Is It Really A Heroic Interlude When They're All Villains Now?

Early Spring, 12 Years Ago

The warm spring sun shone through the smoky haze that rose from the scorched grasslands. Great wings kicked up dust from the dry earth, as a titanic red dragon circled over the sacrificial clearing. Down below, a poor innocent dark-haired maiden with shiny glasses cried out in fear. She couldn't run, though, tied as she was to a rock.

The dragon sniffed. It could smell her blood. Not quite the highest grade of royal blood, but the scent of power and nobility was rich in it. Its nostrils flared. There was certainly some royalty in this girl's heritage. How wonderful. Dry leaves scattered and whirled as it landed in front of the chained up girl. Hot air wafted from its mouth, smelling like smoke and meat, and the girl turned her face away from the stench and the furnace-like heat.

"So, little girl," the dragon said in a booming, aristocratic voice. "Who left you out for me? Such a delectable mortal delicacy. Your blood will be rich and delicious. I shall enjoy feasting on you." Leaning in, he extended his long forked tongue, licking her from ankles to brow. "Oh, so delicious. Royalty and," he frowned. A familiar taste. Something dark and-

And then the girl was yanked down, vanishing from sight. The ground slammed shut with a thud. The dragon whirled. This had to be a trap! Tasty maidens didn't simply vanish like that!

And there! Behind him! A grey-haired young man – barely more than a boy, really – stood there, with his wand-sword raised. His breastplate gleamed in the sun, and his boots were spotless despite the dust.

"Oh, you will regret that, little hero," the dragon boomed. "I will devour you whole! Do you think your shiny armour will save you from my fire? It will not! I am the flame of the mountains, slayer of men and devourer of elves! I am Mallesan the Scarlet!" He drew in a deep breath, flame broiling in his gullet, and exhaled.

The young man came apart in a shower of sparks as the flame washed over him, and the fire slammed into an invisible glass wall – some kind of ward! The flames rebounded, back onto the dragon and scorched his eyes. Thrashing around, Mallesan roared in sightless rage. Where was that man? Where was he? Blindly he exhaled, smoky red flame burning the grass all around him but there were no screams! Where were the screams?

And then blinding pain struck his behind. He tried to turn and found himself caught up on something! His tail! Someone had dropped a large rock on his tail. Perhaps the one that vanishing girl had been tied to! He had seldom felt such pain before – not since that hateful red-headed hero had shot him with a cannon a few decades ago! He could feel every broken bone. Wrenching, he reared up, ready to crush these impudent little humans who dared oppose him, and…

Thunder boomed.

The dragon collapsed, a horse-sized hole blasted out of the soft tissue of his belly. Scorched organs slithered out of the gaping wound. Gasping for breath that wouldn't come, Mallesan the Scarlet tried desperately to squirm loose, but he no longer had the strength to pull away from the rock. Human footsteps were approaching him from the side, but he couldn't even turn his neck to bite.

It took them several attempts and a bit of sawing to hack off his head, but all that meant was that his suffering lasted a little longer.

"Well, that went well," said Eleanore de la Vallière with a smug tone of self-satisfaction, looking down at the decapitated head. She rubbed her forehead with the back of her sleeve, leaving a smear of blood there. "Perfect shot there, Jean-Jacques."

The grey-haired young man grinned back at her, leaning against the cooling corpse of the dragon. His breastplate and sleeves were speckled with gore. "Thank you. It made it easy. Dragons are stupid – they've never learned to tell lightning-doubles apart from the real thing." He paused, looking momentarily uneasy. "Uh… you did get Magdalene out of the way?"

"Of course I did!" Eleanore said, highly offended. "She's not hurt at all!"

"This is disgusting!" Magdalene's plaintive voice cried out, as she crawled out of the underground chamber. Her dress was muddy and her hair askew. "It licked me! I'm covered in dragon spit. It's all over my glasses."

"Not hurt at all," Eleanore emphasised.

Francoise-Athenais poked her head up from the safety pit she had been hiding in. The helmet she had been wearing was blackened and far too big for her. She pulled it off with relief, dropping it with a clang. "Well, you did it," she said to Eleanore, arms crossed. "But I still think we should have done my plan. I could easily have put a ward over its mouth just when it exhaled. The pressure would have blown its skull apart."

"We didn't do your plan. It wouldn't have worked, I'm sure of it. It would have noticed," Eleanore said. "So stop complaining about it. Jean-Jacques's lightning is the best way to kill dragons."

"But I would like to see that some time," Wardes said hastily, earning him a smile from Francoise-Athenais. "I'm exhausted – that lightning bolt really took it out of me."

