Chapter Text
When Rafal returned to the Schools, still in an unrecognizable state after the brothers' renovations, he knew he had to find Rhian, to communicate. Yet, there stood Good, pompous like a cathedral.
Rafal paced outside the glinting castle for a moment. His brother had sold himself out, twice, for faithless, unworthy lovers, and he'd tarnished himself and his soul in the process.
Rhian was his perpetual foil. Rafal always had to clean up his brother's messes, do the dirty work his brother wouldn't deign to do, stain his soul when his brother wouldn't sully his hands. Wrap up everything when Rhian couldn't.
He flung open the doors to Good's foyer, and headed down an oddly vacant glass hall to another chamber, where he had sighted Rhian. With a conversation he would cast out Hook, purge one brother of impurities, and confirm the Evil of the other.
The wall of glass before him shone, the row of lancet windows casting long shadows. Rhian looked ethereal in the light, like a spirit.
His golden, wild-haired double turned to him. "Rafal?"
"Of course you're here. The ringleader of the corrupt Evers," Rafal said staidly, too drained to deal with false pretenses. "Where's your right hand?"
Rhian paused. "Here, with me."
There Rhian was, seeming as pure and untainted as perfectly blown glass. The walls behind him looked more the pure white of sugar glass, with distortions and cracks. He was backlit by the light streaming through the high, arched windows, haloed by it even. The dust motes swirled like powdered sugar. His soul was not unmarred, but it wasn't stained irrevocably, unforgivably. He was marked by only cheating.
Rhian cut a striking figure albeit a dark one, with his face shadowed. Meanwhile, Rafal stood opposite him, not bathed in light but shrouded in shadows. With his suit that matched Rhian's, Rafal stood out. Earlier, Rhian had doffed his royal blue jacket, and now, he only wore his white shirt, buttoned at the sternum, collar shielding his throat. On the dimmer side of the room, Rafal looked a smear of soot, sore and scalded.
He stepped forward and Rhian shrank from him. Rafal felt like he'd been impaled.
Rhian's face crumpled, and he spoke. "I wish you'd stop attacking me and antagonizing your students. Even the Storian is on Good's side, and it must have a reason."
Rafal's head spun as the harsh light glared, illuminating Rhian. Yet, it obscured him in shadow. Even this grandeur and light had forsaken him, just like the Storian and its tales. The Pen always abandoned Evil, condemned it. Rejected and denounced the Evil brother. Always. He was hurt, not the villain. He was reactive—trying to prevent the downfall of the Schools and felled by his supposedly virtuous brother—this couldn't be an Attack.
Rhian's hands shook as he continued. "I've only tried to improve Good. To bring glory to my Evers' tales."
"And what's all this? A new School, or a vanity project?" Rafal spat.
Rhian shook, more intensely than before.
"I was never consulted, so I shouldn't need to seek your permission for any changes I'll make to my Schools."
Rhian recoiled, and his vitriol struck Rafal like live coals. "Your Schools? You abandoned them. And me."
Rafal's hands were cold, as always, he supposed. Rhian's voice was weak and sputtering out now, like a smoldering match, the last embers of warmth. His brother had always been his beacon, keeping him in check.
"I fix everything." Rafal berated. "And then what? Do I get any credit? I don't care whether I do. I don't care what anyone thinks of me. But I'd appreciate basic respect for what I stand for. Yet, you seem to weigh the value of your life against what your reputation is. One day, you'll let your precious Ever followers, the standard-bearers, the bards, the minstrels, wax poetic about you, write epics, compose ballads. Do you want your subordinates to hail and herald you like a martyr, Rhian? Like you're Good's one and only savior?
"I don't believe it. You're too vain. You frame me as the one to be hated and scorned. A role I've been relegated to. To let rot and turn to dust in the storybooks. Why do you think I moved all of Evil's tales to the upper shelves of our office?
Not all Nevers are villains. I may be a Never and a villain, but I never thought I'd be your villain. Oh, you underestimate how much the students revile and fear me." His jaw tightened.
Rhian withdrew further under his incisive gaze. Rafal was always more perceptive than he gave him credit for.
"And, you've sold yourself out in the process of chasing your infatuations. You've betrayed your own soul, Rhian, and me. You've lost your true nature, your integrity and my trust." Rafal stilled, swallowed, and continued on. "You've been corrupted. You've discarded your true nature and better judgment, for a man who ultimately betrayed you, and another who, who doesn't have your best intentions at heart."
