Red Rose | Lady Lesso Fanfiction

Lesso's Truth

"I'll tell you. Please just listen. I'm done tricking you now!" The cane stabs into hardwood tiles, screeching and scraping whilst Lesso screeches her voice, the noises blending into one. "You've been tricking me?!" Both of them, bewildered at each other; now in conflict, a conflict that needs to be solved. "Astrid, please. You don't have to be my friend anymore after this. But you have to be a part of our team still... we're both deans, we have to work together. The more you whinge and complain about what I did, the worse it'll be for both of us, ok?" Softly, Lesso slides up off her back from the floor and kneels hard, about to burst any second. With Astrid being sensitive toward emotions, she immediately picks up on the fact and feels bad. I harmed her, I hurt her, physically and emotionally. She did the same. I have to be the Ever, I have to be good. I have to defend both of us from harm, I can do that by listening. I'm just still so upset... Thunder and lightning dispart from Lesso's fogged by a sappy, watery, cease pool of tears, mind; soothing Astrid's anxiety. "This is going to be a mouthful, just listen, no interruptions." A finger smears her final tear into skin pores, salting and stinging fragments of skin slightly; Lesso now begins to speak, ridded of emotion. "I've known you longer than you think... much... much longer." Words break, allowing Astrid to commence confusion before Lesso continues spontaneously. "It might've not exactly been you as an individual but, she was close to you, you didn't even know of her." Blank slate, a blank intermission for silence, allowing Astrid to conspire. Who is 'she' who is 'her'? "But, you both shared one thing. She took that thing from you though." Lesso breathes. "Your mother." Allowing Astrid's face to drop, Lesso sniffs her nose at the sight of Astrid in such dismay. Her mind, flipped upside down. Everything is being flipped upside down for this poor woman... I feel awful, but I need to tell her. She needs to see that I'm not trying to hurt her. I just... care about her, I don't know how to be nice about it. I can't talk to her normally, I can't be nice. I have to be evil about it, always. Nothing, atmosphere empty. The room empty of noise, only white noise of both of their delicate breathing, one breath amping up the more she waits for another response. "Remember, as a child, your mother was barely present and then one day she just disappeared, forever?" Lesso's heart felt on a stake as she toyed with sensitive subjects. "She was always here. Each of those periods she came home align with the teachers holidays. Your sister was trapped here. You don't remember her because when you were born she got taken, she was taken in the middle of the night to the school." Lesso gulps air, fresh scholarly air - feeding her memory of being a young never. And continues. "I have always been here too. I was taken when I was about to enter teen hood. I was Leonora Lesso: scared, angsty, filled with pure evil. I was shy, very shy. I got placed in the school of evil and your mother, the dean of good was always a bitch to me alongside the headmaster. They ridiculed me, they knew I was the odd one out because I got my powers super late. But that all changed later on." Astrid anticipated the continuation as she stared at Lesso's usually sharp, catty eyes, softening at the reflection of herself in the nearby mirror, smashed and bruised like them. "Your sister was an Ever. She was beautiful, she was perfect, she was miss popular: Claire Widows. She looked very similar to you, just older, of course. I always followed her around at lunch because I had no other friends and surprisingly, we became best friends. We were forbidden and nobody knew of us, until, the dean of good, your mother... noticed us together. At first she tried to split us up. Back then, Evers and Nevers even interacting was highly forbidden, let alone being best friends. We of course, didn't untie the tight knot that was strangled around both our necks keeping us together. So, your mother got the headmaster and he decided to do things the hard way; he burnt the dorm towers down, killing your sister and mother. The headmaster fucked up, he thought your mother was elsewhere and accidentally set fire to the room when she was in there." Both woman freeze in catastrophe. One sorrowing her trauma, the other whimpering at the fact of her barely known of family dying - it was a late mourn. Lesso clears her mind of self pity, furthermore, and speaks coldly, aggressively, cynically; "I was heartbroken, devasted. I loved your sister. I wanted to kiss her, I wanted to make her my girlfriend, she was perfect to me and everybody else. I never got the chance. I was naïve at giving my already dissipated, singular fragment of love and obsession to her. I mean, what the fuck was I thinking? A queer relationship in an already judgmental school? And that was the start of it all. The start of my career; my career of secret jealousy and sensitivity disguised by ruthlessness, coldness, charisma and evil. I met Rathal when I was about eighteen, the headmasters evil brother. We were partners in sinister for years... he loved me, I didn't love him; I just used him to feed into my ego and success. But then, he suddenly disappeared. I don't know why, I still think the headmaster has something to do with it. You see, the headmaster hates me for everything that happened when I was still just a child, he holds a secret grudge against me and is always trying to