester!" he booms, abandoning the glass Beau'd just shoved into his hand to swing his arms out wide. "There you are!"
"Here I am!" She stops right in front of him, and her stomach swoops low as his broad hands come to cup her face. "You seem like you're having fun."
"More fun now that you're here." Then, grinning ear to ear, his tusks gleaming in the lights of Caleb's arcane lights, he kisses her, and he tastes like whiskey and sugar and seawater, and despite the looming unknown coming for them all, Jester has never been less afraid.
Huevember is back with another Echoes of the Solstice painting! I had to take a week off to focus on work for my job but I’m glad to be back on the huevember grind 💪🏽 In this one I thought it was just going to be the fjorjester kiss but then I remembered Artagan made that wreath and decided to go a bit extra with it 😆🌿✨
The woman in question jumps, the disembodied yet familiar voice in her head startling her so badly she drops the wine glass she's holding.
THIS IS AN EMERGENCY. I THINK FJORD IS BEING MIND-CONTROLLED. WE NEED TO INVESTIGATE IMMEDIATELY. HOW FAST CAN YOU GET HERE?
There's silence, but Veth waits.
Tell Yeza hi!
There it is.
Veth has just finished her return message—I'll be there in fifteen. Assemble all your evidence; we're gonna crack the case!—when Yeza pops his head into the kitchen. "Are you okay? It sounds like something broke in here."
She looks down at the shattered wine glass. "Jester," she offers as an explanation, before quickly conjuring an unseen servant to clean up the mess. Once that's taken care of, she darts around the Brenatto house, packing her bag with whatever accoutrements might be needed for freeing Fjord of the alleged mind control he's under.
Yeza, patient, understanding Yeza, merely leans against the door frame and says, "Well, I guess I'll get Luc from school."
"You don't mind?"
"I mean, this seems like an emergency."
Veth pauses. "Well, this is Jester we're talking about, so there's a...sixty-two percent chance it's not."
"Better not take the risk." Yeza snags her by the waist as she tries to dart past and kisses her. "Go solve the mystery, detective."
Veth grins. "She says hi, by the way."
"Tell her I want you back in one piece."
"The only one who gets to split me in two is you." She slaps his ass, and then she's off and out the door toward Jester and Fjord's.
.
Jester has chewed all of her fingernails to the quick by the time Veth arrives. "Finally!" She doesn't wait for pleasantries, just drags her friend by the arm to the back of the tiny house that she and Fjord have claimed as their home when they're not on the high seas. There's a window overlooking the postage stamp of a back garden, where Fjord is trimming a hedge—or rather, he's opening and closing a pair of hedge clippers in the same spot, over and and over and over, even though there are no longer any branches to cut.
"See?" She gestures emphatically toward the window. "He's being weird!"
Veth frowns. "He's always weird, Jester. Remember that time he ate a fucking ball?"
"This is different. He's been…distracted all week. Erratic. Two days ago, he put all the clean towels in the icebox. And he keeps muttering under his breath." She takes a deep breath. "What if it's Uk'otoa?"
"Uk'otoa," Veth whispers obligatorily, before shrugging. "I doubt it, because we killed him. Listen, you've had a good run. But so much time on the sea is enough to drive anyone crazy, and he's long gone." Veth pats her arm in sympathy.
Jester frowns. Veth isn't taking her seriously. "I am telling you, I know him, something is—"
She's cut off by a strangled shout from outside, and they both whip their heads to stare outside. Jester's stomach sinks as she watches two figures in head-to-toe black and masked, one tall and broad and one shorter and slimmer, wrap their arms around Fjord from both sides. The smaller one claps a hand over his mouth as the larger one pins his arms together, and the two start to drag him away, not deterred by his thrashing.
"FJORD!" Jester spins around and bolts for the front door. She feels so foolish; Fjord told her that this place was a fire hazard, with only the one exit, and now it might mean she doesn't get the chance to tell him he was right.
"Holy shit!" Veth is on her heels, but Jester is taller, faster; she whips open the door and runs along the side of the house. She stumbles into the back garden, but it's empty, the clippers half-sticking out of the hedge.
"Oh no, FJORD!" Jester's heart is pounding in her ears. She whips her head around, but there's no sign of him or his attackers anywhere.
Behind her, Veth pants, "Where are they? We can take 'em!"
Jester can barely think. Someone took Fjord. And because he's been so cagey these past few days, she doesn't know who or why. She drops to her knees, the panic setting in.
"Hey, Jes, we'll find him." Veth squeezes her shoulder. "No mystery that you and I can't…hang on."
Jester watches her scurry over to where Fjord had been standing and crouch down to rifle in the dirt. "Look at this!"
A sharp spike of hope pierces Jester's chest. She scrambles over. "What is it?"
