The prep room stays cold, floor wax sharp in the air. Lewis and Parsley huddle over the open book, and the page seems to tighten in the lamplight, as if it has been waiting for them.
Lewis follows the printed lines where the gods go on fighting long after the end is certain. The words do not soften. They feel clinical, exact, and cruelly familiar.
Parsley
So that is it. They were always going to lose.
Beyond the door, older boys pass in the corridor, their boots dull on the boards. The sound is ordinary, but it lands like a warning. The hierarchy is not a theory in the margin. It is the school itself.
Parsley
It is like us, Lewis. They keep calling it order, but it is only doom with better clothes.
Lewis turns another page. The parallel is brutal now, not just in the punishments, but in the way the younger boys are expected to endure, serve, and vanish without protest. The old story has found its true shape.
Parsley
If this is what the world is, then faith must look straight at it.
The book lies open between them like a verdict, and the room feels smaller for having understood it.
✓ Quest Accepted
Protect one another
“I remind Parsley that he's supposed to be in Fribble's bedroom right now, enduring the unendurable.”
SUCCESS (Good Reasoning, rolled +1)
Lewis lowers the book and glances at Parsley instead of the page. The reminder lands gently, but it makes the room go still.
C. S. Lewis
You ought to be in Fribble’s room now.
Parsley
Right. I know.
Parsley’s hands close, then loosen around the edge of the desk. He swallows, looking as if the words have dragged the corridor back into the room with him.
Parsley
If I do not go when I am meant to, he makes it worse later.
Lewis stays beside him, neither pretending it is small nor making it grand. The open book waits between them, but the page is no longer the only thing they share.
Parsley
Then stay near me a moment, at least, while I gather myself.
Quest Complete
Protect one another