Chapter Text
Although he appeared to be a harmless spindly little bard, Giacomo Fabiolo Tarassaco of Vaporezia was an enigmatic man.
He was disinherited and disowned by his affluent Vaporezian family for pursuing his career as a Jester. (They made sure he was blacklisted, to make it difficult for him to obtain employment, and stop his efforts to become one.) Giacomo then moved to a neighboring city-state – Consumerica where he eventually became the Court Jester for the king. But Giacomo was so used to speaking his mind that the king didn’t take Giacomo’s brutally honest criticism of him lightly, and sent hitmen after him. However, the king didn’t realize that Giacomo was a Vaporezian nobleman, so Giacomo was instinctively able to elude these assassins without even realizing it. After about 2 months of unknowingly avoiding attempts against his life, Giacomo realized that the king wanted him dead, so he was forced to leave the city-state. Eventually, Giacomo had to confront his would-be assailants as he trekked through the woods. Thinking that Giacomo was an Illusionist Magician instead of a Court Jester, one of the assailants threw a grenade at him. But the assailant’s accuracy was terrible, so the grenade landed inside a Fairy Ring and detonated there. The explosion activated the Fairy Ring, which sucked Giacomo into its portal and he disappeared.
Like the ancient founders of 5hroomville, the hard-partying capital of the Underdark, Giacomo was also a bard transported to the Underdark via an accidental explosion near a Fairy Ring. As Giacomo was unharmed, the fairies who discovered him took him to their leaders – the founders themselves. The founders were a pair of tall Myconid men, who wore long robes, gloves, masks, and large, glowing wide-brimmed hats. Giacomo called the founders, Gli Uomini Mascherati – “The Masked [Human] Men,” since they were the most human-like Myconids there.
Normally, the few intrepid bards who managed to reach the outskirts of 5hroomville were allowed into the city and given the privilege to challenge its rulers to a musical duel in order to receive their Blessing of Bop. (Which not only enhanced their sound-based attacks, but also had a chance to make their music extremely popular.) However, the Masked Men perceived in Giacomo an innate musical talent. There was no need to challenge him to a duel, for Giacomo was already more than worthy. Nonetheless, there was nothing particularly “normal” about Giacomo. (He was already remarkably eccentric for a Vaporezian, to begin with.) So to everyone's surprise, Giacomo politely declined the Blessing of Bop when it was initially offered to him.
Giacomo wasn’t naive, though he appeared to be. He considered himself unworthy of the Blessing of Bop, for he wasn’t a real Bard. The Masked Men were greatly perplexed by his opinion on the matter – what kind of person would deny themselves as the Divines had created them? The answer was obvious; a supremely argumentative individual who reduced himself to an object in his own disputes. And there was no one here more argumentative than Giacomo. Out of his own foolishness and denial of his own Destiny, the Masked Men decided to subjugate Giacomo and forced him to be their servant, until he accepted that he was born as a Bard. But the indomitable wasn’t easily tamed. In fact, Giacomo didn’t even know that the Masked Men were attempting to tame him. (As far as he was concerned, he couldn’t afford to pay rent, so he had to work to earn his keep. Although he disliked his tasks, Giacomo did them anyway with plenty of complaining.)
Although he had rebellious tendencies, Giacomo was still a 17 year-old boy who felt compelled to run away from home at the age of 15. (When he was about 12 years old, he confessed to his mom that he was interested in boys and had no feelings for girls. Because of this, his family quickly made arrangements to marry him off to the richest man in Vaporezia, but Giacomo had heard that this man was wicked, and feared for his life.)
It took a few months for Giacomo to confide in the Masked Men. He revealed to them that his apprehension for pursuing music as a career came from worrying about having the same fate as his favorite Popstar – Whitney Glaves, a talented skjaldmær turned soprano. Driven insane by the pressure of fame and the lack of privacy that came with it, Ms. Glaves’ family locked her up in an asylum and took control of her fortune. Deep down, Giacomo knew his family would do the same to him without hesitation. However, he couldn't ignore the Call of the Stage, so he decided to become a Jester instead, since he also wanted to be a comedian who performed his own tricks. (Plus, he loved clowns.)
