Sge - Tumblr Posts - Page 17
Will anyone else forevermore associate the word “enough” with Rafal, in the sense of “I will never be enough for you, will I?” Or is that just me?
Side note: Apparently, this is my 100th post!
“The nerve of some Evers, Master!” harrumphed the former Dean Humburg. “Can you imagine thinking yourself above murder?”
“No,” said Rafal, his throat parched. “What dull existences they must lead.”
This is not a fic-related excerpt. It's just a random dialogue exchange, if anyone is wondering. Some variation of it might make its way into a WIP, but no guarantees.
If The Last Ever After Underwent a Major Tone Shift:
"Don't mind me," Rafal prodded, smiling. "Who needs a villain when you three have each other?"
A Title Guessing Game
If anyone can guess (or come close to guessing) the title of my SGE WIP longfic, or any of its details, I will post a brief excerpt from the draft. The fic's title is fittingly long, considering its anticipated length.
This is the title's abbreviation:
TOTSMOV41
I don't mind if anyone comes up with ridiculous answers either. If anyone does want to have some fun with the prompt, I'll be entertained, of course. So, have at it, in any way you want, as outrageous as you want! I’m literally inviting you to bring your assumptions.
You can comment below. Let the games begin!
Also, just so no one gets their hopes up, don't expect this fic anytime soon, not for months and months, or even a year or more, I'm willing to bet. It's going to take so long to organize my notes, arrange my outline more efficiently, and draft the thing itself, and I'm probably going to have to wait for a vacation to work on it. So, that's the status update though this is the first time I've really announced this fic formally.
Probably, the most abstract clue I could possibly offer you is this music. It is my fic's "theme song," in terms of tone. It's not entirely representational of the fic as the fic has some humorous moments. Yet, I've been associating this song with the fic, so it's my subjective interpretation. So, if you were to read the draft, there is a chance it would not fit 100%, so you can take the music in broad strokes, as some of the rising and falling plot beats or the shape of the story. (You can skip to around the timestamp 1:28 and listen from there onwards if you don't want to listen to the whole video.)
To me, the music evokes vibes like a phoenix rising from the ashes. When all is lost, when you've reached the "darkest night of the soul," and everything is hopeless and futile. The tension ramps up. Blood courses through veins, quickening. Becoming faster and faster, punctuated, overlapping. One trial after another. Trial after trial. It all comes to a head, a crescendo, the tension lancing through you. And you endure a hard landing, jarring your feet.
If you examine my description, you may find oblique, "symbolic" spoilers, so I doubt they'll be apparent. Anyway, I hope that I will be able to echo this tone in my fic, to be as "loud" and chaotic in certain parts of it.
But, when you guess, by all means, you can ignore the music, if you have any other ideas. To rule out some guesses, this fic is not exclusively a prequel-focused one.
Also, @heyo-428 this is the "crystal and bathtub" fic I told you about, if you're still interested. But, no need to engage if you don't want to! The answer may be more obvious to you, I suspect. And, if you want to, I'll let you present the miniscule details I gave you the other day.
Excerpts from The One True School Master of Vault 41
These are two excerpts from my draft that I think I can share without disclosing major spoilers.
Warning: Contains blood and injury.
@discjude I should probably also mention, when I said "humorous," it's really just a couple lines. The whole thing probably seems a bit dismal. So, the first excerpt is the "humorous" one, and the second is the serious one. Also, there's a reason why the Wizard Tree is burnt, if you think it contradicts its canon descriptions in OTK.
⸻
A hideous, sickening CRACK from without interrupted them.
Sophie glanced worriedly at the charred, blackened husk of a tree around her, a single, unspoken question in her eyes.
“Broken bone,” Rafal determined, casually conclusive without a hint of emotion or morbidity.
“How in the world do you know that, pray tell?”
Rafal rolled his shoulders back, straightening. “Practice,” he answered. “I’ve heard it often enough.” He did not elaborate.
Typical Rafal, really. Nothing to stir up a fuss about, Sophie dismissed. She watched as he found a serviceable foothold in the wood, so he could scale the trunk-length, and reach the opening at the top where she’d first fallen through from the boughs high above. Only the faintest shafts of faltering daylight cut through the dark that subsumed them now.
He had to conserve his magic until he needed it more urgently as his immortality seemed compromised. His breath ran a bit ragged, and his strength had waned since the last time she’d seen him, as he died. They probably wouldn’t have the chance to rest until she reunited with Agatha and Tedros, and not even then. They had to reach the Schools, so they could redouble their efforts against Japeth. The outcome barely boded well though. It wasn’t heartening in the least. Even with her half-alive sorcerer, their pitiful forces were paltry compared to Japeth’s.
