Past and Future

About a year later, Jest was leaning on the wall of a random building, feeling dizzy from drinking too much. It was hard for an Ascended to get drunk, but he had smuggled a bottle of special brew from the Dream Realm — it wasn't made from mundane stuff, so its effect was correspondingly outstanding.

He had fallen apart, a little, after his older son's death — not too much, but just enough to allow himself a day or two of drowning in self-pity every few months or so. 

After all, Jest still had another son to take care of. His wife needed him, as well… and Warden, too, although now that all the enemies of the new world order had been eliminated, there was rarely a need to use his services. 

That last fact was slowly changing as of late. Not because new external adversaries were rising, but simply because the new order had become robust enough, and had existed for long enough, that internal threats were.