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liketwoswansinbalance · 7 months ago

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In Unrecognition of Rhian…

This fic is also available on Wattpad or AO3, if you would prefer to read it elsewhere.

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This fic was inspired by a comment about a stained glass window on this post by @wheretheoceanglows! Many thanks for the thought that jumpstarted this!

Summary:

Since Vulcan murdered Rhian, Rafal has not let himself grieve.

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Something was out of place at the Good School and Hedadora did not like it one bit.

A week ago, she had been summoned by the remaining School Master to serve as Dean of Good, and as she had approached the Good School, on the day of her arrival, more and more oddities had come into view.

It wasn't the Stymphs nested atop the coruscating, glass towers, sitting vigil like watchmen.

And it wasn’t the newly-erected, wrought iron gates, proclaiming to all the Woods: TRESPASSERS WILL BE KILLED.

It wasn't even the acrid smoke, billowing from the silver tower that stood like a sentinel over the bay, either.

It was the body strung up in front of the School for Good.

Over the entryway that read: THE SCHOOL FOR GOOD ENLIGHTENMENT AND ENCHANTMENT in shining letters, lovingly polished to a mirror-like sheen, hung a haphazard, iron contraption that held a corpse which rattled about in the wind.

A plaque affixed to the base of the gibbet, beneath the gruesome display read: HERE, FOR SHAME, HANGS THE VILE TRESPASSER VULCAN OF NETHERWOOD. LET HIS FATE BE A WARNING TO THOSE WHO DARE THREATEN THE GOOD.

To Hedadora, the victim’s grisly, charred corpse was unrecognizable, dressed in tatters like a drunken pirate with a now-scraggly beard and bare, dangling, gangrened feet. A singular, rusted, stab wound through its heart had rusted over nearly as much as the weathered cage that contained the man.

Hedadora shook her head, thinking it was a mirage. This was highly unorthodox and quite grotesque for any Ever’s delicate constitution. Surely, that did not belong here.

It was rotting for Heaven’s sake! And the breeze was tainted by its ungodly stench, only exacerbated by the midday sun.

And not a single Ever looked as repulsed as Hedadora had felt! Not one pupil had spared it a second glance.

The bedraggled Evers milled about in a shiftless, permanent fog in black on their way to classes and paid the exhibit no mind. Evers? In black? Ah, yes, she’d heard word of the Good School Master’s death. Those poor, bereaved children!

And that thing likely hadn’t been taken down in weeks, Hedadora presumed. It seemed bolted there, built to last an eternity.

This castle was in dire need of a woman’s touch. But who was she to decide what did and didn’t belong? Well, she assuaged herself, once she was Dean, things would certainly change, that much she knew.

As it turned out, the Evers themselves had become inured to their once-regular feelings of repulsion. They accepted this hideous blot to their otherwise resplendent environs.

But, more than them, the Nevers knew why it hung there—they were finely-attuned to such messages by now in their young lives. Clearly the offal served to ward off newcomers. Harm a single soul on the premises and you were fated to die, uninterred, made into a spectacle for all to gawk at, trophied and mounted.

All this, and Hedadora still hadn’t met the man behind such an operation.

Naturally, rumors were bandied about—that he donned an iron mask, that he burned people alive, even in this apparent utopia, but finally, after training for a total of a week with Professor Mayberry, her soon-to-be predecessor, Hedadora was scheduled to meet the Evil School Master.

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The week prior, Rafal had told himself that his first order of business was to find a competent substitute.

The day after Rhian’s death, Professor Mayberry, had returned to ease the tension and help the transition of power along, until Rafal found someone else to hire. It was the least she could do, she’d confessed tearfully.

Then, Rafal came across a list Rhian had left on his desk. The name Hedadora had not been struck out, so Rafal decided to allot the woman a trial run once he was able to contact her. Probably, she was the candidate Rhian would’ve hired.

When Mayberry left, Rafal stared hard at the calligraphic hand, about to crumple the list and toss it into the wastepaper basket. Instead, he hastily stuffed it into his pocket.

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After Mayberry’s reappearance, no one had seen Rafal for weeks on end.

The Nevers could only verify his presence as they caught onto a new system he had put into place.

None of them, not even Humburg, had been notified, but they were able to intuit what was going on.