She began to make her way out, to climb up and out of the Wizard Tree after him. Her heels kept slipping, sinking into hollows and gouging the brittle, burnt inner walls of wood, now riddled with puncture marks and splinters that scraped her hands raw until pinpricks of blood appeared. Tears sprang to her eyes as she took a breath, attempting to calm herself.
Rafal offered her a hand.
She took it.
Hers was just as cold as his, he noted, pinning his gaze on her one, red-soaked, rusted, white sleeve.
The two of them emerged from the hollow inside of the tree, and Sophie attempted to brush off her concern, flush against the rough, dead bark, while straddling a branch that bowed slightly under her weight. Could it be the dragging, heavy, silken layers of her gown weighing her down? She just had to lower herself down to the ground, branch by branch.
She didn’t move, fixed in place by fear, gripping her branch until her knuckles turned as white as her dress had once been.
Even if everything was dwarfed by the great height of their vantage point, quite a battle persisted far below, a lot of figures scrabbling in the dust, others picking their way up the formidable tree, the dull clang of metal on metal ringing out, the shouts of men resounding. And, on the far side of the brawl, one lone, dark figure sprawled in the dirt, coated in blue pollen, choking and hacking, clawing at his—or her—throat?
Rafal reached out and steadied Sophie with a hand to her shoulder as he leaned over from where he was seated astride his own swaying branch.
Yet, something still nagged her, and her thoughts darted away from the potential fall she had before her. Just whose bones could it have been? What if it was someone she knew?
Well, Agatha had the answer to that.
[Timeskip to a different scene. A lot happens between points A to B on the run from the Snake, but that will be in the final draft.]
⸻
[After the timeskip and a harrowing chase. There are scenes missing between here that will be in the final draft.]
Kiko quaked on the polished balcony of Merlin’s Menagerie, peeping at a tangled, three-headed mass, silhouetted by the red, sinking sun, and flying in the sky above the Schools on the horizon! No, toward the Schools!
In the dying light, the three figures in flight rapidly descended, narrowly clearing the sharp spires of the School gates. Were they heading toward the clearing that fronted Good, the great lawn spangled with flowers? No, the mass landed on the man-made, cement island in Halfway Bay, near where the Schools’ dark and clear waters met, the way oil repels water, colliding but never melding due to the magical barrier in place. The waves crashed onto shore, below the former School Master’s silver tower, now Dean Sophie’s residence, and the bay beneath the bridge shone, refracting broken garnet and silver hues.
The mass promptly separated into three people. Two girls and a tall boy. The boy, who appeared to have jarred his feet, collapsed in exhaustion. One of the girls in a billowing, red-and-white gown knelt down to examine him, and the second girl prodded him with her clump-clad foot, but lost her balance and fell, arms flagging and windmilling. The first girl rushed over to her instead. The boy rose by himself, and he and the first girl led the second, fallen girl to the entrance of the School for Good, crossing the bridge without issue.
Kiko rushed down the slick, glass staircases to the entrance, almost tripping over herself. She had to get down in a hurry, to greet, or to possibly fend off these new arrivals—and find out who they were!
Kiko gasped, and just about dropped dead from shock, gaping in horror at the procession which filed into Good’s glass foyer.
Sophie entered first. She looked vaguely disoriented and disheveled, like an ill-treated porcelain doll as she stumbled forward gracelessly. Her complexion was bloodless, drained, as if the blood coursing through her veins as been siphoned away and sprayed all across the front of her prim, lacey, white wedding gown, its hem that was intended to skim the floor, draping in folds, torn to threadbare tatters. Flecks and smatters and streaky smudges of blood adorned her gown. It wasn’t all fresh blood, but she was still pale and staggered as if she were suffering from some sort of invisible blood loss. Kiko suspected the one aggravated arm, with a once-white sleeve that was soaked through. It was particularly rusty near her wrist and all along her forearm.
Agatha groaned in pain.
“Don’t ask,” Sophie snipped. “It’s a long story. Longer than we have time for.”
Agatha hobbled in second on what seemed to be a broken leg. Her arm was looped through Sophie’s, and she was barely able to shuffle forward as she had a significant limp. One entire side of her body was covered by a medley of unsightly purple, black, and blue bruises. And, thin cuts and scratches and shallow lacerations all over her bloodied, exposed limbs, injuries sustained from her fall from the Wizard Tree though Kiko couldn’t begin to guess their source. The wind had whipped the snarled branches around, lashing Agatha. She was paler than ever.
And, she was coated in dust, dirt, soot, and—was that blue pollen? She wore a soiled, raggedy black sack of a dress, like she’d reverted to her Graveyard Girl self, and worse still, had ceded to a dust bath. Kiko also detected an odd lump, a canvas bag slung over Agatha’s narrow frame.
Then, the School Master?
The School Master supported Agatha’s other side in his grasp. He met Kiko’s gaze, and she shuddered reflexively, thoughts of wicked geese and mogrification cycling around her mind, even if at this moment he looked too spent to pose much of a threat.
