That night Malleus took the opportunity to run away because everybody was distracted with the celebrations after the Vocal & Dance Championship. Lilia was making a fuss in the dormitory, stating he was feeling inspired.
Said inspiration involved covering some Metal songs with the improvised musical abilities of a few Diasomnia students.
Silver was asleep on the couch, and there he laid, forgotten.
Sebek was left to help clean the colosseum after the festival. On Malleus' suggestion. His energy deserved to be put to good use.
The truth was, Malleus wanted to be left alone.
Night Raven College had lost the championship and it wasn't until later he learned it was because Hunt voted for the contestant of the rival school. That man couldn't be weirder. To be free-spirited was one thing, but to vote against your own team…
It was rather late: cold air, the quietness that comes from tired students and the silence of empty classrooms. Late enough for Malleus to find places conveniently abandoned and early enough for Lilia and his other servants to check on his bedroom.
Today, where would he wander around?
The last days were terrible: checking on students who failed their classes, noticing fights and ending quarrels, fixing the issues of mischievous kids who liked to experiment with magic 'on their own'-to nasty results.
Thankfully, Malleus knew how to impose fear. He'd have preferred respect, but, when most of the student body is afraid or intimidated by you (even the members of your own dormitory), at least it becomes easy to be heard. Lilia helped a lot, too.
The end of holidays had brought home energetic teenagers back to the College and, despite the fear he inspired on them, teenagers were still… Well, teenagers.
Adolescence is savagery.
His hands were full those days. His management of time wasn't the same as humans, so it didn't help his cause when Malleus had to interact with normal students. Normally, Lilia would lead students on his own, and if both were absent, then Silver would be left in charge. Sebek's temperament wasn't the best. It only added to his jealousy, but Malleus decided pointing the obvious to the boy would take the fun away.
His sense of humour was a bit twisted, he was aware of that.
He took his lighter form for travel: that of little Will-Of-The-Wisps floating across the corridors and halls as he passed them on his stroll. The fairies and magical beings of the school paid no mind to him.
Winter was leaving, spring was coming and everybody was feeling full of energy.
Thank luck, Night Raven College was a boarding school for boys. Imagine all the drama and mess they would have if girls were there. Once, Lilia had to deal with a Diasomnia student who had a bad romance with an Octavinelle one. Malleus lacked experience dealing with that sort of thing, so it was left up to Lilia and the Headmaster to fix the mess.
Being the head of a dormitory wasn't boring work. Sometimes, students from a foreign place (or land) would be chosen for Diasomnia: beastmen who were exceptionally good in magic, same with some Mermen. As long as people had an affinity with magic, it was fine.
Their dormitory was founded on the elegance of the Witch of Thornes.
Malleus had to create an adequate environment for the students while ruling over them with discipline. He had to help them solve their issues while teaching sobriety. Not everybody was made for green and black. Some were born in sunny places. Others were raised in cold underwater places. Some came from snowy locations that, despite having the cold weather in common with the Valley of Thornes, still looked very different from their own homes.
It would be stupid, narrow-minded and racist to think all Beastmen should belong to Savanaclaw, all Merpeople to Octavinelle, all people from The Country of Roses to Heartslabyul, all students from The Country of Hot-Sands to Scarabia and so on and so for.
The Black Mirror chosed boys considering the shapes of their souls: that was, their natural inclinations and personal affinities.
The general condition to be accepted in Diasomnia was a natural inclination to Magic. But ''General magic'' was too generic as a term for Malleus.
Magic was diverse and universal. Because of the last, it became the former. People from different places had different conceptions and practices concerning it. The mission of Night Raven College was to provide a 'common language' for everybody in order to make communication accessible.
Common language. Communication.
His grandmother had told him when he was little that people's ideas would always change. When she was young, there was an anecdote about how Loki had accused Wotan of being feminine because He practised seidr** instead of galðrar***. Wotan was the one who reigned among All in the past. Humans, Giants, Dwarves and the Two Courts of the Fae. Such accusations were below His levels. Magic was magic. Even dragons paid their respects to Wotan because they too benefited from the All-Father's gifts to the world. The Ancient Lore stated thanks to His sacrifices, they now possessed control over magic, thunder, writing, poetry and the runes.
