Chapter Text
It has been a long day of classes. There were no club activities today and he had finished his drawing assignment in the botanical garden for potionology without falling asleep in the process. He was also excused from his duties for the day, since Malleus was too invested in a gargoyle project and didn’t want to be bothered. So now, he was idle walking towards the Hall of Mirrors and was fighting a losing battle with one of his sleeping spells. The day was perfectly warm for a nap, so he moved away from the road and deposited himself under the shadow of a tree. Silver barely managed to lay himself on the ground just in time to fall asleep none the wiser about his surroundings.
Leona Kingscholar was hiding once more from Ruggie. He really wasn’t in the mood for spelldrive that day. Since their appalling defeat at the Interdorm Tournament back in October his mood has been sour. The weather was amazing for a nice nap, winter had passed and spring was in full bloom. Unfortunately, he found out that the botanical garden was currently assaulted by some first years who were making an assignment for potionology, so he had no place to hide there without being disturbed by some clueless first year.
He was going towards the Hall of Mirrors but was planning to hide nearby instead of going to the dorm. Ruggie for sure wouldn’t think he would hide so close, right?
On his way there, he spotted the shining strands that could only belong to one singular person in school. He’d had encounters with this singular guy in almost all his napping spots since the beginning of the year. He was a first year nuisance and a new dog of that bastard lizard. Malleus's dogs were not a welcomed sight in front of him.
But this guy... This guy was always an eyesore. An eyesore that didn’t know its place.
The worst part?
The guy was always so awfully polite whenever Leona complained and would always step out quietly. The passiveness made him so mad all the time, as if the guy didn’t have a single drop of… well… wickedness in him, no will to fight or defend himself, not a fit for a place like Night Raven College. It made Leona’s urge to look for a fight with the lizard’s dog die and that was unacceptable. He needed to crush that lizard and make him realize he wasn’t at the top of the world.
But…
Seeing the guy around in all his napping spots was a pain that became such a normal sight that not seeing it around felt… weird and empty now (he wasn’t about to admit to himself it was lonely). They’ve barely crossed any words after all this time, and the few that they did (or more like he spoke) were full of insults and complaints of the other one’s presence in HIS territory…
Leona was somehow displeased with the sight but at the same time, something he hated, compelled him to check there was nobody around…
Now, Leona wasn't an idiot but…
A smirk formed on his face and walked close to the kid. He crouched in front of him and stared at his sleeping face.
Leona wasn’t an idiot, he knew… he knew himself and always tried to crush the damning feeling on his chest. He decided to admire Silver’s face for a few minutes. The long eyelashes, the face free of blemishes, the nice facial structure as if the one with royal blood was this guy and not himself, the rose lips a bit open in the kid’s sleep, inviting....
But Leona wasn’t an idiot, maybe a bastard, but not that kind of bastard, and definitely not an idiot. This was a kid and that lizard’s dog, he needed to remind himself that more than anything else.
He heard people coming down the road and went to lay in the shadow of the same tree but out of sight. He closed his eyes and was trying to fall asleep but the soft breathing of the kid on his side compels him to look again.
He couldn’t remember any longer how or when, but he knew. He unfortunately realised…
He had a crush on this kid… Silver, he was sure was his name, no family name he could recall having heard from Ruggie or the others… just Silver.
The reason for the crush was lost to him. He could place a lot of reasons to dislike him, avoid him, and even try to destroy him. The fact that he was owned by that lizard being the main one. Instead of those silly feelings he should be aiming to enact some kind of plot using this guy, either by hurting him or using his naivety to attack the lizard. But then his mind always drifted to softer stupids thoughts like why an actual relationship wouldn’t work out, the politics and their positions being the main reasons to pull them apart as soon as they would try to start something… but that absurd, stupid feeling just crushed those reasons without a proper logic. He was a being of logic and reason, these things couldn’t just go around messing with his primal sense of being.
It was so despairing, but unfortunately impossible to solve right now. He needed to keep moving the pieces on the chess board and look at all the possible moves and scenarios with their consequences first. He needed to find a way to get revenge on that lizard and somehow get things to work… An impossible task if you asked anyone else, but his stubborn heart was saying there must be a way…
He chose to remain there for now. Sleep would pull him sooner or later. This he was sure of. For now, he would at least admire the beauty at his side (he chastised that choice of corny words), if just to let himself feel content for a little bit until sleep took him for good.
By the time he was up, Silver was gone, and the traces of some dream he couldn’t recall were left behind.