Each class, their smoking ranks snaked around the silver tower in an orderly train, and floated up to the tower window, entangled around a glimpse of a beckoning, pale hand.

Yet, no one could tell if the ranks were indeed being evaluated. The leaderboard hadn’t budged in days.

The numbers were always thrust back, burning and dripping with obscure, opaque pitch, driven into the ground by their weight, boring steaming holes into the ground as they guttered out like smoldering meteorites, burrowing their way to Hell.

Every time, the blackened fields were left pockmarked with craters as fearful Nevers jumped out of the missiles’ paths.

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The day of Hedadora’s evaluation, willowy Nymphs flitted around in a nervous circuit in Good’s grand foyer with decanters of chilled, raspberry cordial, croissants, and rosettes of whipped butter. Silver trays held tiny saucers of black olives, pomegranate seeds, poached quail eggs, and luminous, pink, champagne currants.

Students clinked flutes of cordial, and the fairies chirred amongst themselves, but none was more apprehensive than Hedadora herself. She could only will herself to do her best, and hope to be looked upon favorably.

In an instant, the room hushed as the elusive School Master of Evil entered the foyer, appraising Hedadora’s cloud of white hair and pink-rimmed glasses.

He was positively saturnine, Hedadora noted as she saw the sunken shadows beneath his eyes.

Rafal picked up a pitted olive from a dish. It left a bitter taste in his mouth.

Hedadora sensed a lull, and decided to begin by pitching her best ideas: remodeling the Good School. Perhaps that would sway the unyielding figure before her.

Thus, she spoke of removing the horrendous gibbet to cultivate a more inviting atmosphere, widening the stairwells for easier access to the higher floors and the Library of Virtue, adding a statue garden to the roof, curtains so the students wouldn’t be blinded by the glass walls’ glare, fixing rounded finials to the pinnacles so the darling, little birds wouldn’t be impaled by the sharp spires of Good’s highest turrets. Just simple, minor architectural changes, as, oh dear, oh dear, the current state of Good wouldn’t do at all!

Rafal stared point-blank and said nothing.

Hedadora continued to prattle on brightly, about adding wall sconces and perhaps fresh flowers in them, reaching towards the glorious sun, like all living things did!

Not the Night Crawlers, thought Rafal. Not himself either.

The flowers would remind the students to always reach for the light and strive to be as pure and Good as they could possibly be.

Ridiculous, thought Rafal.

Undeterred by the School Master’s dearth of a response, Hedadora forged on valiantly. As it was, the design of the place was impractical, and the sheer vanity embedded in every cornice was clearly evidence that some frivolous magpie of a person, who only cared for surfaces and shiny things, had designed it without regard for those who actually inhabited the place.

“Out,” Rafal croaked hoarsely.

“I beg your pardon, sir?” Hedadora wrung her hands.

“Out. Out from my Schools.” Rafal fired her on the spot.

“You’re being unreasonable, Master Rafal!” Dean Mayberry cried out on behalf of her replacement. She hadn’t spent an arduous week training Hedadora only for her not to fill the role!

Good fights for each other. We can only fight for ourselves, rang in Rafal’s head. Just as he’d last told his Nevers the last time he’d personally taught them.

He had no one to fight for, Evil as he was.

“Out,” he repeated.

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Then came the day of the unveiling. Both Schools were gathered in memory of Rhian.

Onstage, Rafal nodded to Kyma at his side, and the Evergirl pulled a gilded rope, drawing velvet curtains back to reveal a stained glass window in which Rhian was haloed.

The Good School Master’s lithe, white-robed figure was set against panes of champagne and rose and golden-hued glass, with winding, golden, flowered vines encircling his likeness, the tableau resembling a page from a sumptuous, illuminated manuscript.

The golden light of the setting sun set the window aflame, blazing with color as the day approached dusk.

Rafal’s eyes watered, irritated by the excess light, or perhaps the cause was the copious number of flower arrangements festooning the halls.

He turned away from the window, eyes dull and dimmed to a deadened gaze.

Tears streamed down several Ever’s faces, as they split into piteous, extravagant sobs, derailing the assembly.

No one would get anything done if they were still mourning Rhian, Rafal realized. Perhaps he’d decided wrong when he’d commissioned the window. It was a reminder of the loss.

