The Tale of Two Hearts | Tedros x Reader

Chapter 3: The School Master's Arrival:

By the time the sun was no longer shining, the children were long locked away. Through bedroom shutters, they peeked to see their armed fathers and mothers, sisters and brothers, and grandparents all lined around the dark forest, daring the School Master to cross their paths.

But while frightened children tightened their window screws, Sophie prepared to undo her while an annoyed Y/n watched her. She wanted this kidnapping to be as convenient as possible. Barricaded in her room, she laid out hairpins, tweezers, and nail files and went to work.

The first kidnappings happened two hundred years before. Some years it was two boys taken, some years two girls, sometimes one of each. The ages were never the same every year. One could be sixteen, the other fourteen, or both just turned twelve. At first, the choices seemed random, but then it was clear what the pattern was. One was always beautiful and good while the other was homely and odd. The opposing pair was taken away and never seen again.

Of course, the villagers blamed bears at first. No one had ever seen a bear in Gavaldon but the kidnappings made them more determined to find one. Four years later, when two more children vanished, the villagers admitted they should have been more specific and stated that it had to have been black bears since they blended in so well at night. But when the children continued to disappear every four years, the village changed their idea to burrowing bears, then phantom bears, then bears in disguise until they finally realized it wasn't bears at all.

While the villagers tried to come up with new theories, the children of Gavaldon began to notice something suspicious. As they looked at the dozens of missing posters tacked up in the square, the faces of the lost boys and girls looked familiar. That's when they opened up their storybooks and found the missing children.

Taken fifty years before, sweet Ayna now sat on moonlit rocks in a painting as the Little Mermaid, while cruel Estra had become the devious sea witch. Philip, the priest's son, had grown into the Cunning Little Tailor, while Gula spooked children as the Witch of the Wood. The children who had been kidnapped in pairs had found new lives in a storybook world. One as Good. One as Evil.

These storybooks had come from Mr. Deauville's Storybook Shop, a small building located between Battersby's Bakery and the Pickled Pig Pub. The issue was where Mr. Deauville got his storybooks.

Randomly, once a year, he would arrive at his shop to find a book of books waiting inside. Four brand new fairy tales, one copy of each. Mr. Deauville would hang a sign on his shop door: "Closed Until Further Notice." Then he'd stay in his back room day after day, copying the new tales by hand until he had enough books for every child in Gavaldon. Once finished, he'd open his doors to a several mile line that wrapped around the town, jammed with eager children who wanted new stories and parents who hoped their missing child would be in this year's tales.

It wasn't surprising that the Council of Elders had several questions for Mr. Deauville. When asked who sent the books, Mr. Deauville said he had no idea who it could possibly be. When asked how long the books had been appearing, Mr. Deauville said he couldn't remember a time when the books did not appear. This had stumped the elders and the people of the town. Until something happened.

Mr. Deauville had just finished unpacking that year's storybooks when he noticed a large smudge hiding in the box's fold. He touched his finger to it and discovered that the smudge was still wet with ink. When he looked closer, he was able to see an elaborate crest of a black swan and a white swan. On the crest were three letters:

S.G.E

There wasn't a need for him to guess what these letters meant. It said so in the banner beneath the crest. Small black words that had finally explained where the stolen children had gone.