Caduceus and Jester - Backdated
Nov. 30th, 2019 05:06 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
Jester makes a new friend, and plans for some new art.
Jester was standing on the grounds, watching the beginning of a construction a little way over. The foundations were in, and walls were beginning to rise. In the twilight, it looked a little eerie, and so, naturally, it called out to Jester. Eerie things really ought to be made a little more cheerful, with the careful application of dicks.
She let go of the symbol of the Traveler hanging at her waist and walked over to the empty construction site, stepping through a doorway first - she thought the Traveler would like that! She looked around at the halfway constructed walls, pulling a can of dark green spray paint out from the folds of her cloak-like coat, and edged closer to a particularly enticing stretch of concrete, shaking the paint.
Time for some art!
Several people had already graciously helped with getting Caduceus Clay established at Xavier's, albeit in different ways. While Mr. Tam reviewed the medical protocols, Mr. Shaw and Mr. Ross using their considerable wealth and business acumen in ways he absolutely did not understand to establish the cafe operations, Mr. Clay had his own preparations. He knew nothing much about the sophisticated construction of modern buildings, but he did understand that they were influencing and imposing upon the indigenous life to put that building there. He would prefer to have that transition and the mutual understanding of what this new structure would mean for this place and its inhabitants (humanoid and otherwise) be reached as smoothly as possible. Which was why he had been coming to the site once a day or so, before or after the construction, to spend some time communing with the broken ground and explain what was being done and why. Making introductions.
Just before sundown, Caduceus had come out for a look around and then settled cross-legged into the newly shaped space that would become the backroom and, adjacent to that, his future living quarters and what would serve as a treatment area. He had closed his eyes and begun to meditate silently on the purpose of these chambers... When he heard a strange metallic rattling.
"Hi there," he thankfully didn't need to raise his voice to be heard as he pushed his head into the rough doorway joining these rooms with the cafe proper. He naturally spoke in a manner that was soft and low, with some thrumming resonance. "You don't look like a part of the construction crew."
Jester started at the sudden interruption, and turned around with a gasp to face... That hair was the best! "You scared me!" she pointed out, and made a mental note to be more mindful of checking out an entire place before she set out to tag it, next time. She softened the accusation of a cheerful grin, then looked down at her outfit. Green coat, blue dress, super cute brown boots... No, she didn't look like she was part of the construction crew. "I'm not!" she answered, and gave him a completely guileless smile. "I'm part of the decoration crew."
The tall, gaunt, grayish man with the pink hair lifted his equally pink eyebrows a touch, but he gave a quieter smile to answer the brightness of her own. By coincidence, he was dressed in brown and green himself: He wore a long green wool overcoat open, revealing a high-collar shirt and loose dark pants belted snug around his skinny middle. His pants had been tucked into a pair of worn knee-high brown leather boots, the sort you'd think to find at a renaissance fair, exactingly fitted and featuring fanciful scrollwork. Pink wet lichen appeared to be growing on the boots in patches here and there. "I didn't mean to scare you. I didn't know there was a decoration crew."
"We're very secretive," Jester told him with a nod. It wasn't a very good lie to start with, so she leaned into it rather than try to make it realistic. "And mysterious. We do our best work at night."
"Huh," Caduceus made of that, his nonplussed expression making it unclear if he was actually buying the bad lie or just sort of following through to see where it would lead. "Isn't there another name for uninvited decorators that come at night, with the-" He lifted his hand and mimed using the canister of spray paint.
"Jester," she replied, stepping over to him and holding her hand out. "The other name is Jester. And you're Caduceus Clay, right?" She'd thought that it sounded like the name of a hero in one of Caleb's smut books, but she hadn't expected him to look like this at all. But she approved of his color scheme, obviously. And his hair really was the coolest.
He thought she was telling him that those people with spray paint would be called 'jesters,' until she put her hand out. "...Oh," he looked between her face and her hand before it seemed to occur to him that he ought to complete the handshake. There was something in his body language that indicated he wasn't all that used to casual physical contact these days. Still, once he'd committed to the thing, he ended up clasping both of his long, pale hands around hers quite snugly and gave her hand a sincerely enthusiastic waggle between them. "I am Mr. Clay, yes. What an unexpected pleasure."
"That is what I like to be," Jester confirmed with a bright smile, before pulling her hand back. The can of spray paint had disappeared back inside her cloak, and she kept smiling up at the very tall man. "Your hair is really pretty, Caduceus." Sure, he'd referred to himself as Mr Clay, but that was super formal, and Jester liked the sound of his first name too much. It was fun to say!