"How would you know?" Rhian blared.
Rafal took another step forward, thrust out an arm, and blasted Rhian back onto the floor. Approaching smoothly, he loomed over Rhian, and hooked his hand under Rhian's chin, lifting it to meet his gelid eyes. "I almost drowned to know that which you don't." He dropped his hand, and Rhian's head nodded forward like a sodden mass.
Rhian quailed in Rafal's grip. Rafal's suit flickered to black for a moment, burnt and blackened, a scorched figure against the white, and Rhian shook his head vaguely, as if to dislodge water. Surely, he was hallucinating.
Rafal's hand quivered, like he'd been singed. His eyes seared as if he were about to be burned to death, by the heat of his own built-up resentment and his brother's corruption that he failed to prevent. He was hollow and numb, like an effigy. Yet, there seemed to be something off in his brother as well. Rafal's heart throbbed with simultaneous fear and purpose.
His vision was momentarily veiled. Under the harsh, white light, all the flaws and rot beneath the surface of their relationship were laid bare. They were a specter of what they'd once been. Rafal's face went dead cold.
And then, clarity in denial:
"I'm not Evil—I can't be," Rhian choked.
"And I'm not Good. I wasn't, even when I had you." Rafal's finger burned with a black glow, blotting out the light in the echoing, empty room. He shot a Stun Spell at Rhian.
"I don't want to die."
Rafal seized one of Rhian's wrists to keep him from moving. "You're human, Rhian," Rafal said as he touched his brother's face gently. "As in mortal." He drew a dagger from his side, and held it steady above Rhian's heart.
"No, Rafal! I forgive you. I love you," Rhian gasped.
"And I loved you." Rafal plunged the dagger cleanly into Rhian's heart as Rhian stirred one last time. The rise and fall of Rhian's chest quickened. His blood pooled when Rafal removed the dagger. His heart kept pumping regularly but rapidly, to compensate for the blood loss until it stopped.
Rhian's body splintered into pure, golden light, dissipating in the air.
The burning, bright blue sky was unsettlingly placid as Rafal fled Good. The idyllic landscape around him unleashed a torrent of nausea in Rafal's throat, for everything else in the world looked right, as it should. Right and good and balanced. No one had yet realized what changed.
It was The End. The End of Ends. For all of time. At least it had an End. Their tale has closed. It had been open for too long, he knew. He'd see The End printed on his tale's last page soon enough.
Then, Rafal crossed over from Good, and stared at his reflection in Evil's moat. Its dark waters undulated languidly like the Savage Sea in miniature. His gelid resolve died. Immediately, remorse flooded him. His face broke from its calcified expression. Rafal's eyes widened. He couldn't grasp his actions. He could only think of his stained, bloodied hands, and his brother's stab wound welling up with blood. His jaw pulsed from having tensed it, and his face had gone white at the black depths of his soul.
His hands were pale, shaking, and blue-veined. What had he done? The only person who had ever loved him, gone. Because of him. His blind rage hadn't been tempered or balanced by his equal as it always had been. No, Rhian brought this upon himself. He'd not placated Rafal. That was Rhian's role, to appease his temperamental twin. But why was it that the instant Rafal left, he'd lost control? Was Rafal just as responsible for keeping his brother in check as well? His eyes burned and his windpipe closed. Then that meant he'd interfered with the Balance. That it was his fault. Not solely Rhian's. Searing rage at himself compressed his chest. He couldn't breathe.
The Storian would make him pay the price for his original sin. Because, Good and Evil relied on each other as much as they were locked in eternal war. And the brothers had breached their blood-sealed vow. The vow that overrode that war, and sustained the Balance. The very Balance he'd fought so long and hard to protect. That he'd destroyed in one, singular, rash move.
Rafal had been stupidly short-sighted for all his knowledge of the prophecy. All for the want of a truce. All for the want of an apology. All through the fault of a bet. The fate of the Woods had ridden on the outcome of a bet. A simple, petty, childish bet. Imagine that. What a tale. Staked on something so small and insignificant, blown out of proportion.
What were they now? Brothers torn asunder. Once pillars, that stood for Good and Evil. Stable and constant. Once equals. And now? Nothing. Nothing at all.
Love had burned Rafal, every time, like a sorcerer of the New tales, lashed to a stake.
There he sat, eyes burning with tears. And there he sat, never to trust again. Not anyone. Not even himself.