Guided by Fate, the Masked Men took pity on Giacomo. Unlike his family, they were sympathetic to Giacomo's concerns. But then, the Masked Men were passionate artists who valued art above all else. (Which was the main reason they were insulted by Giacomo's rejection.) They came to the unanimous decision to change their approach with Giacomo, and tried to reward him with music lessons instead. After all, Giacomo feared that his family would turn on him and exploit him; something they attempted to do even though he wasn't a professional musician. The Masked Men reassured Giacomo that he no longer had to worry about his family, since they already distanced themselves from him. Although what they told him was true, the feeling of betrayal left deep emotional wounds in his heart and soul that would never heal; although he eventually managed to find peace. Giacomo then spent the next 3 years working for the Masked Men and learning more about music with them. During this time, Giacomo grew to love the Masked Men, who adopted him after a year. Giacomo gladly took their surname – Tarassaco, mutually rejecting his family in doing so.
But being from the Underdark, not everything was idyllic in respect of its inhabitants. In Giacomo’s 2nd year, the Masked Men warned Giacomo that he could no longer stay with them, despite their wishes for him to stay because he was their adopted son. As concerned parents, there was an unseen danger that they needed to disclose. For this reason, Giacomo’s 3rd year was bittersweet – his young heart still hadn’t recovered from his being disowned, but he understood their concerns. However, the Masked Men told Giacomo that his heart and soul would be healed once he found his Fonte di Ispirazione (Source of Inspiration.) So in this last year, Giacomo prepared to embark on a journey and at the end of this preparation, he was given a small Glowing Mushroom which one of the Masked Men plucked from the wall.
It was then that one of the Masked Men, Tommaso Tarassaco, revealed to Giacomo that he, and his beloved partner (both as musical collaborator and husband) Giancarlo-Manuel Tarassaco, did not survive from their injuries from the explosion that initially sent them to the Underdark. After all, despite being Vaporezian like Giacomo, they were still regular humans too. In an attempt to literally give them a second life, the Fairies implanted Myconid spores into their brains and these parasitic fungi eventually consumed their human bodies, and took on their identities. But the love the two Bards had for each other, as well as the love they had for the Arts was so strong that it eventually caused these fungi to become the Bards’ hosts instead. The Masked Men worried that there was a slight chance that Giacomo could become infected by Myconid spores, since he loved to hug his two dads. Because Giacomo still denied his life’s purpose as a Bard, he’d be most likely consumed by any fungus that was born from the spores the Masked Men accidentally released, and thus cease to exist despite being technically alive.
Giacomo had no time to contemplate this crucial revelation, when the Masked Men activated the Fairy Ring Giacomo was stepping on and teleported him close to his Source of Inspiration. The Masked Men seemingly gave Giacomo no chance to bid them farewell, but then he didn’t need to. Tommasso and Giancarlo-Manuel were already long gone by the time Giacomo was brought to them. (But in spirit, they’d remain with him always.) And as Fate would have it, Giacomo’s Source of Inspiration came to him like 20 minutes later. Since Giacomo was always oblivious to what was going on around him it took him a few days to realize that his Source of Inspiration was a very white creature who found him in the woods, named Jeriko Kyu.
It was difficult for Giacomo to express his true opinion of Jeriko Kyu, who went by the nickname "Jeri." His first impression of Jeri was that he was an angel who took human form. It was the only logical explanation that came to mind because angels were often said to take on the forms of beautiful men to not scare mortals. Jeri was also extremely pale – both his skin and hair, and his eyelashes were too long and full – everything about him was unreal, including his personality, because he was a nice and calm young man roughly Giacomo’s age. But Jeri wasn’t an angel. He was just a human who could turn into various canine forms. It wasn’t until a few days ago that Giacomo learned that Jeri was apparently a time-traveler too but his memories of his past life were erased and he was turned into a baby, who then grew up normally in a local monastery. Even without knowing about Jeri’s own mysterious origins, everything about him compelled Giacomo to sing about Jeri and serenade him too. However, these feelings Giacomo had were very intense, and that was why it took him a while to figure out everything.
(This is why at this particular moment, Giacomo stood awkwardly in the bedroom, at a loss as to what to do or where to even begin.)