Eleanore nodded. "Well, fair enough," she said, raising her wand and casting a flare spell overhead. The bright red flame lingered above them. "Let's just relax for a bit while we wait for the idiots to get the courage to show up and take the head off our hands." She grinned, and gave Françoise-Athenais a one-armed hug, pulling the shorter girl up to her chest. "And you did wonderfully! Did you see the look on its face when the fire bounced off? It was hilarious!"

Françoise-Athenais smirked back. "It really was. And, hey, Mags did magnificently as bait! Get it? Mag-nificent?"

There was only the chirruping of insects.

"I need a bath," Magdalene said miserably. "Um… next time, can someone else be the lure? I don't mind doing it sometimes, but it's always me."

"Aww, don't fret, Mags," Eleanore said happily, letting go of Françoise-Athenais to bound over to Magdalene. "You're only the bait because you're the pretty one."

Magdalene blushed. "I'm not."

"No self-confidence. Trust me, Mags, someday the boys will be all over you. For one, you've got the de la Vallière rack – unlike me, which is really unfair," Eleanore said. "Doesn't she, Jean-Jacques?"

The young man looked up at the sky, blushing nearly as pinkly as Magdalene. "Um…"

Eleanore crossed her arms. "Do you think I'm going to do something to you if you say something nice about Mags?" she asked.

"Yes. Yes, you would. And do."

"Dang straight," Eleanore said firmly. "Her virtue is mine to protect. I'm not going to let anyone lecherous drool over her without enacting righteous justice on them!"

"Elly, how long have we known each other?"

Eleanore considered the question. "Since we were one."

"Can't you trust me enough for this?"

"No," she said firmly. "I'm her protector. Who knows what will happen if I start making exceptions?"

"You leave her out as bait for monsters," Francoise-Athenais called over, one eyebrow raised. She shifted wearily, bored by a conversation she had heard many times before. "Anyway, I like to think men are more interested in higher things. Like one's personality. No hope for you there, Elly. You're going to die a spinster."

"So mean," Eleanore said, grinning. "You wound me. For your information, I am a kindly soul and always give the monsters a chance to not go after Mags. And when they do, I enact righteous justice on them. That's how it works, Fran," she said. "Anyway, Mags can keep herself safe from monsters. Just not from boys. Isn't that right?"

"Um," Magdalene said, the expression on her face clearly indicating that she was considering death as a preferable alternative to this conversation continuing. "Yes, you're right."

"Dang straight I am," Eleanore agreed affably.



Late Spring, 12 Years Ago

The lecture hall at the Tristain Academy of Magic was humming with conversation. The windows were thrown wide open and birdsong crept in, but it was still stiflingly hot. Eleanore de la Valliere had been careful to arrive early and reserve a window slot, and now had her nose in a book.

She had an arrangement with most of her class. They didn't bother her, and she didn't bother them. It was the kind of fair, equitable arrangement she was a great supporter of. Unfortunately, some of them seemed to think that this peace treaty was something they could casually violate on a whim.

"Oi, you."

She ignored the boy.

"Hey! Eleanore! You!"

Ignoring continued to occur.

"Hey, witch!"

Eleanore looked up, pushing her thick glasses back onto her nose with the air of a knight lowering his visor. She directed a pink-eyed glare up at the person who was intruding on her personal time with her book.

Antoine du Lot was, in Eleanore's quite established opinion, a blockhead with the mental capacity of a dead pig. This would make him a perfect candidate for the dragon knights when he was older, because they were looking for people too stupid to realise the risks of sitting on something that could breathe fire, ice, poison, or other things you didn't want between your legs. It would do wonders to stop him from passing his defective bloodline on. She'd vocalised this opinion more than once in the past. To his face.

"What is it?" she asked, each syllable enunciated clearly.

"Move, would you kindly? You're hogging four seats and it's far too hot in here." He was a big boy – not just overweight, but also well-developed around the shoulders. He wasn't lazy, but he liked his food too much and in this hot weather he sweated like the pig he was. His dark hair was lank on his brow.

Eleanore considered her options. "No," she said, after due consideration. "I'm saving these seats for my friends."

"Move, witch. Get out the way."

"No, I won't."

Antoine spread his hands. "Hey, I asked her, didn't I? Kindly and everything. But I just guess she had to keep on being the witch."

"No, I just don't want to do what an ill-mannered dog like you orders me to do."

"Because you're a witch."

"And you're a dog, Antoine. A barking little cur from an ill-bred family of merchants," Eleanore snapped. She really hated that nickname – and he knew it. It was why he used it at every chance. And immediately she knew she'd made a huge mistake and she should have just ignored him.