He stood in the doorway, grey and haggard, dour shadows under his eyes, exhausted beyond belief. A deep, dark shade of garnet permeated his clothes, the same black, double-breasted, dictator jacket, slacks, and tall boots Kiko remembered from the Great War, yet his clothes were rumpled and sooty, and the smears of coagulated blood had nearly oxidized to black. At least half of his scalp was crusted with thick, clotted blood, already dried and matted in his snow-white hair, plastering it, stained red, to the side of his face. It was as if he’d been cleaved through the skull with a rather wide blade.
“Well?” Sophie demanded harshly to poor Kiko who was stunned speechless. “Aren’t we going to bring her to the infirmary?”
Rafal is the King of the Golden Mountain
"The King of the Golden Mountain" is such a Never fairy tale, and a canonical one at that (not in SGE, I mean classic, fairy-tale canon). Since the protagonist becomes royalty, he's probably an Ever, even if he uses violent means to reach his end. So, maybe Good is only Good relatively speaking in this tale. At first, the king does try for the peaceful solution, and some Good fairy tales do end in gruesome punishment for the villains. However, a mass of people standing in the way of you getting your throne back aren't all exactly villains, which is why I'm insinuating that the seemingly Ever king is probably a Never king at heart.
The protagonist reminds me of Rafal immensely, in terms of his reactions and everything. The tale is brutal, and it's basically a revenge-fantasy story, which seems odd considering how most of the Brothers Grimm stories, or the better-known ones, at least, have fairly "happy" endings. This one just reeks of bloodlust and victory and smug satisfaction. Like, seriously, it's insane. And, you'd think that by the title, it'd be more Midas-like, but no, I'd say it's Rafal-like. Really.
The poor, suffering king is just deservedly unhinged at this point, like how Rafal should have gotten his proper, very plausible villain arc. I'm still bitter over the Fall identity-swap plot twist! Rafal deserved real vengeance! Especially after he slaved away for Rhian, to fix mess after mess, problem after problem. By the Storian, can't he just get a break! I suppose that, at best, he could be in Purgatory. He was never truly Good enough for Heaven because I don't think a sudden turn realistically can make up for a lifetime of Evil deeds.
Also, this is a tale where practically everyone's beheaded, so just a little advance notice.
Anyway, here's an excerpt from the ending section:
When he was near his palace, he heard sounds of joy, and fiddles, and flutes, and the people told him that his wife was celebrating her wedding with another. Then he fell into a rage, and said, "False woman, she betrayed and deserted me whilst I was asleep!" So he put on his cloak, and unseen by all went into the palace. When he entered the dining-hall a great table was spread with delicious food, and the guests were eating and drinking, and laughing, and jesting. She sat on a royal seat in the midst of them in splendid apparel, with a crown on her head. He placed himself behind her, and no one saw him. When she put a piece of meat on a plate for herself, he took it away and ate it, and when she poured out a glass of wine for herself, he took it away and drank it. She was always helping herself to something, and yet she never got anything, for plate and glass disappeared immediately. Then dismayed and ashamed, she arose and went to her chamber and wept, but he followed her there. She said, "Has the devil power over me, or did my deliverer never come?" Then he struck her in the face, and said, "Did thy deliverer never come? It is he who has thee in his power, thou traitor. Have I deserved this from thee?" Then he made himself visible, went into the hall, and cried, "The wedding is at an end, the true King has returned." The kings, princes, and councillors who were assembled there, ridiculed and mocked him, but he did not trouble to answer them, and said, "Will you go away, or not?" On this they tried to seize him and pressed upon him, but he drew his sword and said, "All heads off but mine," and all the heads rolled on the ground, and he alone was master, and once more King of the Golden Mountain.
The ending is just so vicariously satisfying! I'm hoping someone will see what I mean because it can't just be me who sees the likeness. This protagonist has his petty, chaotic fun, and is mischievous, like Fala's presence at the Circus. And, he suffered at the hands of various men, for his princess, later his wife, a supposed True Love (the cheater!), just like Rafal sacrificed and went through so much physical pain for Rhian, his True Love and the equivalent of the wife in this story. And, Rafal was almost imprisoned with a life-sentence, and was overthrown by Vulcan just like this king was replaced by another, a false hero. After all that he did for Rhian! The injustice! Besides, it feels like a very Rafal thing to cleverly fleece people out of their belongings, even if it seems somewhat accidental in nature in this particular tale. (This happened earlier in the tale, before this scene. And, the wife didn't completely deserve death, I'll admit. The king himself also erred at times, so they're both at fault.)
Side note from while I was writing this: this has got to be the best, most fitting typo I have ever made: "overthrone" instead of "overthrown," and yet, it still applies to tyranny and thrones! Haha!
