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"Mr Jester! Mr Jester!" A small hand was pushing against Jevil's side, rousing him from another slumber that had been all too welcoming since yesterday afternoon. "What's this thing? You didn't have it when I was here earlier."
The small jack of spades was now tugging at something not a part of the imp's body, but continually held close to them, even when it was too cold to keep wrapped around their neck. The green fibers were course and highly synthetic, as if someone had turned a computer's insides into clothing. It was as lit up as one might find such technology, yet lacking any signs of life that would allow it to operate.
"It is my prize, my prize for losing the game. A minor event while the end stays the same." Jevil answered sleepily, although little of their fatigue could be blamed on the prior slumber. "You cannot have it, if that was your desire. Go play The Lord of Screen's games before his fate transpires."
"It can't be a very good scarf if it's always cold. Is that why you got it for losing?" Lancer continued to inquire, their curiosity towards the subject apparently surpassing the appeal of any adventures outside the tiny pocket space. Only a day ago, the clown would have welcomed this eager conversation as well as a view of the lightners challenging fate, right now he only wanted to sleep. Regardless, he tried to summon that merry visage, the court jester that the boy wanted to talk to.
"Indeed, indeed! Although as a fool, I believed I'd won! A ride around tow- a ride with the heroes to marvel at the fun."
Jevil clutched the emerald rag tighter, maintaining an unusually draining smile through firmly bared teeth. How desperately he wished the tiny prince would leave, he was a poor excuse for an entertainer right now; the rhymes were tense and the merriment an amateurs performance.
"Oh." Lancer replied, seeming to thankfully have no further questions about the object. Then suddenly he was struck a grand idea, tugging at the scarf once more, he continued "Peach boy knows special fire magic, maybe we can warm that thing up if we ask him to set it on-"
Jevil had cut the suggestion short by way of bringing their knife spinning down no more than a few centimeters shy of their extended arm, slicing through the imp's sleeve and pants leg as the blade lodged into the thick velvety floor.
It seemed Lancer was suddenly reminded of the reason this wild-card was locked away to begin with and at last fled the pocket space, leaving Jevil to his solitude. Perhaps once the lightners found out they would remove him from their inventory or perhaps not given how the Cyber World was sealed. Regardless, the jester could now return to his slumber...
However, upon lying down, once more curled up with the frost-bitten accessory pressed into his face, the jester found closing his eyes did little to summon sleep. Nor did it stop the stinging moisture quickly building in defiance of the smile he still maintained as a last desperate illusion of jovial spirit. Ultimately, Jevil was forced to open his eyes once more as his bared teeth lost all trace of anything that could be described as a grin and the flow of tears freely poured out. Despite their burning heat, this also failed to increase the scarf's temperature, simply making its limp form damper and darker.
From sight alone, one would not believe it was once that eccentric salesman, but the familiar scent that was embedded within made it unmistakable. And now the clown breathed it in with each aching gasp that shook through them and which they returned with pathetic squeaking wheezes. Jevil tried to tell himself it didn't matter, that it all was a game where he was free, for he could always find the fun to be had, but the smell he inhaled pulled him from escaping into the safety of these mantras. Yet, he could not fathom the prospect of separating it from himself for even a second or by any fraction of a distance.
What unspeakable pain. It tore through Jevil with the ferocity only possible as a result of years spent in denial of how they missed the marketeer and a reunion so close, then viciously ripped away. A callous cruelty to be expected from lightners playing with their toys, why should they care that they broke the puppet directly in front of the jack-in-a-box? Jevil understood this all long before the prophecy claimed their future, having seen many cards and game pieces lost or destroyed in the past. They had accepted this, just as they had accepted their fate, then why could they not accept him being gone?
Maybe if he truly did sleep for a hundred, or even a thousand years, Jevil might awake to find his body heat had finally thawed the scarf. The world ended and reborn time and again, perhaps, landing them in one where his mail-man returned. They could play games just as they used to, with the stubborn man ultimately refusing to believe he'd lost despite all his cunning little cheats. He would call Jevil 'a fool' over and over, long after the imp had agreed to void the debt. Then holding him as close as they did in this moment, they would kiss him until he was too hot and flustered to stay in the clown's arms.
If only the icy scarf would suddenly push them away now, awakening Jevil from this unpleasant dream. But the wild-card knew better than to bargain with the inevitable, so instead they simply wished for slumber once more, one long and deep enough to live a whole other lifetime with Spamton.