Chapter Text
Simon
I used to think that Valentine’s Day was bollocks invented by greeting card companies.
That was before I started at Watford and learned that it was deadly serious.
~~*~~
January, 2010–Simon
For the first few years of my Watford education, I’d see upperclassmen working furiously to make hand-made valentines, but I didn’t think much of it. They were old enough to have sweethearts, after all.
That changes the year after I turn thirteen.
That’s the year Penny sends me a bird (a mockingbird) (it calls me a numpty before delivering her message) (Baz in bird form, I think with a snicker, before dismissing it).
“Come to the library,” is all her message says. It’s an unusual request, not because we don’t spend a significant amount of time in the library, but rather because it’s a Friday afternoon, with a whole weekend before us to get homework done. Penny doesn’t usually bully me into the library to work until I’ve gotten too close to the due dates of my assignments for comfort.
I’m bored, though, and it is Penny, after all. I never refuse to come when Penny calls.
The last thing I expect to see on reaching the library is Penny intently coating a piece of pink construction paper with white glue, while surrounded by a mountain of pink and red craft supplies.
“Penny?” I ask, trying to sound like this isn’t wildly out of character for my best friend (it is) (I haven’t seen Penny with so much as a colored pencil in her hand in all the time I’d known her). “What’s all this?”
“We’re making Valentine’s cards, Simon,” she says, like it’s obvious. To be fair, it is obvious, but it still doesn’t make sense. It’s the most frivolous thing I’ve ever seen her do.
I won’t say I hadn’t already considered making one solitary Valentine. After all, I’ve recently started noticing how beautiful Agatha is, and I sort of want her to like me. In a boy-girl way, not just in a friend way. We’re already friends.
But Penny? Penny doesn’t have a romantic bone in her body. She rolls her eyes at any talk of boyfriend-girlfriend stuff. “We’re too young to bother about that, Simon,” she says when I wonder aloud if I should ask Agatha out. “Fifth or sixth year is soon enough to start looking for a romantic partner. Until then it’s all just playing at being in love.”
That’s how she said it, too. ‘Romantic partner.’ Like she was forty years old or something.
I don’t agree with her, but I’d always at least thought that she believed it herself.
“Why are we making Valentines? I thought you didn’t care about that stuff,” I say, flopping down in the empty seat next to her and accidentally knocking a bottle of pink glitter off of the table and all over my lap.
Penny eyes the mess with distaste. I think I heard her mutter something like “Trixie,” before she banishes the glitter from my lap, and then banishes the unspilled glitter left in the bottle as well. Then she finally deigns to answer my question.
“We’re 13, Simon,” she says, like that tells me anything.
“So?”
She rolls her eyes. “Simon, most or all of us are beginning puberty this year. So we’re going to need protection on Valentine's day.”
“Protection?” I sputter. “What the fuck?”
Penny sighs and rests her head on her fist, pinning me in place with her glare. “Simon, you can’t tell me you’ve never heard of Cupid. Even Normals have heard of him. And I know we covered Greek and Roman gods in Magickal History class.”
“Cupid,” I repeat, feeling wrong-footed and stupid. “You don’t mean the fat baby who shoots heart shaped arrows, do you?”
Penny’s face goes grim. “No, Simon. I mean Cupid, as in Eros, as in the Greco-Roman god of love.” She looks at me so intensely that I want to rub the skin on my face to see if I’m burnt. “Should be god of lust, really,” she mutters, glancing back down at the half-decorated construction paper card in front of her.
I’m afraid to ask, but this is clearly something that is meaningful to people born into the World of Mages, and completely meaningless to me, who wasn’t.
“And we make valentines for Cupid?” I ask, thinking that perhaps this is just some archaic mage tradition that nobody can remember the reason for, like leaving biscuits out for Father Christmas.
Penny sighs, and turns to face me fully. She’s got that look on her face that tells me that she’s decided that she has to give me the entire backstory, because I’m too hopeless to actually know something about this magickal world I’ve been dropped into. It makes me cringe when she looks at me like this. I mean, I forgive her, because she’s just not a patient person, but it still always makes me feel like a grade A moron.
“Simon,” she begins. “You understand that some things Normals think are myths and legends are often completely real in the magickal world?”
