Sophie X Rafal - Tumblr Posts

Rafal as an Ever Student AU

I think I came up with a decent portion of this right before I read Rise, in the shower, and the rest of it manifested later on, after reading Rise.

Note: This concept is set as if he were in Sophie and Agatha's year.

He gets a different reception than Agatha despite being a bit like her but less coarse and more refined. He’s seen as broody and cool, not “moody,” “grumpy,” “sour,” and “unpleasant.” It is a total double standard for the Everboys that he benefits from.

Yes, he retains his personality from TLEA and Rise, just minus the Evilness. Aloof, grouchy, and quiet.

He’s not entirely an outcast even if he is unconventional, for a prince. The other Everboys hate him because he’s seen as competition. They poke fun at him and call him “as pale as a Crog’s underbelly.”

Some Evergirls are attracted to him. He sets their hearts aflutter, but most think he is the antithesis of Good in its typical definitions and forms. He is cold and pale, and leaner-built than most. He runs cold, unlike the warm-blooded, sweaty Everboys. (And, he and Sophie love each other. Although, being atypical examples of an Ever and Never as they are, they are quite a contrast and quite the power couple. Even though they are an Ever-Never couple, they have lots of commonalities. Maybe, they’d resemble Tophie, but their dynamic would be leagues better.)

Ironically, he performs badly at things that require true Goodness. The other Everboys mock him for being “impure” like the Nevers mocked Sophie.

Basically, Rafal is no good at doing performative Good. In the way that Sophie initially is bad at performative Evil, in practice.

However, he aces the Good theory lessons somehow. He probably got a 90% on Dovey's Good Deeds test. He just knows the Rules and how everything works really well. He's clever. That's obvious enough. (And, he was a prodigy in primary school.)

The two, Sophie and Rafal, are paradoxes. They are (oddly enough) desirable social-rejects.

One of their first interactions, after he performed badly in a class involving concrete action that Sophie witnessed:

Sophie: I thought you were Good.

Rafal: I am. In theory.

His ability to understand Good theory traces back to his Talent: how he already has a full understanding of how the Woods operate, and can read souls and intentions, meaning he can immediately sense who’s an Ever and who’s a Never, is a walking lie-detector, and senses a betrayal days before it happens. His weakness is that emotional attachment to people dulls his senses in regards to them specifically.

He’s also slightly prescient. He is not a Seer though. He can simply predict outcomes and movements with surprising accuracy. Plus, maybe, he's just observant and knows too much, more than he should, of the inner workings of the Schools’ system.

He probably cheats the system with his performance, anomalous with the actual impure inclinations of his soul. Like, he knows the correct, Good answers to the test. He just wouldn't be compelled to do all of it in reality. He doesn't care enough to. He doesn’t care enough for others. He doesn't care enough for what others think, at all, so that's part of the problem.

In reality, he’s on the less pure section of the Good continuum; he’s just incredibly competent at what he does to be tracked as a Leader. So, his morality is already greyish. But, he has no inclination to do Evil without provocation. He’s just capable of thinking exactly like a villain would, which both impresses and terrifies all the Evers. It looks suspicious, and Tedros is certain he’s secretly a Never.

This connects back to his Talent. Rafal can anticipate what Nevers will do. He’s always several steps ahead as a strategic, long-range planner.

Rafal’s Wish Fish vision is of Sophie. (He had seen her at the Welcoming, and cynically chalked her up to delusional Evil in love, like his Never brother once was. He did experience aesthetic attraction though.) He’s startled by the vision, and the Everboys jeer at him for being drawn to a Never.

Meanwhile, Agatha tries to tell Sophie to try and get him to kiss her, and tells her to wait for him to make the first move. Sophie doesn’t listen and approaches him. She had decided to lure him instead.

But she is not the only one with ulterior motives. At first, Rafal had selfish motives in pursuing Sophie. He, ever the control freak, decides to try and reform her. It would surely be an unforgettable accomplishment, and win him fame and influence as the first Ever to convert a Never to Good. Then, he’d take her as his queen.

And, yes, he admits, he does have feelings for her, but he is unable to process or decipher those feelings at the moment, and he stuffs them down, so he can conduct his morally-questionable experiment without interference.

He finds Sophie amusing and intriguing. Sometimes, he smiles knowingly at the lengths she goes to prove she's truly Good. Because, he once tried to love too and failed. His heart and soul failed him. And, it pains him to think about the Evil brother he had to kill in the purest self-defense a year ago. (Yeah, he's traumatized in this AU too.)

Eventually, he’s a prince lured onto Evil's side. She won their game, like a siren. And, both of them were already morally grey.

If the Storian were to write a fairy tale about them, the first triumph of both sides, it would be very radical for lack of a better word. Very good. Ahem. [Clears throat awkwardly.]

During TLEA:

Rafal: I just need to put down a few things.

Sophie: You mean like take down notes?

Rafal: No, insurrections.

Sophie: Oh. Well, carry on.

