"Well - how much do you know about Tempest already?"

"Pretend my ignorance is complete and explain to me the problem."

"So - there's Prospero, who was Duke of Milan, and he loved to study magic so much that he delegated all the actual duking to his brother, right. And his brother staged a coup, because he wanted to actually be Duke instead of just doing his job for him. And Prospero is exiled with his three-year-old daughter, and he crash-lands on this paradise island, and says - right, I can do magic, I'll just get spirits to take care of my daughter and me. And the most powerful spirit he has is this fairy boy, Ariel, who he freed from being trapped in a tree and - I guess just decided that in return for that Ariel should be his slave for twelve years? And he also takes in this little... probably-human boy, Caliban, whose mother was a witch, and they've got this whole complicated history where he tried to raise him like his own child but then Caliban grew up and tried to rape Prospero's daughter and now he's a slave who Prospero hurts all the time, especially whenever he's rude. And he's really controlling and manipulative to his daughter and, frankly, everybody else - he makes Ariel recite the story of how Prospero saved him from the tree once a month so he never forgets what he owes - and he crashes an entire ship just to get revenge on his brother - he's just an awful person for ninety percent of the play? And for some reason people say he's the protagonist but I don't really think a manipulative slave-abusing wizard is a protagonist I like very much. And I don't really think I want to play him."

"I don't know, I think there's something to be said for manipulative slave-abusing wizards. Protagonists don't have to be good, they just have to be interesting. And think of the depth you could bring to the role!"

"Yeah!" Edmund agrees. "You've got the chance to take this character who's got so much about him that we should hate and say, what's going on inside his head? What makes a man act like this? Is there really something in him that's good and noble, something we should root for? Does he really think he's doing the right thing?"

"I'm not a good enough actor for that."

"Mrs. Katz thinks you are! That's why she wants to cast you! And even if you don't want to try making Prospero everyone's favorite by the end of the night, I really think you'd still have fun."

"I'll think about it," Peter grumbles.

The school's in sight. (The rain's let up a bit, too, which is why they can see more than ten feet out the windows.)

"It's a school play," Rosy contributes. "The stakes are hardly very high. Try it and learn something!"

Peter's grimace softens. "I'll think about it," he repeats, less grumbling.

He pulls into a parking space, not too far from the entrance, and turns off the car engine. "Alright. It was nice meeting you, Rosy. Now let's all get educated."

"Thank you for the ride! Your service will be remembered," she says, hopping out and sparkling away.

Peter takes the role. He can't stop thinking, all that day, about how he could make Prospero seem like someone who - wanted to do good things, and had bad tools, and found himself growing worse and worse as he tried to fit the wicked tools to noble purpose. And it's not like his after-school schedule is booked solid.

Months pass, from autumn into winter. His life continues mostly apace; he has rehearsals before his swimming now, most days, and relatedly, he can't carpool Su and Ed in the afternoons anymore. That's really all that changes. He makes a few more friends among the cast and crew, recruits one of them to the D&D group. His daily routine is less depressing than he had any real right to expect.

The performance comes sooner than he'd thought. He's got a nice satiny wizardy robe, and an actual wooden staff someone whittled together, and he has his lines memorized, and... he does alright, he thinks. People clap at all the right times, even though he hardly hears them with the lights on him. He plays the role, and maybe gets some of that depth across, and then he does it again two more times, Saturday matinee and evening, and then it's over. He has a cast photograph and another point on his list of extracurriculars.

Winter melts into spring. He doesn't try for the spring play; it's a musical, and he can't sing for the life of him. He tries to keep in touch with his friends from the cast, even though he's not seeing them every afternoon anymore. He applies to more colleges, and gets accepted to more of them than he was expecting. Graduation approaches.

So does his eighteenth birthday.

Someone has taped a bouquet of roses to his locker, pink and red and white, neatly wrapped in faintly shimmering white paper, tied up with a faintly shimmering pink bow.

Someone has also gone through that bouquet and carefully trimmed away all the thorns from every rose.

Peeking out from behind all this is the corner of a pastel pink envelope, matching the bow in shade if not splendour.

Um?

...he runs a finger along the denuded stems. Sniffs the blooms - they smell, naturally, like roses. He doesn't know when the last time he actually smelled a rose was.

Looks at the envelope.

He wasn't actually sure anyone outside his family knew it was his birthday. If that's even what this is.

He peels off the tape, carefully nestles the bouquet in his backpack's front pocket, and opens the envelope.