Caduceus didn't seem to mind the familiarity, or at least he didn't correct her. "Ah, thank you. I've been told it's my best feature." He straightened a bit from the natural stoop he adopted to make himself less imposing around shorter people - which was to say, just about everybody - to straighten his shoulders now that they had a more agreeable understanding. "What do you think of the cafe?"
Jester looked around, wondering if he meant the building itself, unfinished and rough as it was. "It... shows promise?" She nodded towards the room behind him. "What's going to be back there?"
It was still a long way from being finished, certainly. "A bit of imagination is helpful at this stage," he acknowledged. "Back here..." He turned, stepping back so that she could look for herself is she liked. "Storage, and a small office space as part of the living quarters. Another room for meditation and healing, that connects to the cafe on the other side."
That was right! He was a healer! Jester remembered that from the announcement. Something to keep in mind for certain, but for now, she was trying to picture the place once it would be finished. "What color scheme were you thinking? Are you going to have a theme? I think I have too much imagination, Caduceus, I need help narrowing down the options."
"Well... I'm not sure what Mr. Nolan and Mr. Shaw will have in mind," he admitted. "I'm just the caretaker in this situation. But I am partial to green, and natural materials." The whole process was, in all honesty, quite overwhelming to him, so he'd left as many things as politely possible to the funders and organizers with experience in all of this to decide for him. "A growing place, for all of you to feel comfortable in. That would be nice."
"Green is a very good color," Jester agreed, fingering the edge of her coat. "You should let them know what you like! It is going to be your place."
"I imagine I'll have the opportunity." They had been very agreeable to hearing Caduceus' opinions so far, considering how it was their money and their planning that would be doing the greatest part of the work. "If you have any suggestions..."
Jester hummed thoughtfully, tapping a finger to her lips as she spun around in a slow circle, surveying the place. She turned back to Caduceus with a bright grin. "I know! You should make it a cat café!"
Caduceus didn't answer immediately. Judging from the range of expressions that crossed his face as he looked around them - approving speculation, critical scrutiny, skeptical disagreement - he was giving the idea due consideration. "No, I think it's intended for the human residents," he said at last, attention returning to Jester. "But if a cat does come in, I'll still serve them, as long as they aren't being particularly disruptive."
Jester grinned. "I know one who'll be very happy to know that." Loki was not very disruptive, for a self-professed trickster. She was sure Caduceus would serve him, no problem. "But no! I meant like one of those." Phone out, she googled cat cafés and hit the first video that looked like it would explain the concept, holding it up for Caduceus to watch along with her.
He leaned in to watch the video with Jester, humming a low rumble of a note as the feature began to explain what a cat cafe was. "A cafe where people come to see the cats. That does make more sense."
"You could make it a petting café!" Jester elaborated, warming to the occasion now. "Where students can bring their own pets, and where they can pet all sorts of animals. Cats and dogs and birds and mice and weasels! You'll only have to audition the animals so they all get along. Easy peasy!"
He looked at Jester, his initial consideration turning into something increasingly dubious. "I'm not sure about the, ah...health codes. And peace of mind in general, for the mixed animals as much as the patrons."
"They make it work!" Jester pointed out, holding up her phone for proof, although the video was done playing. "Everybody gets to pet or be petted! Everybody wins!"
But Caduceus was looking at Jester rather than her phone. "Do you have a pet?"
Jester opened her mouth, and then shook her head with a brief pout. "I couldn't have one at the Château - that's my home. And I haven't really - thought about it since I came here, really."
Caduceus gave a nod. "I like animals too. That's why I wouldn't want to keep them cooped up where they might not be comfortable."
Jester frowned curiously up at him. "You think pets are unhappy?"
"You might ask the pets." This seemed like a perfectly reasonable way to go about it, to Caduceus. "I wouldn't say that all pets are unhappy, but... I don't like cages."
Jester wrinkled her nose. "Neither do I. But that's why you should hand pick every single pet who'd be here! They would have to like the arrangement." Clearly, she found nothing unreasonable in Caduceus's words either.
He smiled in a wide, lazy kind of a way. "You're persistent," he suggested, apparently interpreting it as an amusing quirk.
Jester smiled up at him, a winning, hopeful expression.
It was a lovely smile. Caduceus smiled back.
