Chapter Text
Leona might spend most of his time napping, but that doesn't mean he was unaware. The little mouse that trailed after Ruggie since near the start of the year was around less often. At first, he had dismissed their absence as due to them making friends. That was until he'd gone to grab a bite from the kitchens and found not only Ruggie's scent but hers. One sniff and he knew who her new 'friends' were.
Rook, Kalim, Lilia and that damn lizard. He bristled at the betrayal. Had she been trying to make friends with all of the people he didn't get along with? People truly were fickle.
It wasn't that Savanaclaw was just a passing interest. If it was, the solution wouldn't feel like a piece was missing.
He tracked her down, which was harder than it should have been, but she politely excused herself and scampered through the doorway of her classroom.
The lion had not missed how her body tensed or the sour smell of her anxiety. She was purposefully avoiding him. He growled. If that was the case, he would have to pin her to get the answer he wanted. He would leave her alone to play with her new 'friends'. Maybe there was another way around this puzzle.
The days after the incident, Leona analyses his memories of her surrounded by a pack of Savanaclaw students. He hadn't seen her at the time, dwarfed as she was by the others. Still, he had heard the news of an intruder upon the dorm grounds, the messenger incessantly yapping at him until he got up. The pack had divided to show him the epicentre. And there she was, nose bleeding red into the dirt and smiling up at him through the pain, uniform ripped and scuffed with dust, three crumpled students surrounding her, others applying pressure to stab wounds from the tactical pen she had been wielding. The weaklings had stuttered their lies, and he had been too distracted by the amused grin on your face to notice one of the crumpled students getting up with the grace of a newly-born gazelle and thumping her over the head with a bat. She'd collapsed. Prioritising reminding the weaklings of why HE was the dorm leader he ordered Ruggie to take her to the infirmary.
He remembers how she looked so small and still in Ruggie's arms. Her stillness felt unnatural.
Her energy levels were one of the reasons he'd been keeping an eye on her in the first place. She was always moving, whether it was her eyes earnestly tracking the path of a grasshopper as she listened to Ruggie or her hands whittling, carving, folding. Always precise and careful, but never ceasing.
Creating where his destroyed.
Her weaknesses were easy to find. Now he just had to set the board.
Leona sighed and stretched as he gave up trying to rest in the third spot he had tried today. The Heartslaybul student's arrival had ruined the silence. He headed to the Savanaclaw kitchen to grab something to eat. There'd been more fresh meat in his meals and the kitchen lately. He'd thrown some money at Ruggie to keep up the improved quality at which the hyena had only laughed and made off with the cash.
The Savanaclaw fridge is stuffed full of meat and there is even more in the freezer. All of it carried a faint scent of her and Ruggie. She must have helped Ruggie with the packaging. Understandable, given the amount of meat here. He grabs a steak sandwich and ambles to the Botanical Gardens for a nap.
The tenseness is gone the next time he sees her, but there is a formality to how she greets him. It's too perfect. It makes him want to drag her into a fight like he does with the lizard, bringing her down to his level.
She's paler than when he last saw her, dark shadows nesting under her eyes. Her movements are slow and deliberate. Performing. Lilia swoops in before he can say anything, the fae quickly ushering her away. He watches the pair leave before he turns to head to class. The sudden change in behaviour makes him curious. He knows she is performing, but who is it for? And why?
Leona watches her. Puzzle pieces fall into his lap as he does so. And yet more questions arise. It's frustratingly enjoyable. He watches her yawn at random intervals, watches as she heads through the Diasomnia mirror after Lilia and Silver, watches as Rook catches her before she falls asleep in her soup, watches how Ruggie argues with her to take a break and rest. Leona agrees with Ruggie. She needs sleep. There is a weekend where she does not come out of the Octavinelle mirror at all. And when she finally does she tracks down students from all the different dorms for private conversations.
He knows her better now. He knows her blunt honesty and how she always strives to pay back debts even when others see none. Naive. Patient. Kind. A person who cares and tries too hard. Disliking attention and doing her best to avoid it unless given no other choice.
With the information he constructs the best way to set the board for his plan and pin her to those things she valued so dearly.
Leona wakes as the sun reaches the three-quarter mark in its journey. Stretching, he glances up to judge the time before loping off to her last class of the day. It should be finished soon. He arrives just as she steps out of the classroom. She's giggling as Kalim gesticulates wildly, and Leona feels a surge of bitterness at the scene.
Somehow when she turns towards him her smile brightens further. It's not the polite smile he got in front of Lilia, or the uncertain one from when he had first tracked her down. It's... warm.
"Maeena, leave that pup behind, I want to talk."
She blinks. Then finally understanding what Leona wants waves at Kalim and trails after him.
Leona doesn't answer any of her questions until he reaches the Ramshackle dorm and erects a silencing ward. He values his privacy after all.
"So what did you want to talk about?" She springs his trap.
"I want to know why you have been avoidin' me lately. Don't I deserve an explanation?"
She looks sad at the accusation. "I'm sorry if I gave you that impression; I've been busy recently. Is there anything I can do to make it up to you?"
"Answers." He snapped. "Why have you been so busy?"
She's silent as her fingers fiddle with the hem of her shirt. She's uncomfortable, but he's got her pinned exactly where she wants her. She can't avoid answering his question without going back on one of her core traits.
"I've got a question for you too. How about a spar, loser answers the question of the winner honestly and to whatever depth the winner wishes?"
"A spar, huh. Are you challengin' me?"
"No. I just want to spar with you, no magic involved, nothing heavier than a question on the line."
Why should he accommodate such a bizarre proposal? "So what's the deal with the fight then? Sell it to me."