Dearest Peter,

Remember me? It's Rosy. You gave me a ride to school in the pouring rain.

I have been in love with you for months. I'm not sure exactly how long. It started with the matter of the car ride; a Blake always pays her debts, so I needed to know what kind of favour to offer in return, so I needed to know what you needed.

Did you know that you are an absolutely, scintillatingly fascinating person?

Maybe that's just me.

I should be direct about this: I have been stalking you, never outside of school but very diligently within it. I didn't quite mean to start, but when I noticed I was doing it, I didn't stop. I wanted to keep watching you. I wanted to keep reading the books I hear you talking about and thinking about the things you say to people and counting your smiles like rare birds. 🐦 Look! Happiness! Get the binoculars!

War and Peace is a tough read, by the way, but I'm getting through it. I want to understand what you're seeing there. It sounds like it's important.

John Norman, on the other hand, goes down like popcorn. What a beautiful world he made! Which one was your favourite? I think for me it has to be Tiffany. She tried so, so hard, and in the end she got to live happily ever after. ♡ I admire her enormously.

I want to talk about books with you. I think about it a lot. I wonder what you'd say about Matilda (tied for my favourite book several years running), or Ella Enchanted (ascended to share first place just this year). I wonder what you'd tell me to read if you knew I was asking.

I don't know how long I've loved you but I know exactly when I found out. You were explaining your thoughts on Prospero, and how you needed Ariel's cooperation to play him the way you wanted, because it matters, to how the character comes across to the audience, whether or not he's right that he's treating Ariel well. I was earnestly following along with the literary analysis and then you gestured emphatically about how it would be so tragic if Prospero believed in this imaginary vision of a positive working relationship while Ariel is genuinely cowering from threats he only meant to joke about, and all of a sudden I wanted to kiss you.

You were right, by the way; you couldn't have done it without them. I watched all three shows and you knocked it out of the park every time, and it would've fallen flat if you hadn't had Ariel laughing at your jokes and following your lead like an old dance partner and Caliban bitterly feuding with a father he loves but can't understand. On the other hand, they also couldn't have done it without you; everyone's performances were wonderful, but it was your vision that brought them all together.

Please know that this letter is not a plea from a helpless admirer drowning in a sea of emotion. I hold myself under no obligation to you (I rescued you from Jess Favreau's romantic interest; you're welcome), and I ask for none from you. I have accounted for the possibility that you might read all this and decide you want nothing to do with me, and that would be entirely fair of you, under the circumstances. I am well supplied with ice cream and sad love songs and I promise I won't die of a broken heart.

I do apologize, though, for putting you in a slightly awkward position: in order to say what I mean to say, I need to tell you that magic is real, and there are secret laws forbidding people who know about magic from telling people who don't, and the law permits me to tell you because I'm courting you but it doesn't permit you to tell your siblings unless you decide to court me back. The best suggestion I have for you is to point out to them how weird it is that Jess can light someone's homework on fire from across the hall, and let them draw their own conclusions. I don't think the veil is very difficult to pierce around here once you know there's something to look for. That said, if you want proof that I can't show to anyone else, you need only ask.

Somehow I've accidentally ended up sounding much more cool and mysterious than I meant to. I need to say something really dorky so you'll understand what you're dealing with. All my favourite movies are made for children and I cry whenever I rewatch the Lion King sequel, how's that? Not the Lion King, mind you, though I'll happily cry at that one too. The sequel with the two lions in love who may or may not be cousins. It's objectively not as good but they sing a song about how in love they are and that's really all it takes.

My favourite colour is all of them but I keep coming back to pink because it's good aesthetic shorthand. I strive every day to make the world a more adorable place. I love the Spice Girls, who I learned about from my aunt's music collection. Every once in a while I get in the mood to nerd out unstoppably about magical theory and then, the height of tragedy, I have to wait until I'm at home where it isn't illegal to nerd out unstoppably about magical theory.

I need to get to the point or I'm going to end up writing a novel.

I want to give you myself for your birthday.