If you want to read the entire tale, here's one source from which the excerpt came:
And the Wikipedia page for further analysis/a shorthand summary:
If anyone is interested in reading about another fairy tale parallel to the prequels, here's a link to an old "Faithful John" post of mine.
After Vulcan's murder and Rafal's new School for Evil renovations:
Rhian: I can be very useful indeed! [He puffs up, trying to assert himself after Rafal had previously mocked him for being weak-willed and trying to negotiate with a man that looked like a drunken pirate.]
Rafal: [sarcastically, his words practically dripping with venom] You? Useful? Perish the thought! You shouldn't do a thing, my liege. You're too fragile.
Rhian: Oh, please! Spare me the mockery. I'm surprised you can even walk. You rely on flight all the time.
Rafal: Says the School Master who can't even button up his own robes without magic, much less dress himself. To think that you could meddle with the pen and can't handle buttons.
Rhian: [snaps back] That's not the point! You can barely comb your hair!
Rafal: [with eyes like daggers and a glint of amusement] I choose not to comb it that frequently. I have better things to do, unlike you with that prissy coiffure. Besides, I told you: you can barely dress yourself, and can't make a sandwich to save your life.
Rhian: Neither can you! I bet you couldn't even assemble a proper cucumber and herb butter sandwich!
Rafal: Well, at least I can murder to save my life, and oh, look, yours too. Isn't that just lovely? [now gritting his teeth]
Rhian: [He blushes and says flatly,] Thanks. I'm not going to throw myself at your feet in eternal gratitude, if that's what you were expecting.
Rafal: I wasn't. No one ever does these days. [He sighs.]
Rhian: Don't worry. I'm sure you can still strike fear into the hearts of the students, brother. You've got everything locked down and under control, one thing's for sure.
Rafal: [He smiles resolutely.] And I intend to keep things that way.
Marialena: [pops out of nowhere] Don't be too sure about that!
Both Rhian and Rafal: Get out!
One True King Tagging Announcement & TOTSMOV41 Excerpts
I finally figured out how to fix the visibility on one of my posts that didn't appear in the main tags, and thought this information could be useful to anyone that posts about SGE, particularly The Camelot Years.
Originally, I tagged this post, excerpts from my WIP longfic, titled The One True School Master of Vault 41, using the relevant tag "otk." The fic itself is an alternate continuity of One True King, involving Rafal, Sophie, Agatha, the Wizard Tree, and Dovey's crystal ball. However, I just discovered that all posts tagged under "otk" have been hidden because for some, unknown reason, certain posts under the tag violate Tumblr's Community Guidelines. So, whenever you reference One True King, I'd advise tagging your posts with the full title "one true king," to avoid any issues with visibility.
Furthermore, if anyone reads my excerpts, I'd love to receive any kind of feedback/concrit, or to hear your thoughts and reactions! And, I might be willing to answer any questions you have around the fic, assuming I can avoid discussing major spoilers from my plot.
On a boys' night out, on a certain assignment, circa the early days of Fall, a bit after Midas' kidnapping and before Pan's arrival:
James: Well, I'm stymied, lads.
Midas: I second that.
Aladdin: Eh.
James: So, what do we do with it? [referring to the corpse of their murder victim]
Midas: [dully] What. You never got any murder practice in while you worked with Rhian? [mumbled as an aside,] I never trusted him. Too self-righteous but just doesn't strike me as right.
James: [He shrugs.] He wasn't always corrupt. But, I think I may have had a hand in that. Never got the chance to apologize to his brother either...
Midas: Neither of those two deserve an apology! What would Kyma do? Give it an honorable burial?
James: She'd never be in a situation like this with the likes of us.
Aladdin: She's too Good.
Midas: Huh.
James: What would Rhian do?
Midas: Treat us like pawns? Wait, no, that's Brother Evil. Rhian would give us a hypocritical lecture about "morality." He'd never get off his high horse and give up those holier-than-thou delusions of his, not for as long as he lives.
James: [musing] Come to think of it—I never did take well to his magic.
Aladdin: All I know is that we're pathetic. I bet this is something first-year Nevers would get as homework. Or, would it be called field-work? Or target practice?
James: Speak for yourself. [he needles drolly,] You sure you weren't placed in the wrong School?
Aladdin: Nah, 'course not. Besides, murder is against the School Rules. If it weren’t, I would’ve offed you a long time ago.
James: [snidely] Is it? Well that’s just a fine bucket of eels left out to rot in the midday sun, no less. Glad to be appreciated, Laddie.
[Aladdin scowls. Midas smirks and holds back a laugh.]
James: [thoughtfully] Now, what would Rafal do?
All three: [nodding sagely] Burn it.
James: And all the evidence.
⸻
Sometime after the favorite sandwich and broken leg lies that went uncorrected:
Rafal: My ears are burning.
Rhian: Liar.
Rafal: That was uncalled for!