Rhian:

My jacket is blue,

And yours is black.

Oh please, dear brother,

Don’t Attack!

Rafal [delivered ominously]:

Your head is empty.

Your thoughts are nil.

Don’t worry, Rhian,

I will not kill.

⸻

Centuries later:

Rafal:

Blood is red and my jacket is black.

Please, Sophie.

Take me back.

⸻

(Inspired by a poem I had seen from a post about the Darkling and Alina.)

During TLEA in the School Master's tower:

Sophie: Rafal?

Rafal: [appears perched on the window ledge] Yes?

Sophie: [points at the plate of food before her] Is this made of bone?

Rafal: [shrugs casually and tips backward out the window]

Sophie: [calling after him, leaning out the window as he takes off] That's not an answer!

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?”

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.

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]

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.

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.

This tweet reminds me of Sophie and Rafal. (Though technically, it's untrue because Agatha understood Sophie, but from Sophie's pov, this is pretty accurate.)

On the occasion of the winter solstice, the darkest day of the year, I thought it would be an appropriate time to post some of my old Raphie aesthetics that I'd stored away. I think nearly all of them predate Rise, so yeah, I'm contradicting canon. What about it?

Also, as usual, none of the photos are mine, and I drew inspiration from other edits I've seen. The only things I can claim are the editing done to some of the images and the dialogue in the first image.

With the rings in TLEA, I feel like Sophie and Rafal could be interpreted as fiancées since they were something adjacent to engaged.

Screenshots of my TOTSMOV41 Pinterest board. By the time the fic is done, it could be subject to change. Also, it's "read" from the bottom image to the top one. Make of it what you will. Questions are welcome!

Round IV of an Excerpt from The One True School Master of Vault 41

Let’s just say I was inspired by Soman’s short story, “The Prince’s Club.”

⸻

“Yes,” she reasserted. “You’re dead. I know it. I’ve proved it again and again, every single time I’ve doubted it. Just because my senses are telling me you’re real doesn’t mean I can trust them or you. This hallucination will not undermine the truth. You can’t exist. You only exist in my head. You’re a product of my mind.”

Rafal decided to defer to her for the time being. “Well then, while I'm still here, as long as I last, for my temporary stay in… your head, why argue? Why not make the most of the time we have? And, why bother to send me away? Am I not fit to hold a simple conversation with you?”

“You inhabit my dreams and nightmares,” she scorched. “That’s it! I’m still not awake.”

“Really? What is it that you dream of, when you dream of me?”

“Ah, well… it usually vacillates between you kissing me and me killing you,” Sophie confided.

“What else? Go on,” Rafal prompted, treading lightly. “ I want to know.”

Sophie hesitated. “All right.” She looked away from him, and began her recitation.

“There have been others, far more bizarre ones, I suppose. Er, in one, I refused your ring and you jumped to your death. You’ve fed me to Stymphs, you’ve imprisoned me in an enormous bird cage, you’ve chained me to the ground by my ankles, and I don’t know why, it was not the worse one by far, but I wept, and you told me to shut up because you had a migraine. I kept sobbing, and finally, you handed me a pike and told me to run you through the head because you couldn’t take it anymore. You’ve driven a letter opener through my throat because you weren’t having enough reading my mind as it was and thought you could pry open my vocal cords and cut out my tongue. You’ve… ahem, taken me down with a literal scythe, you’ve flown me into the center of the sun… and uh, you’ve serenaded me with a lute while wearing these horrendously obsequious pantaloons. I was wearing a lovely, lavender hennin, decked with tulle in that one. Some of my classmates pelted you with spoiled fruit. And, in another, I stood by while Tedros carved out your eyes and then turned you into a stone statue for Merlin's Menagerie. I cleaved off your ears because you hadn’t listened to me about getting a haircut. Agatha did not partake in your mutilation, but she did cheer exuberantly. Can’t blame her though—it wasn’t the real Agatha. Then, I planted a pomegranate tree in your honor. That nightmare was rather lurid. It still haunts me. Come to think of it, your hair does fall into your eyes. I think it would look better if it hit a bit higher above your brows. Yet another time, you were unspeakably upset for no particular reason, stamped your foot until you opened a rift in the ground, tore yourself into two like you were made of gingerbread, and then, the split parts fell through the earth. I was also mad because you’d eaten the honeycomb for one of my beauty routines, but I didn’t get upset like you did,” she accused. “Another night, I tied you to a bedpost and gagged you with a satin pincushion. You looked quite comical, but wouldn’t stop mumbling. My nails were bloody and I had torn cuticles for some reason. I think you ruined my manicure. And all the Old villains and the New students besieged you and got a good whack in while you were restrained, and the whole bed frame creaked until the bed collapsed on itself. You’d broken free from the binds, splintering the wood. You blew them to ashes. Then, you put me in a glass bauble. Everything looked colorful and distorted, and I think I must’ve died of suffocation because I don’t seem to recall the rest. One night, we sat atop the framework of a gallows where the waxen corpses were still strung up, with very fine sewing thread, no less, and you told me you thought my glass slippers were a laughingstock and that I was no match for Cinderella. Then you smoked a pipe. We went ice-skating, and you fell through the solid ice and simply disappeared. Or was that the one where you drowned in a pit of ashes, compressed into diamond dust that I used to decorate the borders of my stationary with? All that aside, I laughed and then some force sucked me down after you, as if it were a portal to Hell. Agatha grew wings and tried to save me to no avail. I swallowed the glacial water and, and, um… then I woke up. And… uh, that’s most all of them. The recent ones, at least.”