There's a ritual in my family's library that lets one person bind their will to another, in true and perfect loyalty. It can be undone at any time by the master, and redone as many times as the vassal is willing. I know exactly how it works and exactly what it does, and I'll be happy to explain in as much detail as you'd like. I have thought it through very carefully. I trust you, of course, but I am not relying on trusting you. I want to do this even if it ends very badly for me in any of the hundreds of ways it could do that. I know, believe me I know, how insane it is to want to give someone complete and total power over me just because I'm in love. But I want it anyway. Because I think it's romantic, and I think you would like it. You're not reading those books just for the bird cavalry. ♡

You don't have to decide right away. If you want to get to know me better first, or interrogate your sister about all my worst qualities, that's fine and reasonable. If you want me to go away and never speak to you again and stop paying attention to you, that's also fine and reasonable. But at any time, if you do decide you want to own me, I can make it happen within the week. It's best done at the full moon but I'm good at compensating for unfavourable celestial conditions and I've done all my calculations in advance.

Yours (I hope) with love,

Euphrosyne Angharad Blake

You can safely ignore all this, it's just here to avenge my privacy if necessary.

Dearest Peter,

Remember me? It's Rosy. You gave me a ride to school in the pouring rain.

He does, actually, remember. It was the day he accepted his role in the play, which he thinks of as plausibly the best thing that's happened to him this year. And she encouraged him to do it, and made him feel less defensive about it; without her, he might not have taken it at all. He's actually thought about reaching out to her sometimes, but discarded the idea as obsessive.

I have been in love with you for months.

I'm not sure exactly how long. It started with the matter of the car ride; a Blake always pays her debts, so I needed to know what kind of favour to offer in return, so I needed to know what you needed.

...apparently, he was worried in the wrong direction entirely.

Did you know that you are an absolutely, scintillatingly fascinating person?

Maybe that's just me.

I should be direct about this: I have been stalking you, never outside of school but very diligently within it. I didn't quite mean to start, but when I noticed I was doing it, I didn't stop. I wanted to keep watching you. I wanted to keep reading the books I hear you talking about and thinking about the things you say to people and counting your smiles like rare birds. 🐦 Look! Happiness! Get the binoculars!

Well. Honesty is good. He doesn't think of himself as scintillating, or his literary opinions or conversations or smiles (however rare) as particularly worthy of preoccupation. But she seems enthusiastic enough for both of them.

War and Peace is a tough read, by the way, but I'm getting through it.

I want to understand what you're seeing there. It sounds like it's important.

John Norman, on the other hand, goes down like popcorn. What a beautiful world he made! Which one was your favourite? I think for me it has to be Tiffany. She tried so, so hard, and in the end she got to live happily ever after. ♡ I admire her enormously.

I want to talk about books with you. I think about it a lot. I wonder what you'd say about Matilda (tied for my favourite book several years running), or Ella Enchanted (ascended to share first place just this year). I wonder what you'd tell me to read if you knew I was asking.

...she's reading War and Peace? No one has ever taken his recommendation on that. It's a beautiful book, it made him cry, it took him a full year to read. Who has that kind of time? (Rosy, apparently.)

...John Norman?! When did she even hear him talking about Gor, he never talks about Gor! Why does she like it, it's misogynistic garbage that even he wishes he didn't even want to read! That Tiffany she's talking about was taken as a sex slave at the end of her book!

He manages to pop his brain back into his skull by the next paragraph. He likes Matilda well enough, though his favorite Dahl was always The Witches. Ella Enchanted he doesn't think he's ever read.

He has no idea what he'd recommend her. Maybe Anne McCaffrey, if she likes Gor - similarly pulpy, some similar... themes... but with less cardboard-y female characters. (Though she said she liked Tiffany...)

I don't know how long I've loved you but I know exactly when I found out.

You were explaining your thoughts on Prospero, and how you needed Ariel's cooperation to play him the way you wanted, because it matters, to how the character comes across to the audience, whether or not he's right that he's treating Ariel well. I was earnestly following along with the literary analysis and then you gestured emphatically about how it would be so tragic if Prospero believed in this imaginary vision of a positive working relationship while Ariel is genuinely cowering from threats he only meant to joke about, and all of a sudden I wanted to kiss you.

You were right, by the way; you couldn't have done it without them. I watched all three shows and you knocked it out of the park every time, and it would've fallen flat if you hadn't had Ariel laughing at your jokes and following your lead like an old dance partner and Caliban bitterly feuding with a father he loves but can't understand. On the other hand, they also couldn't have done it without you; everyone's performances were wonderful, but it was your vision that brought them all together.

He remembers that. Ian had been talking about how he wanted to interpret Ariel, and Peter had... well. Rosy summarized it quite neatly. And wanted to kiss him about it, apparently.

Please know that this letter is not a plea from a helpless admirer drowning in a sea of emotion.