After a long beat of smiling silence, he put together why she might be continuing to give him that look.
"I'm still not going to bring animals into the cafe, no," he elaborated gently.
Jester's lovely smile turned into a disappointed pout for a few seconds, before her expression brightened again. "But you'll let other people bring their pets, right? Or themselves, when they're animal-shaped?"
"Oh, yeah," he answered in his slow lope of a cadence, glad to give her that much. "As long as everyone stays friendly and hygienic... Is that really something that happens here? People taking on animal-shapes?"
"A lot of things happen here," Jester confirmed, even as she nodded. "When did you get here? Are you living with the graduates?"
"Uh...two...three...weeks? It's harder to tell in the city," he explained. "And yes, I've been staying with the graduates until the building is done here," he reached to pat a long pale hand softly against an exposed beam.
Jester watched the way he touched the beam, like the perfect echo of that tenderness in his voice. "You really like this place, huh?"
"It's going through a lot in a very short time," he explained as if talking about a traumatized creature, giving the beam a stroke as if to help soothe it. "But I like the potential here very much. I think we're going to do just fine."
Jester eyed the stretch of wall she'd been about to spray a giant dick on, then turned squarely back to Caduceus. "What else do you like, Caduceus? What kind of things bring you joy?"
"I'm a good gardener," he offered, letting his hand come away from the beam. Being good at something didn't necessarily mean that it brought you joy, but there was a fondness in his saying so that lit his pink eyes and made it seem to be both. "I enjoy a cup of tea. I like cooking for people."
Jester was starting to see it, her gaze growing a little unfocused as she thought of what the mural could look like. A giant dick would have been nice, but she could always hide smaller, more discreet dicks in between the trees, the plants, the teacups and the pans. She focused back on Caduceus and smiled at him. "I think this will be a good place for you," she decided, then and there, as if anyone had been waiting for her pronouncement.
"I have faith that it will be," he agreed, apparently taking her words to heart. "Thank you, Jester. I look forward to making it a good place for you and the others, animal-shaped or otherwise."
Jester wasn't the sort to hold back on random displays of affection, so she thought nothing of stepping forward to give Caduceus a spontaneous, heartfelt, but brief hug, squeezing him around the waist. "Thank you, Caduceus." She stepped back. "I should get back, but I'll see you soon. Oh! I hope you'll sell donuts," she concluded, sounding very serious now. Solemn, even. Donuts were serious business.
"Whoa," he chuckled, surprised but profoundly delighted for the hug. "...That's nice. I haven't had one of those in a long time," Caduceus beamed at her warmly as she let him loose again.
"Donuts, is it?" He took in the stubborn set of her jaw and the abrupt change in her breezy, merry tone. They weren't exactly the nutritious fare he hoped to get the kids eating more of, but if they didn't like the selection he had to offer them, they wouldn't be likely to keep coming back to the cafe at all. "...I suppose people do like a little pastry to go with their tea or coffee now and then, don't they? I'll look into that."
Jester broke into a bright smile. "Good." It was a little sad that he hadn't had hugs in a long time, too, so she added, earnestly, "And I'll give you hugs whenever you like. For the record." Hugs were about as necessary to happiness as donuts, if you asked her; it wasn't right for anyone to have to go without. And she liked him! Despite his inability to see how genius a pet café would be. So she was likely to give him hugs regularly, whether he asked for them or not.
"I might take you up on some of those." He hadn't been on the campus grounds for very long, but Caduceus didn't think it would be considered inappropriate. "And I'd like to ask you back again once the building has been mostly put together. As part of the decoration crew." He didn't sound coy or wry. He sounded quite sincere.
Jester shot him a curious look, decided that he looked serious enough, and smiled again, with a little nod. "I will totally help make this place the most welcoming!" She'd still do a mural on the concrete, so it would be there underneath whatever ended up on those walls. A foundation. She hoped he'd like it. She'd come back some other time - later at night, for sure. Ask Nott to come with her to be her lookout.
"That's great." Caduceus nodded in the direction of the backroom area where he'd come from pointedly. "I'm going to get back to it," he explained. "Be safe on your way out of all the construction, and have a nice evening."
"You too, Caduceus!" Jester waved at him as he turned to go, then sighed happily at having made a new friend. She turned back to the stretch of concrete she'd so very nearly drawn a massive dick on, started picturing the mural she would paint for Caduceus, then picked her way out of the construction site. She couldn't wait to draw her new friend for the Traveler to see!