He knew he'd pressed a nerve. "Bluh bluh bluh, listen to the big huge witch. A de la Vallière, bringing family into things. Sounds like a threat to me." His eyes flicked to her hair. "How many babies had to die last time you washed your hair, Vallière?"

"Not enough," one of Antoine's cronies contributed. "I thought their baby killing was meant to make them pretty." He sniggered. "Guess Magdalene is just better at it than you."

"Leave her out of this," Eleanore snarled, fingers twitching.

"Why?" Antoine asked, grinning for his posse. "She's a witch just like you. Her father's a traitor, and you know it runs in the blood. The de la Vallière blood. A traitor and a babykiller. It's in the history books, clear to see. It's amazing Jean-Jacques can stand you."

"I don't know. She has quite the tongue on her," another of his friends said, smirking. Armand was a snivelling little redhead, a born-hanger on.

"Duel." The words escaped Eleanore's lips like a whipcrack. "You slander me and you think you can get away with it? I know you, Armand. And—"

"Th-that's not allowed! Duelling got banned. B-because of you," Armand said, backing away.

Eleanore smiled despite her churning fury, pushing back her glasses. Anticipation gleamed in her eyes. "Oh, I won't tell. Or maybe you're just a coward. Someone hiding behind Antoine. A louse on the back of a dog. Say, isn't there some question about your heritage? Wasn't your father on campaign nine months before you were born – and don't you look a trifle Germanian to me?" She leaned forwards. "In fact, if I recall my history correctly, there was a dragon infestation on your lands about that time. Remedied by the eldest son of the von Zerbsts."

Armand shrank back, and Eleanore moved in for the kill. "And well done, Antoine," she said loudly and clearly. "I'm amazed that you were able to pay such close attention to the history books. You managed to bring up what my grandmother did. The same grandmother I have never met because my father imprisoned her. You managed to read about something that happened years and years ago, rather than anything more recent." She put one finger to her mouth in mock surprise. "Oh, did you find it out in your oh-so-private study sessions with Melissa?"

"I… I don't know what you're talking about," he blustered, suddenly reddening.

"Really? Because you went to a lot of effort to not be seen. If only you'd put that effort into not being heard, considering how close you were to my bedroom window. But wait, Antoine, aren't you courting Annette? Does she knows about your… study sessions?" she said, to sniggers. "Well, do you, Annette?"

Red with mortification and anger, a dark-haired girl glared daggers at the hapless Antoine. "I certainly did not!"

"It's not like that, Ann! We were just going over, um..."

"Human biology," Eleanore contributed with saccharine helpfulness, producing a wave of laughter.

"Oh, isn't it? Then why are you being like that!"

"She's just making it up!"

Eleanore laughed. "Oh, Antoine. When do I ever lie about these things? I'm not like you." The last word came out with unexpected vitriol, and she bit back on it. "You're a lying, cheating dog. You betray Annette who's a far better person than you'll ever be. And you decide to get in my face because I dared to save seats for my friends?" She paused deliberately. "If you think I'm lying, you're welcome to challenge me," she said. "If I'm just making this up about you, we'll take this outside and you can do your best to prove it – and I'll publicly apologise for my words if Lord and Founder are on your side."

The light glinted off her glasses.

"Or are you too chicken?"

That afternoon, Françoise-Athenais went looking for Eleanore and found her up an apple tree. Her familiar was hanging from a branch above her, napping.

"Did you get in another duel?" she asked, hands on her hips as she glared up at her friend.

"What makes you think that?"

"The fact that half the paving tiles in the main courtyard have been shattered. Plus, the fact that Antoine is in the infirmary with four broken limbs and a fractured jaw."

"He tripped and fell."

"You know duelling's banned."

"But of course," Eleanore said innocently. "That's why he tripped and fell. If we'd been duelling, why, we'd have been breaking school rules. But he just fell over."

"And broke all the paving in the main courtyard?"

"He's quite overweight."

Running her hands through her green hair, Françoise-Athenais sighed. With a flick of her wand and a muttered incantation, she levitated up into the tree. "You're going to get in trouble. Again. And don't start with the stupid 'he fell' thing. Everyone knows he's a little baby who'll tell."

"Well, he won't be slandering me for a good while with a broken jaw," Eleanore said, stretching in a self-satisfied manner.

The two girls rested in silence, listening to the distant voices in the school. A little bird flew up to Montespan, hovering around her and chirruping. Francoise-Athenais sat back on the branch, offering her finger for it to land on. "Why do you provoke people like that?" she asked softly.

"I don't. They started it."

The shorter girl sighed. "Yes, yes. And you always make sure to finish it, don't you?"

