Archive of Our Own ^beta

Owen’s axe is already stained with golden blood, a few splatters even landing on the jester’s face. His expression doesn’t change though, as if he didn’t even notice, it remains stoic, but he can see the dark glistering in his eyes. There must be a feeling of euphoria going through the jesters body when he raises his axe for the final hit.

“One more hit!”, he says with a smile on his face despite the pain.

And then the axe breaks through the skin on his neck and everything goes dark.

Decapitated once again.

Not his favorite way to die for sure but at least it’s quite fast if the person hits right.

He briefly wonders if the scar on his neck will get bigger. Until now it had only been two faint golden lines that you could really only see if he tilted his neck upwards in the light.

Now as an immortal totem, death and the state afterwards definitely wasn’t something unknown to him. No he was quite familiar with what dying felt like. Though throughout his different lives, in different places, the deaths could be different.

Most of the time, death felt like stubbing your toe. It hurt for sure, but he’d wake up a second later and laugh about how stupid he was for not landing a water bucket clutch. In the blink of an eye, he was alive again. His totem powers quickly repair his body in a matter of milliseconds.

On quesadilla island, death was a bit different since you couldn’t die as quickly as in different lands he had been to. Someone could still revive and save you, almost as if the universe was giving you a second chance. That didn’t mean that he died less in that world.

Dying was just as easy and meaningless to him as before, at least until the elections. He became a bit more careful, not too much though. After all he let himself be killed for the amusement of his friends. He woke up just as fast as always, laughing in disbelief about what had just happened but when he touched his neck where his head was chopped off, he could feel two faint bumps circling around it. One reminding him of his own sacrifice years ago. The other one reminding him of what had just happened.

Of course, Foolish wasn’t new to scars, he used to be a warrior and even after retirement he was not one to protect his body necessarily. He fell, cut himself on accident, get bruises everywhere. And sometimes he would also get scars. But this felt different, he just couldn't pinpoint why.

In purgatory, the meaning of death changed once more. While he died even more often and even quicker than before, for the first time he felt his body reaching it’s limits. His skin was breaking, deep dark cracks going through his body. The color of his eyes was fading, and it seemed like moss was growing in some places. The island was breaking him and for the first time he wasn’t so sure how long he would be able to continue living. He had never felt as close to permanent death as when running away from the meteors and jumping into the water.

And then again, he survived. He got better, his body healing itself back together. Not only by fleeing that damned island but also by finding the light of his life again, Leo. He had a few faint scars from the cracks on his back and abdomen. They looked like golden lightning bolts ripping through his skin.

On the lands of the realm, death carried more of an importance than in any other lands he had been in. At least to everyone else, he was a bit more careful, he had a kingdom to run after all he couldn’t just be dead. But he wasn’t scared of dying. And to him it still felt the same. He was dying and waking up, nothing out of the ordinary.

At least until he reached the reset point.

The stalagmite pierced through his skull and everything went dark. He remembered thinking about how this was a new way of dying to him and then being confused about why he wasn’t back awake already.

Now he aware that the third death in this world meant resetting. So far, he only knew that it took a bit longer for the person to come back again. They would lose all the levels they had worked so hard for but that was pretty much it. And yet he thought that you would just wake up immediately again like nothing happened. Like time hadn’t passed.

Against his expectations, there was just darkness. He couldn’t move and move freely in any direction at the same time. He couldn’t turn his head and yet still see that there was nothing around him but darkness. It felt a bit like he was dreaming, just that he was in complete darkness and could think quite clearly to know what happened. He was just existing and not existing at the same time.

He had heard of a so called “limbo” before in a previous world. He didn’t know if this was it though. Because he knew that he would come back, right?

He had used that time to really think about everything that had been going on. Due to being king with an enemy like Badboyhalo, he barely had time to be alone to think. Everything was happening so quickly and so loudly that he sometimes couldn’t even hear his own thoughts. He couldn’t remember a lot of details of his thought process while being in that state.

At first, he thought about how his kingdom would react to his death and how the three witnesses of his death would deliver the message. He quickly came to the conclusion, that knowing Bad, it could only go horribly wrong.

His thoughts then took him to the members of his kingdom and then to his past kingdoms that he ruled. And then he thought about his past lives which ended up reminding him of his children and his past lover.

At some point he woke up in his bed, not knowing how much time had passed, more or less ready to face what had happened in his absence and with a heavy heart as the thoughts of his family still lingered.

But that was the last time he had reset. This time felt a bit different.

Now they knew that a reset could result in memory loss or sometimes even a whole different person showing up. And with the infections and corruptions spreading through peoples bodies, death become even more meaningful to the people of the realm.

Not him though. He had gladly given away one of his lives to Ros because not everyone was an immortal totem that was unaffected by dying and resetting. Thinking back, he was glad that it helped at least a little bit but in the end Ros had still died. And came back all weird again.

He wasn’t too concerned about falling victim to the same fate though. He had been fine the first time he reset, so he would be fine the second time as well, right?

That was why he willingly ran into the green factions trap and let Owen kill him without putting up a fight. He had known that this moment would come and to be honest, he kind of liked the thrill of the gamble that he took with playing their game.

There was that slight chance that he wouldn’t come back the same. That he would be a completely different person like Pili 1 and Pili 2 or that he would forget some people, like Ros. They definitely needed to figure out the reasoning for that and also why Ros couldn’t remember Bad out of all people.

