Rhian knows very well what Arbed House is for. He knows that they’re there because they’re trouble, all of them; from Aric and Japeth, crazed and cold-hearted, to Kei, strange and serious, to himself. Overly ambitious. Overly vicious when it comes to what he wants.
He’d like to think they’re more than that. Of course people like Aric and Japeth might not be— they’re Evil to the core, both of them, and Rhian would gladly have had his brother shut up here forever if it were his choice. Some people can’t be fixed. Some people are meant to be alone.
But he’s not. He’s King Arthur’s son: he must be Good, he must be meant for glory, something greater than this. Mother cannot have trusted him with that knowledge for nothing.
But you can never truly escape your nature— and what if Rhian’s nature is to be Evil? What if they’re right?
“Do you think we’re really Evil?” he asks Kei, one night, whispered when Aric and Japeth have been shut away in solitary confinement for some offence or another; it’s not uncommon, these days. “I mean, do you think we're really all that they say?”
Kei blinks slowly at him. “I don’t believe in Good and Evil,” he says quietly. “But I believe in you, Rhian. I believe you can be whatever you want to be. And if you want to be Good— you can.”
Rhian sits up straighter, getting his feet tangled in his blankets. Kei’s mouth curves into a vaguely amused, vaguely indulgent smile. Rhian flushes, despite himself.
“You don’t believe in Good and Evil?”he questions hastily.
“Those are things for people like you, aren’t they?” Kei returns. “No. I’ll be happy with whatever I get. You know I’m not getting a fairy tale.”
“Kei,” Rhian says softly. “That’s not true.” Of all the people here Kei is, perhaps, one of the kindest. Strange, yes. Different, yes. But he has never had the heart to be cruel, at least not intentionally.
He could be a hero if he wanted. He’d be a better hero than Rhian; Rhian who is selfish and ambitious and hungry. Rhian who would never admit any of these things, though he’s already catalogued all his faults in his head.
“People like you,” Kei repeats. “You don’t get it, do you?” His voice, more than anything, rings with resignation. “You and I have to see the world in very different ways. You know what I see in fairy tales? Blonde-haired, fair-skinned princes and princesses and villains alike. People who look nothing like me. You get to worry about whether you’re Evil. I worry about whether I get a spot in the story at all.”
Rhian flinches back, unconsciously, and Kei’s dark eyes flash with something unreadable. “For what it’s worth, I don’t think you’re Evil, Rhian,” he says. “You’ve been good to me. Not many of the other boys are.”
“Because you're kind,” Rhian blurts. “Because you’re— you’re meant for something more than this. You’re nothing like the rest of them.” And he hasn’t been particularly good to Kei, either; more like he’s allowed Kei to get swept up in his dreams, swept up in his story.
“I don’t want anything more than this,” Kei sighs. “Rhian. I’m happy to follow you. I am. But I have my own measures of who I want to be, what I want to do. If you’re talking about a fairy tale— why should I want to be included in a world that clearly doesn’t want to include me?”
And Rhian has always prided himself on his silver tongue, his golden words— but he finds himself not quite knowing what to say.
“My parents believe in it,” Kei admits. “I’ll give you that. They wanted me to be the best of them. To be the Good son, the golden son, to send me off to the School. I mean, after Agatha… after a dark-skinned princess, and her fair maiden of a witch… anything’s possible, right? But I aged out. And then they sent me here. Better to be Evil than to be nothing.”
Kei’s lips curl into something bitter, something quietly angry. “They were wrong about me,” he says. “Are you going to be wrong about me, Rhian? Are you going to hold me to your ideals?”
“No,” Rhian breathes. “That is— no, Kei. I believe in you. I do.” It’s only fair. It’s only right. Kei has been so kind to him.m, has trusted him this far. Has believed in him for so long.
“My grandfather,” Kei says abruptly. “He was one of the best people I ever knew. He lived life like he’d come right out of the fairy tales, you know. Back home, they tell stories about him. Shita-kiri Suzume. Ever heard of it?”
“No,” Rhian admits. The words themselves are foreign; they only seem familiar on Kei’s familiar tongue.
“Storian didn’t care for him,” Kei shrugs. “But we do, all of us who aren’t born lucky enough to get the chance. Shita-kiri Suzume is the story of the tongue-cut sparrow who he saved. This is how people like us live on, Rhian. Folk tales. Folk histories. Different places have different stories. But all of us, all of them, they’re remembered.”
He turns away from Rhian, fumbles for the match-box on his nightstand; strikes it to light a candle between their beds. By its wavering flame, he unlocks a hidden drawer at the foot of his bed, and comes up with an old, battered notebook.
“Records go against the spirit of it,” Kei confesses, oddly vulnerable. “But I’m scared I’ll forget. And I don’t know how to tell them, I was never good at it.” He smoothens the cover out with a great deal of care before he hands it over to Rhian.
“This is who I am,” he says. “Who I want to be. Maybe you’ll understand. Maybe you won’t.” He shrugs. “I don't need you to. But… it would be nice, if you could.”
Rhian flips through the pages of the book: Momotaro. The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter. Straw Millionaire. At the very back, a line of foreign characters followed by its translation: Shita-kiri Suzume. The folktale of Kei’s grandfather.
All these stories, all these memories. All these people who would never be remembered by the Woods.
“I want to,” Rhian says, sincerely. “Understand.”
Kei’s eyes glitter in the flickering shadows. “Make the effort,” he says, “and I’ll be impressed, Rhian, I will.”
And then he blows out the candle, leaving the room dark. “But it’s late,” he says. “Maybe tomorrow I’ll tell you a folktale. Maybe I’ll tell you about my grandfather. But for now— go to sleep, Rhian, we’ll still be here tomorrow. We’ll be here as long as it takes.”