Eleanore shrugged. "If they don't want trouble from me, they shouldn't go after me - or Mags. Or you for that matter. And it makes everyone else laugh. Better they're laughing at idiots like Antoine than siding with him."

Reaching out, Francoise-Athenais let the little bird balance on her finger. "I just think you're making enemies. You know the saying? When all you use is a hammer, everything starts to look like a nail."

Eleanore rolled her eyes. "Yes, perhaps for peasants. But I have a wand. I don't need a hammer."

"… I can't help but feel you're missing the point."

"What's there to hit?" Eleanore flicked her hair back. "Less than two more years left of this miserable school, and then I'll be off to university. Or maybe we'll just take a few years out to really do some good in the world. I don't need friends here. I just need them to leave me alone. And stop calling me a witch."

"They call me a witch too," Françoise-Athenais said, with a mono-shouldered shrug. "If they're so stupid, why do you let them get to you?"

"It's easy for you to say," Eleanore said, tilting back her head until her glasses caught the light. "You don't have to live under the shadow that Mags and I do. You're from the good side of my family."



Summer, 12 Years Ago

Bright blue butterflies fluttered around a stream on the de la Vallière lands. Twenty years ago this place had been a gnarled murder-copse where the family's hunting beasts dwelled, but the new head of the family had not approved. There were no trees here anymore, and neither were there any murderous magical abominations made from hounds. The stream was new. The current duchess did not cut corners when spring-cleaning.

Skirt rolled up, Cattleya de la Vallière waded through the water, butterfly net in hand. The ten-year old's pink hair had lighter streaks from the summer sun, and her pale skin was mildly sunburnt. The determined, stubborn look on her face was pure-bred de la Vallière as she contemplated how to best capture her target, kill it, and preserve its dried body in her collection. Even if most de la Vallières tended to apply that expression more to lèse majesté than lepidoptery.

"Catt!" Eleanore called out, looking up from her book. She was meant to be watching her little sister, but the two of them had an arrangement. Cattleya didn't do anything to get herself in trouble, and in return Eleanore paid more attention to her book of Romalian philosophical arguments. "Not too far!"

"But the butterflies are flying this way! Come on, come on!"

Eleanore sighed, and rose. "It's your own fault if you get sunburnt," she informed Cattleya. She saw a figure coming the other way along the footpath. "Jean-Jacques? What are you doing here?"

"Ooooh! Someone's got a vi-si-tor," Cattleya sing-sang. "Are you courting?"

"Shut it, Catt," Eleanore hissed. "Don't you dare embarrass me!"

"Why don't you give him a big sloppy kiss?" Cattleya suggested.

"I will drag you back to the nursery and lock you in there with Louise and remove the door, so help me!"

Cattleya clambered out of the river and stomped over to Wardes, dripping water onto his boots. "I know when I'm not wanted," she said, with false maturity. "I'll leave you two alone for some private time. So you can get kissy."

Jean-Jacques blinked, blushing faintly. "Um."

With a flick of her wand and a snapped spell, Eleanore snapped up a quartet of stone walls from the ground to seal Cattleya in a pyramid. "Little brat! We are not courting! He's your fiancé! Not mine!"

"That's not fair! I'm telling on you!" a muffled voice came from inside the stone trap.

"Jean-Jacques," Eleanore said, taking a deep breath. "How about we leave my utter little pain of a sister here and actually talk?"

He still seemed distracted. "Yes, yes… that would be good," he said. The two of them walked around the bend in the river, leaving a loudly complaining Cattleya trapped. He took a deep breath. "My mother is dead," Jean-Jacques said, his voice cracking.

"Oh. Oh. Oh, I'm so sorry," Eleanore said, after a moment of shocked silence. She took a breath. "I knew she was ill, but…"

"Call it what it was. My mother was mad," he said shoulders slumped. "I can't dress it up in pretty words. She was confined to a tower so she wouldn't hurt herself or the servants." He sighed, shuddering. "I took her out for a walk and… and she fell down the stairs. When I was meant to be watching her. She broke her neck. One moment alive and… and then the next dead."

"Oh. Well… at least she didn't suffer," Eleanore said slowly.

"No. No, she didn't. That's… that's something," Wardes said. "Better something clean and quick. The… the funeral is planned and—"

"I'll be there," promised Eleanore.

"Thank you."

They sat in silence, staring over the water, with only Cattleya's distant whining to break the summer peace.

"I suppose that means you're the viscount now," Eleanore said. "That's a lot of responsibility."

"It is, yes."

"We can delay the summer trip to go kill that band of orcs if you want. We'll all be there for you."

