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When Nabubu had watched the back of Vetruvius’ cape flare in the court room, letting her ears settle into the words, “I will let no harm come upon you,” she thought she was going to die. She believed, deep in her chest, that Vetruvius’ vow of protection would sharpen into blades that carved into her back: traitor.
Nabubu didn’t hate her town, she would never betray the peace held together by fraying threads. She loved the little town founded as New Witchington— the two French bakeries that always seemed to compete, the mayor who did a triple axel during his own assassination attempt; her friends whose doors never locked, who seemed to accept her barging in at any hour. The community house, the engineer’s machinations, the Church of Chat, the Church of Yuri. Despite such wagering, differing factions, their community was united, and their community was free.
Community was free.
But Nabubu did not believe that in the courtroom.
She had watched with wide, frightened eyes as her attorney-in-arms turned his back to her, anger simmering in his veins. The desperation that had once filled Vetruvius, begging for true justice, turned into a cold sheen of ice.
“I think you should get out of here,” was what Vetruvius said, and she shamefully, arrogantly, fled.
Was it cowardice to run?
She wanted to believe in him still. Even if he had given up on the town, and even if he had let the idea of community rot into something small and bitter inside of him, he could be reminded. She wanted festivals, taverns, spilled drinks, nights of bad singing with good friends, and above all she wanted them to be safe. She wanted him to be safe, too.
Then, Rosie had laughed after the court case concluded. She had planned an escape route, planning to turn everybody invisible so she could slip out in the midst of the chaos. “Anticlimactic,” she’d said of the trial, and something in Vetruvius snapped.
What Vetruvius received instead of justice was ridicule and perhaps in that moment, the cape that had shielded her, turned sharp. He swore to make it climactic, and they thought Vetruvius was a man of drama.
Then ten people died.
Nabubu remembered her breath catching as she screamed, her legs flailing then failing, and the silence of the streets that followed the explosion. In a trial for an attempted murder, Vetruvius committed ten homicides.
She couldn’t call Vetruvius a villain, even then. She saw the break too clearly because all Vetruvius wanted them to do was to take him seriously and to treat the law as sacred. When they mocked him, Nabubu realised he responded in the only language he thought they would understand: blood.
She hated what he had done. She couldn’t understand the destruction wrought upon the innocent, she would never forgive the bodies he left in his wake, and, yet, even then—she could not hate him.
She tucked her knees close in the basement of her tower.
“Nabubu,” Vetruvius said kindly. “Do you see this light magic?”
Nabubu watched as light magic flared from Vetruvius’ bare hand, his book shut in his other hand.
“Woah, yeah! Woah, how are you doing that?!” Nabubu squealed, running up to his side and watching the light magic shoot from his hands like a gentle firework. The sparks fizzled out midair, then settled over the grass like morning dew. “I always need to open my spellbook to perform light magic.”
“It’s not hard, when you’re a great wizard like myself,” Vetruvius replied. He circled his wrist and caught the remnants of the light magic before brushed it away. “This light magic is very soft. If you learn it, you will always have light in darkness, and you will never have to fear the shadows.”
“Teach me!” Nabubu beamed. “Teach me, teach me, please!”
Vetruvius laughed. He extended his palm, now shimmering with a gentle light, and guided her smaller one beneath it. “A light spell like this doesn’t make you stronger than others, unfortunately. But it lets others see you, and likewise, you see them. Understand, Nabubu?”
Nabubu nodded quickly. “Ooh. Un, un. Like I’m sharing the light with others?”
He smiled at her. “You have a gift for understanding. You are very, very special. Do not forget this. Even if the world mocks it, even if they laugh,” Vetruvius spat, “you must remember, you are the one who can carry the lantern.”
Nabubu’s eyes glinted with the strength of the light. She looked up. “How did you do it? This must have been one of the first spells you learnt… it feels like an advanced form of the basis of light magic.”
“Yes, it was,” Vetruvius mulled over it. “I had not the talent to immediately learn from my father. It was… a terrible thing, not being special. I found myself in the dark after my father did not particularly find himself kind enough to…”
Nabubu tilted her head. Golden threads of light trembled across her fingers. She opened her mouth to ask, but when she caught the tightness around his eyes, the words withered in her mouth.
Vetruvius cleared his throat. “It does not matter. What matters is that I did learn, in time. Alone.” In the dark, Nabubu finished for him. Then, he snapped his fingers, and the glow sharpened into a clean, bright sphere. It was perfect. A perfection Nabubu had never seen in light magic before. “Once you master light alone, Nabubu, no one can take it from you.”
