#havenfree

You are looking for a class that both of you go to, where everyone stands, and where Royvin has carved out a spot with all the subtlety of a jackhammer. Of those there are six. Gym class, theater, art and sculpture, food preservation, the debate side of debate and history, and sometimes (but not always) home economics. Also sometimes band, but you’re not doing this in band class. Out of the question.

Out of all of them, food preservation is the only one where the floor is made of the right material, and she happens to be standing exactly on the end of two long, wooden boards.

If this were a game of clue, then this murder is taking place in the wine cellar. The culprit: yours truly. Now you just need a weapon.

You creep out during the day to make your preparations. First, you examine the boards themselves. They are wide and thick, but they are also old; they won’t hold up to what you need them for. Improvements are needed.

You pay a little weirdo to get you a piece of metal that is exactly two boards long and two boards wide. 

Then you consider the matter of mass. Royvin is heavier than you; it will not do to balance this straight down the middle. The hinge will need to be much closer to her than to you. There is a space under the floor (this whole building is raised slightly off the ground, much to the pleasure of all the clowns who like to scurry beneath it) and the old floor rests on a perpendicular set of support beams. When you check, you find that the beams in question rest unfortunately right down the middle. 

You also pay the little weirdo to make a metal hinge attached to the piece of metal, about three quarters of the way to the top. You have them drill some holes in the corners while you're at it. Sawing through the support beam will have to come as a later step.

After some frank discussion about what exactly you want this thing to do (and no small amount of exasperation at your lack of understanding of basic mechanics), the weirdo gives you a hinge with two parts. The first is the part that is already affixed to the plate. A long, flat metal bar is now extending out to either side, with instructions to attach this to several planks that you don’t want moving – that will keep the whole thing braced with the floor. At the heart of it, there is the familiar shape of something like a door hinge. 

The second part is a metal rod. The weirdo shows you how to fit it into the hinge, so that relative to the metal bar, the original piece of metal turns. You ask if they can make it so it only moves if you step on it from one of the two sides. They give you a look like you are the biggest moron on Alternix, tell you that you should have asked for that in the first place, and say it will cost you extra.

You agree. They say they’ll have it by tonight.

You can barely wait.

It is with incredible, quiet care that you remove the boards and punch holes in the wood. You fit them with screws and affix the metal plate to the bottom of them, and then put them back.

This is the key to a good prank: doing all the steps that can be hidden first. The floorboards do not move at all; they sit there like nothing happened. Royvin stands right on top of them, none the wiser.

You are nearly caught, once, by Hanque and Ishaza. For a panicked moment you think that they are using the cellar as a place to conspire, but then you hear giggling, and – after another moment of confusion, you realize they snuck out together because they are looking for a place to make out, and cannot seem to keep their hands to themselves. This is a stupid and incomprehensible reason to sneak out, but whatever.

You scare them off by making a little noise before they can do anything gross. 

Your preparations continue. You make a little hole in the wall of the adjacent closet, carefully placed to give you a view of the scene of the crime. You enlist an accomplice (one of the students in the age group below you; for subjects like this, you often share a class.) on the promise that you’ll protect them, both generally and from consequences. You put a box of salt and pickling supplies (a wide one, one that can rest four boards across) on the other side of your contraption-to-be, one week before its fruition is due. This is to ensure that people are well-accustomed to not stepping there long before there is any risk of wobbling. It works; nobody moves them. They part around your plan like a river around a boulder. The food preservation room is always full of bullshit, and everyone just picks their way around it.

And then, with trepidation, you sneak in and finally put in the hinge. 

You are not the handiest of trolls, but it is a simple enough job that you manage. The hinge itself only goes one way, and was made by someone far more clever than you. You carefully push down on your side of the boards, making sure that it goes down while the other side rises. It works like a charm. 

You drag a bag of funky flour over to Royvin’s side of it. You leave it on where you like to imagine a big red X. 

You mostly manage to catch the bag out of the air before it breaks and gets bright orange flour everywhere. It wouldn’t arouse too much suspicion – this is a clown church, weird shit happens sometimes – but Royvin might get pissy if there is a cheeto crime scene directly on top of her spot. 

Great news: it works.

The only thing left is to wait. And oh, you wait with such delicious anticipation. You have some very stupid wheels that will be turning for a decade; this will happen so soon that you can hardly sit still. It takes all of your willpower not to burst out laughing in every class you have, thinking of exactly how funny this is going to be. Curse your incredible gift for visualization! 

