"Impossible."
That single word left both their lips at the same time, yet the evidence was undeniable. The scent was there, crisp and unmistakable cutting through the night air like a blade. Human. Lark's ears swiveled rapidly, pinpointing the direction with unnerving precision while Hugo's grip on his spear tightened until his knuckles went pale.
"How." Hugo hissed through clenched teeth. "How did a human get past the barrier."
It wasn't a question. It was an accusation directed at the treeline itself.
"The scent is close." Lark muttered, his usual laziness completely stripped away, replaced by something sharp and coiled. "Really close."
Both spears rose simultaneously.
"Show yourself !" Hugo barked into the darkness. "Now !"
...
Up in the branches, Leon sighed quietly through his nose.
'So much for observation.'
He dropped from the tree. The landing was soundless, his feet barely grazing the earth. He stepped into the open with both hands loosely at his sides, white hair catching the pale moonlight filtering through the canopy. He looked at the two guards, at the spears aimed directly at him, and then at the gate behind them that shimmered faintly if you knew exactly where to look.
Lark's ears pinned back. Hugo's eyes went hard and cold the moment they landed on him.
A kid. A human kid. Standing alone in the middle of Beastglade at this hour, looking completely unbothered.
"A spy." Hugo said immediately, his voice dripping with venom. "They're sending children now, how low can humans go ."
"I'm not a spy." Leon said flatly.
"Of course you'd say that." Hugo advanced a step, spear leveled. "How did you get through the barrier ? Who sent you ? Answer me human."
"Nobody sent me. I was just walking through the forest and I noticed the gate." Leon replied evenly.
"Liar." Hugo spat. The word carried years of weight behind it, grief and fury and something deeply personal. "Humans don't just wander into Beastglade alone. You were sent here to scout our location weren't you. In order for them to raid our home and take us as slaves to those disgusting nobles isn't it"
Leon opened his mouth.
"Don't." Hugo cut him off sharply, taking another step forward. "Don't insult my intelligence with another denial. I know what humans are. I know exactly what you people do."
Lark had said nothing yet. He was watching the kid with narrowed eyes, his instincts humming with unease. Something was very wrong about this situation but Hugo wasn't in a place to hear it right now and honestly, Lark wasn't entirely sure he was wrong either. A human child appearing here of all places, past a barrier that should have been impenetrable, claiming he just happened to be strolling through one of the most dangerous forests on the continent in the dead of night ?
It didn't add up.
"We're taking you in." Lark said finally, his voice quiet but firm. "Move. Slowly."
"I told you." Leon said, his tone still measured. Patient even. "I'm not a spy. I don't have anything to do with slavers or nobles or whatever you're thinking. I was in the forest, I saw the gate, I got curious. That's it."
"Curious." Hugo repeated, his voice dropping to something dangerously low. "A human child is curious about a hidden beastfolk settlement in the middle of the night."
"Yes."
"Take him." Hugo said to Lark.
Leon took a small step back. Not out of fear. More the way a person steps back from a fire that's getting a bit too close.
"I'd rather you didn't." He said simply.
That was all Hugo needed.
He lunged.
The spear came fast, aimed not to kill but to pin, to restrain. Lark moved a half second behind him flanking left, cutting off any retreat into the trees. They were coordinated, clearly experienced, the kind of fighters who had done this countless times before.
Leon sidestepped the first thrust with minimal movement, just enough, his body shifting with a casual economy that had no business being on a seven year old. Hugo's spear grazed the air beside his ear. He leaned back from Lark's follow up, letting the shaft pass across his chest with barely a hair's width to spare.
"Stop." Leon said.
They didn't stop.
Hugo came again, faster this time, his movements carrying genuine anger behind them now. The hatred was fully out of the bottle, raw and undisguised. Lark pressed from the side, forcing Leon's movement options to narrow. They were good. Genuinely good. Under any normal circumstance this would have been over already.
Leon ducked under Hugo's swing and stepped around Lark's thrust without breaking stride, his expression still frustratingly calm.
"I said I am not a spy." He repeated. "If you'd just listen for one second—"
Hugo snarled and drove the spear forward again with both hands, putting his full weight behind it.
Lark came from the opposite side, spear angled low.
Leon stopped moving.
He stood completely still as both weapons closed in on him from two directions and then at the last possible moment he exhaled.
"I said." His voice dropped.
"I am NOT A SPY !!! "
The mana that released from him in that instant was not a gradual thing. It did not build or swell or give any warning. It simply arrived, erupting outward from him like a detonation, a shockwave of invisible force that hit both guards square in the chest and sent them crashing backwards off their feet. Hugo slammed into the base of the gate with a grunt. Lark hit the ground hard and skidded, his spear spinning out of his grip and clattering away into the dark.
And then the pressure came down.
It settled over them like the weight of something vast and immovable, a cold and absolute force that pressed down on every inch of their bodies. Hugo tried to push himself up and couldn't. Lark's arms, already braced against the ground, buckled under it. Their muscles strained. Neither of them could move.
This was not the mana of a child.
Hugo's eyes were wide, the hatred in them cracking just slightly at the edges, replaced by something he hadn't felt in a long time.
Lark wasn't even trying to get up anymore. His cat ears were flat against his skull, his entire body recognizing instinctively that fighting this was pointless. His earlier unease had been right. He just hadn't understood the scale of how right, this was bad.
Leon stood between them, his white hair settling back around his face as the shockwave dissipated. The pressure remained, steady and effortless, like he wasn't even concentrating on it.
He looked down at the two of them with those calm sapphire eyes.
"I don't want to fight you." He said. Same tone as before. Unhurried. "I wasn't sent by anyone. I have no interest in your people. I just want to know what this place is."
Silence.
The forest around them had gone completely still, as though even the trees had decided not to breathe.
Hugo's jaw was tight. Every vein in him was screaming to resist, to fight, to not show weakness in front of a human, but his body simply would not respond. The pressure pinning him was not cruel, it wasn't painful, it was just completely and utterly absolute.
Lark let out a long slow breath through his nose.
"...You." He managed, his voice slightly strained. "You're really not a spy are you."
"No." Leon said.
Another silence.
"If I let you up," Leon continued, glancing between the two of them. "Are we going to do this again ?"
Lark laughed despite himself, a short breathless sound that had nothing to do with amusement and everything to do with disbelief.
"No." He said.
Leon looked at Hugo.
Hugo said nothing for a long moment. His golden eyes were burning, pride and fury and something painfully complicated all fighting for space on his face.
"...No." He said at last. The word tasted like gravel.
The pressure lifted.
Both guards drew breath at the same time like men surfacing from deep water. Lark sat up slowly, retrieving his spear with the careful movements of someone reassessing everything they thought they knew about the last five minutes. Hugo got to his feet without help, his spine straight, refusing to let even that much show.
Leon watched them both quietly.
Then from beyond the gate, soft and unhurried, came a sound.
Clapping.
Slow. Deliberate. Each clap carrying the particular quality of someone who had been watching for quite some time and had thoroughly enjoyed every second of it.
A voice followed, warm and smooth as poured gold.
"My my." It said. "Are you really human, kid" ?
The gate rippled.
"I haven't been this entertained in decades."