His smile was soft. She nodded slowly, squeezing his hand. “Then… you can teach me to make this light too. That way, you don’t have to be alone anymore.”
The sphere quivered for a moment, then steadied. Vetruvius blinked at her.
“...Yes,” he said. “Yes, I will teach you.”
Nabubu quietened, allowing Vetruvius’ magic to strengthen around her hand until she grabbed ahold of the light, transferring it to her palm. Magic flitted around her hand without the assistance of her magic spellbook. Her mouth opened in awe.
“What happened with your father?”
Vetruvius turned his hand, studying the glow in his palm instead of her face. “He was the greatest wizard of all time. Nothing could be worth less than wasted time. And what is a child, if not… time that has not yet proved its worth?”
“You proved it,” Nabubu forced out. She clutched her hand to her chest, the light trapped inside her fist. Vetruvius could not be convinced that he was only time, waiting. “You don’t have to prove you are something. You just are.”
“You think so?”
“I know so!” Nabubu grinned. “You’re the great Vetruvius the Second! You’re already amazing, and now you’re extra amazing because you’re teaching me!”
Even after the ten bodies in the square, she could not call him evil. She had seen his hands, once, making light instead of fire, feeling the warmth of a man who believed in Nabubu’s ability to use magic without a spellbook. She pressed her forehead to her knees.
An orb of light hovered over her open palm.
“I still believe in you, Vetruvius.”
She nodded furiously. He said he would protect her no matter what side she chose.
Nabubu had always thought herself stitched to this town. She loved the bakeries, the clatter of mugs in the tavern, and the easy way she could knock on someone’s door at any hour and slip in, uninvited, to share a story, a spell, a gift. In all her years, she had never imagined leaving.
Vetruvius’ voice had been steady when he gave her the choice. To come with him and become a wizard ten times more powerful, then leave this place with him.
But, she could stay with the community. Be happy there. Yet he would promise her safety nonetheless.
“If you cannot speak reason into him,” Zealand reminded her dutifully when Nabubu asked for an audience between him and Mayor Clifford, “then perhaps he was already gone.”
The community was not here for Vetruvius the way it was for her. The community was not free for him. Zealand’s words echoed in her head continuously. He had given up on this place, but she hadn’t. No matter what happened, she still believed in Vetruvius. Perhaps this was simply not the type of community he was meant to be with—but did that mean she had to abandon it, too?
She rose to her feet, dispelling the orb of light with the back of her hand. Perhaps she will need to talk to Vetruvius’... mother.
The walk to his mother’s house felt heavier than the cobblestones beneath her feet. Her shoes scuffed against the ground as she began to hurry, running past her lady Aulira. The town hall was boisterous with the council’s words overseeing Vetruvius’ punishment. Nabubu was supposed to be there soon, the agenda she wrote being copied down on extra paper, but she needed to talk to someone before it all. Someone equally as close to Vetruvius.
The hinge squealed as she pressed open the front door, and Jollibee toddled over with a suspicious stare before his feathers ruffled in recognition.
“Willerton,” she called, voice cracking slightly. “Willerton, are you home? I need to talk to you! It’s Nabubu!”
She swallowed, her hands growing clammy.
“Come in!” Willerton called from deep inside his home.
Nabubu exhaled. She made sure that her shoes weren’t dirty before traversing on the tatami mats. “I… I wanted to talk!” she began, sliding open the paper door and peeking inside. “About Vetruvius… and I wanted you to hear of what happened after you took Rosie’s picture.”
Willerton began to walk down his stairs. “The trial ended with your win, didn’t it? Rosie was guilty, and you and Vetruvius even celebrated it in the courtroom.”
She twisted the ends of her robe. “Yes, we did win! But… but Vetruvius demanded a harsher punishment.”
“Right. He wanted to destroy her property, since nobody really cared about dying,” Willerton hummed. “I mean, he’s not wrong. But the mayor seemed happy and chill about it, so what’s the problem?”
“I,” Nabubu hesitated. The murders Vetruvius committed—could she truly bring herself to say it out loud once more? “You’re his mother,” she insisted instead. “You must want to know what has happened since the trial. You must want to hear how he’s—”
“I’m not his mother.”
Nabubu blinked at him, throat closing around her words.
Willerton picked at his clothes, smoothing a wrinkle. “I’m just Willerton,” he said, flat. “Don’t place me in the shadow of that person. Vetruvius suffers from a curse called delusion. I don’t really care what Vetruvius does, it’s… not my problem.”
Her hands only tightened around the edges of her robe. “Then, fine! Then just listen, as Willerton, because you should still know. It still impacts you as a townsperson.” She steadied herself, watching him closely. “After you left, things—things turned strange. The mayor obviously executed Rosie. But Vetruvius wasn’t happy about it! He didn’t like it at all. Then Rosie came up to him, said it was all anticlimactic.”