Runes.
Ah, the runes. The Ancient Letters were supposed to aid magicians and chroniclers. Written characters that were supposed to ease communication and the fulfilment of one's objectives.
Malleus knew a lot about runes and more. He could improvise and formulate complex spells and curses. He knew how to break many. For the things he lacked a straight answer to, he could imagine and improvise.
And yet, one of the main purposes of the runes still remained beyond his achievements.
Between his roles as the head of Diasomnia, to ease communication between students of his dormitory was one of them. As a specialist in magic, he had to make cohabitation easier for everybody. Malleus was capable of understanding deep magic for he was instructed in local and some foreign practices since he was young.
Communicating with other Diasomnia students was the complicated part.
How annoying. He could solve a problem within seconds. Explaining how it was done was the hard part.
When people's faces become pale and rigid, you realize it is not the best moment for learning. They cannot connect with you. You cannot connect with them.
Malleus sometimes wished he didn't have to depend on Lilia that much. Sebek's violent behaviour to impose his personal definition of respect didn't help at all.
Loneliness was peaceful and calm.
It was stable and unchanging.
Loneliness could have been a friend, too.
Malleus was alone before he became consciously aware of it.
Lilia had taken care of him since he appeared in the world.
Unlike most people, Malleus didn't have his parents. Neither he had younger sisters nor brothers. His grandmother was too occupied solving issues and minding complicated matters of State.
Because of his circumstances, Malleus wasn't allowed to go out as easily as the other children. He knew that children playing with one another, isolated from the outside world, was the most classical picture of childhood.
But it…
Wait.
Why was he even thinking about that in the first place?
No way.
His thoughts were too charged that day. People talking, visitors walking, laughs, quarrels and emotions. It was nice every once in a while, but…
Malleus had an idea.
That night, he would go to the Coliseum.
Seeing the empty building at night would provide him with a nice contrast to the busy day they had.
It would be refreshing to do.
And so, Malleus put his mind into reaching the last parts of the school building, floating towards the path and turning right for the Coliseum. Passing through the magical protections of the building would be no issue for Malleus. Such curses and enchantments and spells were cast by the professors to avoid mess reaching outside and teenagers entering the place at night to make mischief.
But Malleus only wanted a calm place.
On his path, he had seen the last students on cleaning duty. There was no signal from Sebek and Malleus supposed the boy must have reached the Diasomnia dorm by that hour.
The Coliseum was big and looked spotless.
Malleus' chest puffed in pride. For him, it had been so simple to fix the place after Schoenheitt's Overblot that it was done before he gave much thought to the issue.
After all, he was one of the best five magicians in the world.
His residual magic remained.
The surprised expressions of all the Children of Men there were very funny, too.
The stars shone above him. The place was cold and clean. The night's wind caressed his face.
It was then that Malleus saw it.
A body laying by the floor. Some animal was attacking it, grunting and moving its hindquarters as the front ones moved. It was fast and aggressive; the scratching sounds rough and ugly. Blue fire spiralled out of its body. The flames danced viciously.
Those trousers and the coat could only belong to a Night Raven student.
Was it feeding?
Malleus didn't like what he felt at that moment. As fast as thunder, he flew there and kicked the monster away. The strength of his leg was enough to send it flying across the place. There was an irregular hole in the stage. Next to it, laid an unconscious boy.
It was Yuu, that little Child of Man from Ramshackle dormitory.
His face was scratched, the skin was ripped and there was blood across his eyes, cheeks and neck. The sight wasn't a pretty one.
If that was Yuu, then the monster must have been Grim, his boisterous companion.
The monster grunted something on the place where he had fallen and his body got in tension, trying to stand up. Malleus sent Grim to 'sleep' with his green thunder.
That would teach it a lesson.
Now, there were other priorities in Malleus' head. Yuu.
Malleus' position was somewhat complicated. If he were seen entering the infirmary with a bloodied human, there would be repercussions and rumours. His servants were absent to aid him and the idea of calling for Silver's and Sebek's help annoyed Malleus, even if he didn't exactly know why. His servants were good but inexperienced. And too far away to be of any help. And then...