I hold myself under no obligation to you (I rescued you from Jess Favreau's romantic interest; you're welcome), and I ask for none from you. I have accounted for the possibility that you might read all this and decide you want nothing to do with me, and that would be entirely fair of you, under the circumstances. I am well supplied with ice cream and sad love songs and I promise I won't die of a broken heart.

It's a good disclaimer for a love letter, he thinks. It'd mean more to him if he were like Edmund, trying to have a practice love without any teeth; but as an opening, reassuring him that he won't break her heart is a good move. Takes a bit of the pressure off. Not all of it, by any means, but some.

...he does remember some awkward chats with Jess Favreau last semester. He didn't like how she looked at him. And then she... sort of conspicuously, in retrospect, stopped looking at him.

I do apologize, though, for putting you in a slightly awkward position:

in order to say what I mean to say, I need to tell you that magic is real, and there are secret laws forbidding people who know about magic from telling people who don't, and the law permits me to tell you because I'm courting you but it doesn't permit you to tell your siblings unless you decide to court me back. The best suggestion I have for you is to point out to them how weird it is that Jess can light someone's homework on fire from across the hall, and let them draw their own conclusions. I don't think the veil is very difficult to pierce around here once you know there's something to look for. That said, if you want proof that I can't show to anyone else, you need only ask.

...this letter has gotten weirder. How did it get weirder.

She could be very intensely Wiccan. She could, for that matter, be insane - that's really most likely, given the stalking. He will bear these hypotheses in mind.

But.

He has seen Jess Favreau do... strange things. She tried to impress him, a few times, during that brief period where she paid attention to him. Showed off some tricks she could do with a candle, making the flame dance. When he didn't seem impressed enough, she'd done... something. His backpack went up in flames, and she walked away, but when the flames died down his things weren't even singed - except some hairs on his leg that had been too close to where the bag was set down.

He will certainly ask for further proof. But he's not dismissing it out of hand.

Somehow I've accidentally ended up sounding much more cool and mysterious than I meant to.

I need to say something really dorky so you'll understand what you're dealing with. All my favourite movies are made for children and I cry whenever I rewatch the Lion King sequel, how's that? Not the Lion King, mind you, though I'll happily cry at that one too. The sequel with the two lions in love who may or may not be cousins. It's objectively not as good but they sing a song about how in love they are and that's really all it takes.

My favourite colour is all of them but I keep coming back to pink because it's good aesthetic shorthand. I strive every day to make the world a more adorable place. I love the Spice Girls, who I learned about from my aunt's music collection. Every once in a while I get in the mood to nerd out unstoppably about magical theory and then, the height of tragedy, I have to wait until I'm at home where it isn't illegal to nerd out unstoppably about magical theory.

She sounds... cute. He doesn't think he's watched the Lion King sequel, though he doesn't remember every film from his childhood. The inability to pick a favorite color is charming. Magical theory sounds kind of fascinating.

He genuinely likes the idea of striving to make the world more adorable, if she means that and she isn't just saying it. It scratches the itch in him that says people should care about things. He hasn't actually met a lot of people outside his family who do. He thinks Rosy might.

I need to get to the point or I'm going to end up writing a novel.

I want to give you myself for your birthday.

There's a ritual in my family's library that lets one person bind their will to another, in true and perfect loyalty. It can be undone at any time by the master, and redone as many times as the vassal is willing. I know exactly how it works and exactly what it does, and I'll be happy to explain in as much detail as you'd like. I have thought it through very carefully. I trust you, of course, but I am not relying on trusting you. I want to do this even if it ends very badly for me in any of the hundreds of ways it could do that. I know, believe me I know, how insane it is to want to give someone complete and total power over me just because I'm in love. But I want it anyway. Because I think it's romantic, and I think you would like it. You're not reading those books just for the bird cavalry. ♡

You don't have to decide right away. If you want to get to know me better first, or interrogate your sister about all my worst qualities, that's fine and reasonable. If you want me to go away and never speak to you again and stop paying attention to you, that's also fine and reasonable. But at any time, if you do decide you want to own me, I can make it happen within the week. It's best done at the full moon but I'm good at compensating for unfavourable celestial conditions and I've done all my calculations in advance.

Yours (I hope) with love,

Euphrosyne Angharad Blake

Peter hefts his bag, tucks the letter into his pocket, and goes into the men's room, where he can have a panic attack in peace. Hopefully unobserved.

There is no sign that anyone might be observing him in the men's room, but then, clearly someone is very good at observing him tracelessly, so who knows?