Jean-Jacques shook his head. "I'll need a break," he said glumly. "So many things to worry about, so much paperwork and effort to set her affairs in order. My mother's seneschal is helping me, thank goodness. I'd be lost without him."

"That's good. He's a fine fellow, as I recall."

"He is. But… well, I went through her papers while I was looking to see if she'd left any instructions," Wardes said, sitting back. He seemed to want to talk. "There was so much about her I didn't know. Did you know, she used to be part of a high end magical commission working for the Crown?"

"An evil magical commission?" Eleanore asked instantly, eyes narrowing. They'd had problems with those manner of things before.

"No, no. One which searched through old legends to try to find out more about ancient evils that might break free or pose a threat to the Queen." He sighed. "Though perhaps much evil was done from those good intentions. From some of the notes I've found – I think something she found might have driven her mad."

Eleanore crossed her arms. "Well, that's simple," she said firmly. "We'll just get the gang together, and we'll search your castle from top to bottom until we find any secret rooms or hidden chambers where she kept her notes!"

"Hah. You're funny, Elly."

"I wasn't joking!"

Jean-Jacques scooped his hair back. "I'd rather not have any of you deploy your normal problem-solving techniques to my home," he said. "I have to live in it afterwards."

"I wouldn't demolish your house." Eleanore paused. "Though perhaps I couldn't say so much for Fran. But I swear, we'd dig out whatever old secrets and legacies you wanted! We're good at that!" Her face fell. "Like that book."

He exhaled. "Yeah. That one. The one they nearly burned. I've been thinking about it."

"Don't," Eleanore advised him. "It was probably all lies. Don't brood over it. Just put it out of mind."

"Then why did you tell us to keep it away from Mags and Fran?"

"Because even lies can have power. If I listened to lies, I'd…" Eleanore paused, pursing her lips. "Everyone at school says I'm going to be a villain when I grow up," she said, picking up a stone and irritably tossing it into the water. "Everyone. Even some of the teachers. Just because I'm a de la Vallière. And it's even worse for Mags, because she's soft and adorable but people don't see that! They just see that her father tried to kill that grand duke! If we listened to those… those hurtful lies they say about us, we couldn't…" She took a deep breath. "Did you hear what they were saying during the springtime summoning ritual? Madame Bounard muttered 'trust that girl to summon something that's nearly a goblin'."

"But you don't listen," Jean-Jacques said, reaching out and squeezing her hand.

"No. Of course not. But that's why we shouldn't let anyone know about that book. It'd just upset them for no benefit. Better that it's forgotten."

"Yes. Yes, of course you're right." The boy looked out over the estate, ignoring the distant yelling from the Catt in a stone box. "You're right," he said. "They are lies. And you're going to be a famous hero one day. I know you are. That's good. We're going to need heroes when we're older."

Eleanore grinned cockily. "It's funny you should mention that," she said, leaning back against the tree, her previous dark mood gone. "Oh yes. I'm putting together something. It should impress everyone. Even Mother! It'll certainly shut everyone up! No one will be able to doubt that I'm as good as her! And it might even make things easier for Catt and the Brat if we don't have that darkness hanging over their heads."

"Oh?"

"It's a secret," Eleanore said, voice lilting. "I don't want to ruin the surprise."

"I can help."

She turned to face him, eyes bright. "You mustn't help! I have to do it alone! Or else they'll just say it was you who did it and I only helped you."

"I'll stop them!"

"They won't listen! Jean-Jacques, your head is like a rock sometimes. They say you're the one who does everything already. They make dirty jokes about how we're just your girlfriends. 'Wardes keeps three girls around so he's up all night. It makes it fairer for the monsters'. I hate it, I really do!"

He frowned. "But you're like a sister. We've known each other since we were babies. That's just… eww."

"I know that and you know that, but no one else cares!" Eleanore slumped down, her momentary good mood entirely gone. "Why am I even talking about this? Listen to me, being so selfish and venting on you when your mother is dead. I should be consoling you, not burdening you with my own issues. I'm such a horrible person." She took a deep breath. "Look, I'll handle things. You know I can. We'll… we'll go retrieve Catt and then we can go to Father and tell him the bad news about your mother. And… Founder, what about the engagement?"

"Give your parents some credit," Wardes said, pulling himself to his feet and offering his hand to her. Eleanore ignored it, springing to her feet and dusting her dress down. "It'll be years until Cattleya is old enough – and your father did say that if she doesn't want to go through with it, he won't make her. He knew I was the heir and Mother was ill. It won't change his mind." He smiled wearily. "Is this what being sixteen feels like? I think I hate this year."

Eleanore gave a timid smile back. "It's not like it can get much worse, right?"