Winged

Chapter 10: The Push Out The Window

It was a few days later, and Leo's wounds had almost completely healed. The pain was nearly gone, although his head still ached when he moved it too much. His mind, however, never left the village in the forest. The image of Hina being attacked by the monstrous wendigo had been burned in his brain. Leo had been significantly quieter since that day and avoided conversations whenever possible. No one in the castle questioned him about it, until a particularly lousy training session with Hikaru.

It was the first one since the wendigo episode, as only then did Hikaru consider him fit to continue training. She was saying things but Leo was barely listening enough to realise what she was talking about. Swords, probably, or maybe fighting.

"Hey," she shouted, clapping her hands to try to reach him.

"What?" he asked, shaking his head in an attempt to focus, which only gave him a headache.

"I'm worried you've been spending too much time with Lucy." She raised an eyebrow. "And whatever vermin eats away at her attention span has latched on to you. Something is on your mind, isn't it?"

"No...Well, yes, a bit."

Hikaru examined him from head to toe, and pointed to the benches.

"Come. Sit down."

Leo did as instructed while Hikaru headed inside the castle. She returned carrying a shoebox-sized wooden package under her arm. It was her lunchbox. She sat down on the bench beside Leo and opened it. All kinds of delicious fruits and treats were inside, including grapes, apples, bananas, chocolate, cakes, and others.

"So," Leo said, "is this just your lunch or is this to feed the whole army?"

"Very funny," she said, taking out some napkins. "Suit yourself. You can have anything. Just don't take all the grapes, they are mine."

"Fond of grapes, are you?" Leo asked, deliberately taking.

"My favourites," she said, trying to salvage a few for herself. "You?"

"No, my favourites are mangos, but these are a close second."

"Never had mangos," she said, already with a mouthful of grapes. "Maybe I'll have you get some for me one day. I might pretend it's part of a training mission or something. But enough of fruit, will you tell me what worries you, birdie?"

"It's nothing, really..."

"Either it isn't nothing and you're lying to me, or it is nothing and you are a bigger cry-baby than I thought. Either way, I'm unhappy. Now tell me what's bothering you, is it the White Mask again?"

Leo chuckled and shook his head. It was oddly refreshing, in a bizarre way, to be worried about something other than the White Mask.

"Then, what is it?"

Leo looked away from her and towards the West, where the Arowan village was located.

"When we were fighting the wendigo in Arowa, we managed to take it down, after a while. I had it in my hands, all I needed to do was, you know..."

"Kill it?" she asked, casually biting a cupcake.

"Yes. But I couldn't. I thought maybe it was just a scared animal, like the dragon, you know? I couldn't do it. I couldn't... bring myself to kill it. And I should have. When it saw me back down, it jumped over me and attacked a little girl."

"I see," she nodded while taking another bite of the cupcake. "That 'White Mask' is cleverer than I gave him credit for. He probably saw the way you dealt with the dragon and expected you to try it again, so he deliberately picked a creature with which that wouldn't work. What happened to the little girl?"