What a fantastically helpful thought.

After mechanically wiping the seat off with some tissue, he sits down, his trousers still fully fastened, though straining at the zip. He puts his head in his hands and makes a frankly pathetic whining sound.

He doesn't have the slightest idea where to begin processing the end of that letter. Stalking him is one thing; it's not a good decision by any means but she could have picked someone worse, and she seems to have enjoyed herself. Giving him herself for his birthday? Binding her will to him? Offering him complete and total power over her?

Not now, penis, he's trying to make a point.

It's a worse decision than he previously thought possible. Magic apparently changes the calculus on that. Rosy says that she has thought through how this could go wrong, and still wants it. Peter is absently curious what would possibly constitute it going right.

He knows that some people are submissive in bed. He's pretty sure he would be, off and on, if he ever did have sex. Would he want a woman to order him around, tell him exactly what to do for the night and make him her toy? Sure! Would he want to be her property for the rest of his natural life? Fuck, no!

He breathes. It's obvious that Rosy thinks something good could come of it. And if he's unfailingly good to her despite the power dynamic, if he does right by her and doesn't give into any of the thousand temptations even in a normal relationship to get what he wants at her expense, if he doesn't snap somehow and decide to personally reenact the works of the Marquis de Sade with a horrifically willing participant - he could see it being nice. Like a normal relationship between two consenting adults, just sort of shored up by the unnatural power binding her soul into submission.

She says she thinks he'd like it. She's not wrong. His internet history would - well, it wouldn't say anything actually, because he uses the incognito tools like any sensible teenager. But that fact aside, it would agree wholeheartedly. When he's getting off, he wants control, he wants to have someone in the palm of his hand and do exactly what he wants. He likes stories with mind control, nothing too warping, but something that reinforces, makes it hard to say no. (Is that how the ritual would make her? Pliant and willing and - not now, dammit.)

He's half tempted to take the deal just to make her never do this again. Like taking the knife from a ranting madwoman, more for her own sake than anyone else's. It'd be cruel, but it would keep someone else from hurting her worse. He's not the only boy who gets off on control.

But she said she made the offer because she loves him.

It'd be... evil, he thinks, to take that love - no matter how misdirected, no matter how crazy - and use it to hurt her.

He thinks about the possibility of just telling her no, I can't do it. It would really be the sensible thing to do. He's not invested yet, and she says she can handle rejection.

But he doesn't want to let this whole thing go. To turn down this glimpse of a world with magic, and a girl who wants him, and - to let her offer her soul to the next boy who comes along.

What does that leave? Taking her offer? Taking her soul?

- no, that's not it. She said he doesn't have to do it right away. That he could take some time to get to know her better. Maybe he can just leave her ritual to cool a bit on the table, while he figures out... well, who she is. Whether they really fit.

Whether he could love her enough to make her his.

...alright, his stomach isn't tied in knots anymore. Maybe he can have that wank he's been putting off, now.

He doesn't take long. He really was astonishingly worked up. He cleans up, re-fastens his belt, and... takes out his phone. Texts Rosy's number.

hey, is this rosy? it's peter

pevensie

got your letter, wanted to chat about it

Hello! 💖

Or anything else you'd like to say. I'm just very excited about literary analysis.

honestly i always found her ending unsatisfying and tragic but i've recently seen evidence that some people would quite like to be in her shoes

so i'm re-evaluating

literary analysis is not actually the part of your letter i found most urgent though

i would like to request evidence of magic more concrete than favreau's fucked up candle tricks

at earliest convenience

also i'm definitely asking su for that character evaluation although i expect it to be of limited use because if she knew you were stalking me she'd have told me no matter how cutely you were doing it

I'm in the park next to the school if you want to come say hi! I can show you something that I think is reasonably proof-like.

And, a few seconds later, like she just couldn't help herself: Really though, she and Drusus Rencius obviously belonged together. They were so sweet.

Different text channel. Susan.

if i meet privately with rosy blake how likely is she to kidnap me and perform deranged experiments on my helpless body for the rest of my natural lifespan

scale of one to ten

If Rosy Blake kidnaps you she will be very confident it was in your best interest, and if you disagree she will send you home with an apologetic fruit basket.

Also, do you need me to call the police.

eh. keep them on standby if i don't come home

Back to Rosy.

be there in ten

He's there in ten. The roses are sticking out of his bag, gently held in place by the zip.

There is a delightedly bouncing Rosy waiting for him at the edge of the park! She waves as soon as she sees him.