Jester was standing on the grounds, watching the beginning of a construction a little way over. The foundations were in, and walls were beginning to rise. In the twilight, it looked a little eerie, and so, naturally, it called out to Jester. Eerie things really ought to be made a little more cheerful, with the careful application of dicks.
She let go of the symbol of the Traveler hanging at her waist and walked over to the empty construction site, stepping through a doorway first - she thought the Traveler would like that! She looked around at the halfway constructed walls, pulling a can of dark green spray paint out from the folds of her cloak-like coat, and edged closer to a particularly enticing stretch of concrete, shaking the paint.
Time for some art!
Several people had already graciously helped with getting Caduceus Clay established at Xavier's, albeit in different ways. While Mr. Tam reviewed the medical protocols, Mr. Shaw and Mr. Ross using their considerable wealth and business acumen in ways he absolutely did not understand to establish the cafe operations, Mr. Clay had his own preparations. He knew nothing much about the sophisticated construction of modern buildings, but he did understand that they were influencing and imposing upon the indigenous life to put that building there. He would prefer to have that transition and the mutual understanding of what this new structure would mean for this place and its inhabitants (humanoid and otherwise) be reached as smoothly as possible. Which was why he had been coming to the site once a day or so, before or after the construction, to spend some time communing with the broken ground and explain what was being done and why. Making introductions.
Just before sundown, Caduceus had come out for a look around and then settled cross-legged into the newly shaped space that would become the backroom and, adjacent to that, his future living quarters and what would serve as a treatment area. He had closed his eyes and begun to meditate silently on the purpose of these chambers... When he heard a strange metallic rattling.
"Hi there," he thankfully didn't need to raise his voice to be heard as he pushed his head into the rough doorway joining these rooms with the cafe proper. He naturally spoke in a manner that was soft and low, with some thrumming resonance. "You don't look like a part of the construction crew."
Jester started at the sudden interruption, and turned around with a gasp to face... That hair was the best! "You scared me!" she pointed out, and made a mental note to be more mindful of checking out an entire place before she set out to tag it, next time. She softened the accusation of a cheerful grin, then looked down at her outfit. Green coat, blue dress, super cute brown boots... No, she didn't look like she was part of the construction crew. "I'm not!" she answered, and gave him a completely guileless smile. "I'm part of the decoration crew."
The tall, gaunt, grayish man with the pink hair lifted his equally pink eyebrows a touch, but he gave a quieter smile to answer the brightness of her own. By coincidence, he was dressed in brown and green himself: He wore a long green wool overcoat open, revealing a high-collar shirt and loose dark pants belted snug around his skinny middle. His pants had been tucked into a pair of worn knee-high brown leather boots, the sort you'd think to find at a renaissance fair, exactingly fitted and featuring fanciful scrollwork. Pink wet lichen appeared to be growing on the boots in patches here and there. "I didn't mean to scare you. I didn't know there was a decoration crew."
"We're very secretive," Jester told him with a nod. It wasn't a very good lie to start with, so she leaned into it rather than try to make it realistic. "And mysterious. We do our best work at night."
"Huh," Caduceus made of that, his nonplussed expression making it unclear if he was actually buying the bad lie or just sort of following through to see where it would lead. "Isn't there another name for uninvited decorators that come at night, with the-" He lifted his hand and mimed using the canister of spray paint.
"Jester," she replied, stepping over to him and holding her hand out. "The other name is Jester. And you're Caduceus Clay, right?" She'd thought that it sounded like the name of a hero in one of Caleb's smut books, but she hadn't expected him to look like this at all. But she approved of his color scheme, obviously. And his hair really was the coolest.
He thought she was telling him that those people with spray paint would be called 'jesters,' until she put her hand out. "...Oh," he looked between her face and her hand before it seemed to occur to him that he ought to complete the handshake. There was something in his body language that indicated he wasn't all that used to casual physical contact these days. Still, once he'd committed to the thing, he ended up clasping both of his long, pale hands around hers quite snugly and gave her hand a sincerely enthusiastic waggle between them. "I am Mr. Clay, yes. What an unexpected pleasure."
"That is what I like to be," Jester confirmed with a bright smile, before pulling her hand back. The can of spray paint had disappeared back inside her cloak, and she kept smiling up at the very tall man. "Your hair is really pretty, Caduceus." Sure, he'd referred to himself as Mr Clay, but that was super formal, and Jester liked the sound of his first name too much. It was fun to say!
