A Villain's Survival Guide

Charlotte’s POV:

’I am a prodigy, I know that much. Ever since I was young, people have praised my intelligence and athletic prowess. Honestly, it is quite fulfilling to be acknowledged in that way. I was even admitted into this academy through the headmaster’s recommendation and a full scholarship that covered fees my family would have struggled to afford.

’So I do enjoy being a prodigy. To say otherwise would be a lie.’

Charlotte left her room in Privileged Hall with books in hand, heading for her morning History class. Every person she passed had the same thing on their lips. By the third or fourth, it had begun to make her uneasy. 𝕗𝚛𝚎𝚎𝐰𝗲𝗯𝗻𝚘𝚟𝚎𝗹.𝕔𝐨𝕞

’Shit...’ She clocked the upperclassmen and quickened her pace before the thought had even finished.

She bit her lip in irritation.

’I may be a prodigy... but I know how much of a coward I can be sometimes. Leomaris mastered Mercy of Death, something even sword masters couldn’t achieve. And still, people talk down on him. I hear it every day... but I can’t bring myself to stop it.’

She got onto the stairs and began descending carefully.

’Leomaris would’ve stood in for me without a second thought.’

She already knew that.

’I’m too much of a coward to do the same.’

The rumours grew as she walked, and everyone she met had their own opinion about the Apostle of Death. Praise for Leomaris brought her something close to relief. Doubt about him cut deeper than it had any right to. Neither feeling ever made it past her lips.

’With my ability, Poems, I cannot say much. Strict rules govern my speech. Until I become a Sorcerer and understand my ability fully, I can only speak using ’Me, Myself, and I.’ With these pronouns, every phrase must be under five words, and all statements must center on me. If not, there might be trouble.’

She entered the lecture hall with those words still turning in her head, and there he was, at the far corner of the room. Leomaris, fist tucked under his chin, lost somewhere she couldn’t follow. Charlotte watched him for a moment, then took her seat.

’He looks sad... is it because of all the rumors?’ she sighed softly.

’I have to protect him. Without his help with my ability, I would have been mute forever. He guided me, deliberately, into realizing that pronouns were my way to speak again. He tried to pass it off as casual talk, but I knew what he did.

’He’s a good person, so I have to be a good friend to him. Because of him, my dream of becoming a Void Ruler might come true. That’s the least I can do for him.’

Soon enough, the History instructor entered. Tall, thin with a goatee. Rohan.

Charlotte had taken the front seat, as always. It was the one blind spot in his sightline; paying her any attention from there would’ve looked strange even to him. She preferred it that way.

She had no patience for the way his eyes lingered on women with curvy bodies, and she knew better than to think she was exempt.

A few minutes later, class began. Rohan, to his credit, opened with something worth listening to.

"The first Revolutionary War began two hundred years ago after the previous royal bloodline was brought to an end by a single woman... the Woman in Veil."

Even as he said it, Rohan’s eyes were making their usual rounds, bosom to bosom, the lustful look on his face entirely unbothered by the irony.

Charlotte stopped writing. Her dark, soulless eyes found Rohan, and the anger came quietly, the way it always did. He never looked her way. It made no difference.

The anger grew past the point she was willing to name. She tried taking notes, and the words wouldn’t stick. Pulled a book over and stared through every page. That didn’t work either. Sleep didn’t even bother presenting itself as an option.

Before she knew it, Rohan was the least of it. What was really boiling over was older. Her failure to stand in for Leomaris when it mattered and the quiet, grinding frustration of an ability that gave with one hand and took with the other.

Then her throat made the decision before she did. "For the Goddess’s sake — would you hold it, Mr. Rohan?!" She yelled.

The air crashed as the last word left her. Her words wrote themselves into it in white light, and then, as if selecting, began to erase. One by one until only "hold it" remained.

Those two words stretched themselves thin as rope and moved in a serpentine wave across the room, finding Rohan, coiling around him, holding him fast to the ground.

The class froze. Charlotte didn’t panic. She settled back into her seat, drew a slow breath, and let herself calm down, all while Rohan struggled against the floor, unable to move, unable to make a sound.

Once she’d calmed herself, Charlotte turned to Rohan. "Release." The rope dissolved.

He got to his feet with the full intention of making her pay for it; the scolding was already forming with some punishment behind it, but not a single word came. And the class, without invitation, turned on him entirely.

Whatever resentment Rohan was building, Charlotte gave it nothing to land on.

She hadn’t looked his way once, her thoughts were still tangled in her ability, in all the ways it constrained her as much as it served her. When she finally lifted her head, the podium was empty. Rohan was already gone.

She exhaled deeply.

’My ability treats almost everything I say or write as a form of poetry. However, there are rules governing it, and my words are subject to interruption according to those rules. Once spoken, my words manifest and carry out exactly what the ability demands.

’As a mere Magician, I could even kill myself with my own words if they are interrupted in such a way by the rules...’

Her head snapped toward Leomaris and found him mid-conversation with Raine St. Claire.

He noticed her shortly after. He smiled and waved. Charlotte happily waved back, though her eyes didn’t entirely miss that it was Raine he’d been talking to.

’I wanted to speak to him and ask if he knew how I could soften these rules at least... but he’s speaking with his fiancée. I’ll have to leave it for later.’

She gathered her books and slipped toward the door. Most of the girls found her before she got there, offering praise for her bravery, as they called it.

It settled over her warmly, genuinely, even as the quieter part of her noted that as a Calamity, it was never really bravery at all. Just duty wearing a friendlier face.

She stepped out of the hall and turned toward the cafeteria. Contractual costs are unavoidable and irreversible, there’s nothing Leomaris could tell her that would change that. She walked on anyway. Then again, maybe the question was never really the point.