Rhian: Apologies, force of habit. I do ever so wonder why that is. Well, students do gossip, you know. [He dismissed with a wave of his hand, and set down a letter-opener.] You're just overly paranoid, as always.
Rafal: [with suspicion] What do you mean?
Rhian: [while opening an envelope, spoken lightly] Probably, the boys are doing my assignment.
Rafal [narrowing his eyes]: What assignment?
Rhian: [smugly] That's for me to know and you to not find out. I'm not worried though. You're too blind to see what goes on around you in plain sight.
Rafal: Hmpth. We'll see about that. [He covertly tucks a ink-stained, rubber moth stamp into his pocket, and stalks off on his limp, meaning to leave their study by the window.]
Rhian: [calling after him, preciously, saccharinely] Is that a threat?
Rafal: [cryptically, without looking back] No. It's a vow.
⸻
Note:
Please let me know if anyone seems too out of character. I'm not actually that used to writing Midas yet.
You know that one kind of scene where what's visibly going on appears to be one thing, especially from the perspective of outsiders, but in reality, something entirely different is happening? TOTSMOV41 has one of those scenes, and I'm so excited for it, but it's not even close to the beginning of the story since it requires some significant set-up. I have it outlined, but it's going to be a long time until I write that one.
There's a misleading, but not entirely false, August Sader prophecy: "Agatha" "dies" for "a prince."
If anyone wants to guess what really happens, and comes close, or gives interesting guesses, I'll post a another excerpt, much shorter than the last, probably of some funny, Agatha-bickers-with-Rafal dialogue.
Sideblog Announcement
I have started a sideblog: www.tumblr.com/masterofthecygnetsignet
It will mostly be for some SGE posting with less substance and for non-SGE yet still book-related things.
Excerpt from The One True School Master of Vault 41
This is the much briefer excerpt I said I would post since the last guessing game, the one in which Agatha and Rafal bicker. Also, this is from a draft, so the final version I eventually publish may be subject to change.
Congratulations @discjude! You've won yet again! I think you're really well-versed in TCY, or I'm predictable, haha.
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"Can't you fly us up?" Agatha asked.
"I'm not a Stymph," Rafal shot back in a strained voice.
"Well, why not? You're cold, boney, and soulless."
Rafal looked highly affronted, and stepped forward, encroaching on Agatha at his full height. "You underestimate me, Agatha."
Agatha bristled, and took a step forward. "Mistral," she intoned, tension rising in her voice. "I know you're dead on the inside. I just wish your body matched."
Their fingerglows ignited, black and gold.
Sophie heated with embarrassment. Oh no, she thought. They were acting like toddlers! She had no desire to see Agatha's sharp tongue spar against Rafal's infamously caustic temper. "Aggie? Rafal? Why don't we get cleaned up?" she warbled hesitantly.
Agatha looked back guiltily, and Rafal spun to face her in silence.
She'd managed to defuse the situation, for now.
Man's Fallibility & Immortality
I found a practically perfect song, by my interpretation, to add to my Rise to Fall playlist. (I haven't cleaned up/updated the playlist fully, so I'm not posting the whole thing yet, but I think this particular song warrants its own post.)
First, listen to the song: Nothing's New - Rio Romeo
Then, what follows below is something of a tragedy-analysis, abstract, meta-thing/omniscient prose narration experiment. I don't know what it is—an outpouring of thoughts. It may strike a similar chord as my narration at the end of Simony and its epilogue.
(Simony was a prediction fic I wrote before the publication of Fall. An extremely erroneous one though. I still think it could work, but oh, how wrong I was.
The direction Soman took the plot in, just, it was unpredictable, even if I did enjoy the book. I still like Rise better than Fall though, of the duology. If Rise had just ended at the point of: Vulcan is dead, Rafal tortures his students, and the brothers gradually learn to trust each other again, that would've been nice and comforting, honestly. But no, substitutes, substitutes, substitutes! On both sides. Drives me insane. Ack! But, I have four, short fics planned that have alternate endings to Rise and to Fall, to make up for it. Well, one of them is so far a little longer, three chapters long.)
If anyone wants me to analyze the actual lyrics more closely, I'm willing to do that too!
⸻
The tales.
They are all the same.
Good winning, Evil winning.
What difference does it make after centuries, really?
Everything probably feels numb and empty after a certain point.
Like nothing matters anymore.
Undiluted apathy after that certain point.
When? I've lost track.
When losses and victories all ring hollow, and all sound the same.
The End.
That's all It wrote.
The sum of lives distilled down to ink and illustrations.
Nothing beyond that. No life, no spark.
What more is there? When nothing will ever satisfy the restless souls, not even an Ending all to themselves.
Just pages that will yellow with time even if the stories themselves are timeless because nothing changes.
Nothing ever changes.
There's no evolution.
Every tale is the same.
It becomes nothing after nothing, not victory after victory, when you're ageless like we are.