Rhian this. Rhian that. Rhian was dead.

His audience still faced him, the Evers and Nevers nearly indistinguishable in funereal black, eyes downcast.

After a long while, they quashed their sobs, some Evers shuddering into handkerchiefs, giving way for Rafal to speak.

He began expressionlessly, as if delivering a rote recitation from the Handbook’s student code of conduct. “Today, we are gathered here to remember my br—”

Rafal stopped, his throat suddenly dry. Nothing came out. His voice had caught on a gargantuan lump. He swallowed, then swallowed again, throat bobbing.

“We are here to—”

A student coughed.

The Evers leaned in and peered at him strangely like he was a novelty show.

Not a sound escaped his throat, like a noose had been wrapped around his neck.

The Nevers murmured amongst themselves, concerned.

“Goodbye,” Rafal muttered.

The Nevers stared dumbfounded. That was it? This was what they had slogged over to Good for? All that fuss for nothing?

Rafal stalked off the stage, past Kyma, past the gleaming window.

Humburg rose from his seat and started to waddle forward, stone-faced, but Rafal left too quickly.

Black robes snapping behind him, Rafal strode down the aisle past his Dean, past the gormless, huddled, sniveling, ebony-clad mass of students. They cleaved apart, as if by a knife, clearing a path for him straight to the doors.

He slammed the doors with such force that a deep fissure bloomed from a hairline fracture in the glass floor, riving the assembly room into two down the middle. The doors juddered along with everyone’s skulls.

“…Rhian.” He finished his sentence as the doors settled with a thud.

He took off, heedless, tearing through the fog at breakneck speed without a destination in mind, and nearly impaled himself on a lethal, spiked pinnacle—had Hedadora been right about the birds that day?

He landed on a steeply-angled slope of one of Evil’s turrets, sitting himself on the edge of an eave, cloaked in the shadow of the spire.

The golden light of the sunset did not suit him. It was too warm, too lively. He looked out of place.

A place for everything and everything in its place. Even children recognized the reason embedded in such a statement.

Most things you could find a place for.

First, rearrange, when something new strutted in, and installed itself, intending to take over.

Second, remove, when something old broke, when it was vulnerable and defenseless. Or rendered itself useless and weak.

And third, replace, when there was nothing else to do, when the old thing could no longer fill a gap. Because he had let it break. And it would never return.

Out with the old, in with the new. That’s how the world worked.

And that’s what he’d do. Rearrange, remove, replace.

It would probably take a few generations for each new Dean to die. Or retire.

Then, he’d simply find another.

And another.

Seeking out replacements was a job he’d never anticipated having to waste his time on. All he could do was continue, wait for another day, and the next, and the next.

Rafal pulled the list out of his pocket. There was only one name he wanted to see. One candidate who would’ve surpassed all the rest. He didn’t want another Dean.

A place for everything and everything in its place.

He balled up the list.

But what if it was the other way around?

What became of a place when it lacked its thing?

He watched the Stymphs, ever his wardens, watching over his new, Good wards. That figure had doubled overnight while another had been halved.

He thought back to the rankings, the spell he’d cast. Why couldn’t other things put themselves in order, slot neatly into place?

The dusk’s frosty, moonlit pallor illuminated the Evers’ castle, which glowed whiter as the sky darkened.

He watched Vulcan’s body sway in the breeze, trussed up in its creaking, rusted cage, threatening to fall, to succumb to the elements. It would, one day. But that was something he could set right.

He stared into his tower window, and there was the Pen, scratching away at another tale.

And through one of the door frames, he glimpsed an empty, undisturbed bed.

There was only one thing not where it should be.

So there he sat, in the cold, refusing to return to his rightful place all through the night.

The wind washed over him, and he remained, cold as a corpse like always, waiting for the darkness to descend.

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Songs I associate with this fic:

"Marche Funèbre" - Chopin

Fits Rafal's internal state, part of the time, when it's plodding and routine. Also, there are some sections that sound outraged.

"Idea 22" - Anya Nami

The lyrics toward the end make me think of the burning rankings:

This second of life

Feels like forever

This world has failed us

So let burn

Let it burn

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Note:

I'd love to know your thoughts, feelings, or reactions!

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