Chapter Text
The story of the current dorm head of Heartslabyul, Maris, started long before he even took that position.
No, wait, that sounded way too iffy. Let me try that again.
Maris Leech was the son of Floyd Leech and Riddle Rosehearts.
Yes, those two. Hey, no, don’t look at me like that, I didn’t pull any of fates strings.
And before you ask, because I know well SOMEONE will ask, the answer is somehow yes, they really did stay together long enough to have children. Two in fact, they had twins! Maybe it runs in the family. But the other one’s tale will be saved for another night.
Anyways. This story isn’t about Floyd or Riddle, like that was just mentioned in the first line, thanks for the reminder!
This story is about their eldest son. Well, not actually the eldest. Maris’ brother likes to argue he was born first by a few seconds, but he says it doesn’t matter.
But that also doesn’t matter, what is important is this; Maris Leech was the housewarden of Heartslabyul dorm.
…
I know. You noticed it too, right? You looked at that piece of work and went “THAT ONE?” Exactly what I was thinking too, Maris did not really look and act like housewarden material, and his mere appearance stuck out like a sore thumb with the dorm filled with red here and red there.
The thing about Heartslabyul was that it traditionally favored people with commanding presence like the Queen of Hearts herself.
Then the Dark Mirror looked at Maris during the sorting ceremony and apparently decided, “You know, I have a real chance to be funny.” And shoved the poor, unfortunate soul into Heartslabyul.
The thing people first noticed was the hair. Bright turquoise with black streaks stretching out resembling hair vents, or ink spilling into seawater. Yeah, hard to miss and entirely Floyd’s fault.
The second thing people noticed, was that Maris was… painfully easy to push around. Not because he was weak SEVENS NO. That misunderstanding ruined a few people.
Maris folded easily under pressure. Upperclassmen realized this approximately two weeks into Maris’ first year.
“Maris, can you carry this for me?”
“Maris, can you do me a favor?”
“Maris can you do my alchemy homework?”
“Maris, can you pick that up?”
“Maris, can you swap cleaning duty with me?”
And because Maris had inherited Riddle’s sense of responsibility without inheriting the ability to tell people to piss off, he’d just smile nervously and agree.
That attracted the WORST kinds of people imaginable. By his second month at NRC, Maris somehow became… how could you say it?
An unpaid assistant, errand runner, occasional support guy, ‘the guy you run to when you don’t want to do your homework.’
There were fools that were fully convinced they could tell him anything if they sounded disappointed enough, and honestly they weren’t entirely wrong.
Wait, wait get a load of this. The funny part was that Maris actually DID resemble in different ways. They shared the same eyes of course, but there was one major difference between them.
Our favorite Teapot Tyrant was widely known to turn ‘red’ when angry, right? Maris, turned white. And that’s not a metaphor, I’m for real. The kind of pale where people started wondering if he needed medical attention.
Whenever Maris gets overwhelmed enough with fear, shock, stress, confrontation—his face lost so much color he looked moments away from getting dragged down by the king of the underworld himself.
That if you heard, is how Maris… earned the nicknames, ‘Blue Rose’ and ‘Overwatered Rose.’ Yes, because he was the brightest shade of blue in sight, and because of his personality,
Which finally brings us to this incident, the duel.
I know what you’re thinking. DUEL? Yeah sounds kind of familiar right? Like a certain duel that went on between a tyrant and a card soldier a years ago? Yup that’s exactly it.
The previous housewarden of Heartslabyul whose name history kindly forgot, already disliked Maris long before he knew anything about him.
His reason came from finding Maris strange, quiet, polite and soft. And despite all that? Absurdly talented. Which was what annoyed them most. Maris has never once bragged, challenged anyone, sought recognition or wanted attention.
Yet his grades remained near perfect, his magical output was monstrous and his control over spell casting was polished enough to make upperclassmen uncomfortable.
