The library door shuts behind the boys, and the corridor ahead is all black stone and dim lamp-glow. C. S. Lewis has barely taken a step when a Senior Boy plants himself in the way, broad enough to turn the passage into a wall.
Edward Harbury
You lot look fit for a scrub-bucket. Main building floors, at once. I want them fit to see my reflection.
The senior’s eyes rake over the smaller boys, lingering on the cluster of them as though their nearness is itself an offence. Parsley and Edwin stiffen. John’s jaw tightens. Francis edges half a pace closer to Lewis.
C. S. Lewis
He is trying to split them by making the order sound natural.
The corridor seems to hold its breath. If Lewis yields, the others go separate ways, each exposed to a different corner of the school. If he stands firm, the insult becomes a challenge to the whole company.
Edward Harbury
Well? Or do you need the meaning of obedience explained?
Around Lewis, the boys wait, reading his face and the senior’s posture. The next move will decide whether they break apart for the hierarchy, or face it together.
That boy is liable to receive corporal punishment for his insolence.
“Is this a different senior boy from last night?”
NO (Likely, rolled 80)
Lewis studies the senior's face, recognizing the same sharp, arrogant features from the previous night. It is the same boy, unchanged in his malice.
“Lewis asks if this was the boy's decision then. After Lewis let him into their circle and the boy promised Lewis to send other boys to Lewis.”
SUCCESS (Legendary Willpower, rolled -1)
C. S. Lewis
Was this your decision?
Edward Harbury
It is mine, if you want it so. Someone has to keep order.
The corridor seems to tighten around the company. John and Morris hold still, and Francis looks from Lewis to the senior without moving a step.
Edward Harbury
If you mean to stand together, then stand together. But the floors still need scrubbing, and I am done asking twice.
Edward Harbury
He waits, as if the shape of Lewis's answer will decide where the others are sent.
Edwin’s hand closes once around the dark pebble in his pocket, then goes still. The senior’s chin lifts a fraction, confident, but the demand now hangs plainly in the air for all of them.
“Lewis looks the boy in the eye and says, "Then you have betrayed us and yourself. Betrayed your own desire to see this place change."”
SUCCESS (Legendary Willpower, rolled +3)
C. S. Lewis
Then you have betrayed us and yourself. You have betrayed your own desire to see this place change.
The words land cleanly. The senior’s sneer falters, and for a moment his eyes drop, as if he has been caught in a truth he cannot easily answer.
Edward Harbury
He knows.
John’s shoulders loosen by a fraction, and Morris turns his head, measuring the opening Lewis has made. Francis stops edging back, fixed on the senior’s face.
Edward Harbury
You think I want this?
The question comes out rougher than before. It is not a command now, but a slip in the armor, and the corridor seems to widen around it.
Edwin, pale with relief, draws the dark pebble from his pocket and turns it once in his hand, watching the senior as if the answer may decide more than floors and boots.
“Lewis says that it is the senior boy choosing to do it. How can he interpret as something the boy doesn't want?”
SUCCESS (Legendary Willpower, rolled -1)
Lewis keeps his voice level, and the corridor seems to listen. He turns the senior’s own words back on him, making the order sound exactly like a choice.
C. S. Lewis
It is your decision. How do you call it anything else, if you do not want it?
Edward Harbury
He flushes hard and looks away for a heartbeat, then back again, trapped between anger and the truth of it.
John’s mouth tightens with approval. Morris gives a small, dry huff, as if the whole trick has been exposed for what it is.
Edward Harbury
I can tell you to do it because I am senior.
Lewis does not move. The silence after that answer strips the claim bare, and the threat behind it hangs in plain view.
Edwin lifts the dark pebble a little higher, watching the boy with a steady, almost solemn stare, while Francis edges closer to the company instead of away from it.
“You tell us to do it because it makes you feel less small.”
SUCCESS (Legendary Willpower, rolled +2)
C. S. Lewis
You tell us to do it because it makes you feel less small.
The senior boy recoils as if the words have struck him in the chest. His chin lifts, but only after a bad half-second, and the effort shows.
Edward Harbury
You think that is what this is?
The question slips out sharper than he means it to. John watches him with open contempt now, while Morris’s mouth twitches, not quite a smile.
