SGE Their Never After (Rophie)

PART 4 LONELY HEARTS

"And yet even if my heart beats for evil, that doesn't mean I can't find love. That doesn't mean I can't find happiness. It just means I have to find love with someone who embraces my darkness instead of fighting in." 

           -Sophie of Woods Beyond
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Part 4 Lonely Hearts 

"Where are we going?" Sophie's voice echoed beside Rafal as he tugged her along through the woods outside the school gates.

It'd been the third time she'd asked him that, but Rafal didn't respond to neither of them, only smiling instead at her curiosity. They'd just left the evil schools behind after they'd officially gotten married merely two and a half hours ago, and Rafal was leading his wife to the place they would spend their honeymoon for a few weeks. They wouldn't possibly leave the schools behind forever now that they were husband and wife since Rafal was still the school master and Sophie was evil's queen, but it'd be good for both of them to spend a little time alone away from the schools for a bit. Besides Rafal still had to protect the storian and make sure his schools stayed intact. He had been entrusted with his students' lives, but he'd come back in due time to continue his duties just like Sophie. In the meantime he had plenty of quality time to be with his newly wed wife and queen.

And the newly wed's so called quality time would be spent at a cozy cottage in the endless woods, which was still blue with its dark trees and newly grown plants and undergrowth. The cottage was only a few miles away from the schools and had been standing for as long as Rafal could remember. Sure, it was no fancy palace Sophie would ogle over, but this particular cottage was special in other words despite its age and appearance. It was a piece of the past Rafal hadn't delved into in a long time.

Many years ago before he'd even kidnapped Sophie and Agatha from Gavaldon, he'd been a boy whom had not had the responsibility of protecting the Storian on his shoulders.

Long ago, he'd once stayed in this cottage with his brother, Rhian. It had just been them back than, as close as two peas in a pod, for their parents had disappeared one night and never returned home. His twin brother had always had the belief that their mother and father were alive and would come back to them eventually, but they never did. Rafal and Rhian had only had each other to look after and take care of as children, but the absence of their mother and father left a hole in their hearts. Rafal and Rhian were still as close as can be, until the Storian—the enchanted pen they'd only heard about in legends—chose them to become the next school masters and protectors of the schools. They took up the responsibility, using their magic to keep themselves alive for hundreds of years. Their love for one another also played part in ensuring they didn't pass quickly from old age, but Rafal became resentful of his brother's presence.

He had loved his brother, but the darkness in his soul had possessed him to want to control the Storian for himself. Rhian's love hadn't been enough to stop Rafal's descent into evil, and the Great War commenced between the two.

As much as Rafal had tried to stop himself from falling down the wrong path—as much as he tried to love his brother—he had to accept that he was evil—a curse upon Rhian's once gifted soul, and killed him to prove that evil could never be but alone. That act was the whole thing that started the concept that evil could never really love in the first place until Rafal found Sophie and proved this to be untrue when she'd killed her own father to erase his sins. Then the world finally saw evil could win, it could love just like Good could, and could find Never After not alone—but with one another.

Rafal knew he'd never made a single mistake in his lifetime. Kidnapping Sophie and Agatha and putting them in their perspective schools was surely no mistake, for Sophie turned out to be his true love in the end. Putting part of his soul into Evelyn Sader before his death was to ensure he would come back from true love's kiss and return to youth, and killing Rhian...well that was an entirely different story. All he'd ever wanted was for evil to win—was to find his Never After at last, and he'd blamed the Storian for evil's lack of happiness, and tried to write his own path by slaying his own brother. It'd been idiotic of him to think he could control the pen that he'd sworn responsibility to, but it'd been too late.