You are ready three days before you do it. You wait in the empty closet and watch her like a hawk. The first day, she isn’t standing right; the second day, someone else is in the way. But the third day is perfect. 

You give a tiny nod to your accomplice – Candio, you think. He nods back, and once everyone else has filed in, quietly drags the box out of the way.

The teacher calls attendance. You wait. 

“Ishaza Ailmar,” says the teacher. Pretty girls always get their full names read, you think; pretty girls and teacher’s pets. That, or having the first name on the list. Or maybe this teacher is just weird. Being a pickler might do it to you.

“Present,” she says, sweetly. You roll your eyes.

“Jaipes.”

“Here.”

(Ohnyxx isn’t in this class, unfortunately; the list skips over the letter B entirely. Neither is Valope. You know Ohnyxx would fucking love to make terrible pickles in a cellar, but no dice. You hear it conflicts on the schedule with some sort of advanced math.)

“Garlad.”

A grunt.

“Gar-lad,” enunciates the teacher, icily.

“Here,” Garlad mocks back. He’s in the age group below you, too. You like this kid.

The teacher clicks their tongue and then clicks their pen, but moves on. “Jrapes,” they say.

“Present,” says Jaipes, or someone who sounds exactly like them.

The listing continues. You quietly open the closet door and slip out into the hallway. Slowly you creep up to the doorway, letting yourself feel the excitement pounding through you as you wait for the alphabet to tick down. So close to showtime. You know the order these names will go in. It won’t be long now.

“Hanque.” Ah, right on cue.

“Here,” drawls the jock.

“Candio.”

“Here,” says your accomplice. He sounds nervous.

“Olives.”

“Present,” whispers a girl you don’t know.

“Royvin.”

“Here,” Royvin says, sounding bored. She often sounds bored. 

Boy, that sure won’t last long.

“Rajole.” 

“Here,” he mumbles. It’s a funny coincidence, that you are right next to each other, you think, not for the first time. The alphabet itself contrives to keep you together.

Ugh. He’s rubbing off on you.

“Kalrin,” says the teacher. Curtain call.

You wait.

A silence.

“Kal-rin Pyr-his,” enunciates the teacher, clicking their pen. The disapproval is audible. Skipping class is even worse than grunting during attendance. 

You wait.

“Hm,” says the teacher, and makes a mark.

You sprint into the room at full speed. Everyone startles. A few people scuttle out of your way; Rajole is one of them, looking like a deer in headlights, and then looking like a deer looking at another deer in headlights once he realizes it’s you. Royvin’s head snaps around and her fists come out of her pockets, but she does not move.

“FORSOOTH!” you holler at the top of your lungs as you leap, and you stomp with both feet on the other end of the boards, launching Royvin into the fucking roof. You hear her shout.

She punches clean through the shitty wooden ceiling, hornsfirst, and gets stuck in the rafters.

You laugh so hard that you fall on your ass. Everyone loses their minds. Even the teacher.

Prying your legs out from the hole beneath the floor, you catch a glimpse of Rajole giving you a pained look. You are not fooled for a second; you can also see him trying to hide his mouth twitching. 

“I’M GONNA FUCKING KILL YOU!” Royvin roars. Her horns are stuck, you realize – even with her whole weight dragging down on them, they’re too huge to come back down through the holes. That has to hurt. You see her flailing her legs, trying to knock herself loose to beat you to hell. Her fists pound on the wood until it cracks.

You lose your shit laughing again. 

She falls back down as the old wood gives way and breaks the floor with a massive crunch. She is covered in splinters and dust and seething, embarrassed rage. Everyone has cleared well away from the impact. You leap to your feet, still wheezing, and nearly slip again in another fit of cackles as you start to run.

Royvin snarls, punches the ground, and gets up with the violent, unstoppably building momentum of a steam train that hates you. Her eyes have already gone from yellow to wrathful orange-red. 

You get the fuck out of there, trying not to let your cackling slow you down. She chases you down with another roar.

It takes half an hour to lose her, when Regius finally stops her in the hall. You can hear her voice, strained from cursing you out non-stop, protesting as you make your getaway.

You love it here.

-:-

Royvin is merciless in picking on you for the next two months. You break five teeth and three thumbs in the first two gym classes. You could not care less. Victory is irrevocably yours.

The story is still being repeated and laughed about. Royvin punches anyone she catches telling it. Everyone has started yelling FORSOOTH! before throwing things. It caught on like wildfire. Your fingerprints are on their souls.