Nabubu pressed her knuckles to her mouth. “He snapped. He said,” she lowered her voice, “‘I’ll show you climactic!’ and then he… he killed ten people. Just like that.”
She spoke about how he promised Nabubu he would never harm her, that she would stay out of town.
“You still like him,” Willerton said as a statement, not a question. “After all of that? Ten people?”
“He can still be saved,” Nabubu insisted.
He gave her a long look, then huffed. “You still cling to that? Nabubu…”
She bit her lip. “I don’t think he’s lost. I—he was kind to me. He promised to keep me safe. He apologised!”
Willerton’s head tilted, and the faintest flicker of disdain crossed his features. “He didn’t say sorry to anyone else. Do you know why people like him make promises?”
Nabubu blinked. “To keep them..?”
“It sorta chains you to them,” Willerton grimaced. “Safety given by a man who throws a temper tantrum even though he won his court case is… he just wants to tell you the words you most wish to hear. If you side with the town, he will probably blow you up with the rest of us.”
“He wouldn’t,” Nabubu denied. But her fingers twisted. “He’s grieving. His father—”
“Trauma isn’t an excuse, though,” Willerton cut in. “His pain doesn’t absolve him of choice. And he’s choosing. Guy’s not fighting for you, Nabubu, he’s fighting for his own ego because that’s all he ever does.”
Nabubu lowered her head. “So you think I’m stupid.”
“Never. You’re just trying to see the best in someone who keeps proving he’s… a villain.”
She stared at the tatami, eyes stinging. “He’s not a villain.”
Willerton stayed quiet for a few beats. Then, he whistled, and a bear began to thud down his stairs, eyes bright. He grinned as a bear ran to him, then ran his hand down his back. “Anyways, enough about that guy. Wanna see my new bear? He’s way cuter than Vetruvius. Look, Freddy Fazbear.”
Nabubu’s heart pinched. Willerton may be right. If she continues to look at Vetruvius in a biased perspective, he’ll continue on his path of destruction. Maybe he’d ask for her to join him again. But she cannot risk her town.
She straightened. “I got it. Thank you, Willerton.”
“Huh? Oh, yeah, you’re welcome?”
“I will… I will take your words to heart!” Nabubu shouted, turning on her heel and sprinting out of his home.
“You don’t want to see Fredd—?!”
Vetruvius’ path was no longer hers, but perhaps she could run parallel to his and show him how life was worth living. Vetruvius was not a villain.
***
When Kalvin watched the firelight dance along Vetruvius’ side profile, letting his own breath settle in the midnight, he thought he was watching a man become immortal. There was a degree of humanity in Vetruvius, perhaps, but power of that scale could not possibly belong to a human. He thought that Vetruvius’ conviction would carve through the town itself, that he would not bow, and that he would not break.
Kalvin didn’t hate the village, not exactly, though he never belonged to it. He had no stake in its businesses or bakeries, its mayors who spun jokes and was himself a joke, or the taverns spilling with laughter he was too cautious to join. The town was the people’s love, not his, because he wasn’t yet human. His heart, whatever form it took, lay elsewhere.
He found it, to his own surprise, nestled in Vetruvius’ words of kindness and olive branches. When Vetruvius lashed out in frustration, ruined parts of his home, of these ruins he discovered and had been living in, Vetruvius had no gripes with Kalvin in particular. This tower was more of a place he borrowed than cultivated, and he would just as easily walk away from it as he found it.
He stood a step below Vetruvius on the cold stone stairs.
“How I acted earlier,” Vetruvius said, after a few beats of apology for his destruction, “is not how I wanted all of this to go.”
Kalvin watched Vetruvius stare at the horizon, the sunflowers who’d turned their backs on them, the sun that no longer shone. His hands were clasped behind his back, and his hat shielded his eyes.
“You see,” Vetruvius’ voice trembled, then steadied. He wondered if this was what humanity felt like: to rage, to regret. “My obsession with consequence has come from many, many days of being afraid.”
This was what humans did, wasn’t it? They spoke their hurt out loud and they ripped their chest open, unlatched their ribs, and expected an embrace to cradle what mess spilled out.
“The most important thing to me is progress, and that has been going through my father’s notes and researching my magic, but then on our third day here, when Roswell and L threatened to take it all from me, I felt… paranoid. I can't describe how afraid I was. Everything was falling apart and on that same day, harmless pranksters came and, what normally would've been like a harmless prank, felt like a deadly attack.”
