Chapter 133
Another Stray
Leo woke up feeling some weight on his chest; opening his eyes, he saw Shui'er sprawled freely over him, still fast asleep. He yawned, staying still so as not to wake her. It wasn't the first time—here and there, likely after waking up from a nightmare, she'd sneak into his room, jump on top of him, and fall asleep there. She'd 'always wake up before him,' as it were, and sneak back out, pretending to have just woken up when Leo himself left the longhouse.
This morning, however, he was caught; her eyes opened, and she looked at him with a pout, and he could only smile awkwardly as she shuffled herself off, all while staring at him.
"Did you sleep well?" Leo asked, yawning.
"... you are mean."
"Am I? Sorry. I didn't know. Come on." He stood up and extended his arm; she grabbed his hand, still pouting, as the two slowly walked out of the longhouse, dawn still about half an hour away. "Another nightmare?"
"Hm," she nodded, sitting down on a makeshift chair of Leo's own make—it took him about twelve hours to make and could just barely support Shui'er's weight—while he began stacking logs and branches to kindle the flames.
"Was it scary?"
"Hm."
"I have scary nightmares sometimes too, you know?"
"Liar."
"Nuh-uh, honest truth."
"What are they?"
"Let's see," Leo said, starting the first fire. "Well, when I was a very, very, very young boy, even younger than you, my friends and I went to this local mall—uh, it's what we called the really thick forest by your village, yes, khm. Anyway, we used to go there and play this game where everyone but one kid would go and hide, while the one kid would try and find the rest. One time, I remember hiding really well—so well, in fact, that they never found me. Hours upon hours passed, and the day began turning to night. And I was scared. Really, really scared. Sometimes, I'll dream of that day. And I'll be hidden, invisible to the world, and I'll be scared. Wishing someone, anyone, would just... find me."
"..." She stayed silent, and Leo didn't push, smiling gently and ruffling her hair for a moment before moving on and starting the remaining fires.
For someone as open and as 'cheery' as Shui'er, Leo was rather surprised with just how guarded she appeared to be of her past. She never let it slip (consciously, at least), keeping it closer abreast than anything else about her. And he never pushed, knowing well enough himself how deep certain demons could run.
"I don't mind it, you know?" he said, chopping some vegetables.
"I do," she mumbled lowly. "I'm a big girl..."
"Sure," he said. "But even grownups, from time to time, need someone to be with them."
"You're lying," she repeated one of her favorite phrases, though, by now, Leo had picked up on the fact she simply meant 'please elaborate' in her own childish way.
"Never," he said, smiling at her. "It's true. Aza, isn't it true?" he asked, knowing well enough that the man was listening from the longhouse.
"... it's true," the voice echoed back, though Leo could practically hear the gnashed teeth in the tone.
"See? It's alright."
"Hm."
She fell silent yet again, and Leo focused on making the food. His eyes drifted between the cauldrons, her, and the sky—still ever ashen, perhaps even more so—as he pondered.
About an hour later, a stream of animals indicated the actual beginning of a new day, and a few hours later, they'd scattered back out. Shui'er was stolen by Milky and Blackie, and Leo could faintly hear her cackling laughter from somewhere deeper in the forest. Azariel, too, seemed uninterested in socializing, which meant that Leo had a lot of free time to cultivate.
So, he decided to go hunting.
Packing a few things and telling Azariel to keep an eye on Shui'er while he was gone, Leo headed in the direction of the strange canyon where the non-spiritual animals resided. He wasn't alone, either, though there was only one companion—Howly.
Ever since Leo saved him, the furred thing made the longhouse his permanent residence and would hang around Leo rather frequently. He didn't mind it; rather, he felt quite spectacular about having a rather beautiful wolf accompanying him everywhere.
Howly had two distinct appearances—his most frequent one was that of an ordinary-seeming wolf. White hairs, perhaps a bit too big-seeming and elongated snout, a pair of yellow eyes, one tail... nothing too out of the ordinary. Though still beautiful in a myriad of ways, it paled in comparison to his other form. It would appear rather infrequently—so infrequently, in fact, that Leo had only ever seen it twice.
His fur would begin to glow lightly, light scattering on its surface, while his one tail would split into two, which would then further split into more, until there was an array of glowing tendrils behind him.
The most gripping aspect of the appearance, however, was none of those things, somehow: it was the pair of symmetrical, extending arrays of light that sprouted out of his back, almost like wings, forging into a crown-like halo above him, individual tendrils weaving like roots of a tree into one whole.
His eyes, too, would change drastically, becoming almost entirely white, while just above and betwixt them, a strange sigil would burn aglow within the fur—a diamond above which two almost sickle-like shapes contorted outward. It looked like a bat, ever so slightly, in the middle of flapping its wings.