That part, which you’ve probably realized by now, came from his parents. Riddle had guided him at a young age, not with the same methods used by someone who will remain unnamed, but thoroughly with structured lessons, proper form and discipline.
And the eel? Floyd WAS ALREADY a prodigy in his own way with his intelligence veiled by his behavior.
Maris was lucky enough to be passed on with both.
Somehow, the former housewarden eventually mistook Maris’ timidness for disrespect during an argument involving dorm rules. The challenge to a duel happened fast, Maris barely understood what was happening before half the dorm had gathered around them.
He didn’t really want to fight, didn’t want to refuse either. Refusing would cause problems, accepting would also cause problems. Everything caused problems.
…
Narrator here, I would love to tell you Maris had some dramatic awakening, but shockers, he didn’t. The boy was absolutely terrified and that foolish random never saw it coming!
The second the duel started, instinct took over where panic left off and the fight ended in what…? Under four minutes, which was generous of him to put that idiot out of his misery, he totally got smoked.
By the end of it, the former housewarden’s magic had been dismantled so cleanly it looked less like a duel, but an educational demonstration.
Maris stood there, visibly shaking, horrified at himself, while the other students looked like they’d just experienced the Queen of Hearts stepping out of the history book.
And because we know NRC loves ruining lives, Maris accidentally became housewarden of Heartslabyul dorm.
The funnier part? He tried to turn it down.
His new card soldiers were staring at him differently, not respectfully no, no, that would come later or never. They looked at him the way people looked at thunderstorms over the ocean.
For a short amount of time, he told himself,
“Just until things settle down.”
“Just until everyone stopped making such a big deal about it.”
Which led to the single worst mistake of his life, telling his parents.
“YOU WHAT!?” Riddle’s voice nearly blew out the speakers.
Maris instinctively pulled the phone away from his ear, wincing as Floyd burst into loud cackling in the background.
“You became housewarden in your first year,” Riddle sounded seconds away from melting from pride alone. “Maris, that is an incredible achievement!”
An incredible achievement indeed, for someone who actually wants it. His father’s words made Maris come to the decision to keep the title…
.
..
…
Ok now, despite literally everything I just told you, Maris… Actually had a very loving family. Complicated, loud but loving.
People expected someone raised by Floyd and Riddle would turn out to be a difficult person, oh shucks. Instead they got Maris.
Even Floyd thought this was hysterical, not in a cruel way, but because he genuinely never expected this timid boy to “follow goldfishie’s path,” his words not mine.
A few things about Floyd’s parenting was that he encouraged a lot of Maris’ gentler habits without realizing it. To Floyd, Maris was capable, end of discussion.
As for Riddle, he was a completely different issue altogether. He tried, very, very hard not to become like the person who will again, REMAIN unnamed. And objectively speaking? He succeeded.
Maris never grew to fear him, never dreaded going home.
But Riddle had overcorrected in another direction. He worried, constantly. About grades, stress, overworking, friendships, his overall wellbeing. He carried anxiety like it was a second circulatory system that built itself the moment his children were officially away from home.
Maris really is one unfortunate boy to inherit enough of it to make both of them disasters, since the moment the title of housewarden was passed down to him, Riddle was conflicted by his pride as a former dorm head, and as a parent.
“Are your card soldier’s listening to you?”
“You must tell me if another student challenges you improperly!”
“Maris, you aren’t overexerting yourself are you?”
And Maris who already overthought everything naturally, started second guessing himself even more. Because if his father was worried, shouldn’t he be worried too?…
The ironic but obvious part was that both of his parents loved him so openly it was embarrassing…
There was even an incident where Floyd cornered Jade for forty minutes just to brag about Maris’ exam scores. Jade reportedly escaped by pretending he had work to do.
The twins in question, were a little different. Maris and his brother were close in the strange, instinctive way only twins could be.
With them, it took a single glance for one of them to know if the other was feeling off.
Maris’ brother, that prick was a real piece of work. Seriously I don’t know what is keeping that boy together.