Vetruvius unclasped his hands and rubbed at his wrist. “I felt deathly afraid and I have been hunting… someone, trying to make sense of how awful this all feels. And I think today was my breaking point. Today, even though many people I wound up hurting did nothing wrong, which was my own fault, so many of them have caused harm, and pain, and anxiety, and worry, to others purely for their own gain. What gain is there to get from all of this? Well. I- I think, it’s just because there will be no consequences. People can act out all of their fiercest, most sadistic desires with no fear of recourse.”
Vetruvius’ fingers flexed, then curled into fists. “A terrorist who fired an explosive shot at a newly elected politician was let off, essentially, with a tap of the wrist. And not only that, the whole thing led up to you spending days preparing somewhere for the trial to happen. The trial was fixed on this one event. And this was all based on someone’s desperate cry for attention. And in a world like that, when doing harm and causing grief is the only way to get people focused on you—” His breath shook. “Not the only way, but it seems like the easiest way. I don't think there will ever be a true sense of order or law.”
Kalvin stared at the sunflowers. The breeze off the hill smelled faintly of char and ash.
“So while what I did today wasn't right,” Vetruvius said quietly, “it came after days of worry. Days of pain. Wondering if my obsession with order and making sure people of this town were safe, was being mocked, laughed at, I don't feel feared. Even though maybe I am now. I feel like a big joke. All the people who were killed earlier are back. They felt a nasty burn and are back off on their own adventures again. For me, I don't think I'll be able to show my face in town again.”
He turned his head slightly toward Kalvin. “Am I wrong for this? Of course I am. But it was only a matter of time before something happened.”
Kalvin stepped closer, boots scuffing against the stone. To comfort was to grow closer, as humans did. “I… can't resent you,” he said softly, then hesitantly. “Not for anything you’ve done against Roswell and L. To tell you the truth, I'm here in search of something to find my mother. I have nothing to show for the time we’ve spent together. And I–want to believe she's still out there. And in spite of my efforts, I have not the faintest sign that there is anything. That she remains anywhere. For that if she does, she could be… brought back. If I had even the smallest trace of her presence, and someone tampered with that, I do not know what I'd do. I don't know what I’d become.” He swallowed hard. “Even with as meek as my power may be, I fear I'd do something as half as terrible as you did today.”
Kalvin’s voice wavered at the last line. He hadn’t meant to reveal that much. Was this what it was to be human? To lay yourself open before another and not even realise until after?
“I know how you feel,” Vetruvius said. He turned slightly, meeting Kalvin’s eyes. “I think every single thing I do, every step I take, I think my father is watching me. When I was a boy, he wanted me to learn magic the way he had learnt it, and I didn't have talent like he did when he was a boy, I felt the way he would berate me and laugh, to him the idea of someone failing to cast a spell was hilarious but to me i was terrified. And so now, when I try, like today, when I'm trying to get across something that is important, when I'm just trying to do my best to fulfil the role I’m given, and I'm surrounded by people who all think it's a joke, I feel his hands on me again. I feel… like I'm right back there. And I'm just a scared boy who can't fight back.
“But now I can fight back," Vetruvius finished softly. “Now, we both can fight back. I sincerely hope that you find your mother. Wherever she is. Whatever form she takes. I know you deserve to find her because you… unlike so many others, are so, so kind. You think of her in every breath. She is the reason that you persist and if her memory is enough to make you do all that for these people, I wouldn't want you to feel like it's all went to waste. What you do, you do it for her. And that is not worth feeling afraid of.”
Kalvin’s mouth parted, his eyes wide as wind rustled between them. His hair flew in his face, yet all he could see was Vetruvius’ pained eyes. For a heartbeat, the only sound was the wind brushing over nature. No one had ever said those words to him.
“You really are too kind, Vetruvius,” he said at last, finding his words. His tone was hushed and reverent.” And I'll say—you're no scared boy to me. I'll say, I trust already, that you’ll be far greater a mage than your father ever was. I don't know if that may be disrespectful to his memory, but with your passion, not just for justice but in your values you are already a better man. A better mage. For what is power worth if monopolised?”
Vetruvius’ shoulders eased, and Kalvin felt a delight knowing his words reached someone. He turned towards Kalvin fully now, the weight of his eyes searing into him, but it was more of warmth than it was hurt.
“That's right,” Vetruvius murmured. “Thank you. I feel as though I've been waiting my whole life to hear those words from someone. It may not change the past, but it does give me focus. It does make me feel just how tumultuous the path ahead will be.”
Kalvin lowered his eyes to the steps. Is this how you become human? He wondered. By handing over this grief of his, piece by piece, until someone else shapes it for him? By believing in a man who might one day burn everything down, yet still makes Kalvin feel seen?
