What If: Part One

Asked By Doug Driggs: What if Evan and Osheen switched places, and Evan was born a Roark and Osheen was an orphan adopted by Aldvarri?

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Evander Roark – never Evan, always Evander – is born with the silver spoon in his mouth, and due to his dislike of people, and is rarely seen as a child when brought to social events. Franklin accepts this, due to the fact that the Roark family prefers financial control over the more over, public displays. 

Drawn to books, an eight year old Evander quickly starts to work his way through magical theory texts, and discovers his talent for recombining the work of others in new, better ways. Lauded as a genius by Franklin, he is given the full resources of the Roark family in secret, while in public, he plays up his role as demure, shy, and rarely speaking. This develops into selective mutism, which Frank accepts. It serves as an excuse for Evan to infiltrate the libraries of other houses and read some of their less-guarded secrets. 

By age fifteen, Evander Roark has designed his first archmage level fire spell, one that burns all air in an area around the opponent, while not being visible to the naked eye, and shedding no heat, utilizing sympathetic runework principles Franklin does not understand. 

Terrified and impressed, Franklin continues to keep Evander out of the public eye, but secretly has his Aura awakened early. While Evander's shaping skill is decidedly mediocre, under the tutelage of his father, and with the training tools of the Roark family, Evander is able to improve quickly. In this time, he bonds to a lord level semi-sapient summer fae, despite the Roark's usual preference for elementals, and gains a healing factor. 

This seclusion backfires against Franklin, as the Ligature is able to slip dozens of illegal texts on philosophy, ethics, and personhood to Evander. Evander absorbs them with mild interest, but does not take them to heart as much as Osheen did in the original timeline.

Franklin, who is somewhat scared of his son, reveals the nature of aura sparks to him very slowly and gently, pitching it as a needed evil to keep society functioning. Evander disapproves, but less prone to emotion than Osheen, he resolves to change things from the inside.

While at Yesgol, something that is largely perfunctory, Evander encounters Osheen Tailor, who trots over and tries to speak to him. Evander completely ignores him, acting as if he cannot even see the other man.

Osheen is annoyed by the cold shoulder, but feels too much pressure to succeed to do anything rash. Osheen spends the evening writing out glyph notecards. He doesn't think anything of it, until a frustrated Evander finally speaks, telling him that he is doing it wrong. 

Through short, terse words, Evander teaches Osheen the basics of runework, until his voice grows hoarse after only half an hour. Osheen apologizes profusely, which confuses Evander. Franklin tolerated his mutisim, but did not ever apologize for forcing him to speak on occasion.

Evander embarks for Yesgol alone the following morning, only to find that Osheen has purchased blank journals, which he shyly offers Evan as a way to communicate nonverbally. For the first time in Evan's life, Evan does not correct someone who calls him Evan. 

When Osheen is told he can only become a witch, or perhaps a druid, Evan disagrees. The two abscond to Hallowbrooke, where Evan pays for Osheen to reccieve whatever bonds he wants, as well as a familiar. Osheen picks earth and lightning runes, and bonds to a doglike earth fae that grants him incredibly increased strength and durability. 

Finding the lessons of even the best sorcerers at Yesgol unable to keep up with his spell design skills, Evan takes up enchanting as a side hobby - since he can only make flame enchantments, he uses this to suppliment his own mediocre skill with shaping, creating dozens of modular spell sections, which he can use his sorcery skills to forcibly alter and adapt on the fly. 

Evander and Osheen design multiple spells using earth magic that turn Osheen into a powefully effective frontline brawler. Franklin hires someone to investigate their relationship. It is clear Osheen is in love with Evander, but Evander seems oblivious and uncaring, so Franklin assumes Osheen is simply trying to move up in the world, and that his son is bored.

It is true that his son is bored, and he takes to wandering Yesgol's halls alone, joined by Osheen whenever Osheen can find him. Evander stops going to classes altogether, as he has no interest in networking, and has surpassed his teachers in spell design skill, if not raw shaping or power. 

When Osheen is attacked and almost killed by a consumer during one of the classes that Evander skipped, something inside Evan changes. While Evan has yet to realize it, he has fallen for Osheen. 

Evan hunts consumers and their summoner with a single minded determination, tracking them through the forest, Hallowbrooke, and Yesgol itself. His subpar social skills mean he never explains this to Osheen, and thus Osheen takes this to mean Evan is disgusted by his weakness. 

The two grow apart, and this causes Evan more pain, for a reason he does not understand. Evan channels this pain into spending even more time hunting, and eventually finds Phillip in the ritual room, a month before the tournament.