She pinked egregiously, and glanced back at him nervously to gauge his reaction.

Rafal wore an exaggerated scowl, to keep his laughter at bay, and he’d bitten down on his lip hard, dribbling blood. He wiped the blood on his sleeve.

Sophie curled her lips at the sight of yet another stain, but it didn’t truly matter because his jacket was already doused in blood.

Rafal cleared his throat breathlessly, and tried to speak, but no words came out. He started again. “Hmm… well then. That confirms you’re a Reader.” Disarmed, he scratched his neck as it reddened.

“Yes,” she agreed awkwardly.

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Any reactions anyone? And did you catch the references I made? I’d love to get concrit on this one.

This isn't a real TOTSMOV41 excerpt, and I don't think anything will come of it, unless it does become something...but, probably not. So, just consider it a hypothetical, not set at any point during the actual story and out of TCY timeline for the most part.

Also, the dialogue may be a bit out of character, but that's more for the sake of the humor.

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Rafal: Please—

Sophie: No.

Rafal: Please—just one little murder spree, my love?

Sophie: For the last time, Rafal! I don’t want Teddy to be mad at me! You can’t kill Merlin just because he foiled your old war efforts! Honestly! Don’t you have more productive things to be doing?

Rafal: [bitterly] Not really since you seem to be in the process of taking my job… I’ve got to hand it to you, you’re a usurper at worst, but I’ll forgive you because you look radiant today.

Sophie: [blushes] Well, that’s life! And you just have to accept it. [while murmuring to herself] I do deserve applause, don’t I?

Rafal: And death. Don’t forget death. [spoken under his breath] It’s as much a part of life as your inane rules, apparently.

Sophie: What was that, darling?

Rafal: Nothing. Of course you're School Master for all your brilliant rules. Just don't come complaining to me when the students are sentencing you to life in prison.

Sophie: Whyever would they do that?

Rafal: Don't ask. The job will turn you insane enough in time to find out for yourself. In fact, I'll do you a favor and bequeath my insanity to you, free of charge, Master.

Updates and Round V of Excerpts from The One True School Master of Vault 41

Draft 0 of TOTSMOV41 is at 171 pages or 54,527 words! (A lot of it is just notes, not actual story, so my bet is that it will turn out shorter than I may've led you to believe (still could be wrong though) but it's getting somewhere since I've last done some transferring of my notes into one, cohesive document.)

Not-so-fun fact about it: Rafal temporarily goes blind and deaf.

These contextless excerpts are shorter than usual, but I just realized I had written a trope I like in which couples indirectly, unintentionally clash, which I find funny and ironic.

Another fun fact: The song on my TOTSMOV41 playlist that vaguely fits the vibes around the time of these moments would be "All That Glitters" by Earl. I just discovered the song today! (Eventually, probably after I publish the fic, I'll post the fic's playlist.)

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Should she have gone for something even harsher than what she'd written in a flourished, calligraphic hand?

I would snub my date if he ever dared have rotten breath. It would be pure humiliation. In fact, I'd address it directly, as an announcement to all, so I could gain in my social standing while I simultaneously lower his. No man with poor hygiene deserves me.

No, not Evil enough of a response, Sophie scrutinized. Just petty. Back to square one. She sighed.

⸻

Rafal thought he should change his shirt before their tower meeting tonight, but he was out of clean laundry and the spell to steam the blood out of his clothes would be too taxing on him in this state. Agatha wouldn't care and besides, they had work to do. But Sophie...

He took his black shirt to the sink and tried to scrub out as much of the blood as he could with a stiff brush. By the time he was done, there was one, even darker, rusted patch of blood blooming on his shirt and some flecks on the sleeves.

More mess—if only he weren't useless without his sorcery!

He clenched his fists in frustration, suddenly aware of his raw, cramped fingers and ragged, poorly groomed nails, ready to lob the bloody shirt out the tower window entirely, but no shirt with "Aggie darling" and her heightened suspicions around would be worse by about a thousandfold. He'd be a dead man walking as if he weren't one already.

Thus, he picked up the balled-up cloth from the sink in defeat. Wet shirt it was then. What other options did he have?

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Incidentally, Agatha turned up with a waterlogged crystal ball that overshadowed the sorry sight of his stained and torn shirt.

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If anyone wants to know the symbolism behind this, I'll gladly explain it! Also, if anyone wants to, I invite you to guess at it.