After four years, the dreaded eleventh night of the eleventh month had arrived. Late in the day, the town had become busy with preparation for the School Master's arrival. The men sharpened swords, set traps, and plotted the night's guard, while the women lined up the children and went to work on making their children as ugly as possible. Handsome ones had their hair lopped off, teeth blackened, and clothes shredded to rags. Homely ones were scrubbed, swathed in bright colors, and fitted with veils. Mothers begged the best-behaved children to curse or kick their sisters, the worst were bribed to pray in the church, while the rest in line were led in choruses of the village anthem: "Blessed Are the Ordinary."
Everyone in the town was frightened of what could happen during the night. In a dim alley, the butcher and blacksmith traded storybooks for clues to save their sons. Beneath the crooked clock tower, two sisters listed fairy-tale villain names to hunt for patterns. A group of boys chained their bodies together, a few girls hid on the school roof, and a masked child jumped from bushes to spook his mother, earning a spanking on the spot. Even the homeless hag got into the act, hopping before a meager fire, croaking, "Burn the storybooks! Burn them all!" But no one listened and no books were burned.
Agatha gawped at all this in disbelief. "How can a whole town believe in fairy tales?"
"Because they're real," Sophie added.
"You can't actually believe the legend is true Sophie?" Y/n questioned.
"Of course I do," Sophie said, raising her brows at the two girls.
"That a School Master kidnaps two children, takes them to a school where one learns Good, one learns Evil, and they graduate into fairy tales?" Agatha asked.
"Sounds about right."
Y/n raised her hand up and began rubbing the bridge of her nose. She looked similar to a disappointed mother.
"Tell me if you see an oven," Agatha said.
"Why?"
"I want to put my head in it."
Sophie scowled at Agatha.
"And what, pray tell, do they teach at this school exactly?" Y/n asked.
"Well, in the School for Good, they teach boys and girls like me how to become heroes and princesses, how to rule kingdoms justly, how to find Happily Ever After," Sophie said. "In the School for Evil, they teach you how to become wicked witches and humpbacked trolls, how to lay curses and cast evil spells."
Agatha and Y/n slowly turned and looked at each other with concerned faces and then burst into laughing fits.
"Evil spells?" Agatha cackled. "Who came up with this? A four-year-old?"
"Guys! The proof's in the storybooks! You can see the missing children in the drawings! Jack, Rose, Rapunzel—they all got their own tales—"
"Look, who's to say the books are even real? Maybe it's the bookseller's prank. Maybe it's the Elder's way of keeping children out of the woods," Y/n suggested.
"Whatever the explanation, it isn't a School Master and it isn't evil spells," Agatha finished.
"So who's kidnapping the children?"
"No one. Every four years, two idiots sneak into the woods, hoping to scare their parents, only to get lost or eaten by wolves, and there you have it, the legend continues."
"That's the stupidest explanation I've ever heard."
"I don't think we're the stupid ones here," Y/n said.
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The Tale of Two Hearts | Tedros x Reader
Fanfiction"Of all the tales in all the kingdoms in all the woods, you had to walk into mine." The three friends Sophie, Agatha, and Y/n all live simple lives in the small town of Gavaldon where nothing even comes between them. They never would have thought th...