Of course I do. I’ve only had that fact shoved in my face literally dozens of times since the Mage brought me here. I mean, I still don’t understand why Father Christmas isn’t real, but the fucking tooth fairy exists—at least I received gifts from “Father Christmas” in the care homes. There was always some charitable initiative around the holidays to make sure the ‘unfortunate orphans’ had a Christmas.
But I sure as hell never had money put under my pillow for lost teeth (though Penny says the money for teeth bit is slightly less innocent than Normal legends would suppose—I guess the tooth fairy is related to the bonety hunters, and teeth are currency with their people).
I try to show her that I get where she’s going with this. “So you’re saying the Greek myths are real? They actually happened?”
This time she hesitates. Then she sighs and admits, “not as such.” I can tell it pains her to give me even that much, because she hurries on. “The myths you find in books are Normal interpretations of actions that non-Magickal folk could only see from the outside. So things like the myths happened, but the Normals generally got a lot wrong about them.”
“Like Cupid,” I suggest.
She purses her lips. “Actually, no. Even Normals were able to observe how Cupid behaves.”
Now, I’m struggling. I don’t want to admit that I don’t even really know what Normals know about Cupid. Other than the fat baby with the heart tipped arrows. But I’m pretty sure greeting card companies invented that version.
Penny eyes me with a knowing grin. Finally I give in and mumble that I didn’t know how Cupid behaves.
Looking triumphant, Penny finally explains. “Cupid is a trickster god. Like Loki or Coyote or Kokopelli or…” I hold up my hand to cut her off, or she might continue listing gods for ten more minutes. She shakes her head a little, as if to clear it and laughs. “So that means he likes playing tricks on people. Especially mages.”
“Playing tricks?” I ventured. “That doesn’t sound so bad.”
Now her lips are pursed and her jaw looks hard again. “Cupid’s tricks are mean. Maybe not by ancient Greek standards. But then, women’s rights were shit in ancient Greece. Rape was probably a daily thing back then.
“Wait, what?” I shout. “Rape?”
“Quiet!” Penny hisses. I cringe as I realize that several heads around us have popped up and are staring at me, wide-eyed.
“Sorry,” I mouth at their shocked faces before turning back to Penny, my own face hot with embarrassment.
“Yes, rape, Simon. That’s what Cupid’s arrows do. They overwhelm the victim with unquenchable lust and that person ends up fornicating with the nearest person until they both pass out. And, given that neither the arrow victim nor the person they have sex with have any real chance to give consent…well, that’s textbook rape, isn’t it?”
Now I’m catching Penny’s grim mood. I’ve not even really thought about sex yet, other than being embarrassed at what I hear other boys saying about it. The idea of being forced into it? It’s horrifying.
“Ok, the fact that you’re telling me this while surrounded by craft supplies tells me there’s a cure, right?” I say hopefully.
To my dismay, she shakes her head. “No cure, no. Not for most people. But some long-ago mage came up with the spell, “Shield Your Heart,” and it’s strong enough to soften the curse. And then later Mages learned how to bond the spell to paper so that it doesn’t have to be cast during an attack. Now we imbed the spell in Valentines we make for all of our friends and family who are teenagers and up, and not married. The more Valentines you get, the stronger the protection.”
I’m momentarily distracted. “Why not the married folks?”
She waves a hand impatiently. “The magic of the marriage bond invalidates Cupid’s magic, which was originally intended to push people to marriage. Because after a Cupid attack, many of the women would fall pregnant and need to marry their rapists in order to protect their unborn children.”
“That’s shit,” I say, for lack of anything else to say.
“It is,” Penny nods. “But, the good news is, with enough Valentines spelled to protect you, if you’re hit, at most you’ll be compelled to snog the nearest person. So let’s get started, Simon. We’ve got a lot of Valentines to make.”
“Wait,” I say, suddenly remembering something. “You said ‘Not for most people.’ Does that mean that some people are fully protected?”
She nods. “Yes, but it’s not something you can count on. If someone who is making the Valentine truly loves you, like in a romantic way, not a friend way, it confers complete protection. We call it ‘Cupid’s Shield’, but it’s rare, Simon. Even among established couples, most don’t truly love each other as teenagers. True love takes years to develop. What most people feel for the people they’re dating is lust and puppy love. If they’re together long enough, it often becomes the real thing, but at that point, they’re probably married anyway, and immune.”
I sigh. I guess there’s nothing for it. “Pass me the scissors,” I say, and I get to work.