Destroying A Legacy

Chapter Twenty: Lafew

Tranio turned around, and said, "What a slick move, Merman. You're hiding behind a statue of yourself."

Lafew's life, as always, was too complicated to let him sort out of all of his feelings before moving on to the next problem. So, all he could do was jump out of his hiding place, as gracefully as he could, and croak,

"A statue of myself? What do you mean?"

Tranio gestured lazily at the new statue, the one Lafew had never seen before. It represented a young man with a stern expression on his face, wavy hair and a sword in hand. The famous Excalibur, which Lafew had never used before, not really, but it didn't really matter, did it? Not in the grand scheme of things.

"Who... Why did Peretti let someone build that?" Lafew wondered aloud.

"The Golightlys were ever so sorry to hear about your untimely death," Tranio sighed. "I hope the inscription doesn't read Rest in Peace, not that I ever read it before. I wonder which one of your triumphs reports, since I can't remember one, at the moment."

Lafew's blood boiled in his veins. All of this, it wasn't fair. He'd only come to the fields to check that Tranio was fine, and the Seer was making fun of him. Smiling lazily at him as if they still were rivals, friends and enemies at one. Acting as if he'd never blocked his contact and probably laughed at his feelings. His unrequited feelings.

At the moment, Lafew turned around and saw Professor Mouldy stalking towards them in the distance. He registered a brief expression of pain on Tranio's face.

"Who broke your nose?" Lafew asked as coldly as he could. "Romeo? Mouldy? I've always known he was one of the Rebellion."

Tranio arched an eyebrow. "Really," he commented, more of a jab than a question.

"It doesn't take a genius to understand that a Professor who bullies their own students isn't a good person," Lafew replied.

"Merman," Mouldy said when he joined them. "Since all winter I've been hearing about you, I find it is unnecessarily difficult to get you out of my head. Please, tell me what happened this morning and why everyone is upset, so I have a reason for thinking about you."

Mouldy looked at Lafew with the same expression he would have used if he had seen him kissing Fair. Lafew felt a little light-headed, but soon found out he was happy to remember the Professor didn't know.

"Yes, of course, it's your expertise after all," Lafew said, remembering after all how good of a Guardian the Professor was. "Someone saw a deer running into the fields this morning. Well, it didn't look right, in shape and colour, but many declared it looked like a deer. I was thinking about the questing beast, sir. How it could bring things out of the ley lines."

Before Mouldy could reply, Lafew took the chance to confirm if his thoughts were, indeed, right. "What did you mean when you said you heard about me, Professor?"

"Why, does one need a reason, now?" Mouldy asked in a disinterested one, pointing his hand at the statue. Lafew couldn't blame him, he didn't care much for it either.

"Still, when I said that, I had the theatre in mind," the Professor added.

The last thing Lafew needed was a show about him.

"The fictionalised year Vertès spent teaching there, as if Hercules had trained Lafew himself," Mouldy added. "Hercules and the Tensed True King."

"I can't say I've heard about that," Tranio replied, looking as if he was about to recoil. The feeling was mutual, Lafew thought. 

"But Professor Vertés is dead," Lafew commented.

"Sadly, his legacy is not," Mouldy replied. "Someone found the script written down amongst his things. It was released post-mortem. To be honest, I thought it was a publicity stunt, Merman. From your team."