Leo didn't know precisely what would cause Howly to 'shapeshift' into the form, though he was always grateful to bear witness to it. Today, however, it was just the 'ordinary' wolf, his footsteps silent even as he stepped over the crunchy leaves. He followed Leo's pace exactly, slowing and speeding up in concert, while the latter struggled to remember the directions.
The wolf seemed to have realized it at some point and bit into Leo's robes for a moment, dragging him in the opposite direction that he'd begun walking down. Feeling quite a bit of shame, Leo hung his head low and followed the wolf, recalling that this was far from the first time he had to be escorted. In his defense, the forest was big, and though it wasn't continuously repetitive in its make, it was enough so to confuse someone without any formal training in navigating the wilds.
The journey lasted about three hours before Leo began to recognize the tapestry surrounding the canyon; he rushed past Howly, much to the latter's barely contained chagrin, wanting to quickly kill something and lug it back to the longhouse.
However, he abruptly stopped before reaching much further. Right at his feet was a boar, as though somebody primed it for his arrival... except they didn't do a good job. Most of its body was battered and bruised beyond repair, its inner organs spilling out rather unevenly. By his rough guesstimate, he'd be able to use, at best, about 20% of the boar's meat. This wasn't done by another animal, either, as there were no claw or bite marks anywhere on the beast.
Leo crouched by the body curiously and inspected it further, yielding little else. Perhaps the most discerning part was the large crater in the boar's side, with a faint imprint of knuckles. Or, well, it could be something in the vague shape of knuckles, a likelier scenario. Though the system (and the Forest) did throw a whole lot of haymakers at him for the duration of his stay, they'd begun to cool off recently—no, wasn't that precisely the problem?
"Nah. No. Can't be," he firmly declared, storing the boar into the spatial ring and deciding to test it out nonetheless. "Ah, the boar won't be enough. I guess I should hunt something else... but I'm tired. Maybe after I take a nap? Yeah. I'll hunt something else after I take a nap. Maybe a four-hour nap? Yeah, that sounds good. Four hours."
After saying so in a rather monotone tone, he found a nearby tree with rather thick branches, climbed on top of one, and... fell asleep. Well, he wasn't asleep asleep--he was conscious still, though only of his immediate surroundings. If his hypothesis was true, and whoever left the boar lying there was a person, they were beyond adept at staying hidden.
So, Leo waited precisely four hours, as he said he would, opening his eyes no second later. Descending the tree, he didn't have to look for long to feel his stomach churn—right where the boar first was, there was now an elk. In a marginally better shape, too, though still very clearly hunted by someone who didn't really know what they were doing.
He crouched by the body, looking for more clues... but there were none. He glanced over at Howly and begged with his eyes, but the wolf looked away and resumed licking himself, seeming none the wiser.
"... right," Leo mumbled helplessly as his eyes darted around the surrounding bushes and trees. No matter how far he cast the net with his Divine Sense (which he learned to use by copying Yue and Liang), nothing awry appeared. Just more bushes and trees and an occasional critter. Now, unless that palm-sized white rabbit was the culprit behind it all, bidding to curry Leo's favor, it meant that whoever was behind it may as well be invisible.
Howly knew where the person was, certainly—and considering that the wolf seemed wholly unbothered, it was clear that he wasn't threatened. And neither was Leo. These weren't the actions of some Machiavellian planner out to get him and all he had, but someone... scared and ever so slightly desperate.
Now the question was how to smoke them out—or, well, it would have been had Leo not raised his eyes and seen someone standing just ten feet from him. Well, not someone—it was a boy.
Just shy of four feet, it felt, with slightly pudgy cheeks, copper skin, remarkably black eyes, and a head of no hair. The boy was wearing strange, velvet robes as ebony as his eyes, which were rather stain-free considering the circumstances. He was clutching the sides of the robes with his fists, clearly nervous, all while staring directly at Leo. The boy's lips trembled as though wanting to say something, but no words would come out. Not after five seconds. Not after ten.
And not after two minutes.
Leo sighed, stored the elk into the ring, slowly stood up, turned his back to the boy, and said, "Follow me. Let's go home."
And thus, Howly and Leo began the trek back to the longhouse, a boar and an elk richer, with a strange kid in tow. Leo wasn't sure anymore, really, whether he was to build a Sect or an orphanage. Or perhaps a school. Or, better yet, all of those things rolled into one. He could only sigh and rationalize it by thinking that, in a few years' time, he'd have quite a few bee workers to do stuff for him that he found boring. Until then, though... a long journey it was, still.