He cringed at the thought of not remembering all the way Bad had annoyed or just straight up terrorized him over the past centuries. Oh, how that man wished that he would just forget everything that he had done so that he could pretend to be an innocent angel. At the same time, there was a possibility that he wouldn’t actually enjoy that.

Because in the end, Badboyhalo strived for his attention, be that through bickering with him or by retaliating in some way. Even just an eye roll from him would make that demon feel euphoric. It had always been that way and Bad was stupid if he didn’t know that himself. So maybe not giving him that attention and pretending like he didn’t know who he was, would be kind of funny to see. He might have to try that.

He definitely couldn’t have that kind of memory loss that Ros has because he didn’t know what Zam would do if he didn’t remember her as well.

Oh…

Zam…

Foolish slowly realized how his son must be feeling right now after seeing his death message. He felt his heart sink, even if he didn’t have one in this weird state that he was in right now.

Yeah, that was different to his last reset. He has a son now, yet again.

Zam was not doing well. With Ros not remembering him and feeling like he had no purpose after reaching Nirvana.

Oh right, the boat ride. They never finished that, did they? Damnit Badboyhalo.

He made a mental note for that to be the first thing he would do after getting back.

He had a feeling that there was more to it, going on with his son. And hopefully his death wasn’t too harsh on his son’s mind. He would come back the same anyways so really there was no reason to grieve him the same way that they did for Ros. The first time had been just fine, so why wouldn’t he be fine now. He trusts his kingdom members to support his son right now.

He also forgot to talk with the kingdom about what would happen after his death, if Zam would take over the kings role in his absence. Though he couldn’t imagine that she would want that.

Now that he was thinking about it, here in the endless darkness, he wonders if his other children would have gotten along with Zam.

He could already imagine how Leo would have gotten jealous for no reason again as if he would suddenly love her less just because he had another son. He could also imagine Roier playing along and being petty about it. The two were menaces when they got along.

Leo would probably also get jealous because out of all of his adopted children, Zam looked the most like him. Yellow, goldish skin, long blonde hair, green eyes. They had a lot of similarities, even personality wise, sometimes it was a bit scary

While Leo’s personality was more similar to his, she still looked a lot like Vegetta, which he obviously loved. And well she was a dragon. Roier didn’t look like him at all but while he would disagree, Foolish always thought that he had that same craziness in him too.

But Roier and Zam would have been around the same age so maybe he would’ve understood. And in the end, Leo would probably adore her just as much, especially if she knew that she was also a princess like her and also liked purple a lot.

He wonders if Roier and Leo would have taught Zam Spanish and sign language so that they could communicate better. He wondered how Vegetta would have reacted if he had told him that they had another son.

And from his son’s perspective, Zam would’ve adored Leo but to be fair, who didn’t? With Roier, he would have probably felt a bit too shy at first because Roier could be a bit, well, a bit much sometimes. Especially when he was with his little sister or his husband.

But generally, Roier was probably the friendliest out of all of his family, aside from his two grandkids. Pepito and Richarlyson would have definitely immediately liked him. He could see Richarlyson proudly declaring that he had scored another family member, that spoiled brat. And for Pepito it would depend on who he would follow, Leo or Richarlyson. But if he was alone, he would be shy but very polite.

If he could, he would laugh a little as he thought about how Zam would react to Vegetta and Cellbit, both with sharp eyes that had scared off many people in wanting to talk to them despite being friendly and welcoming people. He couldn’t imagine her not being at least a little bit scared of them.

Knowing his boyfriend, he would probably be impressed with Zam’s power and courage in standing up against Bad. And if he was honest, if Vegetta knew that Zam wanted to protect him, she would be accepted into the family immediately. He was easy like that sometimes.

For Cellbit it depends if he saw any reason to not trust Zam but since there wasn’t any, it would most likely be fine. Though it could depend on his mood. His son in law could be a bit moody sometimes, especially when his husband or son was missing, which was fair. Cellbit in purgatory would have eaten Zam, quite literally. But he didn’t even know how he himself would’ve reacted to Zam while he was in purgatory.

Not that any of this would ever happen, Foolish concluded his day dreaming about “what could have been” if certain events didn’t happen. But he knew better than many others, that you just have to accept things as they are. Just keep on going.

Zam is never going to meet any of his family. They were gone.

He needed to focus on what he had now, which was a depressed son that was possibly panicking about his death, thinking he wouldn’t come back or just forget her.

Maybe he needed to take more care of him, even if he was an adult. He was still very young. He seemed like he could need that right now.

Yeah, he definitely needed to go on that boat ride with her as soon as he got back.

When he noticed that he was slowly waking up again, he could have sworn he felt a small pair of hands on his face, where Leo used to put her hands when she was trying to wake him up.

“Papa”, he was so sure he could faintly hear Roier’s broken voice like when he came to him in the middle of the night when Bobby died.

And then he opened his eyes, finding himself not in the white dragon tower but in his bedroom inside the castle that Ros built. He sat up with a sigh, brushing his hair out of his face and trying to orientate himself.

A second later the door burst open, and someone stumbled inside his room.

“Dad!”, the person caught themselves from falling and stared at him like a deer in highlights, fear in their eyes that were filled with tears threatening to spill. Long blonde hair messily put together in a bun, heavy breathing that filled the silence and a fragile stance as if they were about to break down.

He smiled softly.

“Son”