Veth's holding up a small, shiny piece of sea glass, foam green and about the size of Veth's fingernail. It glints in the sunlight. Jester frowns. "It's sea glass, Veth. We're by the ocean. The garden must be full of it."
"No look!” Veth turns it, and Jester can see now that the piece of glass is perfectly smooth, each of its edges even and carefully beveled. “This sea glass was cut by a jeweler.”
Jester frowns. She’s right, but she hardly sees how that’s relevant. “How does that help us find who kidnapped my boyfriend?”
“One of the campers at Wilde Out! has a parent who does this kind of work with sea glass. They’re right here in Nicodranas!”
Jester’s starting to pick up what Veth’s putting down. “Maybe one of the attackers dropped it! Maybe the jeweler knows who it belongs to!”
Veth grins from ear to ear. “Brenatto and Lavorre are on the case!”
“Yeah!” Jester is now also grinning, until she remembers that Fjord was violently kidnapped not two minutes ago. She schools her expression into something more somber. “Let’s go get my fucking boyfriend.”
.
The jeweler is a little hole-in-the-wall place on the first floor of an apartment block. Jester presses her face up against the glass of the door, right over the Heflin Fine Jewelry written in gilded script. The store is dark inside, which makes asking the proprietor for help difficult.
“Maybe they live upstairs?” Jester offers hopefully, stepping back from the door.
Veth takes the opportunity to whip her lockpicking kit out of her bag. “I’ve got this.” After about a minute of grunting and low cursing, the door to the jeweler’s swings wide open. Jester looks up and down the street, but there are no Zhelezo around, and no one seems to notice the tiefling and the halfing breaking into a shop in broad daylight.
They slip inside and close the door. “Okay, what are we supposed to do now?” Jester whispers. “There’s no one here!”
“Then why are you whispering?”
Oh. Right. In her normal voice, Jester says, “Maybe there are papers in the office? Some kind of purchase records?”
“Right.” Veth leads the way toward the door that they presume to be the office, and after picking that lock, they’re inside. There are rows and rows of filing cabinets, and Jester groans. “This is going to take forever.”
They each take a filing cabinet and start digging. Jester learns quickly that the easy solution she’d been hoping for, a picture of the piece of sea glass right next to the name of its purchaser, was a pipe dream. Apparently this jeweler does a lot of work with sea glass, and there’s no telling which of the hundreds of rings, bracelets, necklaces, or watches the piece they found could have come from. After about half an hour, Jester throws herself into the office chair with a frustrated groan. “This is useless! We need to try something else.”
Veth slams shut the drawer she’d been rifling through, and the movement causes a gust of wind to shuffle the papers on the desk. One such scrap drifts off the desk and onto Jester’s lap. She picks it up and reads out loud, “Fifty gold to glass pirates at wharf. Stone’s Throw won’t deliver under threats.” She gasps and leaps up out of the chair. “Stone’s Throw! That’s Fjord’s company!”
“Let me see!” Veth snatches the paper from Jester and reads it again. “So…Fjord worked with the jeweler?”
“Or the company did! Glass pirates…” Jester begins to pace. “Maybe this sea glass is valuable. Maybe Stone’s Throw has been shipping it for the jeweler, and maybe these pirates want a cut of the action. Maybe that’s why they took Fjord!”
Veth snaps her fingers. “We’re cracking the case!”
“We’re cracking the case!”
“To the wharf!”
“To the wharf!”
.
The Restless Wharf is restless indeed. There are dozens, hundreds of people, sailors and dock workers and entertainers and Zhelezo and customs agents, all intermingling in a dance that, frankly, smells really, really bad. Jester has a hard time imagining pirates getting away with much with this many eyes and ears around, but then, she knows well enough by now how sneaky pirates can be.
Veth seems to be on her same wavelength. “We could be looking for anyone. Everyone looks suspicious here.”
“You think that because they work on boats.”
“Never trust a sailor!”
Jester frowns. “Well, my sailor was taken, and someone here knows something about it.”
They start to skirt around the edges of the chaos, catching what scraps of conversation they can. It’s so loud, and the talk Jester hears is mostly of shipping dates and locations. It’s all becoming overwhelming, until Veth tugs hard on her sleeve. “Jessie! Look!”
Jester follows her pointing finger until she sees a pair of dock workers half-hidden beneath an awning. They’re shrouded in shadow, but Jester can just tell that they’re up to no good. Still, she has no idea if they know anything.
“They’re ne’er-do-wells,” Veth whispers dramatically. “I can feel it.”
She’s getting desperate, so Jester casts a furtive glance around to make sure she’s not being watched before going invisible. She scurries over to the dock workers, and she just manages to make out their low conversation—“damned green menace wouldn’t stop fighting, heard his tusks pack a nasty punch”—before the invisibility ends and she’s grabbing one of the dock workers, one with shaggy, dirty red hair, by the shirtfront and slamming him against the wall. “TELL ME WHAT YOU KNOW!”