"You're strong." He smirks at her statement. Her blunt honesty never fails to amuse him. "You won't hold back." She pauses, that sour anxious smell coming back as she murmurs "I don't think I would have the courage to ask you my question if I didn't make a good showing."
He's curious about what her question is. Not that he will know, given that he will win, but he could probably guilt her into telling him by accommodating her. "Fine. We will spar. Meet me at the Spelldrive stadium after class tomorrow. You better not waste my time." He lifts the ward.
"Thank you for accommodating me." She bows and then runs off in the direction of the mirror hall.
He ambles after her, checking for eavesdroppers. He wouldn't put it past one of his dorm members to try it. Hopefully the spar isn't too boring, he could do with some entertaiment.
There's more of an audience than he was expecting. More than she expected based on how she was fiddling and breathing faster than normal. She'd probably told her friends, and like an idiot not expected them to turn up to support her. Although, seeing Ruggie gleefully selling tickets explains a lot about the number of people gathered.
"Keep your eyes on me will ya." He snaps. The eyes that had been shifting through the crowd snap to him. The drowning panic in her eyes and sour scent subside as he holds her gaze. It's like she moored herself to him, pulling on his own stable confidence to calm her anxiety. As Vargas barks out the rules for the spar she smiles weakly at him and mouths a thanks, he nods. The rules laid down limit the scrappy way of fighting he knows she usually employs. Curious. He discarded his plans where her actions break the rules set. Vargas blows his whistle, and they both start circling each other. Her footwork is stable and smooth. He wonders who corrected it.
The warmth of the sun upon his back signals him to close the distance. She ducks under his reach, darting quickly out of range. He's pretty sure he knows her tactic now. "Scared, lil mouse? You're never gonna win that way!" He attacks again.
They fall into a pattern. She was holding her own better than he had hoped. The bitter lemon smell of fear long dissipated among her occasional strikes at shallow nerve endings and joints, along with the bruises from hits she had not managed to fully avoid.
She retreats across the arena to wipe at her bleeding nose, the salty scent strong enough that he can taste it on his tongue. That it covers the smoky scent of the lizard makes him grin.
This time she closes the distance. He grunts as she gets a solid hit to his solar plexus, but she is too slow on her usual retreat, and he quickly pins her to the ground. His greater height and weight rendering her struggles useless.
Finally, she stops, breath panting from her lips onto his face in puffs, "I surrender." She announces.
"Took you long enough, mouse." He releases her and gets up carefully. She managed to get in quite a few good hits, not that he lets it show. He turns to the crowd, "Show's over, getta move on!" he roars. Obediently they start dispersing, murmurs growing more distant with distance. In the background of the shuffling feet and chatter he hears Vargas checking over her.
Leona turns back to her. There's a flaky trail of blood from her nose down her chin and she's leaning slightly more on her left leg. She meets his eyes, "I need to train more."
"Answer my question first." Her eyes flicker to the individuals still milling around the stands and she fiddles with her PE shirt. He sighs, "Follow me."
A silencing ward is quickly applied to his dorm room before he repeats the question from last night.
She slumps onto the floor, sprawling across his patterned carpet. "I needed to learn how to hunt."
"Need?"
"I grew up in a small fishing village, you don't exactly learn how to hunt in places like that. So I had to ask Rook. Ruggie's been helping me with the preparation and cooking side of things. I've been teaching them both how to fish and lay out pots in exchange. I also went to Lilia for fighting and etiquette lessons. He likes pulling spot tests on me."
That explained some of her weirder behaviours, but she was avoiding answering his question. "I asked why you were so busy, not what was making you so busy?"
"Promise you won't get upset?"
He smirked."No, but I will give you a ten-second head start to flee."
"I like you." The simple statement captured his full attention. There was that blunt honesty of hers again. "You probably don't remember this, but you intervened when the other students were ganging up on me for being friends with Ruggie. I'd respected you before that, but the way you checked on me first before doing anything else?" She sighed, "When I woke up in the infirmary, the first thing I did was track down a book on the customs of the Sunset savanna. The only relevant information I could find was that 'women are expected to provide for their family and spouse'" She ran a hand over the carpet before continuing, "Well, it didn't work out all that well, did it? I hope you at least enjoyed the meat I've been leaving in your kitchens. The rest of the stuff was to improve myself to try and fit those criteria."
"Huh, so you're responsible for the change in my food. So what question would you have asked if you'd won the spar?"
"I only promised the answer to one question."
He hummed.
"You're not going to like the answer."
"Twenty-second head start."
She sighed. "I was going to ask you on a date, but given my poor showing today…"
"It was fun."
"Eh?"
"The fight was fun, you actually used your brain and had a good foundation, unlike most of the weaklings in my dorm." He paused, "and the answer to your question is yes."
"Yes?" she said as she sat up.
"The book was wrong, I'm strong enough to protect myself, and as a prince, I have plenty of guards to take up that role. You do not need to provide for me. So, yes."
"What if I like hunting?"
"Then keep doing so. You think I'm goin' to be bothered to stop ya? But the day followin' you will nap with me for however long I feel like." He hadn't liked how she was before Ruggie had forced her to rest. This way he could avoid Ruggie bellyaching to him if she ended up in a bad state again.
She laughs loudly, "That sounds like encouragement! But ok, I will scale it back." A thoughtful hum fills the silence, "If we're dating now, can I hug you?"
"You're a mess. Clean up first, then maybe."
She nods and stands up. "See you tonight."
Shooing her out of his room, Leona stretches. The aches from the fight twinge with the movement. He had not expected this result from putting the puzzle pieces together. His phone vibrates, another message from his sister-in-law nagging him about answering to Cheka's letters. He briefly ponders the chaos a meeting between the mouse and Cheka would cause before dismissing the thought.
It's not like she'll last that long anyway. They never did after figuring out they wouldn't get what they wanted from him.