Yes. He didn't want to expose the Child of Man to more problems.
Malleus carefully lifted the body, making sure there wasn't a broken bone as he felt it. That Child of Man was small in size and weight.
It seemed the Old Gods smiled for him that night. Those late hours would mean the school's terrains were mostly absent.
Malleus used his long bat cape, the one from Diasomnia's leader dorm uniform, to cover him. Flying above the air would mean cold temperatures for a human body, even if for Malleus' it was nothing. The coldness would also make Yuu's face swollen, but it was a worrying matter for another moment. Cold constricts the blood vessels and stops bleeding.
He took the boy's limp body in his arms and then levitated into the night sky, above the Colosseum's walls. Such a shame, he really had wanted to spend his time contemplating the ancient gargoyles and grotesques that decorated the place...
Malleus flew as fast as a flash of lightning towards Ramshackle dorm and carefully landed in front of a window he opened with a simple spell.
It was so fast he almost had forgotten how the previous weeks it was necessary to be careful because Hunt liked to throw arrows at Malleus' Will-of-the-Wisps form during his night strolls across the garden of Ramshackle.
He had to stop his visits for weeks. The night Yuu gave him the tickets of the VDC, Malleus was visiting on a whim.
There, he called for Lilia using magic and asked him to bring a nurse.
Malleus' knowledge of magic extended to the point of healing wounds and curses: he needed to know that much. Such knowledge is always useful, you never know when you'd need it. If war were to strike, you'd want your soldiers to be as healthy as possible.
Safety isn't ubiquitous.
Malleus laid the boy on the bed and exited the room. One of the ghosts asked if Yuu had already passed over to the Other Side but Malleus ignored him.
In the bathroom, he poured water on a towel and returned to Yuu's room. Malleus knew the insides of the Ramshackle dormitory from his night strolls. He avoided entering the building once he learned it had new inhabitants at first, but returned later, once the novelty passed.
What the Child of Man and that annoying creature that accompanied him didn't know, wouldn't hurt them.
That raccoon monster was annoying, he thought as he softly cleaned the boy's face. The cold helped stop the bleeding but now there were lots of bloodstains from the wounds over skin, hair and clothes.
Malleus found Grim's boisterous ways troublesome. His comments hours before about how Malleus turned out to be the horned guy who wandered around their backyard at night. As if Malleus was some homeless vagabond! That monster truly knew no fear. If he did, then it would have kept its mouth shut. The noisy Children of Men from Hearstlabyul who often accompanied the pair had to silence Grim from speaking more.
Malleus felt upset by the comments but tried to pay no mind to them. Those words just accumulated with the other rumours and things people would say about him.
The towel was wet and dirty. Malleus had no healing herbs with him. He used magic to stop the blood but tried a different spell: soft finger movements across Yuu's face, the name of a few human runes and mixing words to connect it all. He didn't want to use fae runes on the boy because the results could have been bad. His powers were too strong and humans were weak, Lilia had taught him that much.
Malleus realized people were entering Ramshackle through the backyard and sensed who they were: Lilia, the nurse and… the Headmaster himself. The energy of magic outside reached him like intuition and he became aware of a crow perched by the window without needing to look at the black-feathered bird.
Dire Crowley revealed himself to Malleus and the prince understood his improvised duty there was done.
How ironic, he thought, the night he found himself reflecting on Wotan, a crow appeared before him. Yet, this one lacked messages but had questions***.
It almost seemed like fate.
*Rook is one of my favourite characters, his independent behaviour won me over. Especially when he kept his simping levels (and his personal ideas) about the performance of Neige's group when he had to vote for them.
Sadly, I had to write this from the point of view of characters who dislike/ don't know him.
Seidr** and galðrar*** were different types of Ancient Norse magical practices.
*** It is said that the god Odin had two ravens, Huginn and Muninn, and both birds flew across the nine worlds and delivered his information.
A last note: as you can see, this is a fanfiction AU in which old pagan beliefs are still active in The Valley of Thornes. As such, events and lore here are going to differ from canon!Twisted Wonderland.
Update (August 21st): I corrected a few mistakes here and there.