The rising sun began to spill high over the sunflowers.
“Ah, Willerton?” Kalvin exclaimed from the entryway. “Are you home?”
Willerton perked up, pulling himself up from where he had been attaching a collar to Jollibee. “Yeah, door’s open. Don’t wipe your shoes on the mat though, it’s clean! And I like it clean.”
Kalvin ducked inside. He smiled, strained, long fingers pressing together. “You took photographs of the courtroom, correct?”
“Yeah. Oh, did you want me to develop the film? I have plenty.” Willerton appeared, sleeves rolled up. “Took a lot with the witnesses, the jury, the lawyers. Even caught the mayor’s double chin. Did you want copies?”
Kalvin planned to destroy each and every one of them. Without photographic evidence, Vetruvius could twist that day to his desires.
“Yes, if you could,” Kalvin agreed.
“Sure!” Willerton said, beginning to head to the corner of his home where his lightroom was.
Kalvin followed at a distance, looking at Willerton’s furnished home. The red glow of his lanterns bled into his vision and he paused when Willerton fished out the film.
“There’s not much to see,” Willerton began, sliding a strip into a solution of die.
Kalvin nodded along, silent. He imagined each print dripping wet, fragile, and they were so easy to burn. He only needed to wait until Willerton’s back was turned. He peered over, and shapes began to rise on the paper. The courtroom he had built started to appear on the paper, some parts blurry, some faces cropped out.
In the photograph Willerton printed out, he spotted a few things out of place. Things shifted, were removed. His eyes stayed fixed on parts of the room that were quietly destroyed.
“Not bad, huh?” Willerton clipped the print to a line, turning to him. “In this one, you can almost see yourself, but you’re just a little bit cropped out. Don’t get too hung up on it though, photos are just angles… if you look to the corner, you can just barely see Rosie. Photos show what you point at, not the entire mess going on.”
Kalvin said nothing, eyes fixed on a stone brick shifted out of line instead of the straightness he remembered. He cleared his throat.
Willerton was busy humming as he fished out the next frame. “Oh, here’s the execution!”
Kalvin folded his hands behind his back, eyes dragging to each print floating in the liquid. His plan to destroy every photo was sliding. He supposed whether he liked it or not, the memory of the trial will live on. Destroying the film wouldn’t erase what happened, Kalvin knew, but bad, good, whatever it was, it was still there.
“And here’s Vetruvius… I’m not sure when I took this.” Willerton peered at the photo squinting. “It sucks. It’s just his face, very determined. He looks hysterical. Maybe he was already planning to kill people. I missed everything happening outside of the frame,” he complained.
“He’s smiling,” Kalvin pointed out.
“That doesn’t mean jack,” Willerton sighed, clipping the photo to the line. “He could be laughing as he used his fuck off spell, but that doesn’t mean he didn’t kill all those people. Oh, hey, maybe this photo could be used for the next trial if people decide to press charges. I would.”
Willerton continued to muse offhandedly. Kalvin’s lips parted like he wanted to ask more of this camera technology, but instead he murmured to himself. “Ah, so you are saying the truth isn’t in his smile or apparent kindness, but somewhere else?”
“Yeah. Just like in this photo. Vetruvius could be talking to anyone, but this angle shows only what he wants you to see, I guess.”
“And you believe the townspeople deserve to see the whole picture?”
Willerton stared at him. “Um, why not? There are people here who can’t defend themselves. The trial wasn’t all about Vetruvius… are you planning on doing something with the photos? Not that I care or anything.”
Kalvin tilted his head as he stared at the print. Care lodged itself into his chest, nails digging into his palms. Yes, of course Willerton wouldn’t care. They are not friends, but a mere semblance of it. He thought once more of his talk with Vetruvius, how that was the only time someone had honestly reached out to him.
The townspeople have never felt loss like the two of them have. They don’t have it carved in his bones. Kalvin was built from it, his calcium was loss.
Willerton mechanically lifted the next frame out of the solution. “He was in the wrong for murder,” he said, as if a reminder to Kalvin. “He was in a trial of attempted murder and his first thought when he was angry was to commit actual murder?” he shook his head. “Some people here just like to bake, or fish, or cook. Death isn’t really that big of a deal in this world, but it doesn’t matter how strong someone is, we all end up the same. No hero, or villain, ‘s gonna change that.”
Willerton sighed. “Sorry. I just don’t like him.”
Kalvin lowered his gaze to the photo again, to Vetruvius’ wide eyes, mouth spread in a crooked smile. His mind could twist it into something else—something tender. Willerton clipped another print up and started up his humming.