The two fight, but Evan is capable of sustaining enough spells to kill the overgrown consumer, and then uses an archmage level spell that creates an incredibly potent heat vortex to air-fry Phillip and his demons. He reports the incident to his father, and Philip is labeled as an agent of Zheren. The war begins with the assassination of Finnalir and Emilia.

Evan and Osheen reconnect when it becomes clear that Osheen will get drafted if he does not make the top ten in the tournament at least, and Osheen asks why Evan cares.

Evan is stumped for a bit, then admits that he is a misanthrope. If most people in Evan’s life were to die, Evan would be sad, but not devastated. But he enjoys Osheen’s company, and when Osheen was hurt, something inside Evan was hurt too. 

Osheen’s aura suddenly bursts to life as his recharge is discovered – rather than hate, this version of Osheen’s aura is recharged in moments he experiences large amounts of romantic attraction. 

Osheen’s shaping skills are rapidly growing, so Evan raids the vaults of House Roark for better aura techniques, telling Franklin that he wishes to improve his skills. Franklin agrees, but keeps the best techniques out of Evan’s sight, as he is growing increasingly fearful of his son. 

With better techniques, Osheen’s aura shaping skills begin to soar, and he begins applying intermediate and adept techniques, while Evan begins to build powerful and complex spells for Osheen to learn. Together, they sweep the first year tournament, and Osheen has his debts removed by Archmage Chantal, while Evan asks for a favor to be called in later. 

The war is in full swing during their second year, and Osheen falls into a depressed state, feeling guilty for not joining when he might be able to save lives, guilty because it’s a false war, and guilty because he feels that the only reason he wasn’t drafted was thanks to Evan. 

Evan is oblivious to this fact and continues to practice his shaping skills and build increasingly complex and dangerous spells, wishing the war wasn’t happening, but feeling that the only viable way to win is to defeat his father in a public duel and become head of the house. He skips any class he doesn’t have with Osheen as his dedication and focus grows, focused around only two things: improving his magical abilities and Osheen. 

The end of year tournament becomes far fiercer, and is led by Franklin Roark. Evander spends this time devising spells with the sole purpose of defeating his father, then on the day of Franklin’s arrival, he flies out, calling in the favor owed by Serena Chantal to issue a challenge for head of the house. 

Franklin agrees on the condition that it is a duel to the death, as he fears anything else would result in his son challenging him again, and Franklin suffering a humiliating defeat. Now, though, he believes he can win, and prepares to kill his son to keep his position. 

The fight lasts four and a half seconds. Evander utilizes a spell with some faerie principles and strong sympathetic components to burn Franklin’s lifeline to ash. Franklin’s phoenix is able to repair physical damage, but the lifeline is more metaphysical. 

Evander publicly claims he is capable of performing this feat against anyone within his direct line of sight. Unbeknownst to the crowd, the spell he devised actually required a strong link to the target, which he acquired by taking a hair from Franklin’s shirt when they hugged and shook hands before the fight. 

Despite having no arch-stars, Evan is claimed as the Archmage and head of House Roark and gains the epithet ‘the starless archmage’.

As head of the house he argues strongly against the war, rerouting fiscal power away from the war and towards supporting the vast number of orphanages and factory workers, trying to help Osheen know that less will have the childhood Osheen did. 

Osheen finds himself adapting to politics with shocking speed, and quickly they develop a unique dynamic wherein Osheen serves as the public mouthpiece of the House, championing social reforms, while Evan serves as the power behind him. 

Evan reveals the truth of the House system, aura pillars, and harvesting to Osheen, though he is forced to swear Osheen to secrecy as well. Osheen, knowing his husband is actively fighting against these measures, accepts the attempt to change things from the inside, and is brought into the Ligature by Zachary Dormer. 

Evan is deemed ill-suited to membership, but is let in on some of their smaller secrets in order to assist Zachary and Eira. 

Though the group never succeeds in complete reformation of their political system, Evan’s reputation and Osheen’s smooth talking keeps House Roark in line, and the political bloc of Dormer, Talik, and Roark all take down their aura pillars and advocate for more trade and better work conditions. 

They receive staunch opposition, and while they make some headway, it is far less than they had hoped. Evan and Osheen adopt a child from an orphanage and train them as heir to House Roark, seceding power to them when Evan and Osheen are in their sixties. They die, living in luxury, having improved life for the common people to some degree, but leaving Paerús almost as broken as they entered it. 

Oof, this one ran long! I’m definitely going to write some more, and might tackle a slightly easier group of a few next time, but I hope you enjoyed!