And how, if that's how it is?
Why bother?
Why bother at all?
It's a cycle that continues, with or without the brothers.
Ceaseless.
So, why should it matter?
It's the same with or without them.
Their position was always ceremonial.
After a while, anyone becomes tiring. Anyone.
And one person just isn't enough, when you have no one else.
No one else to shield you.
It gets old. The love just... fades, and wears out.
Perhaps, human love can only span for so long, and that's why humans are mortal.
Made mortal, and no one should traverse beyond that.
It always leads to hubris, and then, a fall.
An unnatural fear of death trained into them, when limits were never set, when power was never checked, when they expected to have all the time in the world.
Nothing is built to last. At least, not by the Storian.
It does whatever it pleases.
You can't extend a life past its time.
It will always end in ruin. Isn't that the lesson the storybooks teach?
A cautionary tale.
Again and again, the cycle continues.
Every failed holy-grail of immortality, every spilled cup drawn from the fountain of youth, every cursed head of lettuce, every white snake, every chalice of sleeping draught that led to execution after execution, every baptism that succumbed to primordial wickedness, every impoverished fisherman's hovel?
Why not a tale about two brothers?
One where two are felled.
To caution against mortal greed that even immortality can't peel away.
To caution against always wanting more until you're left with nothing.
Nothing at all.
Just like how you can't truly resurrect anyone as who they once were, you can't revive the soul that a person once was.
And you can't play at being God because it defies the rules of nature.
And all that we know about transience and permanence and how ephemeral everything else is.
Everything but Man, who vies to leave a legacy wherever he goes, at any price, even at the cost of his soul, not life.
⸻
Now, I do wonder if I made anyone emotional? I certainly tried this time around, to be a provocateur like Soman is. Tell me what you think, if you want.
This scene will probably always live rent free in my mind. It exemplifies their dynamic. Their banter and narrative parallels were my favorite.
I still mourn Fall's "retcon." [sigh]
When your love language is war...
Reminds me of a particular scene from TOTSMOV41. It's something about the staging here, vaguely.
Alain Delon and Romy Schneider. March, 1961
Facts about The One True School Master of Vault 41
Tedros and Japeth-related things would entail too many major spoilers, so this is probably all you’re getting for now:
Rafal confesses to Sophie that he breathed part of his soul into her toward the end of the second Great War.
Rafal reads his own obituary. And also sees the multitude of vandalism that accompanies it.
Rafal attends a rather depressing, actually, positively dismal Ever tea party. Agatha insults him, despite the fact that he has better table manners than her. They mock each other. And he chokes on his finger sandwich. (But, I suppose genocide weighs more on the morality scale, in terms of minor infractions and major transgressions that will send Pollux rolling in his grave like a roast pig on a spit over subjects which mustn’t be discussed at tea parties.)
Agatha unnecessarily feeds her savior complex and plays chaperone.
Sophie is fashionable and traumatized. Business as usual.
Agatha commits a burglary.
Rafal trains the Nevers in classical dance. (I promise it’s vaguely plot-relevant.)
Agatha trains the Evers for war.
Sophie performs an archival search and reads Fala and His Brother.
The fic is still largely unwritten, so things may be subject to change later on.
Aesthetic for the 1st Chapter of The One True School Master of Vault 41
It's probably too early for this, but I had an idea, and ran with it.
A Peek at My Outline Process for The One True School Master of Vault 41
The largely non-spoilery page eight of my ridiculously long outline of TOTSMOV41 (81 pages and counting but with a lot of blank gaps and strange formatting). I don't know if anyone is interested, but essentially, this is an idea of what my inordinately-wordy brain-dump process looks like, usually before I settle on exact phrasings and flesh out scenes, and believe it or not: this is one of the cleaner pages.
And keeping things in chronological order is such a pain, haha. Serves me right because I started drafting chaotically in draft emails before I ever opened a proper Google doc. And I still haven't broken the habit, so now, I have an insanely outrageous grand total of 542 draft emails. Some have a few words, some are pages long, and not all of them are fic related, of course. At the very least, I had the good sense to label them at the time, but I've started opening documents instead, in hopes of forming a new habit.
Round III of Excerpts from The One True School Master of Vault 41
Agatha turned to the Rafal. "Interesting,” she nodded. "I'm sure you don't remember the names of all the masses you've murdered, but tell me, whose face do you see in your nightmares?" she prompted expectantly.
“Rh—h-hACK,” said he, the Evil sorcerer.
“What? Come again?” Agatha prodded all too knowingly as she got to her feet.
Rafal seized up and started to convulse silently. Something was obstructing his airways.
Sophie hopped up from her seat. “Aggie! He’s choking, Aggie!” she squawked.
“Oh! Well, do something then! He’s yours to look after!” Agatha crossed her arms and stared Rafal dead in the eye as he suffocated, daring him to try anything.