Kalvin cleared his throat. Only people who haven’t felt loss can walk through life peacefully. Nobody has hurt, or has been hurt, enough to make space for someone like Kalvin.
“Thank you,” he said finally, voice quiet, almost full of disdain. He stared at Willerton’s side profile and wondered why he didn’t feel the same things he felt with Vetruvius. He grit his teeth. “I’ll take the prints.”
Kalvin didn’t hate the village though he never belonged in it.
That might be the reason for his eager, immediate response to Vetruvius’ kind offer to join him.
But Vetruvius, perhaps he belonged everywhere and nowhere at once. The village clung to him like ivy on stone walls, reaching, and he did not push them away. He let them grow against him. He spoke to Nabubu fondly, spoke to the townspeople kindly, all while shouldering his father’s burden branded on his skin. He let Kalvin listen. He let Kalvin sit with himself, sharing his silence and their grief. Nobody had done that before. Willerton, though willing, didn’t care.
Vetruvius promised to train Kalvin after their brief meeting, their promise of, “we’ll join the gods in the skies as inseparable from those who the dead will join in the afterlife,” as though Vetruvius’ magic was not the marrow of his body.
Kalvin wondered, timelessly, again, and again, and again—if this was humanity. This… letting. This offering of self. Vetruvius reminded him much of Madeline. She had built Kalvin to serve, not to live, but he had loved her anyway because she was all he had known. Through Vetruvius, he thought he might understand her.
Through Vetruvius, he thought he might still find her.
His heart nestled closer to Vetruvius, if only to lead Kalvin closer to home. Vetruvius was not a villain.
***
Vetruvius was not a villain.
Willerton supposed it started with his father. After all, how were villains made if not by the sins of their father?
Willerton was— is young, and much like Vetruvius’ father, ambitious and greedy for more. He dreamt of seas of clouds, and Vetruvius’ father dreamt of curtains of blood. The culmination of their two cursed bloodlines bubbled into what now is Vetruvius. He has Willerton’s eyes, blue, but what should have been a dream of freedom soured into something… else. Places where Willerton longed for boundless horizons, Vetruvius saw freedom as something punishable, consequential, and something to be earned.
He was his father’s son.
Willerton had hoped for better—for more, so much more—for his son. But when he awoke in yet another foreign land, head swimming with the cloudy haze of displacement, Willerton found himself staring at a carbon copy of Vetruvius I calling him mother…. in that moment, shamefully, arrogantly, he thought he was mistaken.
“Mother,” called Vetruvius, just a couple days ago, giddy. “I hoped to find you here. Your house is looking splendid. I love what you’ve done to your floors.”
Willerton made a face, turning back to his chests. “Hello, Vetruvius. I am not your mother. Did you need something?”
“No,” Vetruvius said, almost meaningfully. “No, I just wished for your company, is all. Are you busy?”
“I’m not, why?”
He grabbed a handful of tatami mats and spread them onto his warped wood floor. He stared at the weaving material, interlocking with each thread seamlessly, working to complete the mat’s pattern. He has known interactions with Vetruvius to be quite simple and easygoing, but they never worked to create something at the end of their conversations. What remained, perhaps, was a patchwork of memories the two of them pretended to not share.
“If you are not busy, then perhaps you have recovered your memories—?” Vetruvius began to ask, hopeful.
“I am not your mother,” Willerton interrupted, firm. “I don’t know why you keep bringing that up. Have you gone to Doc? I’m preemptively prescribing you with a curse called delusion.”
Willerton was the guardian of a five year old child who played with… with Solid Tusk, and… and the lizard, whose name was lost to the cloudy expanse of his mind. This was not his child. He could not, had not, raised something so irrevocably wrong, he stares at me wrong, he dresses wrong, his hair is wrong, his entire person is wrong and is assuming the body of my son, my son who killed his—
Denial does not wash away bloodlines.
“Oh, but you are!” Vetruvius exclaimed heartily, holding a hand to his chest. “My father always loved my eyes. They are yours. Blue,” Vetruvius pulled his cheek downwards with a digit. “Just like yours.”
Willerton’s chest hollowed. A child should be proud to share a trait with his parent. Blue eyes stared back at him, clear, and the memories of a boy—his boy— splashing in the riverbanks with black hair sticking to his forehead rang true at his cranium. It whistled past the haze of his mind, evoking the has-been, will-never-be, isn’t. That boy, his boy’s eyes had been the same shade. Just like mine, he used to think with fond clarity. Just like mine.
When did Vox disappear? He could not place the moment, not a day, not an hour, and certainly not a breath. Vox disappeared with only the creeping certainty that somewhere between one sunrise and the next, his son had slipped away, leaving this… imitation.