The times where Maris is getting pushed around, you can say that his brother pushed back harder. There had once been an accident in their first year where students were speaking ill behind his back, saying he was supposedly too weak to be a proper housewarden.
You can guess what happens next, Maris finds out and it goes down the vine with the other twin finding out too.
The resulting chain of events allegedly involved cruel, humiliation rituals that I won’t name, and SOMEHOW he wasn’t caught. Nobody could prove anything.
“You didn’t have to do that,” Maris had protested weakly, while his brother sprawled across the couch looking immensely pleased with himself. “I swear it wasn’t bothering me.”
His brother looked at him like he’d just said the stupidest thing imaginable!
“O-kay, then stop letting them walk over you.”
That was the core of their relationship. Because his brother hated watching Maris fold himself smaller for other people’s comfort, while he hated conflict so much he’d willingly absorb discomfort just to keep the peace around him. And his brother knew that, knew how far Maris would bend before breaking, which was why he became strangely territorial over him.
People learned quickly that insulting Maris was one thing, doing it repeatedly within the hearing distance of his twin was another matter.
Funnier part in all of this was Maris himself didn’t fully understand why people started calling him ‘Blue Rose’ and ‘Overwatered Rose.’
Unluckily for him, it was an insult.
A main motif for Heartslabyul dorm, a rare, delicate flower. A rose drowned by too much care that they found to be too soft, fragile to survive…
OK to wrap this up, let’s talk about piece of work number three. Virelle. This is a funny story actually, not for Maris though.
Virelle Hunt-Schoenheit. Yes, that Schoenheit.
This boy managed to inherit Vil Schoenheit’s terrifying perfection and Rook Hunt’s unsettling enthusiasm for observing distress, and the great seven decided the missing ingredient was reckless curiosity about fear responses.
In a more discreet way, this spud likes watching people panic. He treats human expression the way other people treat art exhibitions.
“Oh, your pupils dilated when you tripped. Can you do that on the whim?”
Like no, Virelle. That is not a normal sentence that should be coming out of your mouth. Put it back.
Virelle floats somewhere between ‘elegant role model’ and ‘someone you should not let near balconies.’
Do you know the more concerning part? This psychopath was a student at NRC! Meaning he could NOT be stopped without paperwork.
Oh? And you ask about his relationship with Maris himself?
The first time Virelle saw Maris, the first time they properly talked to each other, he thought he was an ‘expressive subject’ which is not what normal people think when they meet someone.
As for Maris, he was doing what he always did when meeting new people.
Virelle was just staring like a creep, but that wasn’t even his intention. It was like the guy was trying to memorize the intervals of Maris’ blinking.
“…Is something wrong?”
“No, I apologize. Don’t mind me, I was just noticed you blink every three point forty seven seconds.”
That should’ve been the first warning sign, the second sign was that Virelle started seeking him out.
Hey, before you start thinking it was romantically, maybe it could have but definitely NOT IN A NORMAL SENSE, just keep reading.
Virelle began appearing where Maris was, and after a while of not seeing each other, he’d ask him to join him on death warranted activities like skydiving off a broom and such.
At some point, the rumor chain did what it always does at NRC and decided that they’re ‘close.’
But what they really had was Virelle developing what can only be described as a weird fascination with Maris’ expressions!
“Maris, don’t you just wonder somethings what face you’d make if you fell from a great height, say like, the peak of the main building?”
…
“I-I’m sorry?… Please don’t say that kinds of stuff.”
To be clear on Maris’ behalf, he does not reciprocate this dynamic, he most certainly not flattered, mostly confused and trying not to offend anyone…
At best, he considers Virelle to be unpredictable and difficult to interpret.
While Virelle… he has already assigned significance to something or someone the moment they meet, which had more people start MORE rumors about them.
Hey, narrator here for the last time, ON MARIS’ BEFHALF, he would like to say this is not romance, not even flirting!
This is just one boy trying to survive in a place where people make a joke out of him…
Blue Rose’s Tale, 1/?