“B-but, I don’t know how to—" Sophie’s voice died in her throat as she fluttered her hands in distress. She looked at Agatha in askance. "Would you revive or resuscitate..."
Agatha shook her head stubbornly. She was Sophie's savior and no one else's. On occasion, she would save Tedros, but he usually wouldn't let her save him. "If he dies now, there'll be no one to blame and it'll be of natural causes. And, I'll be doing Tedros a favor by sparing him a heart attack. He's been through so much already, I'm not sure his heart could take another shock, like the one in front of us."
Sophie exhaled, ready to blow up, flustered and red. She could barely get words out, and froze in place. Her ribcage throbbed with panic, like she’d swallowed her heart whole.
She turned to Kiko, next, to seek help, but found that Kiko was gone! Sophie hadn’t noticed that the Evergirl, the only one she could expect a scrap of human decency from had fled from the table!
Turning bluer by the second, Rafal stopped clutching his throat.
He stood up abruptly, chair scraping the glass floor as it skidded back with a screech. He motioned with his hands to signal to the girls that they didn’t have to intervene, dismissing them.
Gripping the table, he leaned on it, bent over its edge, and thrust his fists against his diaphragm hard, dislodging what had caught in his throat.
A saliva-coated coin of cucumber shot out of his windpipe and hit Agatha squarely in the eye.
Sophie sagged in relief.
The slice of cucumber slid down Agatha’s cheek leaving a trail of spittle. “Well, that’s settled,” she griped sullenly. She flumped down on her seat cushion again, long, rangy limbs askew. “Too bad you’re alive.”
“Too bad indeed. For you,” Rafal smirked, stretching his tensed jaw so it clicked.
Agatha winced. “After yet another run-in with death, you’re still here. Guess my luck’s run dry for good. Will Lady Fortune ever be on my side?”
“Not if you don’t cease with the complaining,” he taunted, “If only I could stretch you beneath her wheel, but alas… I’m beholden to your dear friend.”
“Enough,” Sophie boomed as she slammed her hands on the glass table. The table shuddered, and the filigree bone china jittered as several serving dishes clinked together.
Agatha and Rafal swiveled to look at her.
“That’s it,” Sophie fumed, “I’ll put up with none of this infantile bickering while I’m present. You two must learn to cooperate. I know you don’t trust him, Agatha, darling, and admittedly, I don’t either, but I think he’s trying, at the very least, to be helpful, so be civil. The same goes for you as well, Rafal. At least try to look contrite. And remember: my say is final.”
All three fell silent for a moment.
"If you actually were wondering,” Rafal told Agatha, "The answer is Rhian. His face has haunted my dreams every night since he died.”
⸻
[Note: A lot comes to pass between these two scenes, so don’t expect them to be perfectly chronological. I just thought the shift could be fun to see.
And, this second section takes place earlier on in the plot by the way. We're nowhere near the climax with these two excerpts.
Also, watch what you think, Agatha. Some dreadful irony will come back to bite you, and everyone to be fair.
Oh, and did anyone catch the Shakespeare reference?]
Good's glass walls beamed back the moonlight like searchlights spilling from the columns. The walls were truly a spectacular sight, the mazes of halls all illuminated in silver.
Yet beauty and brilliant lighting do not the optimum conditions for breaking and entering make.
Every polished facet contained Agatha’s reflection, exposing her in her black robes. And, she was well-aware of this disadvantage, but she would never be able to slip away during the day, so night it was.
She rounded the bend and her spine prickled with the familiar sensation of being watched.
After her run-in with Professor Anemone, she now roamed the halls with much less fear. This time, she encountered a different petrified faculty member. Pollux.
She reached up and knocked lightly at the space between his eyes. Nearly soundlessly, it echoed, muffled by his thick-skulled, furred brow.
Just what she’d thought, he had nothing but a load of fluff in there. Agatha laughed to herself.
The labyrinthine glass breezeways, went winding and overlapping every which way, breathtaking in their complexity, but Agatha had discovered that no matter which corridor she turned into, the swathes of friezes lining the walls would direct her, pointing her in the same direction, hopefully the right direction.
The pearlescent friezes were inlaid with nacre, and they cast ribboned, iridescent rainbows when it was day. Though now, they gleamed a dim silver.
There they were, the figures frozen in motion, a goose girl’s tresses, a farm lad’s cap blown in the wind, trees doubled over, all bowing to the same current.
Certainly, they had been revised, but by whom?
All in one, singular direction they went, one after another in a sundry procession: fairy godmothers’ crystalline wands, soldiers’ spears, kings’ scepters, shamans’ pipes and tapering beards, Seers’ gazes, wizards’ staffs, fair maidens’ dismembered, white fingers, birds’ beaks, mermens’ tridents, agrarians’ pitchforks, crowds’ pennants, jousters’ lances, heraldic banners fluttering aloft, sylphs’ wispy tails, cupids’ arrows, and quixotic princes’ swords.