Edward Harbury
He sees too much. He always has.
Francis stays tucked close to the company, and Edwin lowers the pebble to his palm like a token being kept safe. The corridor holds its breath around the boy in charge.
Edward Harbury
I am not asking because I need it. I am asking because I can.
But the sentence comes out thinner than before, and the authority in it has begun to leak away under its own weight.
✓ Quest Accepted
Get the senior boy to back down
“Lewis asks him of seeing Lewis bend will change anything about what was done to the senior boy in the past? Lewis thought they understood each other last night. That the boy had realized that this was a cycle of abuse that needed to break.”
SUCCESS (Legendary Willpower, rolled +3)
C. S. Lewis
Does it make anything better that you saw me bend?
C. S. Lewis
Does it change what was done to you before, or what you were made to do after?
C. S. Lewis
I thought you understood last night that this is a cycle, and it has to break.
Edward Harbury
He did understand. That is what makes this unbearable.
Edward Harbury
No. It does not change the past. It only makes it plain that I have been standing in it.
Edward Harbury
And if I am plain about that now, perhaps I can stop pretending the thing was ever right.
Quest Complete
Get the senior boy to back down
“Lewis asks him to back down and be better. To stand with them.”
SUCCESS (Legendary Willpower, rolled -1)
C. S. Lewis
Lewis asks him to back down, and to stand with them instead.
Edward Harbury
Then let me stand plainly, not above you. I have been wrong.
John
He is saying it out loud now. That matters.
Morris
Good. That is better than all the performances in the school put together.
Francis
If he means it, this changes how the corridor feels.
Edwin
So we do not scrub floors for him.
The senior boy’s shoulders drop, and the company does not break to receive it. They remain gathered together in the corridor, with Edwin’s pebble still dark in his palm, while the older boy waits for their answer.
“Lewis shakes his head and says no, they don't scrub floors for him. But Lewis is willing to scrub floors beside him. With him. As friends working on a shared task.”
SUCCESS (Legendary Willpower, rolled +2)
Lewis gives a small shake of his head, firm but not hostile. The refusal lands cleanly, and the corridor seems to breathe again.
C. S. Lewis
No, not for him. But I will scrub beside him, if he likes, as friends.
Edward Harbury
Beside me. Not beneath me.
Edward Harbury
Then beside. That is better. I can do that.
John
That sounds like work worth doing.
Morris
And a deal worth keeping, if we are all honest about it.
Francis
We all do it together, then.
Edwin
With the pebble in my pocket for luck, I would say that is settled.
“Lewis looks to Parsley with a smile that says, "see? We can change things."”
Lewis lets the smile reach Parsley, quiet and quick, as if to say the corridor can be different now. Around them, the boys begin to drift into a looser little knot, already turning the moment into a plan.
“Lewis leads them all to scrub the floors together as a team. Including the senior boy.”
Lewis tips his head toward the corridor floor and gathers them in, the offer plain enough to need no speech. The senior boy falls into step with the rest, and the little company turns toward the buckets together.
“I scrub the floors with the others”
The boys spread along the corridor floor in a loose line, sleeves rolled and knees bent, their buckets set between them as brushes begin to scrape in rough, steady strokes. Edwin keeps the dark pebble tucked against his shirt while he works.
“As they scrub, Lewis asks the senior boy for his real name.”
SUCCESS (Superb Etiquette, rolled +1)
Lewis keeps his brush moving, but his eyes lift toward the boy beside him. In the scrape and soak of the corridor, he asks, quiet as a courtesy, what the senior’s real name is.
Edward Harbury
It is Edward. Edward Harbury.
The name lands among the buckets and wet boards. Edward’s shoulders loosen a fraction, as if being named has made him less of a rank and more of a person.
Edward Harbury
I have been hiding behind the title too long.
Parsley
Edward suits you better than Senior Boy.
A couple of the brushes pause, then resume. John’s mouth twitches with approval, while Morris glances up only long enough to register the change and go back to his careful strokes.
Edward Harbury
Then call me Edward, if you like. I should prefer it.
He says it without the old hard edge, still bent over the floor like the rest of them. Edwin’s pebble taps softly against his shirt as the line of boys settles into an easier rhythm.