Caduceus didn't seem to mind the familiarity, or at least he didn't correct her. "Ah, thank you. I've been told it's my best feature." He straightened a bit from the natural stoop he adopted to make himself less imposing around shorter people - which was to say, just about everybody - to straighten his shoulders now that they had a more agreeable understanding. "What do you think of the cafe?"
Jester looked around, wondering if he meant the building itself, unfinished and rough as it was. "It... shows promise?" She nodded towards the room behind him. "What's going to be back there?"
It was still a long way from being finished, certainly. "A bit of imagination is helpful at this stage," he acknowledged. "Back here..." He turned, stepping back so that she could look for herself is she liked. "Storage, and a small office space as part of the living quarters. Another room for meditation and healing, that connects to the cafe on the other side."
That was right! He was a healer! Jester remembered that from the announcement. Something to keep in mind for certain, but for now, she was trying to picture the place once it would be finished. "What color scheme were you thinking? Are you going to have a theme? I think I have too much imagination, Caduceus, I need help narrowing down the options."
"Well... I'm not sure what Mr. Nolan and Mr. Shaw will have in mind," he admitted. "I'm just the caretaker in this situation. But I am partial to green, and natural materials." The whole process was, in all honesty, quite overwhelming to him, so he'd left as many things as politely possible to the funders and organizers with experience in all of this to decide for him. "A growing place, for all of you to feel comfortable in. That would be nice."
"Green is a very good color," Jester agreed, fingering the edge of her coat. "You should let them know what you like! It is going to be your place."
"I imagine I'll have the opportunity." They had been very agreeable to hearing Caduceus' opinions so far, considering how it was their money and their planning that would be doing the greatest part of the work. "If you have any suggestions..."
Jester hummed thoughtfully, tapping a finger to her lips as she spun around in a slow circle, surveying the place. She turned back to Caduceus with a bright grin. "I know! You should make it a cat café!"
Caduceus didn't answer immediately. Judging from the range of expressions that crossed his face as he looked around them - approving speculation, critical scrutiny, skeptical disagreement - he was giving the idea due consideration. "No, I think it's intended for the human residents," he said at last, attention returning to Jester. "But if a cat does come in, I'll still serve them, as long as they aren't being particularly disruptive."
Jester grinned. "I know one who'll be very happy to know that." Loki was not very disruptive, for a self-professed trickster. She was sure Caduceus would serve him, no problem. "But no! I meant like one of those." Phone out, she googled cat cafés and hit the first video that looked like it would explain the concept, holding it up for Caduceus to watch along with her.
He leaned in to watch the video with Jester, humming a low rumble of a note as the feature began to explain what a cat cafe was. "A cafe where people come to see the cats. That does make more sense."
"You could make it a petting café!" Jester elaborated, warming to the occasion now. "Where students can bring their own pets, and where they can pet all sorts of animals. Cats and dogs and birds and mice and weasels! You'll only have to audition the animals so they all get along. Easy peasy!"
He looked at Jester, his initial consideration turning into something increasingly dubious. "I'm not sure about the, ah...health codes. And peace of mind in general, for the mixed animals as much as the patrons."
"They make it work!" Jester pointed out, holding up her phone for proof, although the video was done playing. "Everybody gets to pet or be petted! Everybody wins!"
But Caduceus was looking at Jester rather than her phone. "Do you have a pet?"
Jester opened her mouth, and then shook her head with a brief pout. "I couldn't have one at the Château - that's my home. And I haven't really - thought about it since I came here, really."
Caduceus gave a nod. "I like animals too. That's why I wouldn't want to keep them cooped up where they might not be comfortable."
Jester frowned curiously up at him. "You think pets are unhappy?"
"You might ask the pets." This seemed like a perfectly reasonable way to go about it, to Caduceus. "I wouldn't say that all pets are unhappy, but... I don't like cages."
Jester wrinkled her nose. "Neither do I. But that's why you should hand pick every single pet who'd be here! They would have to like the arrangement." Clearly, she found nothing unreasonable in Caduceus's words either.
He smiled in a wide, lazy kind of a way. "You're persistent," he suggested, apparently interpreting it as an amusing quirk.
Jester smiled up at him, a winning, hopeful expression.
It was a lovely smile. Caduceus smiled back.
After a long beat of smiling silence, he put together why she might be continuing to give him that look.