“Holy shit, Jester!” Veth scurries over, snapping, “Mind your business!” to the gawkers around.
The other dock worker, with dark skin and pale eyes, barks, “Hey, crazy lady, what do you think you’re—”
“Shut it!” She slams the guy she’s holding against the wall again. “The green menace! Where is he?”
The redheaded dock worker’s eyes are wide. “Fucking hell, where did you come from?”
Jester hovers her face an inch away from his. He smells like fish and sweat and, weirdly, ink? “From your worst nightmare. Tell me where he is, now.”
The other one reaches for something behind his back, but Veth yanks a dagger from her bag and aims it straight for his balls. “Stay still or shore leave is gonna be a lot less fun going forward.”
“Fuck, they don’t pay me enough for this.” The redhead looks around briefly before muttering, “They took him to a cave along the eastern shore. Something about gold and glass, I don’t know, I was just keepin’ an eye out for the Zhelezo. Contract work, am I right?”
Jester releases him and steps back. “A cave along the eastern shore?”
He shrugs. “They use it to house people they want to smuggle out of Nicodranas. It’s still light out, so he should still be there.”
“See, was that hard?” She points a finger at one, then the other. “Don’t follow us!” Then she spins around and marches off to the east.
“Jester, wait!” Jester knows that’s she’s going too fast for Veth to keep up for long, but she’s so close to getting Fjord back she can taste it like salt in the air. “We should get back-up!”
“Back-up?” Jester frowns down at her. “Why? We know where he is, and they won’t be smuggling him until later.”
“Yeah, according to those two dumbasses. What if they’re wrong? What if it’s a trap?”
“A trap for me?” Jester thinks about it for a moment. “But this has nothing to do with me. Fjord didn’t even tell me there were pirates after him.”
“A trap for someone. Jester, it’s a cave. By the ocean. Anything can happen in there!”
They’re almost at the end of the docks now, the rocky beaches stretching out ahead. Jester comes to a stop, puts her hands on her hips. “If you want to go get help, go get help. I’m going to get Fjord.” And then she starts running.
As she goes, she doesn’t hear any footsteps behind her over the crashing of waves, so she assumes that Veth did in fact go get help. That’s fine. She’ll save Fjord on her own. She runs along the beach, slipping and tripping through the sand and rocks, until she catches it around the curve of the shoreline: the slim opening of a cave, maybe only a head or two taller than she is. She slows, trying to catch her breath, and peeks inside. It’s dark and narrow and very scary. She grips the symbol around her neck and whispers, “Traveler, guide me,” before stepping inside.
The cave is damp and cold. Soon, she’s out of the range of the sunlight from the cave entrance, so she digs around in her pocket until she finds a paintbrush she doesn’t remember putting in there. She casts daylight on it, illuminating the cave with warm, bright light. She blinks rapidly, her eyes slow to adjust to the light, but a muffled sound reaches her ears from deeper in the cave.
Fjord.
"I'm coming!" She stumbles her way forward, and finally, when she can see without squinting, a shape emerges on the cave floor: Fjord, hands and feet bound, a gag in his mouth, a bruise blooming spectacularly over one eye. "FJORD!"
Jester crashes to her knees beside him, paintbrush scattering aside, heart pounding as she yanks the gag from his mouth. "Thanks, Jessie," he pants. "I knew I could could on you."
And yes, her hands may be shaking as she works at the knot tying his hands and feet together, but she still preens, just a little. "I saw them take you! It was really scary, but it's okay! We'll get out of here." The rope falls to the rocky floor. "Come on!" She grabs Fjord's hand and tugs him up to his feet.
"Jessie, wait." Fjord tugs his hand from her grasp.
"Fjord, they could come back at any minute! We have to go!"
"They took something from me." He starts to root around in his pocket.
"What is it?"
"My last name. Can I have yours?"
Jester blinks at him in confusion, and before she can have a single coherent thought, Fjord is on his knees, a small, velvet box in his hand. He opens it, his bruised face blushing furiously, and it isn't until she sees the ring, a silver band worked around gorgeous, glinting shards of sea glass, that it hits her.
Her scream echoes, magnified by a thousand, and Fjord winces. "I'm gonna take that as a sign to continue." He clears his throat. "I've been a bastard and a sailor and a hero and a pirate and a god's soldier, but the most important thing I've ever been is someone who gets to love the most lovable person in the world. And if it's alright with you, I'd like to keep doing that...well, forever. Jester Lavorre, will you marry me?"