This Vetruvius.
Perhaps it was a false question. Perhaps, what he should ask, should be when did Willerton disappear?
The more Willerton looked, memories slipped like sand through his fingers. Each image of his boy drowned beneath a haze and Willerton wished he could combat it, the inherent flightiness of his body, the flightiness that urged Willerton to soar high above the clouds and forget about New Witchington and its glorified protector Vetruvius.
“Yes, well. It seems you do not like my eyes,” Vetruvius said with an air of finality. He reeled back, hand dropping from his face.
The mats beneath his hands blurred.
When had Vox left him? Had he ever been here at all? Was that boy a dream, a trick of the mind, or had Vetruvius swallowed him whole piece by piece until there was nothing left but blue eyes staring back at Willerton with that look—
Denial did not wash away bloodlines, and perhaps that was the cruelest part. Crueler yet was Willerton’s own fractured, decaying, splitting mind between two worlds he wasn’t sure ever existed beyond the fragments of it.
“I’m sorry,” was all Willerton had uttered, then, returning to the tatami mats.
“That is quite alright. I’m sure you’ll remember me someday.”
Willerton had a long, long dream once. Dreams of adventures, laughter, of sharing meals and festivals, of building a community with his own hands, a camera, and a flying mount. Those days were gone. What he remembered, what remained only of that time was Vetruvius, Vox, his son who twisted hope into tyranny with each swirling words of if people cannot show respect, then, perhaps, they will show fear.
Willerton watched from the gallery of the courtroom the fragmenting mask Vetruvius delicately wore. Camera limp in his hands, he stared pitifully as Vetruvius sputtered for leniency from the judges, “Just one more fucking word, it will be quick!”
Nabubu tugged on her hat anxiously, nodding in tandem with Vetruvius’ desperate plea for attention, and he watched the threads of their tatami mats weave together into a pattern that could not be pulled apart. He watched distantly as Vetruvius strung up an elaborate testimony from the sheriff, watched the expressions from the jury grow angrier by the words, watched the consequence Vetruvius desired from this court trial fall beyond his grasp. He wished for consequences for all but him, and found joy in inflicting pain in the weak.
He waited for the jury to emerge with their verdict. Surprised, he was not, at the unanimous call for guilty, but he was surprised at how easily Vetruvius had shown his true colours as he called for Rosie’s properties to be destroyed.
He supposed Vetruvius was correct. In these lands where death is not permanent and jails could be bypassed with magic, what punishment could be feasible other than destruction of their belongings? If Rosie was to be executed, she would simply wake up in her home, unscathed, and return to adventuring, scheming, and running amuck once more.
Vetruvius doesn’t believe in a community that could enforce law and justice. Much like his father, then, Vetruvius couldn’t allow them a kingdom where justice is unclear, muddy, and inconsequential. Vetruvius’ true law and order was taking what the criminals loved and were attached to and destroying them permanently. Hypocrisy.
Willerton ran a hand down Jollibee’s wings. He chittered softly, the Griffin’s head tucking into his arms as he rested on the second floor of his home. The camera full of court room evidence and Rosie’s execution was filled with lead as he let it slip out of his fingers, deciding instead to hug his mount. He closed his eyes as Jollibee cooed.
He opened his eyes, resting his chin on Jollibee’s back.
“He cracked faster than Vetruvius,” Willerton sighed. “Pretending to be friendly with humans.”
I will sleep, Willerton decided, shutting his eyes and burrowing himself into Jollibee’s back. I will sleep.
“Mother,” said Vetruvius, his voice a low vow. “I will kill them for you.”
Willerton thumbed the hinge of his front door. It squeaked under his touch, beginning to bother him, but he wasn’t sure he had any oil left to fix it. The squeaking was annoying, sure, but it could easily be replaced with another. Just like his pets.
“What would I gain from that?” he muttered. Willerton finally dragged his eyes to Vetruvius, whose robes had clean, pressed lines. He avoided his eyes, instead watching as Lanp the painter strolled by the house, whistling tunelessly. Lanp raised a hand in greeting. He waved back kindly. “I already have Jollibee back,” he said simply. “Lan found him, so please. No killing in my name.”
Vetruvius’ hands curled into fists. “But you suffered. You were furious. I saw it, I felt it. Your grief filled the air, making you miserable for a whole day, Mother. They stole your pets! And yet you would let them walk free?”
His eyes drifted down to the floorboards and a nail jutted up from the wood. It must have been loosened by too many boots thundering through his home. He wondered if Kalvin and Nabubu, who had left just minutes ago, observed it. He crouched and tugged at it.