"I'm still not going to bring animals into the cafe, no," he elaborated gently.
Jester's lovely smile turned into a disappointed pout for a few seconds, before her expression brightened again. "But you'll let other people bring their pets, right? Or themselves, when they're animal-shaped?"
"Oh, yeah," he answered in his slow lope of a cadence, glad to give her that much. "As long as everyone stays friendly and hygienic... Is that really something that happens here? People taking on animal-shapes?"
"A lot of things happen here," Jester confirmed, even as she nodded. "When did you get here? Are you living with the graduates?"
"Uh...two...three...weeks? It's harder to tell in the city," he explained. "And yes, I've been staying with the graduates until the building is done here," he reached to pat a long pale hand softly against an exposed beam.
Jester watched the way he touched the beam, like the perfect echo of that tenderness in his voice. "You really like this place, huh?"
"It's going through a lot in a very short time," he explained as if talking about a traumatized creature, giving the beam a stroke as if to help soothe it. "But I like the potential here very much. I think we're going to do just fine."
Jester eyed the stretch of wall she'd been about to spray a giant dick on, then turned squarely back to Caduceus. "What else do you like, Caduceus? What kind of things bring you joy?"
"I'm a good gardener," he offered, letting his hand come away from the beam. Being good at something didn't necessarily mean that it brought you joy, but there was a fondness in his saying so that lit his pink eyes and made it seem to be both. "I enjoy a cup of tea. I like cooking for people."
Jester was starting to see it, her gaze growing a little unfocused as she thought of what the mural could look like. A giant dick would have been nice, but she could always hide smaller, more discreet dicks in between the trees, the plants, the teacups and the pans. She focused back on Caduceus and smiled at him. "I think this will be a good place for you," she decided, then and there, as if anyone had been waiting for her pronouncement.
"I have faith that it will be," he agreed, apparently taking her words to heart. "Thank you, Jester. I look forward to making it a good place for you and the others, animal-shaped or otherwise."
Jester wasn't the sort to hold back on random displays of affection, so she thought nothing of stepping forward to give Caduceus a spontaneous, heartfelt, but brief hug, squeezing him around the waist. "Thank you, Caduceus." She stepped back. "I should get back, but I'll see you soon. Oh! I hope you'll sell donuts," she concluded, sounding very serious now. Solemn, even. Donuts were serious business.
"Whoa," he chuckled, surprised but profoundly delighted for the hug. "...That's nice. I haven't had one of those in a long time," Caduceus beamed at her warmly as she let him loose again.
"Donuts, is it?" He took in the stubborn set of her jaw and the abrupt change in her breezy, merry tone. They weren't exactly the nutritious fare he hoped to get the kids eating more of, but if they didn't like the selection he had to offer them, they wouldn't be likely to keep coming back to the cafe at all. "...I suppose people do like a little pastry to go with their tea or coffee now and then, don't they? I'll look into that."
Jester broke into a bright smile. "Good." It was a little sad that he hadn't had hugs in a long time, too, so she added, earnestly, "And I'll give you hugs whenever you like. For the record." Hugs were about as necessary to happiness as donuts, if you asked her; it wasn't right for anyone to have to go without. And she liked him! Despite his inability to see how genius a pet café would be. So she was likely to give him hugs regularly, whether he asked for them or not.
"I might take you up on some of those." He hadn't been on the campus grounds for very long, but Caduceus didn't think it would be considered inappropriate. "And I'd like to ask you back again once the building has been mostly put together. As part of the decoration crew." He didn't sound coy or wry. He sounded quite sincere.
Jester shot him a curious look, decided that he looked serious enough, and smiled again, with a little nod. "I will totally help make this place the most welcoming!" She'd still do a mural on the concrete, so it would be there underneath whatever ended up on those walls. A foundation. She hoped he'd like it. She'd come back some other time - later at night, for sure. Ask Nott to come with her to be her lookout.
"That's great." Caduceus nodded in the direction of the backroom area where he'd come from pointedly. "I'm going to get back to it," he explained. "Be safe on your way out of all the construction, and have a nice evening."
"You too, Caduceus!" Jester waved at him as he turned to go, then sighed happily at having made a new friend. She turned back to the stretch of concrete she'd so very nearly drawn a massive dick on, started picturing the mural she would paint for Caduceus, then picked her way out of the construction site. She couldn't wait to draw her new friend for the Traveler to see!