Chapter Text
Chapter One: Discerning a Raven From a Crow
Former general Lilia Vanrouge was at his wit’s end.
He had given the issue time in case he was mistaken, but he wasn’t.
He had given the man time to come forward on his own, but he hadn’t.
Despite this, he knew one thing for sure.
The man in question, Prince Raverne Draconia of Briar Valley, was alive. Apparently, he's been here, at Night Raven College, playing Headmage for who knows how long. The man had been missing for roughly four hundred years. Countless search parties had come back with not so much as a hint to his whereabouts, and yet, here he was; parading around as Headmage and calling himself ‘Dire Crowley’.
Lilia knew it was him without a doubt. He was livid, but also confused. The Raverne he knew wouldn’t have just run away like this, would he? As he slipped through the halls he thought about the issue:
‘He was always so kind and considerate. He couldn't wait for Malleus to hatch and he loved Princess Maleanor as much as I did, so why didn’t he return?’
Regardless, speculation would get him nowhere. He needed answers, and he knew exactly where to start getting them.
He knew from talking to Yuu that the Headmage’s office was locked up tight when he wasn’t there. She had tried to sneak in a few times to retrieve Grim’s fidget toys, which had been confiscated, but every time the door was locked. Luckily, Lilia knew how to pick locks.
“Perhaps I’ll snag those toys for them while I’m here,” he chuckled to himself whilst picking the lock. He clicked the last pin into place and opened the door, quietly slipping in and locking the door behind him as he entered.
The Headmage’s office was a rather empty place compared to the rest of the campus. The stone walls were barren, save for the amethyst curtains with glow-in-the-dark embellishments of stars and moons. The windows had lattices on them that were more befitting of a henhouse than such a grandiose office space. The portraits of The Great Seven were sparkling as though they had been dusted just that morning, and underneath was the object that most likely contained the answers he sought.
The object in question, being a large decorative mahogany writing desk with two candelabras sitting atop it. It had spiral pillars along the sides and a carved bat-wing pattern across the top. He waltzed around to the front of the desk and examined it. It had an array of ornate drawers on either side with crystal handles cut to look like magestones. He started his search with the upper left drawer, which contained a menagerie of trinkets from the Headmage’s many vacations throughout the years. A miniature snowglobe from Harveston, a rabbit keychain from the Queendom of Roses, a replica mask from the Sunset Savanna, even a statuette of a magic lamp from the Scalding Sands. However, among the sea of tchotchkes, there was not a single item from Briar Valley.
“Strange,” Lilia muttered. He closed the drawer and moved on to the one beneath it. This one contained a number of novelty feather dusters, presumably used to dust the portraits floating above his head. Barely peaking out from underneath the feathers though, was an ornate skeleton key shaped like a sweet-briar rose. It was a small thing, barely the size of his palm, and cold to the touch.
“Curiouser and curiouser,” he mused as he shut the feather duster drawer and slipped the briar key into his pocket.
The final drawer on the left held items that had been confiscated from students causing trouble in class. There was everything from pocket knives to handheld gaming consoles, and right in the corner was a small pile of Grim’s cat toys. Lilia picked them up and stuffed them into his other pocket, then moved to go through the drawers on the right.
As he went to open the top right drawer, he froze as he heard footsteps approaching the office door. He dove under the desk and held his breath. The would-be intruders jiggled the handle a few times before giving up and leaving. Lilia relaxed and let out a deep, yet quiet, sigh of relief.
He crawled out from underneath the desk and gingerly pulled open the top right drawer of the desk. It was unassuming at first glance. It was full of half finished documents regarding a school-wide field trip to Clock Town planned for the end of January. He sifted through the papers to see if there was anything hidden within the stack, but it was just budgeting notes and a printout on the history of the White Rabbit. As he went to put the documents back, he noticed underneath them was a false bottom with a lock.
He pulled the briar key from his pocket and compared it to the lock. They were the same black metal and the right size for each other. He took a deep breath, steeling himself for what he might find, and unlocked the bottom of the drawer.
Inside the compartment was a small collection of loosely related objects. The first of which was a bundle of jet-black iridescent feathers tied up with a bow. It had a tag with a message on it that read:
‘Our deepest apologies, please accept the few we could save. ~ Doctor Carabosse’.
There only looked to be about twelve feathers in all.
The secret compartment also had some souvenirs from Briar Valley. A small jar of briar-shaped licorice, a golden harp necklace, and a statuette of a spinning wheel wrapped in thorny vines all sat with a brochure from the 80s on the history of Briar Valley. Lilia picked it up and thumbed through it curiously.
“Rather odd thing to have for someone who was alive for most of this,” he scoffed under his breath. Even odder, were the notes scribbled in the margins. It looked as though he was trying to piece together a mystery; About what though Lilia couldn’t be sure. All of the information written down seemed obvious to him, given that he knew the people written about in the brochure personally, and so did Raverne.
Lilia gently put the note-filled brochure back into the drawer and inspected the next object of interest. It was an antique mirror with designs traditional to the Queendom of Roses. It had golden cracks which spidered from the upper edge of the mirror as if it had been dropped at some point and later fixed.
The most interesting thing in the drawer however, was an old leather journal with a raven engraved on it that sat underneath the mirror. It was worn along the edges with use and beautiful gold leafing ran along the side of the pages. He was sure it held the answers he was looking for, but much to his chagrin, it had a lock on it and the key was nowhere to be found.
Lilia swore and slammed the drawer shut and started rummaging through the next one for a key. He’d always hated looking for things for this exact reason. Every time you get close to what you’re looking for, another hurdle makes itself known. Lilia was tearing through the drawer so loudly in his fervor, that he didn’t hear Crowley unlock the door and barge into the office until it was too late.
“Who in all of Twisted Wonderland is tearing up my office!?” He gawked, “Show yourself now and I shall have the magnanimity to NOT expel you immediately for breaking and entering!!”
“Shit,” Lilia cursed. He stood up from behind the desk in surrender, journal in hand, and looked Crowley dead in the eyes, “We need to talk.”