For All Those Sleeping [Editing]

Ignorance

 Chapitre III

Well if that wasn’t the most embarrassing thing I’ve ever done. The sting in my eyes remained present as I now sat on a tree stump sniffling and rubbing my nose. Unexpectedly breaking down in front of people was weird to say the least, but Leo never saw that side of me. Even if I was feeling terrible, I’d put on a smile and pretend to be okay. It was just… how we worked. Like we were too good for the world. With a final sigh, I stood up from the stump and looked around. While chasing that Thief I consequently lost all sense of my direction, but I sauntered in the direction where I expected Rois to reside. If I wasn’t back home before sundown, my mom would get awfully worried; it was getting quite late by the looks of the sun right now.

There was a light crunch of leaves, and I squeezed my eyes shut and sucked in a breath, expecting the worst. After a couple seconds of listening to complete silence, I realized that I was being silly; it’s not like some rabid animal would crawl out of its lair with its only goal of ripping me to pieces. Just as I was feeling confident again, two arms wrapped over my arms around my torso. Instinctively, I dropped all my body weight to catch my captor off guard. We both fell to the ground, but I rolled on top of the person who was facing upwards and pointed my dagger dangerously close to his throat.

“Leo?” I hissed after realizing who it was. “What the hell was that?”

“That,” he groaned while pushing aside the dagger and sitting up, “was supposed to be a hug. An improvisational way of getting you to stop walking.”

I scrambled off his lap. “More like the worst hug ever.”

“Don’t worry, I’m not gonna try to do that again anytime soon.”

There was something off about Leo. I couldn’t put my finger on it; his eyes looked darker, but the sun was now behind him. His voice was rougher, but he was just doing a lot of yelling. He must have been back to normal for the most part - just needed a breather from my outburst.

“You wanna put that down yet? What you’re threatening to do would be voluntary manslaughter,” Leo mumbled while eying the dagger that was still just left of his face.

“Well it’s pretty much my job, and you startled me.” I put the weapon back at my hip and stood up, bringing him with me.

“So you’re like a Knight or something?” he challenged.

My right eyebrow raised. “Yeah, I’m a Knight ‘or something’. You actually recalled that a couple minutes ago before you mysteriously disappeared.”

A gap formed between his lips as if he just remembered what he previously said. “Right, but you didn’t really go into a whole lot of detail about it. What happened to your edge?”

“My edge? If anything, it got better!”

“I’m not talking about your looks,” he laughed while pushing my shoulder, causing me to stumble more than I’d like to admit. “Anyone can look like a dominant force like you were a few seconds ago, but have you ever thought about the possibility of knocking me down with your words?”

“But action is more efficient.”

“That’s where you’re wrong. A way to really make an enemy falter is by using words to take him off guard. We can fight with our fists - or daggers in your case - , but what about what I’m doing right now? Already, I’m making you question if you are as powerful as you thought you were. On the surface, we look unscathed. However, you’re unprepared for something in many ways.”

Without a warning, Leo grabbed my right wrist and somehow managed to slip my dagger out from my side. My wrist was then twisted under my armpit and onto my back. Even though I could tell he was going easy just to prove a point, pain still vibrated up and down my arm and I bent forward.