Smeared Hearts

When Rafal agreed to be named a School Master of the renowned School for Good and Evil, he hadn't expected to become a pet owner, or something of that ilk.

When he initially saw it... it was fluffy and rainbow. Oh, the indignity of it all, of his life. What had he agreed to?

He groaned. The Storian wouldn't have been his first choice of godlike pens, but he supposed a magical, fluffy pen was better than no magical pen at all.

The Storian drew a heart on Rafal's hand. It was about the size of a coin.

He grimaced.

Why couldn't the pen have chosen a more tasteful mark? A crown, or an ace of spades perhaps. Even an abstract scribble would have been fine, preferable even.

When the Storian drew his brother's heart, Rhian had laughed at its tickle, and the Storian had taken his response as a sign that it was welcome to snuggle up with Rhian every night, beside him in bed like a beloved pet.

Rafal slept alone.

⸻

Rafal had lost all faith in the Storian.

The irritating pen knocked things from tables. It beat Rafal's dish-breaking record within a week. And, it mussed up his hair, and shed all over his robes, slacks, and jackets. If any comparison could be drawn, it was most like a recalcitrant cat, an everlasting thorn in his side.

He couldn't face his students covered in feathery scraps of rainbow fur! The Nevers would ridicule him.

Invest in a lint brush, he noted to himself. That would settle it.

And shave that pen to boot. Not that he could. The little devil was fast, and would punish him for high treason.

Rhian wouldn't mind, he told himself. But, his brother loved that worthless thing. Of course he would mind. The Storian was practically Rhian's child. Rhian's baby talk drove Rafal up the wall. He was so mawkish and cuddly with it, as if it weren't already a combination dust magnet and feather duster that aggravated allergies.

No way would anyone ever see him petting the thing. It was an object, not even a living object, just unusually sentient. It was a patently false imitation of a real animal.

Rafal's Stymphs were far superior to the pen, and they obeyed him and his commands as any good pets ought to do. Though, he considered the Stymphs more akin to his faithful soldiers, pledged to serve his eternal cause of Evil than well... pets, or whatever the pen was to Rhian.

⸻

Lately, Rhian was becoming obsessed with the Storian, and it worried Rafal.

At least he wouldn't have to worry about Rhian getting attached, only to catch it belly-up, and be forced to fly to the nearest pet store and cosmetic apothecary to replace it with a magic-surgery-modified duplicate before Rhian saw. Getting the last fish to look identical had been one hell of a sleepless night he'd spent in a race to preserve Rhian's feelings. He'd stayed up to ensure the new pet was in place, and had to bury the old one at the crack of dawn while Rhian was still asleep.

But, with a pen, that couldn't happen. What could possibly go wrong?

Well, he knew the worst had happened far too many times. Rhian tended to kill things with too much love. It was absolutely sickening. He'd overfed goldfish in the past, almost the Wish Fish too, if Rafal hadn't put an immediate stop to it, and he had overwatered various hydrophilic plants from humid, tropical climates.