Agatha could not make heads or tails of these strange alterations to the scenes acting as her guides. They were most probably leading her to her final destination, as if they were conspiring to help her. But her theft would be a far cry from a Good Deed. It breached the Rules.
It was as if the School itself were supporting her theft from it. Or, could it be?
She stopped short.
And a prideful voice projected from somewhere sounded, reverberating through the glass-enclosed tunnel. “Move,” it told her with marked disdain and thinly veiled impatience.
It was coming from the walls, she concluded. Agatha looked about uneasily, thoroughly unsettled, and spun on her heels to face them. The carvings.
She stared intently at the wall closest to her.
A lean, cloaked prince was posed in the midst of slaying a serpentine creature that curled in on itself, swallowing its own tail. It was circular, made of a writhing mass of things.
Agatha shuddered involuntarily as she studied it. The beast’s scales resembled Japeth’s Scims a great deal. All snakes reminded her of Japeth these days. A wyrm, was it? No, it was an ouroboros.
And the prince’s banner, it was a gloomier, storm-cloud grey, silver like the Wish Fish. And it had a swan gracing it, an odd, obsidian piece of glass set into the frieze, looking darker than the rest of the banners. Still, it held gleams of iridescence. It was just duller and darker in finish than the other coats of arms. Almost, just almost, Evil’s banner.
The prince turned to her from his carved position, pointed his sword ahead and glared right at her. His swan crest blinked and seemed to glare down at her as well.
“Move, you imbecile,” said a cold, villainous, not particularly princely voice from the carved figure. “We don't have all night.”
Agatha stared dumbfounded.
"Yes, it's me,” Rafal’s voice seethed. “And I can't hold them frozen forever. So, go.”
Agatha stepped away from the wall, and proceeded down the last few lengths of the hall.
No, impossible. Rafal helping her was impossible, she thought breathlessly. Laughable. She was tempted to scoff, but held herself back since she didn’t want to take this one-time occurrence for granted.
Rafal. Of course. Always had to represent his own side, she supposed. The depraved madcap. Couldn’t masquerade as Good for a day, could he? If he had to be Good, he’d croak. She was sure of it. There wasn’t a single thing in these green Woods he could do to repent, help or no help. Not a thing.
He always had to be so maddeningly obvious about his darker, murderous instincts. His cold voice had been a dead giveaway. Even Sophie was subtler. And Sophie, subtle? No chance of it! He was just worse by comparison, that was all.
All the doom and gloom and the no-nonsense demeanor, it got tiring after a while. Christ, had she been like that before?
Agatha had masqueraded as a witch her whole life and look where it had gotten her. Just once, she wished she could see him beaten down and forced to act a harder role. Imagine, him, dealt a harder role to play. Like hers.
Had he ever been oppressed in his life? He was an oppressor! Well, Evil had been oppressed, but that was his own doing. He’d brought the curse upon himself by slaughtering his own brother!
You could do anything while Evil. But Good came with restrictions. The Nevers were freer, truly. They didn’t chastise bad manners and loud chewing. Well, Rafal seemed to, for Sophie’s sake. But Agatha knew most Nevers wouldn’t care a jot about tea party etiquette.
So long Rafal and thanks for all the help. I hope you wind up dead.
She had the urge to look back, but nevertheless, she turned away from the carved prince as he took up his sword and animatedly resumed fighting his battle with the ouroboros, blade clashing against scales, as if he were fighting his own violent rebirth.
Agatha was certain that this robbery wasn’t exactly the sort of cooperation Sophie had in mind, but it would have to do. It was the most they could muster up. And what did it matter now?
She gripped the crystal knob to Professor Dovey's office and turned it. Locked. Drat!
Then, she heard a clink and something pin-like skidded across the floor. The carved prince’s tiny sword.
She inserted it into the lock, and silently thanked Rafal. Maybe, he wasn’t so corrupt after all.
She tucked the sword into her pocket, and tentatively entered Professor Dovey’s office. She didn’t look back at the frieze, now converted into an ivory scene of bloodshed instead of victory. Nor did she catch sight of the tiny prince being disemboweled by the ouroboros, gutted through the gaps of the plating in his armor, leaking entrails, and succumbing to a theatrical “death” without his tiny sword.
The miniature black swan banner finally tipped and sank with a metallic clank, fluttering up like a flag of surrender before it settled on the ground.
After he was “killed,” Rafal exited the wall. A decent practice session in dying, he thought. Though it wasn't quite right. And being eviscerated wasn't a pleasant way to go, he found. He mentally crossed that method off his list.
The frieze reverted back to a prince frozen in the motion of slaying the ouroboros once again, banner branded with a white swan, as if Rafal had never been there at all.