In all of her years of chaos and trickery, Jester has never been so taken aback by someone else's scheming. All of this, the kidnapping and searching and panicking and running—this was a proposal? Part of her wants to dash his head against the cave wall for letting her think that he was taken by pirates who wanted to kill him.
But...he's looking up at her, his big eyes shining and so very sweet, and the ring really is so beautiful, and how well he knows her to know that her favorite thing is a good mystery to solve. Oh, she's defenseless against him, the most charismatic captain on the high seas. "Okay," she squeaks out, wiping at her eyes, which are obviously wet from the ocean. "Yeah, that sounds good."
Fjord grins like he's just been set loose in the biggest candy shop on the continent. "Really?"
She nods vigorously, and then launches herself at him, throwing her arms around his neck. "I can't believe it!" she sobs. "I can't believe how mad I am at you, and I can't believe we're getting married!"
Fjord laughs. From the direction of the mouth of the cave, hoots and hollers and applause draw Jester's attention away from Fjord. All of a sudden, four globules of light dance along the path, and all of their friends are there, waving and cheering. "What..."
Fjord stands them both up and steers her toward them. "You don't think I did this alone, did you?"
"I got to punch him in the face!" Beau announces, clearly ecstatic.
Caduceus grips his staff. "And I healed him up a bit when she went way too far."
Yasha and Kingsley are wearing all-black clothes, and the latter dangles a black mask in the air. "Tip your local kidnappers."
Jester looks to Caleb and Essek, who, she now notices, are wearing the exact same clothing as the dock workers she'd interrogating not ten minutes ago. Her jaw drops. "Even you, Essek?"
He shrugs. "Subterfuge is my specialty."
Veth rubs her hands together conspiratorially. "I love it when a plan comes together. Congratulations, Fjord: this one's almost as good as Fluffernutter."
Fjord ducks his head in a bow. Jester squeezes his arm. "I can't believe you did all of this for me."
"An over-the-top woman deserves an over-the-top proposal. Which reminds me..." He takes the ring out of the box, which goes back into his pocket. "May I?"
She holds her hand out, and the ring slips perfectly onto her finger. She extends her arm so it catches the sunlight peaking into the cave. "It's beautiful," she breathes.
"Just like you." And Fjord kisses her, and Jester has never been happier in her entire life.
There are people in the comments of the Wired interview who are like "idk what critical role is but they all seem like fun maybe I'll look it up" which is the FUNNIEST possible way to accidentally fall into 2000 hours of content
Jester is a very confident person. She knows she's wonderful, because everywhere she goes, she brings smiles to people's faces. She is surrounded by the best people in the world, people who love her for exactly who she is. Her best friend is a god (kind of) and her boyfriend is super sweet and super handsome.
Except he's not her boyfriend anymore.
She sits on the kitchen counter, staring at her hand. It doesn't feel real. "Hey Fjord?"
He's standing by the stove, cooking the chicken for tonight's dinner, because Jester is no longer allowed to cook with heat after The Incident. "Yeah?"
"Did you mean it?"
He frowns, poking at the cubed meat with his spatula. "Did I mean what?"
In lieu of an answer, she holds up her hand so that her ring, a silver band inset with delicate sea glass, sparkles in the light. Fjord looks at her from the corner of his eye, then does a double-take when her meaning dawns on him. "What?"
"Did you mean it?" She chews on her lip. She's played her fair share of pranks over the years, and suddenly, she can't help but worry that this is the greatest trick yet.
"Jessie..." Fjord rests the spatula on the edge of the pan and comes over to stand between her legs. "Are you asking me if I meant it when I asked you to marry me?" She gives a noncommittal half-shrug. "Why in the world are you asking me that? Do you think I just...tripped and landed on one knee with a ring in my hand?"
"Well I don't know!" She gives him a little shove back so she can slide down off the counter and begin pacing. "Maybe you were swept up in the moment! I am very charismatic, you know."
"I do know, which is why I want to marry you." He snags her by the waist to stop her pacing, hooks his chin over her shoulder. "Jester Lavorre." He picks her hand up and extends it out so they're both looking at her ring. "I did not save up all my money and vet this ring with every single one of our friends for you to think I was joking when I told you I wanted to spend the rest of my life with you."
She sighs, curls herself back into him. He's so strong and broad, Jester feels like he could get lost in him forever. "You don't think I'm too much?"
In a move that nearly takes her breath away, he spins her around and crushes their lips together. She loves the feeling of his tusks, now fully grown in and so, so sexy. Just when she thinks her lungs are going to give out, he breaks the kiss, smiles at her devilishly, and says, "You are entirely too much. But as a kid who grew up with nothing, I'm keeping all of you to myself."
Oh, she loves him. She throws her arms around his neck, and he catches her effortlessly. "Yeah, I'm pretty great."
He kisses her cheek. "Yeah you are. And I mean it."