“Sure, I was angry,” he admitted. He pressed the nail back into the board, though it only rose again when he lifted his hand, resilience unwavering. “But the town saw my anger and instead brought me kindness. Doc wished to bring me a mount. Luca prayed to the gods and Farid and Leo— well, their gifts were insurmountable enchants for my mounts. Lanp gave me an irreplaceable griffin. A better one, if I’m honest.” He smiled faintly. “It seems revenge is unnecessary.”
Vetruvius blinked, as if the words were a foreign concept. His lips parted, then shut, and the edges of his robes quivered where his fingers dug into the fabric. Willerton watched.
“Unnecessary?” he repeated at last, soft and unbelieving.
“Yes.” Willerton stood and brushed dust from his knees. “The community gave me more than the thieves could ever take away. And, besides, I actually like my friends. I don’t care about revenge.”
The notion that loss could be answered not with retribution but generosity curdled in Vetruvius’ mind. To him, the kindness of the town was a weakness and it was a mere bandage slapped over a spreading rash.
He knew what Vetruvius was thinking as he turned his head away. They should have been punished, they should have paid.
Willerton, weary of Vetruvius’ silence, reached once more for the door hinge, wincing at its squeak. Vetruvius, weary in his own way, stared at the hinge. His eyes burned where they were fixed, at the imperfection of it all.
The light glinted off Vetruvius’ perfect robes.
The hinge squeaked again.
“I’m telling you, Vetruvius,” Willerton called after him. “Do not use me as an excuse to kill. I am not your parent. You cannot hide behind me!”
Vetruvius paused. “What would you do if I did?”
“If you killed?”
“If I killed.”
“You already have killed,” Willerton responded. “And what did I do then?”
Vetruvius stared at him.
“...Nothing. You did nothing.”
“I will do nothing once more. I will not give you the consequences you want. You aren’t a child who needs consequences to understand their place in the world. The harsher punishment you wish to be enacted on those you think deserve it will not be enacted on them, but on you. You create the need for harsher punishment.”
The silence between them was a heavy thing, patient.
Willerton steadied himself against the frame, his fingers pressed flat to the warped woods. Vetruvius didn’t answer at once, but when he finally spoke, his voice had lost the edge of his theatrical outrage. It was quieter—Vetruvius was always quiet. In his rage, in his way of life. Never in his retribution or murder, and Willerton knew that was his father’s teachings.
“You say I’ve already killed, but how would you know that?”
Willerton felt his age, though his face remains youthful as it was years ago. He didn’t reply.
“Do you want to be more than your father? You run around with his notes as if it will disappear permanently.”
Vetruvius made a face, curling into something infuriated. “You don—”
“I knew it would irk you. Let me ask you this, then, why are you so intent in following his footsteps? You will fail, just like he did. You will fall from the embrace of the gods and right down to earth. A human cannot proclaim themselves as a god. You will not be one, because neither was your father, and you are your father’s son.”
There are things you cannot return. There are things that are already gone because you remade them. Pieces of us, of me, dressed in clever words and borrowed eyes. Taken, stolen, borrowed—not his, nothing of Vetruvius was his own.
The words were stones tossed into a still pond. The pond received and kept the stones, never rippling, but Vetruvius’ jaw set. The sliver of Vetruvius’ reflection in the brass of the door hinge was a child. Not a god.
“If you do nothing,” Vetruvius muttered, “then I will.”
He didn’t say how, words falling silent between them what line Vetruvius thought he could draw between vengeance and justice. He only folded himself away from Willerton’s light and walked towards the parts of town that thrummed with other people’s warmth and other people’s choices, places where, if he did not belong, he would remake if he could.
Willerton watched him go. Around the bend a laugh burst out, someone hammered at Breadways, and Father Shu called a greeting. The town carried on.
Willerton watched as the town’s two most formidable hearts began to beat under the hand of Vetruvius, whose shadow stretched across them both, and tatami mats blurred again. Threads weaved, knotted, bound into something unbreakable. Nabubu’s hesitation and Kalvin’s wavering fate pulled tighter into the tapestry, and Willerton could only see Vetruvius’ father, then, an unending time bomb who, with an unsourceable amass of power in his arsenal, could only go crazy with it.
Vetruvius needn't have chains or armies. He needed the hearts of man and once he had their pulse knotted into his pattern, they could not be undone.
Kindness was a leverage and Vetruvius wore the mask of unity only to stand above the rest. Ideals that remained were punishment for the disobedient and promises of safety under one domineering authority.
Willerton could no longer say it.
Vetruvius was not a villain.
Because, he was, and worst of all, he was Willerton’s.