tear me into shreds and rid of me. But now that I'm the dean, he can't do anything, I've grown too smart. But anyway, there goes me, losing another lover. I was mad, pure mad. I went wicked, got into my position as dean and there, here we are: bitchy Leonora Lesso. Not that timid, foolish little girl who's still trying to master her dark magic, now I'm a powerhouse of cruelty. I controlled and still do control, all evil in this school... but, unlike most Nevers... my cravings were fuelling my rampage: I craved a lover, I craved my girlfriend I never had." Alarms blared in Astrid's head, touching her soul and body with heat as she picked up on something about Lesso: she was nearing the truth, the way her tears burnt into her eye creases, reddening everything, her face glowing red whenever she looked at Astrid. Everything was red and burning up, crumbling the facades into ash. "At first, I didn't even think about a potential partner. All I cared about was making a mark in this school with my wicked behaviour. I pushed myself to be a great teacher, then next up, I was the dean of evil. I first got placed into this position about five years ago. Five years ago, I was ecstatic, my heart shrunk another size or so and I was evil. I did an amazing job, I've seen many graduate - because of my awesomely insane and despicable teaching. Little did all those kids know, I was sucking myself clean of my soul to feed into their success. I may seem evil, but I am for a reason: I'm in long-term pain. My body is cleansed of all love, it hurts everyday, that's why I'm so aggressive. It's all I can serve, so why not be good at it? Why not be the most evil there can be?" Lesso's voice took a turn around a corner, a corner of misery as it burnt through her usually cold tone, turning into one of soft, desperate whines. "That's until I found out that Claire was still alive in some other form..." A moment of realisation smacked Astrid in the face. "You." Lesso's hands cradled a familiar object: rusty red, wooden, encased by a ebony locket. "I'm the reason you're here in the first place." She was the one behind that crate... Now Astrid is getting flashbacks of everything prior to being here. Everything all lead up to this crate, everything all lead up to this. Just a few weeks before she first was aware of this crate's existence, she recalled coming face to face with more 'evil' things (having to murder an animal to live through her towns economic crisis, witnessing arguments between locals each day she went to town...) It was foreshadowing everything... "Even before I came up with the 'crate riddle', I was watching you... eyes were everywhere and you didn't even know it." Demonic looking animals like rats and crows always flicked their heads to me when I walked by... "One was actually a person you saw often... the only person you had frequent communication with." The hatmaker! Maya! I have a sharp remembrance of her acting all grouchy with me about the crate. Was that Lesso's impatience? "I replaced the souls and minds of regular people and animals into those of my own spies, the demons. I worked with risky magic just to see if you truly were who I thought you were. And you were." Astrid couldn't help but stretch her facial muscles into a small smile. Somebody's finally proud of me. "Then I had an idea to get you here... I knew you had Ever heritage in you. You're a good girl, so... what would happen if the previous dean of good turned into a bad girl?" I knew it! I had that dream about her and Professor Dovey that one time! I recall Lesso saying something significant, something along the lines of: I told a lie about you, you're getting banished! "I made Dovey out to be bad when she wasn't. I tricked her into getting with me and being horrible to her students. She immediately got banished when the headmaster found out. You see, queer relationships at this school are not very accepted. Beside that, back to the story; now it was your time to come. I came up with the idea of sending a crate to you that you had to find a certain key to open it with. I made it so it lead you out into the woods at night where the bird could easily come and kidnap you and bring you here. And the rest is history."
This all still didn't explain the reasoning behind what just happened. Astrid was still upset about that; touching her back, caressing her finger up and down her torn dress, staining it with blood. She looked at Lesso, who was tearful. "And why did you deceive me before? What was that all about?" Lesso sighs, ready to fully come clean. "I did it because I wanted to get you into trouble. I was bored, ok? I wanted to punish you because you were ignoring me... I wanted to see you get in trouble for attacking somebody. I knew you'd attack me, I know you're sensitive with emotions and seeing me supposedly beating up a student would make you haywire. I know it sounds fucked up but... that's how desperate I am for you. I just made up an insane lie and forced an Ever girl of importance into being my culprit of evil. But I guess you were too smart and figured eveyrhing out. And you deserve everything for that... you're a smart girl, that's why I admire you..." Both eyes blink at each other for a long time, thinking.
Both of them sat on the freezing, cold emitting floor of the evil school's halls for a while. Astrid, thinking of what to do next and piecing together all this information, trying to form a conclusion and her choice. Lesso, regretting everything she just did, noticing how desperate and needy she really sounds.